They did, however, have to wait long enough for everyone else to show up that Griffin tried to get everyone to play hacky sack with him. Unsuccessfully.

Kiara barely had time to get a full head of steam going in berating Griffin for unprofessionalism before the wooden doors from the staircase opened and Mallory and Tia arrived in the antechamber. Less than a minute later, Barrett and Alice, also without their guards, came in through the heavy doors.

I guess I’m the only one who needs guards with them at all times, Aaron observed. Feels kinda nice and also kinda terrifying.

“All are now gathered,” Mallory pronounced. “It is time.”

Mallory and Barrett approached the pair of stone doors carved with vaguely heraldic dragons. Although the doors had stayed resolutely closed when everyone arrived, they swung open of their own accord when the two older men were within arm’s reach.

Behind them was another room, smaller and with walls made of similarly cut stone. Three plain, unadorned doors were set into each of the walls, making nine in total. They were larger than a standard door, evenly spaced around the room, and made of metal that could have been dull gold or brass.

Mallory walked into the room, followed by Alice and Tia, and Barrett gestured to indicate Aaron should step inside. When he did, Barrett came in last and the stone doors swung silently shut, sealing the room and leaving Aaron’s security detail outside.

I guess they don’t get to sit with the cool kids for the mystery ritual stuff, he thought.

Mallory made a small gesture around the room. “This is one of our more secure storage facilities. We house various rare and powerful artifacts here.”

Aaron looked around at the nine metal doors. “And I have to escape from this room somehow?”

Barrett chuckled. “No, son, this is a vault, but not the one you’ll have to escape. It’s just stored here.”

“Times Square seems like a pretty shitty location for a super secret storage vault,” Aaron said.

“To get in here, someone would have to go extremely loud. We have several very effective passive deterrents to that kind of assault,” Barrett said, then began counting them off on his fingers. “Even on the quietest winter’s night, at any given moment, dozens of people will have their eyes on or near this building. Most of those folks will be taking pictures and videos, or be ready to at a moment’s notice. Then there’s all the webcams showing a live feed of the square and our building, all day every day. On top of that, there’s a highly-visible, always-active police substation practically attached to the building.”

“So you built a bunker you’d need a bomb to get into, then put the bunker somewhere nobody could miss a bomb going off,” Aaron said.

Barrett tapped his nose with a finger. “It was riskier years back when Times Square was the focal point for skeevy and weird in the entire damn universe, but not so much now that it’s become Walt Disney Presents Times Square (in Glorious Technicolor).”

Mallory cleared his throat and gave Barrett a severe look. “Gentlemen, our task awaits.”

The two old men approached the middle door on the far wall and this one did not open for them on its own. They each placed a hand flat against the metal and a seam appeared, splitting the metal plate vertically. The door pressed forward, extending out of the wall, then split, the two halves sliding open to either side.

Inside was a simple chamber, completely featureless and unadorned save for one thing — a rectangular, stone monolith lay on its side in the otherwise empty space. Without any apparent mechanism, the stone slid out of its housing and came to rest in the midst of the central chamber.

Up close, Aaron was able to get a better look at the monolith — it was a solid slab of pale gray stone, flecked and veined erratically by some glossy, off-white material. The slab was about the width of a full-size bed, but longer, and it came up to Aaron’s waist. A sheen ran over the stone with no apparent light source to cause it, and when Aaron looked closer he saw torrents of pale red light racing along the white veins in the stone. It was like the light was somehow behind the mineral deposits.

“This is the Vault of Revelation,” Mallory said. “Within its confines, you shall face adversity of an unknown nature, which you must overcome through self-possession in order to emerge.”

“I get it, I get it; master my fear or my fear will become my master,” Aaron said, earning a laugh from Tia.

Maybe she does know the movie, he thought.

Barrett put a hand on his shoulder. “You ready?”

Aaron shrugged. There was no way to be ready for something like this, you either had to do it or walk away.

Mallory beckoned Tia to join him and she took up a position along the opposite side of the massive block. They both closed their eyes and raised their arms above their heads, forming a V. He began to chant quietly in a language Aaron couldn’t identify. The incantations lasted several minutes, Mallory intoning monotonously until the pitch began to rise ever so slightly.

Finally, the elderly man concluded whatever ritual he’d been performing and a thin, glowing red line appeared on the monolith. It ran along every edge of the Vault, about two-thirds of the way up the stone. When the light faded a couple seconds later, a seam had appeared in the smooth stone.

