“He is born,” Sarathen said.

“Are you sure?” Braiden asked.

“Somewhere in North America.”

“That’s inconvenient,” he said.

“The dream was clear.”

“The Shen Council has been clear as well,” he said. “If they capture him, they will use him to reach the Isle of Song and seal the Nost Accords.”

“But they don’t know I have his journal and totem.”

“And if they seal the Accords, we are finished and so are the new humans.”

“Quit stating the obvious,” she said.

 “And I wouldn’t be so sure about what the Shen Council does or does not know,” Braiden said, offering her a pointed look.

Sarathen glanced at him sideways with her fiery red eyes. “Let’s pack up camp, we have a long way to go.”

“But we’re deep in the forests of Poland and the U.S. is—”

“I know where the U.S. is,” she said.

“We have to finish the hunt,” he said.

“But he is born.” Her hand trembled as she unzipped her coat.

“If you’re just having the dream, he is newly reborn. We have time. No one else can sense him like you.”

She studied Braiden’s almond-shaped eyes, their golden hue reflecting the morning sun. He stared back with a level gaze.

“You’re right,” she said with a sigh. She turned to the ruined castle in the distance. “But why would a Nostshu be living in this wreck?”

“Maybe he’s mad and returned to a place he once knew. This was a major castle, and it’s been many things since,” he said.

“Like a Nazi stronghold.” Sarathen shivered.

“And a Soviet outpost,” Braiden said.

“It could be a she,” she said.

“What?”

“The Shu we’re hunting, it could be a she.”

“Of course,” he said, nodding.

She shivered again and pulled the smell of pine trees into her lungs to steady herself. “If the stories are true—”

“Then we have to stop him… or her. We hunt them one at a time until there are none.”

Sarathen nodded. “One at a time,” she said, shifting her gaze to the crumbling parapets. “I don’t think we’ve been here before.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” He raised a hand, shielding his eyes from the morning sun. “But our first life was long, and the days are a blur. We may have been here with the General if the site is as old as the locals claim it to be.”

Sarathen pursed her lips and pulled her soft down coat off, stuffing it into her backpack. Standing in just a dark t-shirt and cargo pants, the cold air made goosebumps stand up on her pale skin. Normally, when they weren’t hiking through thick forests, she would be in a loose blouse and leather pants. “Do you ever think about your early days?”

“In the first age?”

“No, I mean in this life. You were born close to here.”

Braiden coughed and rubbed his hands together. “It’s a long way to Mongolia from here. But you were born just around the corner, on the steppes outside Poland. You still have the porcelain skin of the Russian nomads. That was a long time ago, though, and it doesn’t matter now, all we have is this moment.”

“We were not Russian,” she said, turning to him. She shook her head. “After all these centuries, and all we know, why do you still cling to your Buddhist ways?”

“Because the Buddhists almost have it right,” he said. “Think about it. They believe in samsara, the cycle of rebirth, and karma. They think they can escape the cycle of rebirth and get to Nirvana through good karma and mindfulness, by seeing the world as it is. Well, we all upload to Haven and download back to the physical, don’t we? The Nost can choose, so we’re the enlightened ones.” Sarathen snorted, holding back a chuckle, but Braiden ignored her. “The humans don’t have a choice; ONUS makes them download again until they reach a Nost-like state. That is samsara.”

“We don’t know it works like that,” she said, turning back to her evaluation of the castle. “You don’t know the new humans can overcome their limitations and reach a Nost state, it’s just a theory.”

“It’s closer than any other religion comes to the truth,” he said. “We travel through the In-between and upload into Haven. We even get our memories back when we do. And we shape Haven around our memories and state of mind, don’t we?”

“You can’t prove that since we don’t bring our memories back into the physical.”

“But it makes sense if you think about it. Only the idea of karma and samsara comes close to the truth.  To the new humans, we are the Buddhas.”

Sarathen laughed. “You think Buddha was a Nostshen?”

“Probably.”

“And you think humans can become Nostshen?”

