Chapter 2

  Warden’s Keep.

  A prison for things out of nightmares and the headquarters of the Wardens, an order created to kill or imprison those who threatened the natural order of things. A secret group of watchmen to control the continual threat the First Realm faced: magic users.

  Booker sighed as he made his way through cold hallways dimly lit by enchanted crystals hanging from the dome. The Wardens were more assassins than watchmen. An order so secretive even its members didn’t know where the keep was. The keep was underground—that, Booker was sure of—only accessible by portals. But where underground? For all he knew, they could be under the sea, inside a mountain, or even another dimension.

  He stopped at the entrance to the Pit, listening to the growls, hisses, and howls of the things locked in there. Even from here, he could smell them, the unnatural stench of unkillable monsters.

  Booker hated the Pit.

  As he walked through the corridor, he tried not to flinch as some of the occupants of the cells threw themselves against doors made from dragon steel.

  You’re running out of cells, Vespera echoed in his head.

  She was a... Booker wasn’t sure what she was. When he’d first asked, she’d told him his ‘tiny human brain’ couldn’t comprehend what she was. After years as partners, he suspected this was bullshit – Vespera prone to exaggerations.

  She looked like a winged wolf with bluish-black fur dotted with tiny, glowing specks that pulsed in time with her emotions. Right now, she was the size of a cat, keeping pace with him as he hurried past the cells, but she could grow larger than a warhorse if she wanted.

  “That’s Finn’s problem,” Booker breathed.

  He reached the last cell and went in without knocking.

  “I wish you’d get out of here and just take one of the rooms. This place gives me the shivers,” Booker said in greeting.

  Zai raised his head long enough to see Booker walk in, then flopped back into bed and groaned. “Go away, old man.”

  “Get your lazy arse up. We... Ha!” Booker tripped and fell on his face. He heard Vespera give a huff that sounded like laughter.

  “Damn hoarder,” Booker cursed at Zai. He grabbed the thing that tripped him—it was a staff, probably from some rogue mage the Wardens had sent Zai to kill. His room was overflowing with treasures, trash, and trinkets. Stacks of dusty tomes, glittering jewels, and, most disturbing of all, the skulls. No human ones, thankfully, but that was very little comfort.

  While Zai often submitted dangerous artifacts he’d retrieved, he sometimes kept some for reasons Booker couldn’t understand. The Pentarchy talked about confiscating “Zai’s hoard,” as they called it. Given Zai had nearly sucked out the soul of the last person besides Booker who entered his room uninvited, no one had stepped up to do the confiscating.

  “Get up, boy. You’ve got work to do.”

  Zai sighed from the bed. “What is it this time? A rampaging monster? A necromancer who thinks he can take over the world with corpses?”

  “You’re going to escort three individuals from Anxos to the keep.”

  Zai raised his head to peer at Booker. “Eh?”

  Vespera navigated her way through Zai’s junk and flapped onto the bed. Zai tried to shove her off, and she snapped playfully at his hand.

  “Who are they, and why is the Pentarchy sending me?”

  Booker peered at a mirror hanging on the wall. Its surface rippled like a pond struck by a stone.

  “As for who they are, I want it to be a surprise. They might be able to help us solve a few problems in the keep. The Pentarchy is sending you because it reduces the risk of the order being discovered, these three are possibly being hunted and sending a team would...Ark!” He jerked away from the mirror as a reptilian fist the size of his head slammed into it from the inside, causing the surface to ripple violently.

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  Zai snickered from the bed, and Booker tried to hide his grin. Sometimes going through the Pit to wake Zai was worth it, if only to see him smile. Moments like this—before he was fully awake, before all emotions seemed to drain out of him—Zai reminded him of his son.

  “Alright, up you get. This is probably one of the easiest jobs you’ll ever get,” Booker said. “You’ll be back before lunch.”

  ******************

  Thalia watched in horror as the human who killed Isis slaughtered six corrupted Celestials with one arm and wounds bad enough to kill any living creature.

