The gods were fickle, certainly, but the fortune of today was a twisted, confusing path. It was evident that without Feia’s help, they might not have been able to get through the Sorcery-imbued door, or at least, it would have taken a very long time. Time they didn’t have with the threat of Dead lurking and imminent in the falling city of Rotaalan. One only had to look to the fate of its sister city, Elansk, to know what might eventually happen here. The tales of the city’s fall over a century ago were seared in the minds of every citizen of the empire, most of all in Nova, where things were so fragile. Still, it was not respectful to question the gods’ will, especially one’s patron god. Raizak was cunning and smarter than most. He knew the way.

  She just had to follow.

  Emalia wiped a trickle of sweat from her brow and glanced to Sovina. “The schematics and narratives ended at the last chamber. I know little of what lies before us.”

  “Stay close,” she whispered, her saber held out at her side. “And don’t trust these brigands.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Good. They won’t try anything if we’re vigilant, but if there’s an opening—”

  “I understand,” Emalia said, interrupting. “Sorry. Such talk just makes me more nervous. I’ll be careful.”

  “Of course, my apologies.”

  The hall was long, narrow, and dark as the Column archives at night. She crept forward with the same practiced care as she had back then, searching for tomes with only a waning candle to illuminate the area. Before her visions, before her mission, she’d spent many long nights just reading, learning about all there was to know over topics long lost to many of the Column, let alone Vasia as a whole: geometry, astronomy, anatomy and biology, and especially history. While there was no civilization before Vasia, obviously, the various tribes and petty warlords who ruled had an interesting history of war and feuds, half-buried in myth and legend, obscured in secret histories buried away. Such tales had held her captive in fascination until the early light. She recalled vivid moments of rays of early sun filtering through the waxed linen-covered slats in her small window space, illuminating the motes of lingering dust. At this point, her eyes would be bleary and tired, head drooping, the thoughts of the coming lectures and scribe-work distant but still peripheral enough she couldn’t quite relax. The anxiety of tomorrow, the tired pleasantness of the moment. Old Smychnik, born in Kezmorok of Kosica, but as loyal and dutiful a priest as any, there with her, guiding her fumblings, helping hide her self-destructive curiosities…

  The great climb. The many stairs. Dark as the afterlife, a lone candle to light the way in the quiet, silent ascent. Her footsteps echoing. A room ancient, sacred, forbidden. Her own gaze, searching, probing, discovering what should have been left to the highest. And then the voice, and the touch of the divine. Oh, how it seared her flesh, coursed through her veins like molten iron in a smithy’s molds, destroying, breaking down, forging anew.

  “Emalia!”

  She jerked her head up, blinking. “What? What is it?”

  “There’s something in these halls.” Sovina scowled ahead, face scrunched up, eyes narrowed. “Stay awake!” she shouted to all. “Don’t let these illusions sway you. Defend your Souls!”

  “The fuck you mean defend my Soul?” Oskar asked, shaking his head.

  “Fortify your mind to these intrusions,” Emalia answered. Muted rays upon the pages. Crinkling softly with each turn. Finger tracing lines, a smooth texture, a pleasant sound. Smychnik beside her, his rambling lectures a familiar comfort. The world was warm and familiar. Kind. Emalia widened her eyes and pressed forward. “Don’t listen to them!”

  It was a stumbling, tiring affair moving down the long hall. A few times the scavengers had to right one of their own and shove them forward, with exhausted shouts of warning and insult. Heads drooping, shoulders sagging, yet fear kept everyone awake long enough to pulls themselves from that space and stagger into a new room, atmosphere not so heavy, the pressure to let go not so severe. Still present, yet manageable. Only Sovina seemed more or less unaffected, shoulders squared against the darkness like a bastion of courage.