“Why not? All bodies have Shen DNA. Don’t we activate it and connect to ONUS when we’re reborn, when we download into the physical it’s—”

“When we bond and awaken,” Sarathen said. “Not when we download.”

“My point exactly, when we bond with another Nostshen and awaken to the truth, we gain our abilities, our true selves,” he said. “Can you imagine what it was like for me when you and I first bonded in this life? When I awoke to my Nostshen nature it was like…”

“Enlightenment?” she said.

“Yes, exactly. I was born into this life a Buddhist, so for me, the truth has become clear.”

“Except, we’re not pacifists, we’re not enlightened, and Nirvana can’t be Haven. Haven isn’t a mystical place, it’s—”

“Nirvana is a state of being to them,” he said.

“But it’s Haven, a real place, kind of. It’s not in your head, anyway, it’s somewhere out there, in virtual space hosted by ONUS. And why would ONUS let them break the rebirth cycle?” She pulled out a long black cloak and swung it around her shoulders as she spoke. They were far enough from civilization that their battle cloaks would not draw unwanted eyes.

“Why not?” Braiden said. “ONUS doesn’t keep us on that cycle. It just strips most of our memories when we download back into the physical. I’ve seen humans who can sense the ONUS source code all around them.”

“But have you seen one channel?”

“Not exactly, but that means nothing. There are many things I have not seen. This does not mean I do not believe they happen.” Braiden shrugged into his own battle cloak and pulled out his totem, a small carving of a tree. It formed a half-inch thick quarterstaff when he pressed his will into it. Other totems formed other weapons, such as swords or battle-axes, but Braiden preferred a staff to sharp blades. He didn’t know why, but plunging a blade into flesh, even if it was Nostshu flesh, made him queasy. It had not always been this way; he knew. When he bonded with Sarathen all those years ago, memories of his previous life exploded in his mind like flashes of light. Glimpses of a thousand battles. Blades and energy weapons in the first age. Years of struggling in the aftermath.

“So, the new humans are evolving?”

“Not all of them, obviously,” he said.

“What about the Shen madness? Do they need to bond in the physical to survive? Do the women hear thought and the men sense emotion, like us, or are they more like Shu monsters, or how we used to be before the Burn? Are they whole with a sense of all thought and emotion, all of ONUS open before them, I just—”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re different from both of us.”

“You really believe that?” she asked.

“Isn’t that what we’ve been fighting for all this time? To give them a chance—”

“To live, not become like us. If the new humans become us organically without being cooked up in a replication bay, what’s the point? It’s the same destination by a different path. What will keep them from burning the world as we did?”

“Maybe they’ll be something more,” he said.

“Like what?”

He glanced at her but did not reply. She shook her head and kneeled, digging in her pack. “I think about my birth mother sometimes,” she said. “I broke her heart. The Shen madness was setting in and—”

“But I found you and your family survived.”

“She cursed me as a demon.” Sarathen stared down at her pack. “You know, I went back to my clan years later, while you were off meditating or whatever you do when you disappear. The Russian colonists had taken her and my sister. They used them for labor, I’m sure, and other things. I searched but never found them.” 

“I know you went. And I know there was nothing you could do,” he said.

“We fight for them so they can enslave each other, kill each other, and destroy the earth.”

“We fight for them because we serve the light. Think about how many times we’ve found the General. Think about him and the first age, the Army of Light and the Origin War. It wasn’t for nothing. We keep going.”

“I know, Braiden. But why can’t we break the General’s cycle of rebirth?”

“We’ve never found a bond for him. It’s like ONUS wants the Shen madness to take him every time. But if I wasn’t here, if I uploaded, you would be free to bond with him, you could—”

“You mean die,” she said. “If you die. We don’t even know if I can bond with him. And if I can’t, then what? I’m alone in the physical and won’t be able to find you when you’re reborn.” She glared at the broken castle through the fog of her breath.

“I know you can bond with him,” he said. “I’ve always known. And besides, if you couldn’t, you could always upload and find me in Haven. I would wait and we would start over.”

