There was no denying it—Xahn was terrified. None of his father’s mind-calming techniques—focus on breathing slowly, empty the mind, envision a candle flame—none of them could overcome the urge to get away NOW! He wanted to scream at his father: How do you “calm your mind” when demonspawn are trying to eat you?! The desperate, mindless need to escape was the same he had felt during his first visit to the Crossroads. Only this time, he was being chased by actualmonsters!

  “The entrance would not be in the main hallway,” M’Randa shouted as she pulled Xahn behind her. The young man stood motionless where she put him, afraid to make his own decisions. He nervously gripped Ekatern’s diadem in his sweaty hands. Ginsook guarded his other side. There was no longer anywhere to run. Nowhere to hide. The blood cloud was gone and they could do nothing but stand still in the long white hallway. A hallway with almost no side passages or doors. A hallway blocked at one end with a pile of rubble that reached the ceiling and filled with creatures at the other end. Creatures that were galloping toward them at incredible speed.

  “What about the World Room?” Ginsook asked. “I understand it’s tied to the Heart.”

  “Too obvious,” said the Wandering Woman, shaking her head. “That’s where Ekatern is lying in state and one of the first places an enemy would go. I’m pretty certain that’s where Valen is heading.”

  “The kitchens?”

  “I checked when we got here,” M’Randa told the Hahnin woman. “Two doors only. One leading inside, one outside.”

  “What about the infirmary?” Xahn asked, weakly.

  “The what?” M’Randa and Ginsook asked at the same time.

  “It’s where they took Dahn and me when we got hurt. A small room down a short passage from the main hallway. I remember there were several doors…”

  “Where is it?” Ginsook demanded, looking desperate as the shadows of the demonspawn grew massive before them. Only a second or two and the freakish goblins would be upon them.

  Xahn pointed with one hand. “Down ther—” The women pulled him off his feet and carried him to the nearly hidden entrance he’d shown them. M’Randa tossed him over her shoulder, yanked open a large, metal door and leapt inside. Xahn heard the snick sound again and the screams of demonspawn before Ginsook joined them in the darkened entryway. Together, the two women shoved the door closed and bolted it from the inside. There were no light crystals or windows in this access way; once the door was shut, it was totally dark except for the golden glow of the Sword of Heaven. The door began to pound and shake with a sound like thunder as the nightmare creatures on the other side tried to break it down.

  “That won’t hold them for long,” Ginsook said, breathing heavily. She made a flipping motion with her right hand and the long pole she was holding collapsed upon itself with that same snicking sound Xahn had heard before. It became a metal bar about as long as her forearm and about three fingers thick. She placed it behind her back in her belt.

  “No, it won’t,” M’Randa replied. “We need to find the entrance to the Font.” She pushed something on the sword hilt and it went dark, leaving the entryway inky black. “The Sword is tired,” she explained. “It needs to rest for a bit. Ginsook, why don’t you show our young friend what the Daughters of the Second Moon can do?”

  Ginsook grunted as if annoyed. Gradually, the room began to grow bright again. A white glow was coming from something the Hanin woman was holding. It took Xahn a second or two to realize that she wasn’t holding anything at all; the light was coming from the palms of her hands.

  “The Daughters bodies are embedded with many different crystals to be used as tools when needed,” M’Randa explained. “How many to you have, Ginsook?”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  “Two hundred and seventy-three, as of about six months ago.”

  “Does … does that hurt?” Xahn asked, still catching his breath. So many strange things were happening so quickly now that it seemed he couldn’t breathe normally.

  “It doesn’t hurt to use them,” the Hahnin warrior told him. “It hurts quite a bit every time they are inserted in my bones.”

  The door stopped thundering, and it suddenly seemed incredibly quiet.

  “They’re bringing in rock trolls,” both women said at once. “It won’t take them long to get past that door,” M’Randa grunted.

  “We need to move,” said Ginsook. She pointed her hand-lights about the small anteroom and found the door at the far end.

  “That’s the infirmary,” Xahn told them.

  “Never heard of an infirmary inside a temple,” M’Randa muttered. “It must have once had a different purpose.”

  “Let’s go,” Ginsook said and started forward, opening the door with one hand and waiting for the others to pass through before closing it behind her. “This door has a bolt on either side,” she said, sliding it into place. “It isn’t as sturdy as the other door … it won’t hold them more than a few seconds.”

  The infirmary still smelled of alcohol. It looked like something from a dream, Xahn thought. The contents of the room were unchanged from when Wyll, Dahn, and he had been here. But now, it appeared very different with only the moving beams of white light from Ginsook’s palms to illuminate it. The door to the courtyard was easy to find, but he did not want to go out there.

  “Over here,” said M’Randa, pointing at a heavy-looking set of tall shelves against one wall. They held row upon row of large glass bottles filled with liquid and powder. “Help me move this.” One woman grabbed each side of the unit and lifted. It didn’t budge. They nodded at each other and pushed one way then the other until finally, they pushed it into the wall itself. The entire wall moved inward with a grinding sound. The women kept pushing until there was a hole large enough for all of them to fit through.

  “Come on, Boy!” Ginsook said, waving her had at him with the fingers downward. Xahn still hadn’t caught his breath, but he could hear the door and possibly the entire wall in the other room being destroyed. He sprinted into the dark recess. Once they were all inside, the women shoved the wall back into place.

  “That’s about two feet of solid rock,” M’Randa commented. “I don’t think they’d even notice it. And no sound will pass through. We may have finally caught a break.”

  “Let’s get moving then,” Ginsook said, nodding. Using her hands as torches, she found stairs carved into the floor beneath them that spiraled down, into the darkness. “I’ll lead. Be careful, young man. Watch your footing.”

  Until he took the first few steps, Xahn wasn’t sure what she meant. The stairs were wet and slippery; he almost lost his footing several times as they trudged downward. Even putting his hand out to steady himself on the rock wall wasn’t a good idea; it was also wet and covered with a slimy film.

  “This passage hasn’t been used in a very long time,” M’Randa noted.

  “Years … probably decades,” Ginsook agreed.

  Xahn slipped again and fell three steps down until he flew headlong into Ginsook. Although the Hahnin woman was at least a head shorter than him and very thin, she didn’t budge when he hit her. It was like running into the stone wall itself.

  “Perhaps you should steady yourself with both hands as well as your feet,” she teased him, a smile in her voice. She was right; he couldn’t keep up this pace with the diadem in one hand. He did the only thing he could—he put the silvery ring with its glowing green crystal on his head.

  And the world changed.

  The first thing he noticed was that he could see perfectly well in the darkness. He no longer needed Ginsook’s torch hands. In fact, he could see clear to the bottom of the stairwell and the entrance to the room there. Xahn could also hear every noise—or perhaps feel was a better word. He could even hear the underground stream that ran behind the stone wall. The stairwell ran directly beside a different kind of well. But the most interesting change—the most disturbing change, was the woman he saw standing on the stairs beside him.

  “Tern?” Xahn asked her. “Is that you? Are you alive?”

  She was young again, like she’d been in the Crossroads. Dressed in the same green robe with the same long, red hair.

  “Xahn?” M’Randa asked him, softly. “Who are you talking to, child?”

  It was then that Xahn realized that all the frenetic fighting, the relentless running, and the danger of death at every turn had finally warped his terrified mind. He knew he’d gone completely mad.