Prince Vash, palms slick with sweat, struggled to push the wooden cart down the ancient passageway. The air reeked of molted skin and decomposing chitin, as if something vast had once slithered through. Having spent his entire young life underground, he hardly noticed it.

  Right about then he what he really wished was that he was in better physical shape. His weak, aching legs screamed with their desire for him to halt his pilgrimage.

  Outside the creaking of the cart’s wheels, the trickling of water over stone, and his own labored breathing, Vash had traveled the past three days in relative silence. Plenty of time for him to argue with himself about the insanity of his plan.

  There had been three separate instances already in which he had chickened out and turned back towards home. Each time he reminded himself that he was done being a pathetic failure. He thought of three things on repeat in his head to keep him pushing forward.

  1. The mental image of the girl he loved expressing in excruciating detail how repulsive she found him.

  2. His university rival humiliating him in front of a solid five or six hundred people.

  3. Remembering the look of embarrassment on his mother’s face.

  Now here he was, fueled to press deeper into the forgotten places.

  After struggling far more than a male entering his prime really should to get the cart across a shallow stream, he stopped on the far side for a quick break. He stretched his short awkward limbs, noticing a massive stone face carved into the wall of the grotto. It was a reminder that the labyrinthine network of tunnels and caverns he traversed were carved not just by time and stone, but by forgotten hands and unnatural forces.

  A knapsack hanging at his side contained rations the prince had taken from the palace stockrooms. Short, stubby fingers felt around in the bag before pulling out a wedge of flax seed bread and an amber jar half-full of eucalyptus nectar. With a tiny spoon made of bone he spread the nectar on the bread before taking a gigantic bite.

  A look of disgust washed over his face and the prince groaned, it just had to be eucalyptus nectar…

  Eucalyptus nectar was his sister, Marakiia’s favorite. His favorite had always been orange blossom nectar. He had been so anxious about getting out of the palace unnoticed that he had dumped the first rations he saw into his bag. Now here he was, days later, and victim to his own poor decisions. Sadly enough, that felt like a common thread throughout his life.

  The taste lingered in his mouth, floral with a mild herbal bitterness. Vash thought of the time he and his sister had snuck into the royal apiary to eat absurd amounts of honey. Their mother, Queen Veskariia had placed them on a strict diet limiting their sweets. Her obsession with meticulously controlling, well pretty much everything, was magnified when it came to her children. It extended far beyond diet, stretching out to just about every aspect or their lives.

  Despite the ups and downs of his adolescence, it felt good to think about his family. After all, he was doing all of this for them. And himself of course. But also, for them.

  Vash refused to face existence as the embarrassing prince of a dying kingdom. Since making his mind up about seeking out the nameless one, the prince had only allowed himself one singular focus. Change at any cost. Sometimes when taking an extreme course of action, it’s best not to linger on what ifs.

  A cloud of lightning bugs buzzed around above the stream and as Vash watched them, he thought he could hear the faintest of whispering. Was it the spirits of his ancestors, or merely his foolish desire for revenge that led him down these damp tunnels and further into the subterranean depths?

  It was easily the farthest the young prince had ever traveled away from the Skarlith capital of Endite. A part of him—the cowardly part that kept him safely locked away in the palace library most of his adolescent life—threatened to erode his newfound ambition. The spineless voice in the back of his mind repeated the same mocking question, what if I truly am nothing more than an pathetic embarrassment to my bloodline?

  His eyes traced the bulky form concealed beneath cloth on the bed of the cart. Gripping the rough wooden handles on the cart, he pressed onward.

  Claustrophobic tunnels opened into a massive cavern. Bioluminescent fungus clung to the stone, painting his immediate surroundings in pulsing hues of violet and red, before falling off to inky black in the farthest reaches. Hundreds of leagues beneath the planet’s surface, sunlight was nothing more than an alien and theoretical idea.

  In this long-forsaken place, the luminance was simply another thing he hardly noticed. Vash like all Skarlith, had eyes that could see even in the total absence of light. His eyes glowed white, each luminous orb flanked by three smaller insect-like eyes, scanned the cavernous space. Ahead of him the path narrowed to a bridge barely wide enough for a single person. Below the bridge was a vertigo inducing drop down to a boundless body of perfectly still water, like a sheet of glass.

  Drained to the point of near exhaustion, feet heavy like stone, Vash tripped over a knotted root jutting from the damp ground. The cart and its contents crashed to the floor, sending Vash tumbling face first into the mud.

  The offering, tied up in ornately patterned silk cloth, lay still in the dirt next to the cart. The flabby prince crawled over to his cargo. He went to pick it up but hesitated a moment. Delicately oscillating whispers, like the most beautiful melody, called to him from stone covered in thick spider webs.

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  Tilting his head, he strained to listen. Yet, all he could hear was his heavy breathing amidst a suffocating silence. He lingered there on the ground, longing to hear that melody once more. In the end Vash couldn’t truly decide if he had imagined the voices.

  Still struggling to regain his breath, the prince stepped up to the bridge. It was carved from stone, lined with glimmering precious stones, and engraved with complex geometric patterns.

  It’s incredible, thought Vash running his clumsy, soft hands over the dusty shapes. Vaguely Skarlith, but unlike anything I’ve ever seen in the royal archives.

  A small piece of the stone railing broke away. It fell for what seemed like an eternity before splashing into the jet-black pool far below. The sound echoed through the massive cave and the prince looked over his shoulders uneasily. He took a deep breath, tied his long white hair back out of his face and stepped back over to the cart. The axle was broken. Wheel snapped clean off.