She shuddered, and the years tumbled out behind her like a river of struggle. “We’ll find a Shen to bond with him this time, or we’ll find our way to the Isle of Song before we need one.”

“Maybe,” he said, looking at her sideways. The light caught her eyes for an instant and they gleamed a brilliant red as if she were channeling. He knew when not to push. “Let’s get this hunt over with.” He turned his attention back to the castle. According to the locals, its history was full of tragedy. And while the remote location kept tourists away, the tales of radiological contamination, witchcraft, and murder kept the locals at bay. He knew from his research that the faint trail they followed had once been a king’s highway. Now though, the occasional stone or brick poking out of the dirt was the only sign that there had been anything more. “We’re lucky those students posted that video,” he said.

“Social media makes hunting easier sometimes,” Sarathen said, shaking out her long black hair until it morphed into a rich blue color, retracting into a tight bob around her head. It was a habit she carried from the first age, an expression of ancient Nostshen kind from before the Burn. A time filled with bright-eyed Nostshen, most designed with vibrant hair. It was an easy way to distinguish them from new humans dating back to long before she ever stepped out of the replication bay. “But it’s hard to figure out what’s real or fake online.” She pulled her own totem out of a cargo pocket and slowly traced her thumb over the small figurine of the old woman. With a push of will, it would form into a blue-tinted blade with a slight curve.

“The Internet is destroying the humans,” Braiden said.

“They are destroying themselves with it,” Sarathen said.

“While they destroy the planet,” he said.

She nodded. “The light will it so, it is theirs to destroy.”

“Let’s go,” he said.

They shouldered their packs and strode down the trail, keeping a wary eye out for Nostshu traps.  

“It’s not much further,” Braiden said.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Sarathen lifted her chin and tilted her head as if listening to the wind. “I don’t hear any thoughts.”

“This Nostshu may be beyond thoughts,” he said.

“The insane Shu is often more treacherous than the cunning one.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Braiden said. “Remember Edinburgh, in the sewers, that Shu channeled more power than I’ve ever seen. When was that? 1920 something?”

“No,” Sarathen chuckled, “that was 1850 something. And it was disgusting down there, the smell. He thought we were—”

The earth exploded next to them and a cascade of dirt rained down all around them. Sarathen dove to the right, rolling between two trees, cursing herself for letting her guard down. As she sprang to her feet, silvery-blue tendrils of electricity twisted out from her hand and solidified into her deadly blue totem blade.

“Mara!” Braiden called.

“Got it,” she said, swinging her sword as the beast pounded toward her. This had been human once, she thought as her blade sang through the air, slicing, and stabbing. It had a mother and a father, maybe brothers and sisters. The Nostshu recruited people, mostly homeless, into hordes and culled those they deemed worthy, injecting them with their Shu serum. Horde members considered the culling a great honor. Once injected, there were only three possible outcomes. To evolve, as the Shu called it, into a Nostshi, lieutenants of the Nostshu hordes, or be twisted into a Nostmara beast. This happened when the body rejected the so-called evolution. The only outcome Sarathen considered compassionate was the third… death, which happened when the body rejected the serum and its genetic manipulations completely.

Her blade was a blur as she fended off the deadly claws and teeth. Her battle cloak absorbed the strikes her blade missed. She stepped back against the onslaught and found herself surrounded by leaves and branches. She let down her mental block and felt Braiden moving to the left. She only had to hold a moment longer. The beast’s bright green eyes glowed and saliva poured from its jaws. No doubt, she knew, it would feast on her if it had the chance. Half a dozen cuts covered its bare bulging arms and chest, blood freely flowing through the thick brown hair. Human hair. Killing Mara always left a twisted knot in her belly.

Braiden burst out of the foliage above the Nostmara’s head with his staff swinging in an arc. Red and white tendrils of electricity streaked from the surrounding branches, encapsulating the shaft as he pulled energy from the environment. The blow landed on the beast’s temple and it fell forward with a thud. Sarathen stopped her retreat and took a step forward, chest heaving as she peered down at what she could see of the thing’s face.

