“Anyways, we came across your house and then Deina collapsed, so that’s basically what happened,” Regius explained to the man, ending his explanation of his and Deina’s quest.

  The strange man nodded. “I see. My name is Amni, I come from Village Louloudi but I prefer to live by myself ever since my daughter left to study. You say you came from Archaios? Did you see a girl with orange eyes and pink hair by any chance?”

  Regius pondered for a moment, recalling the time he was in the village. An imaginary lightbulb lit on his head. “Memoria, is your daughter Memoria?”

  Amni beamed, pausing his disinfecting of Deina’s wounds for a moment. “You have seen her! How is she?”

  “She’s great,” Regius managed to smile, but he was still somewhat worried about his younger sister’s health. She had been unconscious for a little over half an hour now, just how much pain had she been hiding?

  Amni resumed spraying some disinfecting medicine on Deina’s shoulder wound, before grabbing some bandages from a desk beside him. While the medical stuff went on, Regius’s attention drifted to the house he was in.

  The walls were made of gray bricks with a tint of orange, the same material as the cave world itself. The wooden floor was bare, but the center of the room had a red carpet. The small group was sitting around a table at the center of the table, and Deina lay on two chairs next to each other.

  The wall was dotted with small windows, and the triangular room had a few steel fire lanterns dangling from it.

  “She should be mostly alright now, she just needs rest,” Amni’s voice jerked Regius back to reality. The black and pink haired man smiled. Regius, however, frowned. “Mostly? What’s missing?”

  “Her wounds are good now, but to enhance the quality of rest, I’d give her some Flammeus pasificus, or Drowssom- a flower native to the land of fire that increases healing speed and restfulness,” Amni explained patiently. “I grow some in my no-sunlight garden just outside the house, but I want to keep an eye on your sister for a while. I’ll get them later.”

  Regius wanted to get to the altar as soon as possible, and even more, he wanted reassurement Deina was alright. Surprising even himself, Regius stood up from his chair. “I’ll get it. What does it look like?”

  Amni looked shocked as well, but chuckled at his eagerness to help. “I should have harvested some earlier, they’re in a bag by the fence of the garden. It’s labelled Flammeus pasificus, the flower itself is light purple. Get me about five.”

  Regius nodded, using all three of his braincells to remember the details before walking to the door and pushing it open. Some part of him was surprised not to see sunlight beaming upon the plants he hadn’t noticed earlier. How could plants grow without sunlight?

  He noticed that the gardens were dotted with flaming braziers- could land of fire plants grow with flame light?

  Shaking his head and returning to his original goal, the boy looked around and spotted a ray of bags against one fence. He walked over, skimming through the labels.

  ‘Flammeus navitas, Flammeus fascia...’ He recognized some of the words from a bit of latin learning in Humanities at some point. Did upper world people know about these species?

  “Aha, Flammeus pasificus!” he grinned, spotting one of the sacks. Inside, purple flowers were carefully arranged to not damage their petals. He tugged at the string locking the bag, and gently retrieved a handful of the flowers.

  The Drowssoms in his hand, Regius turned back to the house.

  “Here, Amni,” Regius announced his return, placing the flowers on the table. The man smiled kindly. “Thank you, boy. What’s your name?”

  “Regius,” the boy replied plainly. Amni nodded, before taking the flowers to a stove and sink combo at the side of the house to turn it into a drink. The boy watched with interested brown eyes as Amni boiled some water and squeezed juice from the petals.

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  “Are you a doctor? Or are you just good at this?” the brown-haired boy questioned as Amni worked. The man didn’t look up, keeping his eyes on the medicine he was making. “No, I’m a gardener. I just know about all my healing herbs.”

  “Cool.”

  It took an hour for Deina to wake up. Even though it’s only been a few days since her first injury, seeing her unwounded and not pale seemed beyond unusual.

  “Are you alright?” he asked. The girl blinked, struggling to sit up but surprisingly not flinching in pain at all. “Where am I? What happened?”

  “You collapsed, and your brother brought you over to mine, where I treated your injuries,” Amni explained. “You should be healed by now, but you need rest.”

  Not unexpectedly, the black-haired girl finally managed to sit up and dropped her legs to the ground, standing up at last. “We need to keep going. There’s not much time.”

  Regius’s eyes drifted uncomfortably to his half-burnt hand. In the earlier panic, he had barely noticed how he was burning away faster and faster.

  Amni noticed the boy’s doubt, and shook his head. He grabbed the rest of the pot of medicine and poured it into one of the Land of Fire’s wooden bottles. “Take this. If your injuries start acting up again, just drink some and have a nap.”

  Deina accepted the bottle, though clearly not planning to rest. “Thank you, sir.”

  With that, she strolled right out the door, stopping briefly to beckon to Regius. “C’mon.”

  “Thanks, Amni,” Regius said to the gardener, before turning around and running after Deina.

  Amni sighed, glancing after the two children running off. “Sacrifices, so sad. Why do good children have to die?”

  The two children from Archaios took a moment to check the direction they were travelling with a glimpse of sunlight from the outside. Letting the ever resourceful Deina lead, the two walked on.

  The sun was actually already starting to set within an hour after they left Amni’s. Casting his eyes away from the hole to the outside, Regius alerted Deina of the time. “We should stop soon.”

  “How fast is your hand burning?” the black-haired girl questioned coldly. Uncomfortably, Regius glanced at his hand. In the hour they had travelled, over another quarter of his hand had vanished.

  “Very fast,” he responded honestly, forcing himself to look away from the char-fringed flesh. “But still, we can’t let ourselves drop from exhaustion.”

  “We’ll rest once the sky is completely dark,” Deina decided. Regius nodded, satisfied, and the two resumed their walking.

  It got dark way sooner than it should. Regius knew nothing about science and the sky, but he knew it shouldn’t go from entirely bright to pitch black in only one second.

  “Is it a shadeling?” he asked, raising his voice and keeping his brown eyes on his sister’s faint silhouette. In return, he was quickly shushed. “Shut up! A normal shadeling shouldn’t have this much impact, this might be a big one.”

  The two located the lightest place in their current cavern, crouching beside the rock and using the lighting from the crack behind them to see. Simultaneously, both their eyes landed on a huge clump of concentrated shadows.

  “Will you fight it?” Regius whisper-shouted. Deina shushed him again, pointing to her ears to tell him to listen.

  The brown haired boy furrowed his eyebrows, straining to listen. He was about to talk again when he heard what Deina was talking about- a quiet, fury-filled female voice.

  “That damned Caleo, he thinks he can go around using those humans outside of his territory to heal himself when I just managed to drive him into a corner!” The words were followed by an angered yell.

  Shooting Deina a panicked expression, the two had a quick facial expression argument.

  ‘Fight her!’

  ‘No, wait!’

  ‘It’s just a Shadeling!’

  ‘It’s obviously more!’

  ‘Then what is it?’

  Before Deina could respond with a scarily expressive face, the shadeling turned around to face them. “Who’s there!”

  The two froze, surprised by how intelligent this shadeling was. Aren’t they just brainless clumps of darkness?

  “I am the Queen of Shadelings, I can see you two!”

  Deina’s eyes widened in genuine fear. “It’s Skia? Regius, we have to run!”

  The young girl had rarely ever been stunned before, so Regius chose to listen. The dark aura coming from the Shadeling- no, Skia- began moving towards the two. Muttering swear words inappropriate for someone so young, Deina lit her torch to ward off the shadows and ran off, Regius following closely.

  The shadows lapped at the two’s heels, and they were both thinking the same thing.

  ‘How can we outrun a god?’