  The hall opened up into a proper chamber some fifteen strides across, at least thirty deep. But only a few steps ahead, the ground opened up into a deep chasm with a narrow bridge across. The torchlight didn’t dare try and touch the depths, the darkness was so overwhelming. Nothing magical, at least, nothing she outright saw, but the implied depth was frightening. Emalia shuffled close to the edge and peered down, holding a torch taken from one of the men. Nothing, just black. She directed her attention to the stone bridge, without railings and barely wide enough for one to cross. It led to some sort of floating platform on the other side. And upon that platform, a dais holding a large contraption. It could be described as a pillar, but that would be inadequate, for though it was cylindrical and tall, there were ridges, indentations, and protruding features that made it distinctly different. However, due to the darkness and distance, it was hard to make out anything more.

  Emalia stepped forward toward the bridge, but a hand shot out and grabbed her arm. She expected to see a cautious Sovina there, but it was Oskar. “The fuck is this place?” he asked. “And what is that thing? I want answers. Now.”

  Sovina turned and went to draw her sword, but the thin man had a long dagger up to her neck. Emalia glared back at Oskar, her fear overwhelmed by a burning, righteous anger. “Release her and unhand me.”

  “No. You’re here by word of the gods, you say? Convince me that you’re not going to release some catastrophe. This place stinks of ancient shit people just shouldn’t touch.”

  “I don’t answer to your requests.” She glanced toward the large object across the bridge. Her destination, her goal. “Raizak himself wishes this to happen.”

  He seemed to follow her gaze and sighed. “Of course, it’s always a bloody sarcophagus. What lies inside?”

  “A creature.”

  “Want to be more specific?”

  She replied with a harsh, silent stare.

  He shrugged. “Guess we’ll just kill you two and be done with it then.” His other hand produced a dagger.

  Sovina’s head snapped back, bashing the man holding her across the jaw. She ducked away from his knife and slid free her sword. She was surrounded, but with saber bared and glaring all around, no one dared to approach. She faced off against Oskar. “Unhand her, or I’ll kill every single one of you.”

  “Yeah? Figure that’ll work out for you? We got the numbers here.”

  “Not nearly enough.”

  “Wait,” Emalia said, swallowing the lump in her throat, trying to lean away from the touch of cold iron. “Wait. We’re here for the creature’s heart. It’s important. More than you can possibly know. Raizak himself calls me to this mission. I swear it upon the Column itself. Please, put down your arms!”

  All paused to look at her, but Emalia was not focused on them. Do not smite me down, oh great Sunderer, Enlightened Folly. Let your wrath be sated by this creature, I beg of you. She waited a moment, voices around her continuing as she focused on the space in her mind where the visions bloomed. But there was silence. Praise be! Thank you for your great—

  Pain shot through her mind like a bolt of fire, searing through and out the very pores of her skin. Emalia screamed, falling to her knees, then side, head reeling, eyes rolling back in her head. It was coming. A welling of heat in her stomach, her heart, bursting forth from her mouth and eyes like beams of light. Then, suddenly stopped.

  She gasped a pained breath through a whimper of tears and forced her eyes open. She was not in the underground chamber anymore. No, she was somewhere else. A place shrouded in myth only few had seen with their own eyes, and she was one of them.

  It was the great room at the top of the Column in Nova. Barred from entry for all but the highest priest and their communion with the gods above, with the powers of the Souls, of higher consciousness to fuel great works of Sorcery long since abandoned. A relic itself. At the center, a stepped structure like that of a miniature ziggurat, built of ivory and inlaid with thin-cut rubies to look like veins. She was on the final step before the platform at the top. Emalia glanced down, breath ever snatched away by the steep drop-off and descent below. But she was here for a reason, and it was not to fear the fall.