“It was weak,” she said.

“Starving,” Braiden said as he stepped up beside her, letting his staff retract into his totem. The tree carving was warm in his palm. Sarathen did the same as she tried to settle her breathing. She unconsciously traced circles on her totem carving with her thumb, taking comfort in the form of the old woman. A symbol of natural life, not a Shen’s life. A human life. Organic, not designed. Life not spawned in replication bays or activated through a download.

“There must be a Shu here,” she said. 

“Or he was,” Braiden said.

“He has either moved on, is too far gone to care for his disciples, or he is dead,” she said.

“This one was burrowed, waiting for death,” he said.

“He could be a sentry left to rot,” Sarathen said.

“We’ll find out in the castle,” Braiden said with one last look at the monster. Sarathen nodded and followed him out of the forest. Less than an hour later, the pair stood before the ruined gates of the once magnificent castle. The air was warming and Sarathen’s breath no longer left vapor trails in the air. She reached out with her senses but discovered only the simple mental formations of snakes, rats, and mice. A pack of wolves lingered at the boundary of her sense ability. If she was not on a mission, she would keep her senses with the pack, enjoying the animal instincts and nearly hive mind. Braiden, with the ability to sense emotion, was better suited to detecting animals, but together as a bonded pair, as all Nostshen must be to survive, they could channel each other’s ONUS enhanced abilities.

“I don’t sense any thoughts,” she said.

Braiden who was peering through the gates nodded. “And I detect no emotion.”

“Keep your guard up,” she said, stepping to the stone wall. The rusted iron gates looked like the ancient hinges would give way at any moment. Sarathen placed her palm on one of the white stones in the archway beside the gate and closed her eyes.

“Do you think it’s a gateway?” Braiden asked. His golden eyes scanned the stone rising above and around the decrepit gate.

Sarathen shook her head. “No, it won’t transport us anywhere, but there is something—”

“Beware all ye who approach here. The Lord of the Forest Syvatibor grants audience only to those who bring sacrifice,” a voice boomed from the stone. “All others shall be tribute to the forest.” Sarathen fell back and lightning danced up her body as her totem blade sprang to life.

Braiden grunted. “It’s just a remnant.” He breathed a sigh of relief but held his staff at the ready.

“Is that Polish?” she asked.

“I think it’s an old Slavic dialect, probably local, but used many years before the time this castle would have been built. Here, look at this,” he said. Peering through the ruined gates at the massive structure beyond and then back at the archway in front of them. “The archway is older than the castle.”

“It looks that way,” she said. “The castle is what, 17th Century?”

Braiden nodded and said, “That’s probably right, but there could be a much older core structure.”

“The mystery deepens. We have an ancient archway with an embedded warning built into a newer medieval castle. Why would this remnant still be active?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“If the stories in town are true, this place was a secret Nazis and then Soviet stronghold.” She shivered. “People who disappeared ended up here. So it’s been active well after they created this archway.”

“Rumors and local lore,” he said.

“But it could be true,” she protested. “The Nostshu were deep into the Nazi movement.”

He stepped forward and placed his hand on the ancient wall where hers had been. “I’m not arguing that, ONUS knows. But let’s focus on what we see at the moment. Someone shaped this stone years earlier than the rest of the structure. And the sliver of consciousness embedded here is ancient, I can feel it. It hasn’t activated in a long time. It was probably just reacting to you. I would dissipate it, but if that Nostshu is still alive it will know. He may already know we’re here if the remnant still has enough power to connect to him. But I bet it was just a low-level warning for superstitious locals a thousand years ago.”

“Didn’t we read about a Syvatibor?” she asked.

“He was a woodland god in these parts.”

“I remember that website. I think people called him Leshy too. He kidnapped children lost in the woods,” she said.

Braiden pulled his hand back and shook his head. “So, this Shu set himself up as a god with an ancient temple and as time passed, built up a castle around his old woodland altar.”

