The door into fire

Herewiss s'Hearn, Prince of Brightwood, is the first man in a thousand years born with enough of the blue Fire of Power to focus it — the deep magic that runs through the Middle Kingdoms, and the very thing most likely to kill him. The only two men who ever focused it before died doing so, more than a millennium ago, and Herewiss has found no way to master it that doesn't risk the same end.

When Freelorn, the exiled and rightful ruler of Arlen, is captured while trying to retake his throne, Herewiss puts aside years of careful discipline for a desperate search through a house that stands outside time, its doors opening onto other places and other centuries. He isn't alone: Sunspark, a fire elemental bound to him in a human shape it barely tolerates, and Segnbora, a swordswoman whose own untrained gift has already cost her control she can't get back, both have their own stakes in what waits beyond the doors.

The Door into Fire opens The Tale of the Five, Diane Duane's Middle Kingdoms series, where love between people of any gender is unremarkable and an interventionist Goddess shapes mortal lives more directly than most of them ever realize. First published in 1979, it earned Duane back-to-back nominations for the Astounding (then John W. Campbell) Award for Best New Writer.