A wave of nauseating heat engulfed us as soon as we stepped through the archway. It was hot and humid within the keep's walls, and a thin black mist clung to everything. Ruined buildings littered the large derelict courtyard, with little more than crumbled stones, rotten wood, and the occasional rusted weapon or tool indicating that anyone ever inhabited the place.

  Vral and I hugged the sides of the ruined buildings and slipped from shadow to shadow as we made our way across the space. Careful not to step on any debris, we worked our way around its edge by staying as close to the wall as possible. When a collapsed building blocked our path, Vral guided me under a collapsed roof. I could barely squeeze through, but with a little shimmying, I eventually made it through to the other side.

  We continued like that until we passed through a second archway set into a smaller interior wall on the far side of the courtyard. Inside the wall was a second smaller courtyard, the most prominent feature within being keep's large front doors directly ahead. A long-abandoned fountain rested in the center, its ornate tiles faded with age. A mostly intact tiled roof encircled the area, providing shade and a little cover.

  "This way," Vral whispered and pointed to the right.

  Following, we worked our way around while remaining careful to stay under the roof and out of sight. Luckily, there wasn't any indication that we were being watched, and the area seemed like it had been abandoned for ages. We quickly made our way across, but when I turned to head toward the front stairs that led into the crumbling castle, Vral clicked her tongue and shook her head. Pointing to the side of the keep, Vral guided us into a narrow pathway between the courtyard's wall and the building. Down that pathway was a small door set into the wall of the castle.

  Vral held her hand up. "This'll take us to the servant quarters. Through those, we'll go through some rooms, then we'll be in the main hall. Try not to lag. It's hard enough for my kind to navigate places like this. For you, it'd be impossible." She began to shimmy open the door, careful not to let it creak. "Also, I kind of lied to Tris back there. There's more than the ghouls and zombies in here. Nothing scary, just some skeletons, but keep an eye out, don't make any noise, and be ready to fight." With those words, she slipped through the cracked doorway.

  Careful not to let my armor scrape, I slipped through behind her, entering a long, narrow hallway filled with the remains of servants' things. Platters, utensils, baskets, and the like were strewn about haphazardly, and for the first time since we entered the keep, there were bodies. Dozens of them. Each had clear indicators of what their fate had been. One's skull was split in half, a rusted axe still buried within the bone. Another's ribs were shattered. One was missing its jaw and most of its teeth. Whatever had happened here, the inhabitants had clearly met a violent end.

  Wiping the sweat from my forehead, I took a deep breath to stabilize my thoughts, but the air nearly made me choke. Within the keep, the heat was much worse, and everything was sticky. The walls were moist, and water droplets dripped from the ceiling above. It felt like how I imagined the inside of a mouth felt like. Even more concerning, the walls of the keep pulsed with that same black energy as outside, but it was thicker here. The movements of the energy reminded me of images of lungs, as if the castle were alive and breathing. It made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

  Ahead of me, I saw the little goblin moving forward at a slow, steady pace, silent as a shadow. I tried to follow, but my shield rattled against my armor. Normally, I'd hardly notice the sound, but within that place, each rattle echoed horribly. I didn't know exactly what threats lay within, but I didn't want to take any chances. Unslinging the shield from my shoulder, I strapped it to my arm, drew my sword, and followed my companion.

  From the hallway, Vral led us to a passageway that in turn led us into a maze-like series of square rooms. Each room was ruined, littered with long-dead corpses, various debris, and piles of old arms and equipment, all of which had long ago rusted away. I looked around for anything that could be used, but there was nothing that wasn't on the edge of crumbling away to nothing.

  After weaving through several rooms, I got the distinct impression that the inside of the castle was larger than the outside. The structure didn't seem that large from the outside, maybe the size of a mid-sized warehouse or an airplane hangar. However, after traveling through a dozen rooms, each the size of an average bedroom or so, I was sure the rooms were larger and more numerous than the building could contain.

  Likewise, the path through the rooms was nonsensical. Most rooms had openings in all four walls, their doors mostly rotten or shattered, but those openings didn't seem to correspond to any discernible path. It was like going through a hedge maze. Every room looked the same. Even the debris on the ground seemed to repeat. One room had weapon racks. The next held rotten furniture. The one after was weapon racks again. Without Vral, I knew I wouldn't be able to find my way out.