This new upper section slid open, smooth and silent, revealing an empty space inside the stone. The walls of the box were six inches thick, the interior matching the outside. The lid continued to glide open until its edge was hanging almost entirely in the air, suspended by contact along just one of the longer walls.

“It’s the world’s most boring sarcophagus,” Aaron said.

“It is the Vault of Revelation, I assure you,” Mallory replied. “All you must do is lay down within. The Vault will seal itself, then you must escape.”

Aaron exhaled through his nostrils, reminding himself that he had managed the first Tribulation relatively easily. All he had needed to do then was overcome some perfectly rational mortal fears and discover that his physiology was now inhuman in a way that didn’t exactly match the legends he knew about dragons.

Unless you count sea serpents and eastern dragons, I guess, he thought.

So really, this Tribulation should be a piece of cake. He just had to keep telling himself that, even if he didn’t quite believe. Besides, there was really nothing for it except to get in the box.

“I guess it’s a good thing I’m not claustrophobic,” he said, stepping into the sarcophagus.

“If you were, it would simply be another obstacle you must overcome,” Mallory said.

Aaron rolled his eyes and lay back in the chamber. As soon as he did, the lid closed above him.

Just before it sealed him in completely, he heard Tia call out, “See you in a few minutes!”

Then he was alone, on a hard slab of stone in complete darkness.

For some time, nothing happened. How long, exactly, Aaron couldn’t be sure, but he was pretty sure he’d been laying in the dark for several minutes before he started to get antsy.

“This is pretty fucking boring!” he called out. “I was expecting a little more Vader and a lot less Godot!”

More time passed. Probably not a great deal of it, but enough for Aaron to start feeling like this whole thing was a bit silly.

“Can anyone even hear me?” he shouted.

Is this all there is to this? Just sitting here while a timer counts down? he wondered.

Was this Tribulation, like the lake, a do-nothing enterprise where all he had to do was exist? It surely had to be something more complicated than that, yet the longer he sat in that cold, dark, uncomfortable stone box, the more he was forced to question the nature of the Tribulations and what that would imply for the Drakon.

Perhaps their nature was such that they would kill anyone who lacked the proper essence, or soul, or whatever. He’d definitely been told that in no unclear terms a few times. That meant the Tribulations weren’t without risks, but were they without merit? If being the right person was something he inherited — however that worked — and not about the quality of his character, then they weren’t really challenges at all, were they?

If it were true and each of the Tribulations was little more than a bit of skullduggery that worked only for the proper successor and killed anyone else, that suggested the whole Tribulation thing was a scam. They would not only serve to convince the drakus that a new leader had overcome grueling obstacles and deeply personal challenges to “prove” they were the right person to take command, but that they were the best person for the job. That would be a pretty awful indictment of the leadership of this entire secret society going back centuries or millennia. It smacked of snowing the plebeians with some “right to rule” bullshit and a lack of accountability.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Have I learned anything to suggest the Tribulations are easy mode? Aaron wondered. Anything concrete I can piece together through all the shrouded-in-mystery stuff?

As he sat in the darkness, waiting, Aaron thought there had been things to suggest there were risks involved, even for someone who had actually inherited the essence of the Primus Draconis.

According to Barrett and Mallory, only one person had ever failed the Tribulation he was currently attempting, escaping the vault. But that had been a relatively recent candidate, or at least one of the ones since Oliver Milton, that last Primus, had disappeared. Given that finding candidates for the position involved weird dream mojo, it was unlikely that person had just been some random person.

There’s a good chance they just felt a little too shaky about the whole thing, which I can empathize with, Aaron thought.

Aaron had come to terms with the idea that he was the latest scion in a long line of super dragon whatevers easily enough — perhaps too easily, which might say something about his ego — but he could still understand how hard accepting it would be. All the more in the modern age, when folklore and superstition were dwindling more and more.

Raz’ale, the actual, literal dragon who lived under Yellowstone had said he’d stopped people from succeeding in the Tribulation, only doing so when he found them particularly odious. They couldn’t have even found or entered Wyrmhold Cavern without the essence of the Primus, so they had at least been a valid potential successor. Aaron had also been told that the lake was the only Tribulation anyone had ever failed before and, if he was remembering correctly, Raz’ale had suggested he’d done it more than once.

