he large goblin shrieks—a high, brittle sound that ricochets through the cavern like shattering glass. Every hunched figure jolts upright, crude tools raised with a clatter of stone and bone. Torchlight flails in the chaos, stretching their faces into warped masks of shadow and flame.
Ember’s pulse spikes, sharp and sudden. Her hands snap, fingers twitch. Reflex—old as instinct.
Oh. The Voice purrs, slow and sly. Hesitating, are we?
The words slide around her ribs like a tightening rope. Confusion churns under her skin. Why here? Why Infernal goblins? And why pickaxes—tools for miners, not monsters? These creatures didn’t dig. They blasted. They destroyed. This… this was labor.
Something’s wrong. Not just unexpected—unnatural.
Infernal goblins were chaos incarnate. Rabid. Reckless. Loud. And yet here they were, working in silence, carving away at stone like they had all the time in the world.
Ember’s jaw tightens. It's not random. It’s intentional.
Her thoughts reel back—old whispers half-remembered, back when she was raw and reckless. Elders murmuring about tremors deep in the Infernal veins. Strange shifts. Movements that didn’t belong. She’d laughed it off then, dismissed it as bedtime scare-talk for fledglings.
But now...
A cold bloom unfolds beneath her sternum. Not fear. Something cleaner. Sharper. Intrigue.
Don’t overthink it, the Voice snaps, tone turned brittle. They’re only goblins. Vermin with thumbs.
And yet, her hands lift—slow, open, palms bare to the torchlight. A brittle smile tugs at her lips. Unsteady. Unnatural. Like armor worn wrong.
She remembers Grant’s voice—low, grounded, maddeningly calm. Understand before you react, he’d told her once, when she nearly torched a chipmunk by mistake. Squirrel and chipmunk… not the same.
The memory flickers through her like a match strike. His steady patience against her fire. It sparks something she doesn’t expect—respect, maybe. Or envy.
What? the Voice huffs, sharp and mocking. You’re really going to try his way?
She swallows hard. That heat in her throat—it isn’t anger. Not entirely. She steps forward, careful, deliberate. Her gaze never leaves the goblin who shrieked. Its red eyes glow in the dark, wide and wet and waiting.
“Hello there?” Her voice cuts into the silence—gentle, but edged. Wary curiosity threads each word.
The sound lands heavy, echoing with too much weight in the hush. The goblins flinch—but they don’t charge. They stay frozen, caught mid-breath, a constellation of red eyes glinting with fear and something else.
Ember lifts her foot. Another step. Slow. Measured.
With her hands raised—palms bare, fingers spread in that practiced, pacifying gesture—Ember steps forward. Grant’s old trick. She remembers it clearly: the way he’d faced down that ridiculous Rabbit King, some twitchy tyrant calling himself “custodian” of the Forest. Stupid creature. Stupider still that it had worked.
Now here she is, mimicking the same dance.
She moves slow, every step deliberate, her boots whispering against the uneven cavern floor. Gravel shifts beneath her soles, sharp and loud in the hush. Eyes half-lidded. Smile wide—too wide. Edges sharp. Let them see teeth. Let them wonder.
Silence hangs heavy, thick as wet stone. The goblins watch her, weapons still raised—rust-bitten blades, jagged picks—but their eyes flick between one another. There. A flicker. Uncertainty. A crack in their stance.
Closer now. Close enough. Ember stops. Her chest rises with a breath she doesn’t fully trust. Her tongue curls around the rough syllables of Infernal—a language that tastes like smoke and iron but fits her mouth too well.
“Hey. Jerk-wads. I come in peace.”
The words drop like stones. Heavy. Meant to hit.
The goblins blink. Shift. Confused murmurs ripple through the pack, but no spark of recognition lights their faces. The foreman—the one with a cracked leather helmet sliding sideways over its lumpy head—tilts slightly. Blank stare. No sign of understanding in those narrow red eyes.
Ember’s grin twitches. Fades. Her mouth pulls tight.
They’re Infernal, no doubt—spiked ears, wart-thick skin, that foul stench of sulfur and blood. So why don’t they understand?
She tries again. Sharper this time. "What in the hells are you idiots doing here?"
Still nothing. No anger. No charge. Just that same slack, dumb stare. Then the foreman grunts—thin and shrill, like a cracked flute—and speaks.
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"You... woman... You Demon?"
Ember blinks. Once. Twice.
Common. Rough and broken, but still Common. From Infernal goblins.
No. That’s wrong. All wrong. Her gut tightens. Cold and crawling.
And now that she’s looking—really looking—their posture’s off. Too stiff. Too restrained. Not wild. Not feral. Not like the packs she’s fought before.