  She pushed herself up to her hands and knees, gasping with the effort, for the atmosphere was thick and heavy, an untouchable weight bearing down on her entire body. Straining against the pressure, she tilted her head upwards, eyes sliding toward the visage hovering above the platform, watching her. It was hard to look directly at it. Each time her gaze met its form, her vision dimmed and slid away like rushing water off a boulder. Nevertheless, she knew he was large, at least twenty feet tall, made up of smoke and something not quite solid, but with purple eyes that pierced the very Soul. Indentations could be made out across his form where the constrictors set to strangle him by Rotaal were present, ever-crushing, ever-punishing for his crimes.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Great Martyr,” she whispered, voice scarcely able to eke out anything louder. “My Soul is forever marred by the shame I carry for failing in your commands—”

  “SILENCE,” he spoke, words stealing the voice from her mouth and pressing her flat against the ivory slab once more. “YOU HAVE NOT FAILED. YOUR SURVIVAL IS NECESSARY TO FULFILL YOUR DESTINY, TO REALIZE MY INSTRUCTIONS.”

  Emalia gasped a sigh of relief, entire body relaxing as the weight of fear and guilt were washed away with those few words. She wished to thank Raizak but obeyed his instruction and remained silent.

  “YET, YOU ARE WEAK. STEEL YOURSELF AND PREPARE, FOR THE PATH AHEAD IS DECEPTIVE. YOU WILL BE CHALLENGED. YOU WILL BE BROKEN, BUT YOU MUST REMAIN STRONG.” Raizak bent down closer, taking over almost the whole of her field of view with his imposing form. Purple eyes burned through her like iron pokers, like spear tips, like the teeth of the dead. “I GIFTED HUMANITY WITH INTELLIGENCE NOT TO SEE IT SPOILED WITH AMBITIONS OF FOLLY AND GREED. THE SPIRIT IS A GIFT I BESTOWED UPON SOME OF YOUR KIND, AND WHILE YOU DO NOT POSSESS IT, YOU HAVE SOMETHING MORE.” He drew even closer, breath like fire smoke, his very presence stirring some deep sense of terror and awe. “DO NOT FAIL ME.”

  And with that, Emalia woke gasping, scarcely able to get in a full breath. She rolled over and retched up foul-smelling bile, its acidic sting biting. Movement around her. Voices too. Her stomach clenched and her whole body shook with the effort of expelling that horrific sensation of helplessness and fear, that intrusion into her mind. Just because it was holy did not make it pleasant. Each time, the same pains, each time, the same battling sensations of fiery determination and horrid fear. I’m chosen, she thought as the last tremor rushed through her. Me. He puts his faith in me, not the elders of the Column or druzhina or even the voivodes, but me! Such a thought never failed to make her grin through the straining, to dampen the indignation and pain that followed these visions.

  Eventually, she sat back and took in a deep breath of air, not fresh and energizing, but of stagnation and death. Sovina bent down before her, face steeled and steady, eyes concerned. She extended a water skin, which Emalia took and swallowed greedily. “I’m sorry,” her friend whispered. “I shouldn’t have let them… Are you alright?”

  “By the gods,” Oskar muttered, a few paces back with hands at his hips, one on the pommel of his sheathed sword. His dagger was gone. “Was I just seeing things, Nifont?”

  The thin man who’d threatened Sovina rubbed at his bruised jaw. “No.”

  “No in-fucking-deed. By the gods.”

  “I’ve seen shakes before, but this is indeed different.” Feia shuffled closer, crouching low, her untamed black hair hanging around her probing eyes. “I smell no stench of Sorcery, so this is no spell, not as I grasp at least. Here, girl, give me your arm.”

  Emalia extended a still-shaking hand, grasping the other woman’s, and before she could recoil in surprise, Feia pulled up her sleeve and gave her a shallow, thumb-wide cut with a small knife. “Ow!”

  Sovina growled, taking a step forward but Emalia stopped her by putting up her other hand. “I’m okay. Just surprised.” Her companion stepped back, so she directed her attention to the strange woman as she squeezed the skin around the wound until a thick bead of blood had emerged, then wiped it up with a finger and stuck it in her mouth.

