“DAMN, YOUUUUUUU!!!” Cylia shouted from the top of her lungs as she slid down the slope into her next large crevice.

She dropped into the misty blanket of steam and felt how her skin and lungs began to sting and burn. It was painful, and Cylia held back her scream and curled up into a ball as she fell.

The Uridimmu puppy in her arms didn’t react to the mist, and before Cylia knew it, she slid down the slope again and flew over the ground. The pebbles and sand scraped her skin, and she hit a wall hard with her back.

A yelp and a strained groan escaped her lips. Cylia wheezed from the lack of clean air, and her vision darkened.

“No, can’t pass out. Stand up.” Cylia picked herself up with unsteady feet and held on tighter to the whimpering dog in her arms. She was not a fan of dogs, but she felt miserable that the puppy had to suffer alongside her. “Where am I?”

The white, steamy mist hung above Cylia’s head like a high ceiling. It was dark, with little to no light to guide her way.

Cylia coughed. She couldn’t breathe with the air burning her lungs—and from her cracked rib that had yet to heal. Cylia felt like she was walking inside a sauna set on the maximum setting, and someone decided to pour water over the hot stones.

Not like she ever had the luxury to enjoy one—she simply had to serve Macnaught once for an hour straight.

Her clothes clung uncomfortably to her skin. Staying focused was strenuous. “Need to get out, but where?”

Cylia touched the wall and pressed her ear against it, hoping to hear something. Anything.

The sudden sounds of rushing surprised her. It was low and hard to discern, but Cylia was sure she heard the unmistakable sound of running water.

“Water,” Cylia gulped and followed the wall until she found an opening and squeezed herself inside. “Water, water, water, FRESH WATER!”

Squeezing herself through, Cylia didn’t notice the drop before it was too late. Call it luck, but she didn’t break a leg and landed on her back to shield the dog in her arms.

“Owwww…” Cylia groaned and flopped her head back, but there was little time to rest when she heard the rushing again.

Shooting up to her feet, Cylia found herself inside a hidden underground cavern with clear blue water. Cylia prayed to whatever gods Kiur believed in—appreciating the desert for having so many underground caverns with water.

Anyway, that was not important right now.

“Ahhhhh,” Cylia let out a blissful gasp when the crystal-cold and fresh water travelled down her parched throat. So many forms of different praises raced through her head that it would have taken at least another page to go through them.

The point was—she was so relieved to get something to drink that Cylia was close to becoming a devotee of the God of Underground Freshwater. But her reverie quickly ended with the whining of her new companion. It weakly struggled in the cloth Cylia bound it in.

“You must be thirsty too, aren’t you?” Carefully, Cylia unwrapped the puppy, waited a moment, and then placed it on her lap. She cupped some water into her hands and tried to make it drink some.

Most of it spilt on her legs, but Cylia hoped it drank at least a little. The puppy's fur was damp, much like Cylia’s hair from the humidity. The puppy gasped for air and otherwise didn’t move much.

“What am I supposed to do with you?” wondered Cylia, clearly not prepared to deal with it. “Deliver you to someone? Very cryptic, don’t you think?”

A rumble shook the cavern, and a rock crashed next to Cylia. “JUST MY LUCK!” she yelled, snatched the puppy into her hands and ran to the exit she came from—though, just with her usual luck, the entrance was sealed off with debris.

“Great, now I am stuck.” Cylia looked left and right to spot any other exit, holding the puppy tighter to her body. “This can’t be it!”

“Where to go? I’m trapped. This can’t be it… this can’t be.” Cylia covered her head from more falling debris. “Please, Kiur, even Xander, anyone, help. Mother!”

“It’s said that the desert was once alive.” Cylia blinked the tears away and imagined hearing Kiur's words he once shared during their travel. “An ancient and mighty river delta once snaked through the entirety of the desert.”

“Pah, hogwash,” scoffed Xander. “Not much left anymore, huh? That one river we used was an exception, nothing left to support the idea of life in this godforsaken place.”

“Maybe not,” said Kiur, “but these old desert roads we now use were all rivers once. There’s a firm belief that, in order to survive, the rivers escaped underground and now serve as a network of roads by the Kulullu and Kuliana, the merfolk.”

“THAT’S IT!” Cylia exclaimed and stared at the water flowing undeterred through a small hole in the wall. The pond wasn’t large, but it was still far from overflowing. “There must be a hole. It’s my only chance.”

