Sammy sat in one of the tall towers of the underground castle, staring out her narrow window. The cavern beyond was swelteringly hot. The heat rolled up the tower in waves. Each scorching pass stole the breath from her lungs and left her mouth dry.
Her room lacked any lights but it was strongly illuminated by the glow of the lava flow far below the castle’s precipice. By the light of the flowing illumination, Sammy could see countless men and women moving hurriedly around the castle grounds. They were clad in dark leathers, their blonde hair—like Sammy’s—was pulled back in functional buns and ponytails.
As she watched them from her tower, she was surprised by the overwhelming sense of sadness she felt for her fellow Fire Warriors. Only a select few had ever left their cavern, as Sammy had. Most lived their entire lives within the sweltering cave, awaiting the death of the last of the Wind Caste and their chance to rule the Earth. They had been told their entire lives that the Wind Warriors were evil; that it was their job to eliminate them to make way for the new elemental rule.
She felt sorry for them because they would probably never have the chance to learn the truth as she had learned it. The Wind Caste wasn’t evil, as she had been led to believe by her father and General Abraxas. Of course, that same misguided belief was evident in Xander as well. He judged all the Fire Caste by the actions of a few under General Abraxas’ command. He had no idea the sheer number of Fire Caste that were dispersed throughout hundreds of underground castles just like this one.
Her heart ached at the thought of Xander. She had genuinely felt connected to him in a way she didn’t think possible. The knowledge inside her throughout their short-lived relationship that she was going to betray him ate at her core. She wished she could see him again, at least under better circumstances than her pending mission with General Abraxas. He deserved to know the truth about how she felt and not just remember her for trying to kill him.
Sammy slid from her seat at the window and walked over to her bed. It barely yielded at all as she sat down. She stared around the barren room without really seeing the sparse and utilitarian decorations. Her mind was lost in its own memories as her eyes passed over the room.
She replayed her father’s reproachful gaze in the throne room over and over in her mind; the way he callously killed one of her fellow warriors for the failure that she alone brought about. A sting of tears caused her to blink heavily in the smoky room. She blamed it on the soot in the air, something she had grown accustomed to living without over her month away. In her heart, though, she knew the truth.
A swift knock on the door was all that preceded Lord Balor as he opened the door and entered Sammy’s room. She quickly wiped away the threatening tears and coughed politely to clear away any semblance of emotion that might remain when she spoke.
She quickly climbed to her feet in the presence of the castle’s Lord.
“Sit,” he ordered as he closed the door behind him.
Sammy did as she was told, taking her place back on the firm bed. Lord Balor retrieved the room’s only chair and sat across from her.
They sat in silence as Sammy eagerly waited for her father to speak. It was unusual for him to visit her in her room. Most of their interactions were reserved for when she was kneeling before his throne.
Lord Balor cleared his throat and crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t think I need to tell you how disappointed I am at your failure. Your mission was instrumental in us assuming our reign of the Earth.”
Sammy felt her ire rise in her chest. The father who had once been so doting and loving as she grew had become so incredibly distant recently. He spoke to her now as though she were a common warrior instead of his only child and heir to the throne.
“I can’t have you fail me again. I may have kept General Abraxas’ wrath at bay this time but I don’t know what will happen if you fail again.”
Sammy huffed. “My day was fine, Father, thank you for asking. And I’m fine too. I appreciate your obvious concern.”
“We don’t have time for your childish tantrums!” he yelled as he stood before her. The chair, upended by his sudden movement, slid across the stone floor. “It’s time for you to grow up and assume your place as a Fire Warrior!”
“I am acting like a Fire Warrior. But right now, I’m also trying to have a conversation with my father.”
“Right now, I need competent warriors far more than I need a daughter,” he replied harshly.
“Why are you acting like this?” Sammy cried, the tears spilling past her cheeks. “You never used to be like this. It’s like I got my powers early and now you want nothing to do with me.”
Lord Balor turned away from his daughter and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though warding away a budding headache.
“Sammy,” he said, his tone quite a bit softened from the start of their conversation, “there are things going on that you don’t understand.”
“Then explain them to me.”