Sarathen peered through the rusted bars into the courtyard beyond. “We’ve seen plenty of Shu set themselves up as gods. But why would he come back after all this time?”

“Who knows,” Braiden said. “Maybe he’s feeling nostalgic.” He pushed the gates apart and Sarathen cringed as the old iron screeched in protest. They stepped into the courtyard and she took in the high vine-covered walls and three arched entryways across from them. Each appeared to lead to a different part of the castle. Beams of light from the mid-morning sun streamed through the jagged ruins of the upper levels, creating pools of yellow on the cobblestones. Shadows clung to nooks and crannies not yet exposed to the sun. A stable, or possibly a garage, stood to the side with a collapsed roof, shale tiles lay scattered around it. Sarathen looked up to see a few exposed rooms far above as if the wall had been blown away. “It looks like there are eight floors,” she said.

“And there was fighting here,” he said, closing his eyes to sense any lingering emotion. Sometimes events embedded themselves into the ONUS source code around them.

“The cobblestones are clean, not overgrown,” she said.

“That could be Nost crafting at work.”

“Or a leftover manipulation from a long time ago,” she said.

“Or the soil and stone are so contaminated nothing will grow. Shu experiments leave death in the earth and corruption in the ONUS code,” he said.

“That’s what the locals are afraid of,” she said. “But they think it’s just radiological and environmental.”

The pair crossed the courtyard toward the center archway, peering into the darkness beyond.

“One way is as good as another,” Braiden said. Statues leered at them between each archway. The marble figures were identical with the head of a wolf and the naked body of a woman. She shuddered as she passed, but did not sense a consciousness embedded in them. No remnants here. As they made their way down the long hallway, Braiden pulled out a flashlight.

He swept the beam over old tapestries on the wall and discarded objects on the floor. Sarathen could make out old books, a few bottles, and shattered cookware. She shivered as the temperature dropped and the air filled with the smell of mold and decay. Chairs with torn red upholstery lay overturned here and there, and a thick layer of dust covered everything. Large wooden doors lined the hallway, one every ten feet or so. Braiden stopped in front of one and pushed. Ancient oak grated against the stone floor on failed hinges as it swung open.

Light filtered through a tattered curtain into the room beyond. Metal beds lined the walls, some of them toppled onto their side. Old gas masks littered the floor, antique full-faced contraptions with trailing hoses and rusty canisters. Next to them, needles and broken vials lay scattered across the stones. Braiden stumbled backward, out of the room, and Sarathen pulled the door shut, pressing a palm to her forehead, her other hand gripping the hilt of her totem blade, which flared blue in the shadows.

“Terror and despair,” he said, spinning away from the room.

“Rage,” Sarathen said. “It’s still so strong.”

“This was a Shu compound,” he said.

“A human camp,” she said, rolling the words around in her mouth. She had not spoken them out loud for a long time. But that’s what they used to call the Shu facilities during the Origin War, in the first age. A time before memory. Her time. 

“They created Nostshi and Nostmara here,” Braiden said, pulling Sarathen back into the moment.

“It could have been the Nazis or Soviets,” she said, but as the words came out, she knew it wasn’t true. Or she knew, at least, they were the same thing.

“Is there a difference? How many Nostshu controlled those regimes?”

“Let’s keep moving,” she said. A cackling laugh bounced down the long hallway, and the pair spun toward the sound.

“Finish it, finish it, kill it, kill everything!” a woman’s voice called. “Put out that light!” Then an instant later, “No, please, I need the light, it’s been so long. Open the doors, let it in, please, please, please let it in.”

Sarathen glanced at Braiden and raised her blade before taking a step toward the voice. It sounded like a young woman, but the cackle made her think of witches in old fairy tales. Which were often, she knew from experience, based on Nostshen who had failed to find a bond and succumbed to the Shen madness. Without the bond to the male emotional side of the ONUS source, the thoughts of the surrounding humans would weigh her down and finally crush her sanity. They had dealt with more than a few through the years. Braiden led them further down the hallway until it ended in an alcove with other hallways leading off in different directions. In the center stood a marble statue of a naked man with chiseled muscles and short-cropped hair. He stood on a round pedestal.