  “Ahk!” She recoiled, spitting to the side, face warped in disgust. “Charcoal and rotten flesh. You’re infested with the stuff of Spirits, girl!”

  Oskar leaned forward. “What is this then? She some sort of Sorcerer after all?”

  “No, I think not. But she is no mere delusional wide-eyed. There is much more at work here, I swear it on my lifeblood. The stuff of beginnings. Or maybe of ends.”

  “Ah, of course,” he muttered, then directed his frown to Emalia. “So, which is it, Priestess? Beginnings or ends?”

  During their conversation, she’d tried a taste of her own blood but found nothing particularly horrendous about it. Then again, she was no practicer of Sorcery. With wobbly legs and Sovina’s help, she stood and tugged down her sleeve, the bleeding already stopping. “Beginnings.” She nodded to the bridge. “As such, I will continue. Is your curiosity sated now?”

  He glanced to Feia, who curled her lip and uncorked a small bottle, pouring the contents over her hands, so he looked back to her and shrugged. “Let’s see what’s inside this prison of yours. But please, let’s be careful with this. I don’t care for anything apocalyptic to come out of there, you hear? I’ve listened to enough tales to know what happens when we go bumbling where we shouldn’t.”

  With that, she turned and approached the bridge. It hung over the chasm, narrow and ominous. Why does it always have to be heights? she thought, swallowing. No matter. It’s time to see it through. Months of travel, over a year of total preparation, all to reach this point. This precipice. Some might say now was a moment of no return, but that was hardly true. Ever since leaving the Column, Emalia was set on a path without any possibility of returning. All those she knew back home considered her an apostate now—a thing worse than death for the dedicated, fortunate few of Nova’s grand Column. The spine of Vasia, some might call it.

  But her first vision had changed all that.

  With a deep breath, she took a step onto the bridge. It held, fortunately enough, so she continued with her next. Soon enough, she began shuffling across it, arms out to the side, sleeves draping, feeling like she were truly in the sky. Terrifying, yes, but also… freeing. A flicker of a smile touched her dry, pale lips. Freedom. What an amusing thought, being trapped in a sinking city’s underground, penned in by the Dead.

  Sovina had picked up her old torch, and with its illumination just behind, Emalia began to make out more details about the other side. The platform seemed to emerge out of the dark at first, but now she could see the carved rock face of the opposite wall where the floor stuck out from, only ten paces across at most. It was shaped like a semicircle, the central dais somewhat oblong, stretching from the cavern wall to the middle of the platform. Upon it, the pillar of stone. It was, she saw now, in the outline of a human, or at least some sort of bipedal. Sides wide, narrowing in where a head might be, carvings and inlaid stones giving shape to a face filled with strange iconography and imagery. As she stepped onto the platform, the pillar seemed to pull her in, its exquisite details drawing her eyes like insects to flames. Side views of stories laid out across the midsection, showing great suffering and violence, whole peoples slaughtered, the dead being raised. Even one three-finger wide band of stories had enough precision and detail to require hundreds of hours of an artisan’s efforts.

  “Beautiful,” she whispered, letting her gaze wander over the sheer complexity of it.

  “This is it then.” Sovina was beside her, torch flickering, dying. “And we’re to open the thing? Are you sure?”

  “You know what needs to be done,” Emalia replied, still unable to pull her eyes away, much less focus on the gravity in Sovina’s words.

  “All right.”

  Oskar whistled, coming to a stop near the edge of the platform. “That’s one rich casket. The dead prick inside is getting his heart cut out, then you’ll lead us out, yeah?”

  Emalia nodded, stepping closer. “Of all the texts I studied, only one spoke of what lay at the heart of Rotaalan. The tome was originally scribed shortly after the disaster of Elansk, its copies few, for the work was branded as heretical and anti-Vasian in aims and sentiment. The priest who wrote it disappeared, his works burned. Only one survived, buried in the stores, protected by the few who cared for truth more than dogma.” She reached a hand out tentatively, touching the pillar. It was cold and made her skin tingle. “Inside is a creature of a past age. It fuels the city, in a way, converting the power of Souls to keep it afloat.”