  Unlike me, the goblin seemed to have little problem leading us through the castle's interior. She barely seemed to think before choosing which room to enter next. I did my best to follow along with Vral's decisions, but I couldn't understand how she determined where to go. At one point, from a room that contained a few mildewed paintings, we took a right, then three lefts. I expected to see the paintings again, but, instead, we were in a room filled with old tattered flags. Entering the room and looking in each direction, there were no weapon racks to be seen. That gave me the chills again.

  Vral paused here. I noticed she was considering the flags. The sour look on her face told me that, whatever she was thinking, it wasn't good. Following her eyes, I took the flags in. Most were little more than scattered, rotten threads, long since eaten away by time and mold, but three were still intact. Despite the grime and dust coating each, I could just barely make out their patterns and colors. One was purple and had a stylized golden spider in the center. Another was blue and yellow and had a chalice in the center. The last was a reddish wine color and had a black bird in the center. Each flag was held taut by a golden frame attached to a stand. It looked like each could be picked up and carried like a war banner.

  "What are they?" I asked.

  "Old war flags," Vral said beside me, her voice low. "Hard to believe they're still together after all these years."

  "Whose flags were they?"

  "The Dark Lord's children." She bared her teeth as she spoke.

  I remembered the name from my lessons. "They were the ones who tried to conquer Istaera in the last era, right?"

  "Yeah. Not just Istaera either. All of Elysium." Her lips turned down into a frown. "Horrible people. I hope they rot in piss." The heat was evident in her voice.

  "Do you have any connection to them?"

  Her red eyes pulled away from the flags and met mine. "Yeah. All of us goblins do." She unbuttoned her leather jerkin and pulled her shirt down. Just below her collarbone was a mark that looked like a stylized eye. "Even today, after centuries, their brands appear on our skin. Every goblin has one. The price of being made by the Dark Lord."

  "What do you mean made?" Didn't all the races in this world from other places?

  "Exactly what it sounds like. The Dark One created us, and his children enslaved us again. We were forced to fight for those fuckers because of these brands. We did horrible things. Because of that, no one trusts us, and we've had to live in the shadows and slums, eeking out livings by selling our swords and bodies to anyone who'll pay." Her red orbs grew misty. They were filled with anger. "If I had the chance, I'd cut every one of these bastards down for what they did to us."

  "I'm sorry, Vral. No one deserves that." My heart ached for her. She was a survivor.

  "Don't pity us." She blinked and set her jaw. "Goblins are fighters. We take life's punches and survive them. It'll take more than some wannabe Dark Lords to break us."

  I smiled at her. "I don't pity you. I was thinking how proud I am to be here beside you."

  She looked away. As she did, she wiped her face with the back of her hand. "Yeah, well, you should be. But come on. Let's kill some shitbags and save some rich bitch."

  She glided away from me before I could respond. Not wanting to lose track of her, I hurried behind. We were both silent until Vral led us into a small stone chamber filled with bones.

  "I couldn't get past these ones earlier, so I cut 'em down." She pointed at the bone piles.

  As I walked past, I could see rotten weapons still gripped in their bony hands. These had been animated skeletons. Looking them over, I could see the bones were brittle and dry, and there were no runes visible on their bones. If so, that meant these were basic skeletons. Nothing to worry about. Even low-level necromancers could raise undead like these. Kicking one of the bones, I watched as it disintegrated to nothing.

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  Interesting.

  If the bones crumbled away so readily, that likely meant that they were formed from the bone dust and ash that filled this place. That told me that whatever the Black Flame was, it likely reconstituted these skeletons over time. In turn, that likely meant that the black energy filling the place was some form of negative energy that was fueling these creatures. If dispelled, they would likely crumble away. If not, without a fuel source tying them here, they would be exceptionally weak. We could do this.

  Swords drawn, Vral headed out of the room into another hallway. Taking the second right, she guided us through several more rooms until she stopped beside a doorway and held her hand up, cautioning me to slow down. I tiptoed forward until I was directly over her and peered around the frame. Two skeletons were standing guard at either side of the room, their jaws slack and empty. Where their eyes once were, two red pricks of light glowed in their empty sockets. In their hands, each held a long spear, though both were ancient, and one was broken in half. Their bones were chipped and dry, and dust fell from them with every movement they made.

  Vral held her short swords up and nodded at me. She mouthed the word "ready."

  I nodded and readied myself.

