To work the magic that had brought me to the Seven Realms, I needed Nydarth. That meant I needed to stay on the path. And now, while I had help, seemed like a good time for it.
Still, I didn’t want to lead my friends into a kind of danger they weren’t ready for. “Are you sure you want to keep going?” I asked them as we gathered the cores. “It’ll only get more dangerous.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kegohr said. “I’m sure.”
“Yes,” Vesma agreed.
“You haven’t known me all that long,” I said. “It’s not like you owe me anything, and this is a lot to risk, even for a friend.”
They exchanged a look I’d seen before.
“I had a dream,” Kegohr said.
“Me too,” said Vesma.
“That dragon spirit you talked about,” Kegohr continued. “It came to both of us in those dreams. Told us we should help you here. A dragon coming to you in a dream, that’s not something you see every day. That’s something you listen to.”
“You came here for a dream?” I tried, and failed, to keep the incredulity from my voice. “Did these dreams feature a woman in see-through robes with—” I waved my hands over my chest, and Kegohr’s eyes widened.
Vesma rolled her eyes. “No, they didn’t. She was clothed in robes fitting her status as a dragon spirit. Why you would ever imagine her in such a—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kegohr said, saving me the trouble of defending myself. “We’ve all had the dream, and we’re here now.”
“Even without the dream, I would have come,” Vesma said. “The guild house is too boring for me. I want some fun.”
“This is your idea of fun?”
She grinned as she held up her knife and a Scorched Salamander core. “Of course.”
“Is this your idea of fun too?” I asked Kegohr. I might have expected it of him, with his bulging muscles and his tusks. To my surprise, he shook his head.
“No, no, no,” he said. “Coming to a Vigorous zone isn’t a lot of fun to me, whatever we get to do here. But I couldn’t let Vesma go without me. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her.”
“Idiot.” Vesma gave him a playful shove. “I don’t need a keeper.”
“Everyone needs help sometimes,” he said. “Ain’t that right, Effin?”
I smiled back at him. “That’s right. Especially down here.”
“We should gather the rest of the cores,” Vesma said. “I want to absorb a few Daji cores before--”
“No,” I said in warning. “We can’t risk you taking a hit to your Vigor.”
I also wanted to learn a new technique, especially one as powerful as Flame Empowerment, but I knew the dangers of absorbing cores when there was more fighting to be done.
Vesma frowned and crossed her arms. “You boys can’t handle a few fire monsters?”
“I’m not saying we can’t, but you’ll need to pull your weight.” It was obvious Vesma knew that we needed her, but I didn’t want to make it plain. I enjoyed the banter between us, and I was sure she did too.
“I’ll pull more than my weight.” She knelt beside a sprite core and made a small incision in its chest. “Idiot,” she muttered as she removed the bone-cage.
We gathered the cores together and put as many as we could fit into my bag. Once we got back to the surface, we could divide the spoils so that each of us received what would be most useful. But for now, we had to keep moving. We had one night to conquer the Ember Cavern and come back with our prize. Otherwise, we’d face a lot of awkward questions and some punishing lessons from Master Rutmonlir. He might have given us the night off to train, but I doubted he wanted us in a dangerous place like this.
“That way.” Kegohr pointed down into the pit where a narrow path zigzagged back and forth along the wall and headed down into the depths. “Hope your balance is good.”
I headed down the path, with the others close behind. A hot wind blew from below, and ashes drifted up to touch our skin. I could smell the burnt aroma from the lava-like blood of the creatures we’d killed as the thrill of the quest ahead urged me further into the Ember Cavern.
Chapter Fourteen
As we headed deeper into the caverns, the rocks started to change. They became darker, heavier, smoother, as if everything had been melted, scorched black, and reduced to its most intense form. As if the world had been boiled down to a thick rock treacle and then cooled in place.
There were still the same sources of light—amber-colored crystals and seams of red, glowing rock. But they too became more intense, their brightness concentrated, their color magnified. The crystals were no longer in the ceiling only but scattered all around, embedded in the rock walls and floor. Their sharp edges and narrow points made them painful under foot, but we quickly learned to walk around them.
“Get out of my face!” Kegohr bellowed as a swarm of flame-winged sprites flapped around our heads.
He swung with his mace, but the slow, blunt weapon was little use against these fast-flying beasts. The mace fell to the ground with a clang, and he set on his attackers with clawed hands.
I slashed at the sprites with my sword. I’d managed to take down a couple that way, but it was mostly to keep them from setting my hair on fire. Stinging Palm was more useful. The thorns flew fast enough to hit an agile target and were powerful enough to kill a small animal in one go. Even so, the creatures kept clawing at my clothes and