  The first Tainted One died mid-swing – the human’s rune-carved short sword splitting his skull before the corrupt Celestial’s axe could land. The second came at his blind side, Zai let the spear graze his ribs, hooked its shaft with his stump and yanked the wielder onto his blade.

  The third never even screamed.

  The human’s sword – its glyphs pulsing blood-red – took her head mid-charge. The fourth buried an axe in his back. He arched, but not in pain for he was laughing, then pivoted and drove his sword through the Celestial’s throat. A spear lodged in his thigh. He barely slowed, dragging the attacker close enough to carve them open.

  “What... what is he?” Brogan asked from behind the tree they were hiding. The one-eyed imp had frantically ushered them there as the human’s screams became something...dark and horrifying.

  “Cursed,” the imp said grimly.

  The last Tainted One struck.

  Black fire erupted from his palms engulfing the human. Thalia’s breath caught – no one survives that. The black fire of the Tainted Ones doesn’t burn – it unmakes. Flesh sloughs off bone; armour dissolves like salt in water. Yet the human stood there grinning, the fire clinging to him like a second skin. His eyes were dark pits, impossibly darker than the flames he was covered in.

  The Tainted One spread his black wing, but the human was on him before he could take off. He took his time with this one, his face going emotionless as a corpse’s. Thalia looked away as he methodically chopped limbs from body, but she couldn’t block out the screams.

  Celestials were supposed to be the most powerful beings in this realm, tainted or no, and she had just watched this…thing butcher six of her kind.

  They stayed there until the screams finally went silent.

  The imp went out first.

  “Master?” he called nervously.

  There was a long silence, then: “I’m here, pal,” the human said. “It’s me.”

  The imp snorted. “That what you say last time.”

  The human chuckled. It was dry and empty. “It’s me. I promise.”

  Her father rose, and so did she and Brogan—a little reluctantly.

  The human looked terrible, like a carcass half-eaten by some predator. Then, just like when he’d killed Isis, his body began to stitch itself back together. Flesh knitted like worms tangling in a corpse, sinew snapping taut as bowstrings. Tendrils of muscle slithered outward, webbing into new strands, while his exposed ribs cracked and reset like pottery shards shoved into place.

  The bone jutting from his ruined arm twisted, splintered, then lunged forward – elongating in a series of sickening creaks. Flesh raced to keep up, skin stretching like wet parchment over new fingers. Whole thing took only a few heartbeats. Save for the blood and his tattered clothes, the human looked unharmed.

  “What are you?” Thalia asked, unable to keep the fear from her voice.

  He blinked, and his eyes were back to normal—brown eyes, she noticed. The ease with how he could pass for a normal human only made her more uncomfortable.

  The human ignored her question and frowned at the dwarf instead. “From now on, please keep the exploding balls to yourself.”

  Brogan quickly stared at the ground. “Ah, yes, of course.”

  “We be going now,” the imp said impatiently, scurrying off deeper into the forest.

  They followed him, everyone still shaken from the fight.

  “I didn’t know the Wardens let the likes of you into their ranks,” her father said after a lengthy silence.

  “I didn’t know anyone outside of the order knew the Wardens existed,” the human replied without looking back. “Stop here,” he ordered.

  He walked around for a moment, staring at the ground and sweeping the leaves with his foot. Finally, he stopped next to Thalia. It took all her self-control not to cringe from him.

  “This is the place, right?” he asked the imp.

  The creature only shrugged.

  The human muttered something about being torn in two, then told everyone to stay still.

  The imp cleared its throat and recited an incantation, its voice gravelly. A glow came from the ground, forming a circle a couple of feet wide. Thalia assumed this was the portal the human had spoken of. Her father, Brogan, and the imp were in the portal, but only her left foot was. The human was outside it entirely.

  “Shit,” he hissed, eyes wide. He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him as the light from the circle flashed. When she blinked the spots from her vision, her father and the others were gone.