  In a blur, Vral dashed toward the nearest skeleton. It jerked when it saw her and stabbed its spear at her head, but she was too fast. A quick duck caused the spear to miss by a wide margin. Rolling to the skeleton's side, she sliced both of her blades across its midsection, cleaving several ribs free. Another slash and its spine split apart. The creature's entire upper body tumbled to the ground and fell to pieces. A cloud of black smoke rushed out of the bones as they shattered and lazily floated down the hall the skeletons were guarding.

  As the second skeleton stabbed at her, I rushed forward. With a sweep of my blade, I took its head clean off. It turned to me and thrust its broken spear forward, catching me in the breastplate and knocking me back a step. With a heave, I slammed my shield into its shoulder. Every bone in its body splintered under the weight of the strike. Dust and bone shards rained down on the room like confetti. Another black cloud oozed out of the ruined bones, pooling before floating down the hallway and seeping between the cracks of the walls.

  "Stay sharp," Vral whispered as she followed the black smoke down the hallway.

  I chastised myself. Of course, the skeletons didn't die when their heads were cut off. I needed to be smarter. Following Vral, we came across another skeleton two rooms later. This one was facing away from us, looking down at a pile of debris in the middle of a small square room beyond. Vral didn't hesitate. She leaped at the monster, and I charged. She swung at its neck, severing the skull from its neck, and I bashed its ribcage into dust with a swift shield slam.

  As it exploded, I watched as another plume of black smoke pooled out of its body and drifted across the floor. This time, the mist bled through the walls on the left side of the room.

  "Only a few rooms left." Vral moved across the room to a ruined doorway and disappeared.

  I went to follow her, but as I walked across the room, something pulled my attention to the debris in the center. The ground was littered with old rotten wood. I could tell it once had been a large wooden desk or possibly a display cast or chest. Age had long since caused it to collapse in on itself, but it looked like there was something buried beneath the rotted boards. I could just see the light glint off whatever it was. Setting my sword down, I grabbed a length of rotten wood and pushed it aside to get a better look. There, under several more boards, was something beneath.

  Pulling another board away, I could see the object's outline. Reaching out and removing a piece of rotten red cloth, I was greeted by metallic red and gold. A magnificent golden basket hilt stylized into the shape of a bird, its eye affixed with a ruby, looked back at me. Fixed to the blade's pommel was a large ruby held in place by stylized bird talons. A blade extended from the hilt but was still half-buried. I pushed the rest of the refuse away from the sword, revealing a long, thick single-edged blade. Some intricate script I didn't recognize was etched inside the blade's fuller.

  It was beautiful. I'd never seen anything so beautiful.

  I smile spread across my face. This was it. This was the moment when I got my magical sword and became a real hero. I'd finally be on the path to greatness. I reached down to pick up the weapon, but just before my fingers brushed the grip, Vral's fingers wrapped around my arm.

  "Don't," she growled. Her voice was rough, almost strained. "Bad idea."

  Why would she stop me from taking what should be mine? Didn't she understand how much I deserved it? How dare she get in the way. I turned to her. I could feel the snarl on my face. I wanted to scream at her, but a voice within held that impulse back.

  "Alex, step away."

  It was like something snapped inside my mind. Suddenly, I understood exactly what I'd been about to do. How could I be stupid enough to pick up a magical-looking sword lying around in an evil castle? Why would I do such a thing? Taking the sword in again, I saw things in a new light.

  The blade was indeed ornate and beautiful, but some of that black mist hovered around it, flowing between the metal of its basket. The blade was made of some dark metal, and the runes glowed with a soft inner red light. The longer I looked at them, the more I wanted to pick the thing up and take it as my own, but the thought made my stomach churn. Still, it felt like something was reaching inside my brain and calling me to the weapon.

  I tried to turn. I tried to walk away. But I heard something. A voice.

  Wield me.

  Vral's fingers squeezed. "Let's go."

  I shook my head. I tried to reach for my sword, but Vral stopped me. My vision swam, and that intense anger returned. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and looked down. I was reaching for the runed blade.

  Wield me, mortal. You are worthy.

  I tried to look away from the exquisite blade, tried to grab my trusty old sword, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't bring myself to do it.

  Vral's grip tightened. My bracer bit into my wrist. "Fucking let's go."

  I will not be forgotten. I will not be abandoned.