If Aaron was being fair with himself, the challenge in the lake had required a good deal of bravery to get to the easy part. There had been no way for him to know he wouldn’t drown in the water and he was about as far from an experienced diver with strong lungs as you could be. Yet he’d plunged into the lightless depths anyway, intent on discovering more of this strange path he’d found himself on even if it meant a gruesome death in an icy lake where his body might never have been found.

So it’s not really a dog and pony show to hoodwink the rubes into subservience to some kind of divine dragon mandate, Aaron concluded. That’s reassuring, at least. But what the hell am I supposed to be doing in this fucking box?

Whatever challenge the Vault of Revelation was meant to pose, Aaron wondered if they couldn’t have stuck some cushions in the thing. It was not a particularly comfortable tomb to chill and relax in.

Maybe I’ll do that when this is over for the next time I’m in here, he thought. Spruce the ancient stone coffin up a bit, make it a bit more homey.

Uncomfortable as the vault might be, the only way Aaron would have that chance was to get through the Tribulation. Since the stupid box didn’t seem keen on getting the show started, he decided he would try to figure something out on his own.

Aaron could move his arms away from his body a little, but not enough to raise them up to his shoulders even if he bent his elbows. There was less than two feet clearance above him, so he couldn’t lift his arms straight in front of him, either. There was maybe a foot or more combined past his head and feet. He could do a partial sit-up, lifting his torso to about a forty five degree angle, but no more. He might be able to roll over and get onto his hands and knees if he kept his arms bent, but what would be the point of that?

He felt around the walls and along the corners as thoroughly as he could — the surface was as smooth as it had appeared from the outside. He was in a position that gave him decent leverage to try to get the lid off. That seemed too obvious, but there was no harm in trying so he pressed the palms of his hands against it and pushed. It didn’t budge. He tried moving it sideways instead of lifting it off the Vault, but there was no give in that direction, either. He took a deep breath and tried to move the stone again, this time recalling what he’d learned about using his unnatural strength and relying on his intent to provide the power instead of muscles, tendons, and ligaments. No luck there.

This thing sure is taking its sweet time, Aaron griped.

As if responding to his internal criticism, several small holes opened in the lining of the box. There was a pair at each corner, facing each other, at both the top and bottom of the Vault, making a total of sixteen holes. By the faint light filtering in through them, Aaron could see that they were each about an inch across. He stuck a finger into one of the holes above his head and found the bore as smooth and featureless as the walls.

“Anyone out there seeing this?” he called.

The light coming through the holes started to flicker and shift, like something was obstructing the passage or fluttering over it. Aaron tried contorting himself to get a better view, but he couldn’t see much — something was coming down the holes, but it was too dark to make out any details.

At first, he thought it might have been a liquid from the way it seemed to flow, but it was highly viscous if so as it was moving quite slowly. Plus, he could see angular edges at the top of the silhouette of whatever it was.

When the mass finally reached the end of the short tube Aaron was looking at, he was briefly able to make out enough details in the silhouette to get an idea what, exactly, was pouring into the sarcophagus — bugs.

The vermin poured into the empty chamber, falling onto Aaron and the floor of the vault. There was the faint click of chitin, repeated many times over, as they slapped against the smooth stone. Aaron instinctively tried to recoil away from them, but there was nowhere to go; they were coming from every direction and he had no room. His back and head banged into the stone walls and his limbs scrabbled against the rock, crushing many of the foul creatures as he thrashed. It had little effect; they were streaming in in droves. He could feel them writhing — around him, under him, on him. The wretched things were everywhere.

Aaron was aware, in a detached sort of way, that he was starting to panic; a distant, not-entirely-irrational part of his brain knew the panic made him better able to respond to threats. The rest of his brain was screaming at him that he had to get away. Except there was nowhere to go; the bugs had already filled the Vault as high as he would if he were lying flat.

His thoughts could barely form around the electric edges of fear and disgust. His first instinct was to keep the things away from his face, but there were limited options to keep the crawling, clinging, grasping things away. There were just so many of them and so little room to move.

Using his feet, Aaron pushed himself back until his head was pressed against the high edge of the box behind him, sitting up as high as he could. It did little good; the bugs were pouring in near his shoulders from the highest corners and kept filling the space. The writhing mass had already risen as high as his chest, even partly sitting up. Many crawled up his body and the walls.

