Rose and Parek stood at the final plinth in the circular chamber. Elsie was on Rose’s shoulder, resting her little head against Rose’s neck. She looked tired, which concerned Rose but she thought back to last night, when Elsie had slept in her hand. Maybe she just needed some rest.

  Parek inserted the last key, turned it and they watched as another set of letters began to form, and deep groans reverberated around the room.

  Born where light and glory meet

  Hell's masters they'll defy

  When Heaven's grace flows through their souls

  Then even Devils will learn to die

  Rose quickly walked around the other two plinths, noting the verses in full.

  Two shall rise, blessed of one

  Neither damned nor truly free

  Children of light, love within

  Hell's Throne shall cease to be

  They cannot be tempted

  Their desire will be clear

  Their duty will be heavy

  The Thirteen shall know fear

  Born where light and glory meet

  Hell's masters they'll defy

  When Heaven's grace flows through their souls

  Then even Devils will learn to die

  “What does it mean?” she asked Parek, but before he could answer, the chamber began to shake, loose rocks in the ceiling falling in small puffs of dust. Rose and Parek held onto the plinth in the centre of the room to keep their balance. A groan, larger than anything they’d heard before sounded out as if the very rocks around them were crying. Then the rectangular slabs that covered the triangular spaces between the three paths started to come away, each slab dropping down and locking into place, with the one next to it dropping further until it formed a spiral staircase descending into darkness.

  The room moaned once more, shuddered as more rock fell before it became silent and still. Rose raised her eyes to the ceiling, not quite trusting it to not cave in. Parek seemed to feel much the same.

  “I guess we go down?” Parek said, his eyes darting to the walls and the ceiling as loose rock skittered towards the floor. “Maybe we’ll find the answers there.”

  Rose nodded, holding her staff out. She cast [Radiance] and a glow surrounded the small ball at its centre, blooming until it was a dazzling sphere as large as the staff’s head. Parek went first, placing a tentative foot on the first step, testing if it held. Satisfied, he put his other foot on the next step, then nodded to Rose to follow him as he lay a hand flat against the rock to his side and carefully walked down.

  Rose followed him, staying two steps behind. Each slab was only a foot long, snug against the wall on the left side and a massive gap on the right that plunged into the darkness below. She was almost tempted to throw a little rock down there and see how far it fell.

  They descended in silence, hugging the wall, the echoes of their footsteps bouncing through the cylinder, their shadows flickering in the light of her [Radiance]. The spiral was seemingly endless, turning and turning until she couldn’t see the light from the chamber above nor at the bottom of the nothingness below. At some point, her legs began to ache. She’d done more physical activity in this dungeon than she had in the past decade. As she struggled down the steps, she made a note to address her lack of physicality in future.

  Fortunately, it wasn’t that long after when they approached the end of the stairs into another circular chamber that was bare, except for an arched open door opposite them. They made their way over and when they emerged on the other side, they were greeted with a wide expanse of fields that led to what seemed to be a small town.

  Except the fields were dull and decayed, the grass long since dead. Above them, the false sky was an almost wispy grey, as if it wasn’t truly there. But not in the way that it was an illusion. It just looked as dead as the fields, as if it had given up any pretence of existence. In fact, everything around them seemed to have a thin grey veneer, as if it was already dead but doing its best to cling on to the world.

  Rose glanced at Parek, the concern in his face mirroring her own.

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  They continued on towards the town, the grass crunching beneath their feet but as they got closer to the dull wooden walls, the bodies started to appear. Elsie sat up on Rose’s shoulder, eyes scanning the town. The bodies had begun to decompose, the skin stretched thin and torn in places, revealing the brittle bones beneath. Here and there, only skulls remained attached to bodies covered in tattered linens. Some of those skulls were entirely too small.

  They hurried into the town, walking along the only road. It led past small wooden buildings towards a makeshift temple at its centre, a smaller replica of the one that contained this dungeon. More bodies lined the roads. There was no discrimination to the people killed. Men, women, children. All in tattered white linen, not unlike the refugees they had encountered in Tarnov.

  Except these must be the worshipers of the Twins.

  The bodies grew in number as they got closer to the temple like these men and women had been making a last stand. Rose could see who they had stood against. At the temple entrance, they came across a group of soldiers, adorned in the white cloaks of the Order of Balance, pentagrams blazing on their backs. They were trying to force the large wooden doors open, but every time they pushed, the doors would slam back towards them as if being pinned from the inside.

  One of the soldiers turned and noticed Rose and Parek walking towards them. He didn’t get the chance to warn the others. Neither Rose nor Parek saw what happened, but they stepped back as fifteen heads rolled down the wooden stairs and passed by either side of them, leaving behind a trail of glistening blood – the only colour in this lifeless place. The bodies the heads belonged to collapsed in front of the door.

  Rose glanced to her shoulder. Elsie held a hand up as if she were examining nails that weren’t there and blew on her fingers. Then she grinned at Rose.