  The voice filled my mind. I tried to pull away, but I only managed to jerk my hand upward, away from either sword. As it did, my stomach roiled, and with a lurch, I threw up in my mouth a little.

  Vral snatched my sword, pulled me upright, and dragged me away from the blade on the ground. With every step, the voice echoed in my mind, beckoning me to return and take it, but the little goblin didn't let up.

  Claim me. I shall be your strength.

  I tried to resist, but she didn't let up. She dragged me forward, making sure I didn't stop or falter. Once I was at the edge of the room, the voice diminished. When we passed through the doorway, I was able to move on my own again.

  My head spun. Turning away from Vral, I spat out a globule of spit and bile. "What the fuck just happened?"

  "Don't know. Keep moving."

  I took a stumbling step. Then another. When I reached the other side of the room, I began to regain my balance. I could feel the pull of the sword still, could feel its hooks demanding I return, but each step got easier. We exited that room and entered a hallway. As we did, my head cleared more, but everything hurt.

  "Wait." I gasped.

  Taking my hand, Vral guided me into an alcove in a long hallway. We shimmied behind the large statue that filled the space. Putting my hands on my knees, I took a few deep breaths.

  "Thanks," I gasped as she poked her head out from behind the statue. A noise down the hallway called my attention, but I trusted her to be my eyes for a minute. Loud clacking of feet told me some skeletons were walking down the hall. Sure enough, a moment later, what sounded like five or six of them passed us by and entered the room we'd come from.

  When they were gone, Vral grabbed my armor and pulled me down so that we were eye to eye. Her teeth were gritted, and her eyes were filled with concern. She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again, shook her head, and smacked me across the face.

  "What the hell?" I hissed. The slap didn't hurt, but it surprised me.

  Her face twisted. She raised a finger to her lips in a shushing motion. Then she leaned close and whispered in my ear. "Are you okay?"

  "I think so."

  "Don't worry me like that!" She smacked me again, then wrapped her arms around my neck, hugging me tight. "You were looking at that sword forever with that big dopey smile of yours. Did you lose your damned mind?"

  "What do you mean? I was only there for a minute at most."

  She scrunched her nose. "No, you weren't. You knelt there looking like a drooling buffoon for at least five minutes. Five whole minutes. Didn't I tell you to stay with me?"

  What? The concern on her face told me she wasn't mistaken. Had that thing taken hold of me so completely? It was like I'd been in a trance. "You didn't hear a voice?" I asked.

  "What voice?" She whispered so quietly that I could barely hear her.

  "There was a voice calling to me to pick it up." I frowned. "You didn't hear anything?"

  She shuddered. Putting her hands on my face, she forced me to look at her. For a long moment, she searched my face. "You're scaring me. You're scaring me a lot." She pressed her forehead to mine. "You're not allowed to do that."

  "Sorry." I didn't know what else to say, but I didn't want to ever scare her.

  Her mouth opened again, but she shook her head and pulled away. "C'mon. Let's get this thing done." She unsheathed her blades, poked her head out, looked both ways, and slipped out from behind the statue.

  I took a deep breath. This place was terrifying. I felt the chills again.

  Slipping out from behind the statue, I watched as Vral disappeared around a nearby corner. Following her lead, I tiptoed forward until I rounded the corner behind her.

  My heart froze.

  There, in the center of the small square room was a ruined piece of wooden furniture. And lying in the center was the sword.

  Wield me.

  I felt the voice's cold hooks drag me forward. I tried to resist, tried with every fiber of my being to stop myself, but I took a single lurching step forward.

  Then another.

  And another.

  Do. Not. Leave. Me.

  There was a sound in front of me. Tearing my eyes away from the blade, I watched as a half-dozen of the undead lumbered through the doorway. They were thin and emaciated, but, unlike the skeletons, there was dry flesh stretched tightly over their bones, and scraps of dry sinew and clothing hung off their gaunt bodies. The nearest creature's dry, shrunken eyes took me in. A light hissing emitted from its desiccated lips. Its fellows lowered their weapons at me and took a step forward.

  Use me. Destroy them all.

  A force shoved me forward. My feet dragged against the ground as I took a hesitating step. My sword clattered to the ground. I watched as the blade grew close, watched as the fingers of my sword arm extended toward the blade. I reached out and took the warm metal of the sword's grip into my hand. It fit my hand perfectly.

  I stood, leveled the peerless weapon at the undead, and—