Her father sighed. “I can’t.”
Sammy stood and walked to the window. She gestured outside, toward the cavern beyond. “Then go explain it to the other High Lords. The other clans of the Fire Warriors are as confused as I am about what you’re trying to do. Why are you suddenly so interested in killing the Wind Caste? We’ve spent all this time waiting our turn. Now, all of this sudden, they can’t die quickly enough for you.”
“I don’t care what the other clans think,” Balor replied angrily. “Our clan has been chosen to lead the way for the rest of the Fire Caste. You should be proud!”
“Chosen by whom?” Sammy asked, perplexed.
“By powers that you couldn’t possibly begin to understand!” he said angrily, turning sharply toward her.
Sammy’s expression softened and confusion crept into her eyes. “What powers? What could possibly hold power over one of the Fire Lords?”
Lord Balor waved his hand dismissively. “We’re done here. You’ll leave tomorrow with General Abraxas. Don’t fail us again.”
He walked to the door but paused in the entryway. Slowly, he looked over his shoulder to where his daughter still stood by the windowsill.
“Is there anything else you need before you leave?” he asked with genuine compassion.
When Sammy didn’t respond, Lord Balor walked out of the room and closed the door softly behind him.
After he retreated, Sammy turned back toward the room.
“Yeah, there is something,” she said softly. “I need my father back. And I think I know where to go to find out where he went.”
The castle was silent as she crept down the hall leading to the throne room. The heavy oil on the buckles of her leather armor kept them from creaking as she moved, leaving her silent as she slid down the hallway. Despite the faint glow from the lava outside, most of the castle was asleep, adhering to an obscure sense of day and night within the perpetually lit cave.
She peered around the corner of the hall and toward the large, throne room doors. For a brief moment, she held to the hope that the doors to the throne room would be unguarded. Sadly, a pair of guards stood stoically to either side of them, their gazed affixed firmly ahead.
Sighing, she stepped around the corner and approached the men. The guard closest to her shifted his gaze but he relaxed visibly as he recognized her.
“Lady Balor,” the guard said as she approached. “What brings you here at this late hour?”
“Lord Balor wishes me to retrieve something left behind in the throne room,” she replied, hoping her nervousness wasn’t evident in her voice.
The second guard cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, my Lady, but we have strict orders not to let anyone into the throne room without either Lord Balor’s or General Abraxas’ direct authorization.”
Sammy felt herself sweating beneath the form-fitting armor, though she realized it had little to do with the heat. This would be her only chance to explore before she left again in the morning. If she couldn’t convince the guards to le
t her pass, then she would never have another opportunity like this one.
She thought about how her father might react in a similar situation. He had an uncanny ability to convince Fire Warriors to do his bidding through a combination of confidence and unspoken threats.
“I told you,” she said, assuming a more regal tone, “that I’m coming on my father’s behalf.”
The nearest guard swallowed hard and Sammy immediately knew that her presence was affecting their resolve.
“I—I can’t let you in,” he stammered. “Not without Lord Balor explicitly telling me to do so.”
Sammy frowned, a move that was as much a calculated expression as one of general disappointment. She knew her options were fading quickly away, which left her only with one final gambit.
“Fine,” she said angrily. “Then let’s go wake up my father. Let’s go wake up Lord Balor and tell him that you’ve refused to follow his direct orders and denied his only child entrance into his throne room at his behest. Which of you is brave enough to be the one to tell him? You? Or maybe you?”
The two guards looked at one another nervously. Sammy knew she was following a dangerous path. If either guard called her bluff, then she didn’t even want to fathom the reaction and punishment she might receive from her father.
After what seemed like an eternity, the closest guard turned back to her.
“My apologies, Lady Balor. Please go right ahead.”
They opened the doors for her and she stepped into the vaulted throne room. As the doors clicked loudly into place behind her, she released the breath that she didn’t even realize she’d been holding. Her heart raced in her chest and she was forced to lean against a pillar for support as her legs threatened to give out beneath her.
Steadying herself, Sammy hurried across the throne room until she reached the raised dais. She slid past the ornate stone throne and pushed aside the hanging tapestry behind it.