He wanted to scream, even if it would do him no good; worse, it would open his mouth to the roiling filth. There was a burning sensation in his abdomen and chest; he knew it was a sign his body wanted to vomit, another way his mouth could be forced open and allow the vermin access. That would be unacceptable and he bit down on the urge, refusing it.

I might die in this box, his mind shrieked, the thought barely coherent through the delirium of horror.

Some of the more enterprising specimens among the unnatural, alien swarm were already crawling on his head and face. No matter how often he brushed them away or shook his head to dislodge them, more replaced them. He could feel their legs as they explored his flesh, reaching into his ears and nostrils, traipsing across his eyelids and lips.

The sound in the confined chamber was nearly as maddening as the sensation of being mostly submerged in insects — a rasping, whispery hiss caused by thousands of tiny, chitinous bodies scraping against each other in a small space.

Deep in his mind — buried far beneath the horror, revulsion, and outrage — Aaron was thinking. This nightmare had to be the test, which meant he had to face and overcome it by mastering himself. He wasn’t sure what he had to do to accomplish that, exactly. Was it an issue of remaining calm in the face of two primal, visceral fears — bugs and suffocation?

Given enough time, the mass of bugs might act as an extreme form of exposure therapy and Aaron would resolve his phobias. The major problem with that idea was that he already had a decent grip on his fears. He didn’t freak out at being exposed to the vile things and could even pick up their corpses with just a bit of toilet paper. The problem here was one of scale — there were so many of the nasty little fuckers — and proximity.

Waiting for some kind of breakthrough, enduring this nightmare until his brain rewired itself, was not at all appealing. An even smaller voice, more rational — and thus less welcome at that moment — reminded him that how you reacted to emotions was something you had control over, not the feelings themselves.

Maybe I can guide them, he mused.

Aaron seized on that idea. He swatted as many bugs off his face as he could to help him focus and took a deep breath — in through the nose, then back out — forcing his body to be still for a moment. The swarm seethed around him, but they were inconsequential; what mattered were the feelings they evoked.

Those feelings imbrued his entire being with vulnerability, with weakness and shame. He wanted to harness those liabilities and redirect them, turning his volatile emotions into a spear pointed at the very things causing them.

Ha visualized his emotions as a mass of chaotic wires, in a variety of colors, twining throughout his body. He brought his hands up in front of him, palms facing each other, and pictured a tiny point of gravity between them. This pulsing core pulled the teeming emotional currents into itself, condensing them into a tiny space. Closer and closer, drawn inexorably together, growing more dense with each passing second. He ignored the swarm crawling over him and the burning urge in his guts to vomit — for the moment at least — and concentrated only on that collapsing mass.

It was compressed too tightly. The bundle wanted to expand and release the energy generated by being forced in on itself, but Aaron refused. The well of gravity he pictured compacted the frailty of emotions into something molten and volatile, unstable and chaotic. He squeezed them in even harder, applying pressure until an entire sea of emotion could fit in the palm of his hand. He closed his fingers around that pulsing center, grasping it, and knew he held something there — something that was tangible and real. It felt hot, but solid. He couldn’t say what it was, but it felt powerful. Powerful… and dangerous.

He pressed himself back into the wall as hard as he could and pulled his left arm tight against his stomach. The heap of crawling horror crunched and crackled as he moved, some of their bodies breaking, but he ignored that, too.

With his right arm — the one that held the whatever-it-was — he swung in a tight circle around himself. He tried to move at the elbow, swinging just his forearm, and was careful to keep whatever he was holding angled away from himself. Nothing happened, so he swung again. Then again, and again, each swing driven by growing desperation as his control began to fray and splinter.

On the fourth swing, Aaron accidentally rammed a fist into a wall of stone. The entire chamber fell open around him. Light blossomed from every direction, temporarily blinding him, but he managed to roll over and clamber to his feet.

He hadn’t stood fully before he was half-crawling away from the box and the heaving swarm of bugs and insects. Before he’d gone more than a few steps, he spun back towards the Vault, ready to lash out with whatever he was holding, but was brought up short by what lay before him.

The Vault of Revelation was strewn across the floor, split into several large pieces. The stone had been carved apart in great, sweeping curves. There were no bugs, living or dead, just the other four drakus who had been there when he went in, all of them staring at him in various states of surprise.

“What the hell is that?” Barrett asked, pointing at Aaron.

“I don’t know, but I hate it,” Tia replied.