“Yes, Your Majesty,” they said as one.
Ah, that was why he'd chosen these two; they'd been part of the group who'd been with us when Sairana had snatched me off a mountain road to have a little conversation. The Gods like to snatch me away from Everan—all but Kolltean had done so. In the case of Sairana, Everan had been able to give chase and had caught up to us, along with Landry. He'd climbed up to the ledge Sairana had me on, fully expecting to fight a goddess—his goddess, no less. But that hadn't been necessary. Sairana had only wanted to give me her blessing and bequeath her pendant to me.
“I require confidentiality for this mission,” Everan said to his soldiers. “You are to tell no one what you see today.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” they said again.
“Good. We leave immediately.” Everan held his hand out to me, and I took it.
We didn't normally twist together but I assumed that he wanted to make sure we came out on the same section of road. So, I let him direct our travel. Twisting on Danu was more invigorating than twisting on Earth. We traveled through the magic of the realm instead of the weave between worlds, and I could feel that magic rushing over my entire body as we did. Any other time, and I'd feel the twisting magic but nothing more. That being said, this time I noticed more than the magic of Danu.
“Did you feel it?” I asked Everan as soon as we arrived.
“Feel what?” He frowned at me.
“There was something... off.”
“With what?”
“The twisting. The... magic,” I said the last word in a tone of epiphany but also disdain. The disdain was focused at myself. “Of course, it felt off,” I grumbled. “We were passing through the magic of Danu and the magic has been damaged.”
Everan processed this. Then his jaw clenched.
“What is it?” I asked.
The knights had arrived a little further down the road. They caught up to us just as Everan answered.
“We shouldn't be twisting. We just put ourselves in danger of becoming infected.”
“Excuse me, Your Majesty, but why is twisting dangerous?” Sir Kevel asked.
“The magic of Danu is dwindling,” Everan confessed. “The Kingdom of the North has been suffering under an assault of earthquakes and avalanches. We investigated and discovered that the Earth magic has been hurt or tainted in some way and this taint has infected Danu's magic as a whole. We've come here to ask for Sairana's help.”
“Tainted?” Sir Kevel asked as if he didn't know the meaning of the word.
“Dwindling?” Sir Varna added in a similar tone.
“I know it's a lot to process, but we don't have time to answer all of your questions,” I said as kindly as I could. “Danu is in danger and we need to save her. Are you with us?”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Varna answered for them both.
Before either I or Everan could respond, the sheer cliff beside us—the very same one that Sairana had once carried me up—started to tremble. Everan grabbed my hand and pulled me back from the cliff as he eyed the mountain warily. But the mountain peak held firm. It was only the side that shifted.
Perhaps “shifted” isn't the best description. The section of stone before us crumbled but it did so inwardly. It looked as if a vacuum were sucking the stone back into the mountain as it broke, leaving a tunnel in its wake. Everan and I stepped forward and peered into the darkness. A burst of flames erupted down the corridor as if expelled from Hell and lit a line of torches on the smooth walls. The illumination revealed a passage that went straight for a bit and then curved to the right.
I looked at Everan and grinned. “Sairana hasn't abandoned us.”
“It appears not.” He grinned back.
We stepped into the tunnel and our knights followed. The passage didn't close behind us after we entered, which I took to be a good sign. Instead, the early morning light continued to slant into the tunnel reassuringly. We left it behind quickly though, stepping into golden, waving torchlight that made it feel as if we'd gone from day to night in seconds.
There was no debris on the floor, not even a pebble to crunch under our boots. We strode silently across the solid stone. The chill of the morning met the heat that emanated down the corridor and vanished. It got warmer the further we went until sweat rolled down my back. I undid my vest to get some relief but neither Everan nor our knights gave any indication of discomfort. Damn soldiers.
Finally, the tunnel ended and we stepped out into a massive cavern large enough to hold a village. Far above us, where there might have been stalactites in a normal cave, there was only a glassy cap. That polished cap continued to the ground in a dome and reflected the numerous fires that burned in rock basins around the circular area. It created the illusion of endless space spotted with flames. And in the center of it all, posing regally upon a circular dais, sat Sairana.
The Goddess of Fire was a wingless dragon with glossy, crimson scales. Horns crowned her spear-shaped head and sharp claws curved from her feet. A barbed tail wrapped around the base of the dais and teeth as long as my arms poked out of her mouth. She cocked her head at me and the pose reminded me of a cat.
The knights and Everan had gone to their knees while I stared. It took me a second longer to realize that I should probably do the same. I hurried to kneel and the Goddess laughed—a hissing but oddly comforting sound.
