Blackness invaded my vision, and I started to teeter on my knees. The Sundered Heart Sword lay to my side, and I reached out to grab my prize. I fell onto my face as my fingers wrapped around the weapon’s handle.
“Let me fill you, Ethan,” Nydarth said.
Strength surged along my limbs, and the pain in my thigh grew dull. Vigor flooded my body as my wound repaired. Warmth surrounded me, and then, it was suddenly gone. I was still exhausted, but I managed to stand.
“I thought you didn’t have any power left?” I asked Nydarth.
“You have wielded me against magical creatures,” she answered. “Your efforts have given me strength.”
Vesma and Kegohr rushed to my side.
“That was the greatest battle I’ve ever fought,” he said. “They’ll tell stories about this.”
“Who will?” she asked. “We can’t tell anyone we came here. The masters will have our hides.”
“I think they’ll already know we snuck out,” I said. “It’s probably morning already.”
Vesma knelt beside a hellhound, prodded around in the guts with her spear, pulled something out, and handed it to me.
“Your kill,” she said as I looked down at the core. It was larger and brighter than the ones I’d seen before. There was a lot of power in a hellhound.
I walked over to where the other hellhound had died. The flames were consuming its flesh so quickly that everything was almost reduced to ash already. Among the embers, I saw something that glowed even brighter. Using my sword, I dragged the core out, let it cool for a minute, then absorbed it along with the other one.
“Three more of them, and you can learn Burning Wheel technique,” Kegohr said.
“Neat,” I said. “But there’s something else I want.”
I’d already taken the Sundered Heart, but now I wanted the core on the other pedestal.
I walked past the hellhound corpses to the plinth and reached for the glowing item.
“Stop!” Nydarth said. There was such concern in her tone that I obeyed without even thinking. My hand hovered inches from the prize but didn’t descend to take it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“That is the Fire Core,” Nydarth said. “The very heart of this mountain.”
“It must contain phenomenal power.”
“Oh, yes, my sweet man, such power as you have never even felt. But it is not power you have earned. When you hunt magical creatures, when their blood runs fresh across your flesh, something is forged in the hunt. Through your hunt, you earn the right to those cores, whether for yourself or for those you bestow them upon.”
“I have cleared the Fire Cavern,” I said. “I think that gives me the right to take the Fire Core.”
“The core is needed here,” Nydarth said, her tone pleading. “It helps the other Augmenters in your guild. It produces the beasts they hunt, sharing a little of its power each time it gives life from itself. This keeps the Radiant Dragon Guild alive.”
I closed my hand and stepped back. The guild had taught me much, and I owed a lot to it. If taking the core would destroy Radiant Dragon, then I had to leave it here. I had learned the nature of honor, and stripping the cavern of its heart would be an unspeakably dishonorable deed.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll leave it.”
I doubted a fucker like Hamon would have missed an opportunity like this, but I was different. I desired strength and skill, but not enough to steal undeserved power and destroy the guild in the process. I’d come here for the Sundered Heart, and now, I had it. My mission was complete. I didn’t need the Fire Core.
I turned to see my two friends looking at me with puzzled expressions.
“Who were you just talking to?” Kegohr asked.
“Nydarth,” I replied. “The spirit in the sword. Couldn’t you hear her?”
They shook their heads.
“It’s just you for now, my sweet man,” she said. “And I suggest that you don’t tell anyone else about me. You don’t want the wrong sorts of people trying to grab your fabulous sword.”
The journey back up through the Ember Cavern was a lot less arduous than the journey down. We met a few ember sprites that had either missed us during our downward journey or only arrived in the aftermath. We dealt with them easily, added their cores to our stash, and kept moving.
Fortunately, I had a much better sense of direction than my friends. Every time Vesma and Kegohr hesitated at a junction, uncertain which way we had originally come, I led us surely and confidently toward the surface. After a couple of hours, we found ourselves in a lava-lit cavern I had now seen many times, and soon, I could smell fresh air. I hadn’t known how much I missed it until I took that breath and felt my spirits lift.
At last, we emerged onto the mountainside. It was early morning, and birds sang in the trees as the sun crept away from the horizon. A brisk breeze blew in from the south, its cool breath soothing after the heat of the tunnels and so many encounters with creatures of fire.
“So much for getting back under cover of darkness,” Vesma said. “Hey, where are the guards?”
I grabbed my sword and prepared for trouble, but then I saw a familiar face appear from behind a boulder.
“You didn’t really think no one would notice you were gone?” Faryn asked as three disgruntled and ashamed guards came from behind her. She turned to them. “You may return to your posts.”
The guards glared at us as they stationed themselves outside the Ember Cavern’s entrance.
“I came as soon as I heard you weren’t in your bunk,” Faryn said. “I knew you’d be here.” Her eyes were on me, but they didn’t contain any trace of betrayal. In fact, they were filled with relief.
Her mouth dropped when she noticed the rip in my pants. She rushed over to me and inspected my thigh where the hellhound’s spine had
