Passing through the archway, they stood in front of a door. Heat emanated through the stones, especially in the floor. At first, the heat was welcoming, then it burned.

         The Tu’el lifted the bar from the door and swung it open. She was met with a blast of air so hot she staggered. The baby in her arms opened his mouth to cry, but his breath was stolen.

         Fire was the only sound, a roar of flames from a giant statue.

         The statue was unlike anything she’d ever seen. A man’s head, but its belly was a furnace. Fire leapt from it but how? She saw no stacks of wood, no bins of coal. Nor was there an odor of burnt flesh. She’d seen a man burned alive once and remembered the smell. There was none of that here.

         The fire tempted her. She felt as she had at the Hungry Rocks and wanted to bath in it like water. She took a step forward.

         The Tu’el seemed to know what she was thinking and barked out an order, but she couldn’t hear him above the roar. He threw out a hand in warning When that didn’t work, he shouted louder than the flames, the cords standing out on either side of his neck.

         “Give the child.”

         He pointed to the roaring belly.

         She threw the bundle. Into the heart of heat her baby went, and if he screamed or suffered, she didn’t know or care.

         The stones beneath began to move, and as they did, fire licked the gaps between them. She stumbled and screamed, then looked up in time to see the Tu’el picking himself up. His face was shining with unholy joy. The Curse-Blessed had accepted the gift of her son.

         Even so, she couldn’t rise from the floor. Had she come this far only to burn?

         In one fluid motion, the Tu’el reached out and flung her over his shoulder, running out of the room. She slid off his back as he turned to bar the door and ran, wildly, without thought, down this hall and the next, until she stood outside of Wolferton, taking in deep gasps of air. Her lungs ached. She dropped to her knees. She didn’t think there was air enough in the world for her to breathe.

         The Tu’el found her there, stripped her to the waist, and with one lash of a cat o nine, marked her back.

         “Never run from me again,” he said. “You’re mine now, Rizla.”

         At the sound of the name, she recognized him as the dark one that had covered her last.

         The child she’d thrown into the fire had been theirs.

         Was Rizla to be her only reward? An odd name she could barely pronounce?

         No, her rewards came later, as she was beginning to think she’d been tricked. She was alone when it happened. A hard shell had enclosed her, cutting her from her past hurts and fears, freeing her from any sense of right or wrong. And with this impenetrability came power. The power to shape change and walk the Indigo Paths in the night. Most of all, she’d been given the gift of flight.

         She was paired with Suga, a fat man who’d been a fat boy who’d given his stones to the Tu’el rather than his life. He, too, was a valuable servant, though he couldn’t fly and lacked her hard shell. He was unequalled in poisons, languages, and intrigue.

         They’d travelled together for years. Suga, laboriously by coach or boat, and as the years wore on, traveling was the only time they were apart. Together they’d unleashed countless horrors on the countryside, including a plague in Casoria.

         Re-born in the dark, she felt no remorse for the price she’d paid. In fact, as the rewards gathered like a hoard of gold, she’d fallen on her face in thanks. 

         As she traveled the Indigo Paths, Rizla reveled in her power. She loved battle. Now she would shake the foundations of the castle and bring rain. Rivers of water.

         She also knew where to find the Earth Skyll. He was in the Great Throne Room, sitting in the King’s chair, quite drunk.