Stuffing the little dog inside her clothes, Cylia held it tightly against her chest. “Sorry, pupper, please bear with it.”

Cylia jumped into the pool before the cave collapsed.

— ☾ —

Underneath the water, Cylia opened her grey eyes. The illuminating sight of luminescent stone lined up the walls of the pond, giving the crystalline water another glowing sheen of aquamarine.

Rocks sank into the pond like heavy raindrops, creating a makeshift ceiling that closed on Cylia. She swam downwards to find a gap between the glowing crystals, but her oxygen supply was dwindling. She pried on every loose end to find a gap.

“Left? No, too many rocks coming down. Right? Back? Front? WHERE TO!”

Cylia clapped a hand over her mouth. Bubbles of precious air escaped her lips. Her eyes rolled back, her face turning purple.

Why had she not awakened her magic yet? So many dangerous situations could have been avoided with a flick of magic. Controlling the water like Xander to cool off her body or drain this pond.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Or controlling fire and earth like Kiur, even if it was too unstable. She could ignore the oppressing heat or shivering nights of the desert—or simply crack open a hole to slip through.

It looked so beautiful when they did that. She was envious.

“Why was I born so utterly useless?” Cylia was on the verge of losing consciousness. “Xander was right. Why did he have to be? No one would be proud of me,” thought Cylia one last time as her body sank further down. There was nothing to be proud of about a girl coming from slavery.

No matter what others told her, she was good for nothing. The medallion she had received from Na’amah was nothing but a solatium. The lynx in the image was more than she could have ever dreamed of being.

When her body touched the hard stone floor below, her medallion clanked against one of the crystals. A gold stream of light entered Cylia’s half-closed eyes, and her focus immediately returned when she saw a path of golden light leading her out to a crack wide enough to slip through.

Cylia syphoned one last drop of strength into her legs and pushed herself forward. The last bits of air left her, but it was enough for her to be sucked into the hole, which later ejected her into a shallow river.

Cylia coughed up water.

“I’m alive? I’M ALIVE!” Cylia lay lying down and gasped as much air as she could before coughing it out again. The pressure in her ears was full of water, and she felt too disorientated to stand, but she was alive. “This is the last time I will praise water that much.”

Dragging herself to the shoreline, Cylia tried to stand up but fell back to her knees and hands, scrapping them against the stone. “The dog!”

Panicking, Cylia brought the puppy out of her shirt and unwrapped it before her. It lay limp before her.

“H-hey, c-come on, breath.” Cylia nudged the little dog. It wasn’t moving. Water dripped from its mouth. It swallowed up too much water. “Figures…" her shoulders slumped. "Can’t even protect a little dog.”

With her hands still caked in ash and dirt, Cylia stroked the puppy’s fur one last time. A whimper escaped her lips, and then tears streamed from her eyes. “Good for nothing… I'm good for nothing.”

“Raaaaaaa!”

A roar brought Cylia out of her daze. Two monsters broke through the stone walls, fighting a bloody battle to the death.

The Asag blustered a hot stream of breath at the Scorpion Man. Umbin screeched as he wielded his ebony sickle sword with his remaining arm. He jumped away from the wall, dodging the Asag, who drilled its massive claws across the hard stone, spraying hard rocks at those below him.

Cylia shielded her head. The rocks rained down all over the river, pebbling the water into a massive shower of rocky hail.

“Stop it!” she shouted, but her words landed on deaf ears. Umbin skittered across the Asag’s arm and slashed at its face, drawing golden blood.

Unfettered, the Asag drilled his claw further along the side of the wall, unleashing another blast of steam from its mouth, reaching all the way up to the surface and blowing a huge chunk off the wall.

Umbin couldn’t dodge the falling debris and struggled to unearth himself before the Asag snatched him. Bringing the Scorpion Man closer to its face, the Asag and he yelled at each other.

“SHUT UP!!!”

Cylia’s shout stopped the two monsters before they gouged each other’s eyes out. Slowly, they turned their heads towards the seething girl.

“Could you two stop fighting for GODS DAMNED FIVE MINUTES!?” Cylia’s shouting shook through them. The Asag instinctively let go of Umbin. “Is it SO HARD to just get along? This desert is already getting on my nerves, so much so that I want to scream! I’VE had ENOUGH!”