  Vash rubbed his weak and weary arms, muscles sore and burning with lactic acid. After a moment of self-loathing for his lifetime of laziness and excess he grabbed an end of the cloth-wrapped offering and began dragging it across the bridge. Six times he nearly gave up. Six times he thought back on the pain, the humiliation, the cruelty, and he pressed on.

  When he finally got to the far side of the bridge, Vash collapsed to the ground. As he stared up at the countless stalactites jutting from the domed ceiling, he couldn’t help but wonder if his mother and sister had noticed his disappearance yet. Would they be worried? Perhaps sending soldiers to tear the city apart in search of me? Maybe they would feel relief that a disappointing weakling like me could no longer bring shame to the family name?

  Trembling fingers pulled the stopper free from his canteen and he guzzled down the water from inside like he might never drink again. Lying on his back, chest rising and falling uncontrollably, he closed his eyes.

  The whispers returned. The melody somehow even more beautiful than before and this time seeming to modulate in time with his winded breath. The dialect was none the prince had ever heard, and yet he somehow understood exactly what they wanted him to do.

  Towering, jagged pillars of onyx rose from the platform in a ring around him. In the center an ancient and alien rune was etched into the floor. He immediately noticed that the rune matched the one he had seen in his dream. The dream that had called him to this place.

  Prince Vash dragged the cloth-wrapped offering onto the rune. The whispering voices were building. Loud. Louder. Deafening.

  It was exactly what he had come in search of, and yet still he looked around terrified.

  He pressed his palms over his ears. It did nothing to quiet the horrific cacophony of booming voices. Pulling his dagger from its sheath, the prince gritted his teeth then guided it across his palm. His warm blood dripped down onto the alien rune. There was time for one last moment of self-doubt, then in a heartbeat the cavern went silent.

  Ancient torches suffocated by spider webs ignited spontaneously. The forbidden place came alive with dancing shadows.

  The prince felt a faint and ethereal thrumming in his chest. Standing before the prince was an inky black silhouette. Looking at the humanoid shape was like staring into a fire, one’s eyes couldn’t ever quite focus.

  This, he most certainly noticed.

  Vash stared up at the silhouette, eyes wide with equal parts fear and wonder.

  The imposing void of a figure stared back at him. No, into him. The prince felt small. Insignificant. A voice impossibly deep and inhuman filled the cavern, it was as if the sound was coming from everywhere all at once. “I see your desires, young princeling…like stars in a dead sky.”

  “Good. Will you give me what I desire most, ancient one?” Asked Vash, hands trembling but rising to his feet.

  “What price are you prepared to pay?”

  Prince Vash’s eyes narrowed then he pointed down at his offering, “I brought you a sacrifice.”

  “Purging your tormentor in my flame is no gift to me. Do you take me for a fool?”

  “I…don’t understand.”

  “You mortals never do.”

  “I can’t go back without your light,” begged Vash. “Please, without your power, I’m nothing—just the prince of a dying kingdom.”

  “What price are you prepared to pay?”

  Prince Vash took a deep breath before staring hard into the inky blackness, “everything.”

  The prince and the entity stood silent and still for a time. Then Vash felt a magnetic attraction to the torches, like a moth to the flame. He grabbed one of the torches, feeling the dancing flames warm against his skin. Slowly, he unwrapped the silk cloth tied around the offering.

  “Vengeance is older even than the gods… let us remind the world why they learned to fear us,” spoke the Flame Between Worlds.

  Lying at the center of the alien rune was a seven-foot tall Skarlith male, a giant of a man. Mouth gagged. Hands and feet bound. Eyes wide with terror. Awake, but incapable of moving. The poison Vash had purchased from the old apothecary had worked perfectly. He had to admit, along the journey he had his fair share of nightmares in which his offering found a way to break free from the state of paralysis. Those tended to end poorly for the weakling prince.

  Now here he was, he was surprised to find he no longer felt pathetic or useless. Everything had worked out exactly as he had planned. A fire he had never felt before roared inside of him. He was desperate to change things. And desperation is the chisel that dark things wield best.

  Vash tilted his head slightly, staring into the pleading eyes of Traetak, the one who had humiliated him in front of the entire city. The one who had made his every day at the royal academy miserable. The one who had stolen the heart of the girl he loved. Vash looked from his captive to the void-like entity. He felt the rage inside of him building like a bonfire with limitless fuel. With the slightest of smirks, the prince lowered the torch.

  Traetak’s body may have been unable to move, but his eyes writhed in agony. The prince’s offering, lying at the center of the alien rune was suddenly bathed in flames. The smell was horrible.

  Without a word, the jet-black entity dissolved into a flood of horned beetles that scurried across the stone and poured into the prince’s mouth. Vash tried to scream, but no sound came out.

  All the familiar elements of existence distorted like a reflection in a stream. Field of vision fading to black.

  His frail body convulsed, bent backward with unnatural force as every sinew snapped and reformed. His mind reeled, suddenly besieged by eons of forbidden knowledge. His blood underwent a terrible transmutation into magma, and he became painfully aware of every burning cell within himself. His body had become a prison, and he had no hope of escaping.

  He fell to the floor, writhing in agony. Every bone in his body shattered, only to swiftly be weaved back together, longer and infused with shadowy energy. His pathetic physique melted away in the flames of rebirth, reforged strong and hard in the image of the ancient ones.

  Muscles bulged where none had been. The weakling prince burned away in the flames of covenant. Shoulders broadened, arms like coiled serpents of living steel. His spine stretched, pulling him upward until he towered over his charred offering.

  The face that had once begged for notice now demanded reverence. Chiseled jaw, glowing eyes, and a smile that hinted at damnation.