  They walked up the stairs, carefully walking around the slain Order soldiers. Rose couldn’t help but glance at them but she felt nothing towards them. No shock. No horror. If anything, she felt…glad. A certain satisfaction settled in her heart. These soldiers had it coming.

  She bit her tongue. Her eyes flickered to Elsie. It unnerved her to feel this way. These were people who had lives. Families. Children of their own. Then she glanced back to the base of the stairs and the road they had just walked. So did the men, women and children there.

  She knocked on the temple doors.

  Nothing happened. Rose put an ear to the wood. She could hear muffled whispers and the shuffling of feet. She stepped back and knocked again.

  “Please tell the Twins that Elliott Carpenter sent me,” she announced.

  She stepped back, sharing a look with Parek as they waited. Then a male voice came from the other side.

  “How do we know you’re not with them?”

  “We’re not.”

  “But how do we know?”

  Rose hung her head. She was beginning to understand Elliott. Why he always made threats in a cheerful voice. It must get rather tiring trying to be amicable when he could just do what he wanted. It was then she realised how much restraint he showed being civil to people. How much in control he was.

  She glanced at Elsie.

  “Tell the gods I have Elsie Carpenter with me and if this door isn’t opened, we’ll smash it down.”

  She listened out, heard more muffled voices and more shuffling. She gave them some time as she turned and surveyed the town, and the bodies at her feet. A little part of her wondered how they had managed to get down here, but her thoughts were interrupted as the door behind her squeaked open. A pair of eyes blinked, then noticed the bodies on the floor and an audible gasp followed.

  The door was quickly opened the rest of the way and Rose entered with Parek following closely behind.

  They were in a dark hall, the only light coming from some candles placed around a circular stone altar at the far side, a three-stepped dais at its base. A handful of gaunt people in tattered linen huddled against the walls to either side, fear and suspicion in their eyes, some gripping the legs of broken chairs, though their trembling hands gave away the lie. Rose did her best not to react to the overwhelming stench of unwashed bodies and unemptied latrines, though her lips pressed together.

  She turned to the frail man who had opened the door. “Where are the Twins?”

  Suddenly, the candles flared at the far end, the reddish-orange flames changing to a faint blue that grew brighter, lighting the alcove above the altar. It was then that Rose noticed a similar glow on the altar itself and walked towards it. As they approached the dais and walked up the stairs, she saw the glow emanated from an amulet, rising upwards like mist and coalescing into a shape. At first, it was just a wisp of smoke before it took form and became a woman. Her form was a translucent blue, several feet tall, narrowing to a thin tether that connected her to the amulet.

  Her face took shape, faint golden lines marking her ears, her mouth and her nose in the translucent blue and her eyes blazed a brilliant white.

  “Elsie Carpenter. I haven’t seen you in a long time.” she smiled. Elsie stared at her with wide eyes, the pink stitching of her lips curving into a curious smile.

  “Oh, Blessed Mother. Where is His Divine One?” Parek asked, a fervour upon his face. The translucent woman turned to him, her smile not wavering.

  “I see you are familiar with the old ways, though you wear the colours of my enemies.”

  Parek kneeled on both knees, tears suddenly forming in his eyes. It took Rose aback.

  “I was never your enemy, my goddess. I merely wanted to live.”

  “Of course, my child. My brother?” She turned to Elsie, still perched on Rose’s shoulder. “My brother sacrificed his life to bring Elsie and Elliott here.” Then she turned to Rose. “Although, there were some unexpected guests.”

  “Why did you bring them here?” Rose asked.

  Clea’s brilliant white eyes dimmed slightly. “To keep this world from dying. And others like it. The Devil King lives. We thought we had him contained but we were wrong. Secretly, over decades, his followers have been killing the faithful of the other gods. Weakening us. Reducing us to our primal forms. By the time we realised, it was already too late. The nine gods scattered. Each trying to survive. But the Devil hunts us. He needs our power – to be reborn.

  “There is no-one on this world powerful enough to stop the Devil’s followers. Not even close. Maybe the other gods can hold out a little longer, but we are losing this battle. We needed a hero.”

  “A hero?” Rose blurted out. “And you thought that’s Elliott?”

  The temple shuddered, dust falling from the ceiling above. The wooden walls groaned under strain. One of the faithful cried out as a crack appeared in the floor.

  Clea’s smile flattened. “Sometimes to stop a monster, you need a monster. Now, we must go. I cannot maintain the dungeon much longer. I assume you have a way to get back.”

  The temple shuddered again, this time a log falling from the roof along with the dust, crashing to the ground as the others scrambled out of the way.

  “I have a portal but can I use it in here?”

  “You can,” Clea said, as her translucent form began to compress, the golden lines of her face, her eyes, her smile began to disappear as she dissolved back into the amulet.

  “Take me to Elliott,” she called out before she dissolved altogether. “I’ll explain the rest to him. I’ll tell him who he really is.”