A ripple of unease crawls through her, hot and sour. This isn’t aggression. It’s something else.
Well… the Voice hums, almost amused. This is different. They’re different.
Ember’s throat goes dry. She licks her lips. Tries to steady her voice. “Yes,” she says in careful, slow Common. “I am Demon.”
The foreman’s eyes widen—red pupils stretching huge. Fear flickers there, brief as a dying spark. But not just fear. There’s something else behind it. Calculation. Cold and quiet, crawling across her skin like ants.
Behind him, the others shift. Weapons lower. A few hide their tools behind their backs. Some drop them entirely—clang, clang, sharp echoes in the cavern’s ribs. And then—gods—they kneel.
Obedient. Submissive. Tamed.
A cold shiver creeps down her spine.
Welll… the Voice drawls, breathy and low. That’s not good.
The foreman glances toward the dark tunnel behind him—freshly dug, still breathing dust. “You… come… you see… We good goblins. We dig… like master and mistress say. We good goblins. Yes?”
Each word lands slow. Careful. But clear.
Ember’s stomach knots. The question isn’t what stops her. It’s that word.
Mistress.
She swallows. Hard. Bitterness burns the back of her throat.
I hope it’s not the mistress I know.
There is more than one mistress, the Voice murmurs, silky and curious. I’m more intrigued by the master.
Her fists curl. Reflex. “Yes,” she says under her breath—not to the goblin, but to the Voice. To herself.
They act tamed, the Voice agrees, soft as silk. You’d be surprised how much a creature can change… if forced to.
Ember stares at the kneeling goblins, her skin crawling beneath their silence.
Forced. Yes. She knows what that looks like.
Ember’s gaze locks onto the foreman goblin, pinning it like a moth beneath glass. The torchlight flickers low, but still catches its leathery face, casting gold across the furrows of fear etched deep into its sunken red eyes.
"Who is your master?"
Soft, but sharp — a blade wrapped in velvet. Her words slice through the brittle hush between them.
The goblin flinches, head jerking toward the freshly dug tunnel behind it. A thin, broken whimper escapes its throat like steam from a cracked kettle. Ember feels it — that fear — heat pouring off its trembling body, thick enough to sting the back of her throat.
The Voice purrs, cold and certain, deep in her skull.
The word echoes inside her ribs like a stone dropped in still water.
Unbidden. Unwelcome.
But true.
Her eyes narrow. A slow breath hisses between her teeth as she leans forward just enough to make the goblin flinch again.
"Fine," she says, voice dropping to a whisper-knife. "Is your master… demon? Like me?"
The goblin recoils. Its thin frame shudders, a puppet with frayed strings. Its lips press tight. Bloodless. For a long moment, neither of them moves. Then — barely a twitch — it nods.
A jolt hits Ember’s chest, knocking the air from her lungs.
Another demon?
The thought coils around her heart, cold and slick.
Her pulse hammers.
Once.
Twice.
"Take me to your master," she says, each word a whipcrack. No room for question. No space for refusal.
The goblin hesitates — just for a breath — then turns. Its eyes flick toward the others, still huddled and watching. It barks out a sharp order.
"Dig… continue," it croaks.
Not obedience.
Something darker.
Submission.
Ember’s stomach knots.
No one protests. No one speaks. Pickaxes rise and fall.
A rhythm like a broken heartbeat echoing through stone.
The foreman looks back. Its stare cuts into her — red and raw and trembling. Fear, yes… but something uglier underneath. That hollow-eyed devotion she’s seen before.
"Come… come… Master She-Devil… this way."
It gestures with a shaking claw, pointing toward the tunnel’s gaping mouth.
Dark. Wet. Waiting.
Ember follows, though every step grates against the instinct screaming at the back of her skull. The tunnel swallows them whole. Walls closing in like jaws.
Behind her:
Steady. Endless. Like they've been digging forever.
She scans the side tunnels — raw scars in the earth. Some fresh and dusty. Others old, yawning into shadow.
The deeper they go, the colder it gets.
The air thickens, damp and heavy, clinging to her skin like breath on the back of her neck.
A shiver slides down her spine.
"Just how long…" she murmurs, voice frayed at the edges, barely louder than the dark, "…have they been digging?"
No answer.
The foreman just hurries, feet slapping wetly against the stone.
The torchlight flickers and stretches, warping the tunnel walls into twisted limbs reaching in from the corners of her vision.
Ember swallows hard.
Her thoughts churn, thick and choking.
Every step deeper feels like a drop off a cliff she can’t see the bottom of.
Something’s down here.
Something bigger.
Something worse.
And every bone in her body is screaming the same thing—