She immediately felt crestfallen. She had assumed that after watching her father disappear into the secret passage, the trigger to open the door would be obvious. To her dismay, it wasn’t. She stared at the towering gray cobblestone wall, knowing that one of these stones was the one that needed to be pressed to open the secret passage.
Sammy leaned in close to the stonework and examined the varyingly sized stones. Some were nearly the size of her head, while others were carved to fill in gaps, leaving them slightly smaller than her fist. There were literally hundreds of possibilities standing before her and her time was far too short to search them all.
Nervously, she pressed against some of stones around her head level. From where she had spied through the crack in the door, she had seen her father pressing a stone higher on the wall. Her efforts offered nothing in return.
She wanted to bang her fists against the rocks in frustration but didn’t for fear of alerting the guards. Sammy chewed on her bottom lip and tugged absently on the end of her long braid as she stared at the wall.
“Come on, Sammy,” she whispered. “Think! This is a secret passage behind the throne of one of the Fire Lords. Maybe…”
She paused as she looked at the wall again.
“Maybe the trigger stone gives off heat?” she said, without much hope of success.
She closed her eyes and held her open palm out before her. Slowly, she ran it past the stones, concentrating on detecting any heat emanating from the stonework.
As her hand passed a stone just above her right shoulder, she felt a violent tug in her gut, as though the cobblestones were pulling at her very soul. The tug grew stronger and she felt her power flowing unbidden through her hand.
She tried to pull her hand away but it seemed transfixed over the now glowing stone. It shone with an inner light, like magma was boiling right underneath its surface. Sammy felt drained and she tried in vain again to pull her hand back.
The heat in her hand grew more intense, to the point that it was causing her physical pain. Flames poured soundlessly from her hand and were as quickly absorbed into the cobblestone wall. Sammy coughed, as the stone seemed to drain even the air from her lungs.
When she thought she couldn’t take any more and unconsciousness threatened at the corners of her vision, the flow of power suddenly stopped. The burning stone flared a quick, vibrant red before returning to its lackluster gray.
The wall before her shifted and grated across the floor as the secret passage revealed itself. Sammy groaned and was forced to sit on the steps of the dais to regain her composure before daring to enter the tunnel.
Whatever was down this tunnel, she had to remind herself, it had drastically changed her father. It had stripped away the compassionate man that had existed before her powers manifested when she turned eighteen. Whatever was down this tunnel, she swore it had caused Lord Balor to show fear when she asked him about it in her room. Anything that caused her father to fear wasn’t to be taken lightly.
When she felt confident that she could walk without stumbling on weak legs, Sammy stood and entered the narrow tunnel.
The heat within the tunnel was oppressive, far more than she was even used to within the lava-filled cavern behind her. Her nervous sweat evaporated as soon as it left her skin, leaving her feeling parched and lightheaded. It only grew hotter and more stifling as she walked down the gently sloping tunnel.
The way ahead was completely dark and she was forced to create a small flame in her hand to illuminate the passage. The tunnel was made of worked stone and she passed massive rock support pillars every few feet, causing her to turn sideways to fit between them.
She followed the tunnel for a long ways, constantly wandering deeper and deeper into the earth. The heat grew more intense until her skin seemed to crawl. Sammy found herself absently scratching the exposed skin around her forearms and neck as it itched more and more in the heat. Her breathing became labored and she felt lightheaded, as though the oxygen were being burned out of the air around her.
Heaving, Sammy paused and leaned against one of the support pillars. She leaned her head against the stone, hoping the coolness would alleviate some of her discomfort but even it radiated heat.
She glanced over her shoulder, wondering if it was worth discovering what at the end of this tunnel had so greatly affected her father. Coughing loudly in the narrow stone passage, she wondered if it would be worth discovering it if she lacked the energy to make it back to the castle alive.
The difference between the loving father from her youth and the callous man who now sat on the throne drove her forward again. Sammy pushed away from the pillar and staggered back down the descending hallway.