Umbin raised a finger. “Raaaaa?-”

“I SAID TO SHUT UP!!!” her yell stunned them again. Umbin choked on his words, and the Asag sat down on his clunky rear as they were being chewed out. “Why are you fighting anyway? This place is already dangerous as it is without you two making things. Even. Worse!”

The Asag cocked his head, confused about her words.

Umbin struggled to speak. “Raaa, en- en…” He looked defeated at Cylia, who folded her arms and furrowed her brow at him. She waited for an answer. “En-emy, o-old, ol-der th-aan grand–grand–grand mo-th-er. Ba-ne to us- a-and s-un.”

Umbin sprawled out on the ground and huffed, his tongue outstretched. The Asag shuffled closer and looked up at the sky.

“For…got, no… memory… war… lon-g a-go… as spa-wn of… Tia-mat… Sham-ash, Sun, no… good.”

“Raaaaaa!” Umbin screeched and slashed with his sickle sword at the Asag’s exposed belly.

“I SAID STOP!”

Umbin stopped inches before stabbing the Asag. It didn’t care enough to look at him.

“Why? Why fight?” Cylia struggled to contain herself, not understanding what was brewing inside her. “What does it take for you to stop?”

“Death/D-ea-th,” both responded with so much venom in their word it could scorch the very river next to them.

Cylia threw up her hands. “Whatever! I don’t care, not about you, Xander, or anyone else who is so keen on destroying everything, like the Reiszer! Do what you want, but don’t drag me, this dog, OR ANYONE ELSE INTO YOUR PROBLEMS! …kill yourselves somewhere else.”

Bending down to the puppy, Cylia hesitated. Her hands shook. She couldn’t leave the pup behind in this desolate place. More tears escaped her eyes. She whipped them away, but more streamed down anyway.

“What am I even doing? Why do I still push on? This is so hard, so unfair. I don’t want to anymore.”

Swallowing down a sob, Cylia wrapped the small dog in its cloth and held it in her arms. It didn’t deserve to depart from this depressing place. She would get out and find it a place it can rest.

Survival was her top priority. Always was, always would be.

“Remember, Cylia,” her mother pointed to the heaps of punished thralls, “it’s alright to rat out your fellow slaves if it means to survive. We were unlucky enough to become like them.”

Her mother's words were full of bitterness and restrained anger. She tightened her grip on Cylia’s hand.

“Throw away friends, backstab allies, even kill me, your own mother, if it means you survive.” Cylia’s hand tightened against her mother's. She could never do that, but her mother was serious. “If it means to survive and live another day, do whatever it takes. Carry on with all the grief we suffer.”

“I can’t.” Cylia sobbed and stumbled over her feet. The cold puppy left her hands. Its motionless body sprawled out before her. “I don’t want to backstab anyone just to survive. Not anymore, Mother. Why does life need to be so harsh and unfair?”

Burying her face in the sand, Cylia cried. A shadow passed over her body. A cloud, she thought, but knew better and didn’t even want to meet the Asag’s eyes.

“C-child of Empti-ness, cho-sen by t-he la-dy of sl-ain. What do you seek?”

“Seek? Leave me alone. I don’t wanna talk…” Cylia sulked and watched how Umbin skittered past her, scooping up the lifeless body of the puppy. “H-hey! What do you think you-”

“D-de-add, l-l-life, wast-ed.” Umbin regarded the puppy further, turning it left and right.

“Child,” the Asag’s deep voice reverberated through Cylia’s strained bones. So much so that she turned her head towards it. “Wh-at do-oo y-ou wish to do?”

Wish? What did she wish for? Did someone ever ask her that?

“T-to live,” Cylia replied hesitantly and then with more vigour. “I want to live, for heaven's sake! Not simply survive. I want to return to my friends. Be strong and live a life I can be proud of!”

“Granted,” replied the Asag, unhinging its split jaw. Golden blood left its cut mouth and dropped on top of Cylia’s forehead, her stormy eyes glowing slightly. “Your desire shall be granted, child of emptiness. Your tears of red gold are paid for.”

A hot breath left the Asag’s maul and washed over Cylia. It straightened her rags, untangled her hair and mended her bruises.

A cry echoed and Cylia turned towards the Scorpion Man, holding the puppy by his neck as it was bustling and squirming with newfound life.

“Li-ve y-ou say? S-tre-ngth?” Umbin asked. “Survive y-ou sh-a-ll. E-nd of River, y-ou sh-a-ll go. Sur-vi-ve t-he b-l-a-z-e. W-we w-ill deliver you.”