  Feia hissed. “Such condemnation warrants a great crime.”

  “That,” Oscar muttered from far back, “or they punished whoever lay inside for reasons of their own pride. An old Vasian tradition, that.”

  The forbidden text had not spoken much of the strange construction that held the creature, only that it was a thing of powerful Sorcery, imbued with a complex weaving of Souls that held away decay and sustained life while transferring great levels of energy into and out of its captive. But there was nothing on how to open it except for one line. One line she had read over so many times it was seared into her mind. Rotalaan is a crime against humanity, against history, yes, but to release the heart of its power would be a blunder paramount to damning the gods; however, if the need arises, only the blood of conviction may suffice. The blood of conviction. She had pondered its meaning for countless hours. Could he have meant that only the faithful’s blood would suffice to open it? Or was it more abstract, hinting at something else entirely? Perhaps a life? Or maybe mere intention? Or even conviction of a different kind than faith—such as willpower? And what was the chance he was even correct? There were gaps in his descriptions, like the strange hall of memories.

  “Look there,” Sovina whispered, pointing to something at the back of the sarcophagus.

  Emalia shuffled over, bending down to examine a hole a little over a span wide. It went into the floor at the base of the sarcophagus, dark as pitch so that even the nearby flames couldn’t illuminate it.

  “Sorcery,” Emalia said, waving a hand over it. Sure enough, the air was icy and tingling. “Potent. Concentrated.” She glanced to her loyal companion. “It may be the key.”

  “If you’re thinking about putting your hand inside there, I would advise against that.”

  “This is where it all leads.”

  “Then let me.”

  Emalia shook her head. “The blood of conviction, Sovina. Raizak has chosen me, and with his will, I shall be granted access.”

  “Is this a guess or something he said?”

  “An accurate estimation.”

  She scowled and nodded her head back towards the others. “Let one of the looters try and pry it open first.”

  Emalia looked back. Most were near Oskar, not even coming close to them. One of the men she hadn’t gotten a name from was edging around the sarcophagus, looking at the surface. Likely studying the embedded jewels. “I would not sacrifice them, even if one was willing.”

  “Then it seems we are at an impasse.”

  She took in her friend’s face, the worry in her eyes, the determination in the way her strong jaw was set. There’d be no convincing her. Not in this, no matter what she said. “No, we are not.” Before Sovina could react, she cut her hand on her small dagger and thrust it into the dark hole.

  “No!” Sovina shouted, trying to pull her back.

  But Emalia was already held there.

  Something immaterial fastened her hand inside, tight in a grip that she somehow knew was unbreakable. And at once, she felt the scourge of Sorcery tear into her. Flesh freezing, prickling, burning; some excruciating savagery ripped through the veins inside her arm, pulling and squeezing the blood from her. She gasped, eyes going wide and rolling back before she scrunched them shut in an attempt to keep herself conscious. Blood of conviction! she thought. Conviction!

  Sovina tried pulling on her to no effect, then seemed to turn her attention to the sarcophagus and tried prying it open. But Emalia knew there was no obvious opening.

  “Get back from it,” Emalia hissed. “Don’t touch it.”

  “Then let go!”

  She bared her teeth and cracked open a single eye. Her friend’s face was pale, terror painted across it. “I won’t. Now stand back, Guardian.”

  “Gods, Em!” She took a step back, fists tight, shaking. “Don’t you let it harm you!”

  Focus on the door, she thought, closing her eyes again, focusing through the pain. My blood is blessed. My blood burns with conviction. It will work. It will.

  Her training in the Column made her breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth; raspy and forced as it might be, the pain was managed, compartmentalized, stowed away. It was not useful now. Only the door mattered. Only her goal.