She wondered how long she had been walking. Ten minutes? Thirty? An hour? The guards surely had noticed she wasn’t coming back by now. She wondered who they would tell; if her father or General Abraxas would be the first person they awoke to warn about her betrayal. Even if she made it back to the surface, she might face a short-lived victory before facing either or both of their wraths.
As she wandered down the hall, she wondered why she was putting herself through this. She was betraying everything she’d known, everything she’d been taught since birth. Despite her concerns, she knew why she was searching for answers. Xander. Just the thought of his name sent relieving chills all over her body. It made no sense that she’d long for him after only a few days together but being apart from him was leaving her in anguish. Whatever was pulling them together, it was far more supernatural than a normal attraction.
While her thoughts were consumed with memories of Xander, she reached the end of the narrow hall. The passage gave way to a cavernous room. The walls of the room stretched to either side of her, disappearing in shadows far beyond reach of the meager flame in her hand. Glancing upward, she could barely tell the curve of the ceiling before it, too, vanished into gloomy darkness.
Nervously, she caused the flame in her hand to grow until the tips of the flames licked high above her head. Even with the intense flame burning in her hand, th
e massive room swallowed her light with its darkness well before it lit to either the ceiling or any other nearby walls.
The light slowly faded back to flickering candlelight in her hand before she extinguished it completely, casting the entire room into blinding darkness.
It wasn’t the intimidation she felt at the dauntingly enormous room that caused her to extinguish her flame. Instead, it was a feeling in her gut—an inordinate sense that she wasn’t alone in the room. In such a dark chamber, her flame was a beacon for the creature that resided within.
Sammy reached out and gently touched the wall behind her. She slid her feet on the stone floor to make sure she didn’t trip as she backed against it. Each scrape of her booted foot sounded like steel grating against steel to her heightened hearing. Her own heartbeat sounded like a drum pounding as it rushed past her ears. She could feel her eyes dilating as they tried to adjust to the inky blackness but she couldn’t see anything this far underground.
“I hear you breathing, fleshling.”
The voice sounded like a whisper but was full enough to fill the cavernous room. It sent shivers of fear washing over her.
“Come closer,” the unseen voice hissed. “I can already taste your fear in the air. It’s intoxicating.”
“Who’s there?” Sammy said, her body shaking uncontrollably. “Show yourself!”
A jet of flame roared across the far end of the room. Its sudden brilliance was blinding after the complete darkness in which she’d been standing. Sammy raised a hand to block away the sudden light but it faded as quickly as it had come, leaving her once again in the all-consuming black.
Sammy’s heart pounded and she slid along the wall toward the passage, eager to be gone from this living nightmare. Her foot nudged against a loose rock on the ground and it tumbled away, bouncing loudly against the protruding stonework.
Across the room, a single, massive orb of an eye opened and stared at the frozen Fire Warrior. The reptilian eye glowed a sickly yellow; its vertical pupil contracting as it stared across the cavern. The draconic orb blinked once, disappearing momentarily before reappearing and staring at Sammy.
“Leaving so soon, fleshling? I’ll see you again.”
Ignoring her previous concerns about her light, Sammy ignited a flame in her hand and ran into the narrow passage. Mocking laughter followed her as she fled quickly.
The trip back up the inclined hall was far quicker than she remembered on her descent. The secret doorway was still opened and she handily knocked aside the dangling tapestry before staggering back into the throne room.
She sobbed loudly and collapsed onto the dais’ staircase. Burying her face in her arms, she let the tears flow until she was certain she could risk standing again.
Sammy dusted herself off and hastily wiped at her eyes. Clearing her throat, she walked as confidently as possible toward the throne room doors. No one had met her when she emerged from the secret passage but she knew it was only a matter of time before she had to confront the elder Fire Warriors.
She pushed on the throne room doors and exited. The two guards were still at their post and nodded politely to her as she walked past them. Neither tried to stop her, nor did anyone else emerge to confront her.
Sammy maintained her composure until she reached her room. When the door clicked closed behind her, Sammy’s knees went weak and she slid down to the floor.
Something was definitely controlling her father, she realized with horror. Only it was far more terrifying than she would have ever believed. Whatever it was, she and the Wind Warriors now had one more horrifying thing to worry about.