“Oh my,” the statue said, looking down at them with blank marble eyes. “You are Nostshen in this Nostshu place, I have never. Well, maybe a few times, but it always ends terribly for the Shen. Blood and screaming. Dying. What do you call it? Uploading? That’s it, you upload and download, and I stand here in a man’s marble body. I twist this way,” the statue twisted itself to the left, “and that way,” and then to the right, “but I go nowhere because my feet are anchored to the world and ONUS will not set me free. The source code is all around us, but he does not care. Or is it she? Is there an AI or—”

“You’re a sentient,” Sarathen whispered, staring at the statue.

“I am a woman trapped in a man’s body,” the statue pronounced, standing up tall, pushing out its muscled chest. “But it’s a nice body, isn’t it?” It tilted its chin down and winked one marble eye toward her. “Just look at the size of my—”

“Who conjured you?” Sarathen said. She looked down at his, er, her, she thought, body and back up, trying to reconcile the woman’s voice as it came out of the muscle-bound marble man. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Have you not? It’s quite nice, I’m told, but carved into my leg so it’s sadly unusable,” the statue said, looking down between its legs.

“No, not that,” Sarathen said. “You kept your sex when you downloaded from Haven.”

“When he shoved me into this cold, horrible prison,” the statue said.

“Why would someone embed you in a statue?”

“Who can say? He never would. Oh, but Haven, I remember everything, it’s a lovely village, and I had a lovely body, with long legs and bountiful breasts that I used with my—”

“You remember Haven?” Braiden asked, eyes widening.

“Every detail,” the statue said. “My village and my people and all the things I needed. We were content, even if some of us disappeared from time to time.”

“They were downloading into the physical,” Sarathen said. She glanced sideways at Braiden. None of them remembered Haven, but all of them yearned to.

“Haven is what we need it to be,” Braiden said, studying the statue’s features. 

“Do you remember the In-between and your other lives in the physical?” Sarathen asked.

“Oh yes, I see them all, all the lives. The hunting and foraging, the sacrifices, my tribe and then that place, the In-between, after I… after,” the statue shook its marble head and looked around as if wondering where it was. “There was an elder that met me after I went to sleep. There was so much blood, but then nothing. And then he was there, talking. Then Haven, but not for long, not long enough. He brought me here to the eternal cold, to the marble that never warms, the physical that never changes for me. It’s earth, you know, that’s what the locals call it, but I can’t leave. I have to—” 

“Who brought you here?” Braiden asked as he walked around the statue, inspecting the base. “They had to be powerful.” The statue clamped its mouth shut and followed him with its blank eyes. “He reached up into Haven, using ONUS source, and ripped you from that realm.”

“I suspect you know him, Shen, he is mighty in your world, I’ve heard, anyway. But I only hear things as people walk by. That’s how I learn what they don’t want others to know, but for me, it is useless to know. What would I do with knowledge? After we built the castle, I was no longer needed, so I stood here and listened as they all came and went. Nobody comes now, of course. But then, oh then, it was so busy here. And I have very good hearing, you see. And very good eyesight. I watched the centuries pass. The warriors came and went, and then the soldiers after them. And all the monsters. The Shu love to make monsters. They scream when injections fill their soft little bodies. Then they growl and snort and dig. But finally, the monsters went away too. I was the first monster here, you know, and now I am the last.” The statue bared its bright marble teeth and the woman’s voice dropped an octave, intent and menacing. “In the beginning, before the castle, they came from all around to sacrifice to the god of the forest and I was his altar and executioner. I didn’t want to be, at first, but after a time, when you wrap your hands around the dainty necks of mortals… can you imagine the taste of blood and bone? The ecstasy as you devour their belief? Can you—”

“Who was it?” Braiden demanded, continuing his inspection of the base. The statue’s mighty fist struck out, but he took a step backward, letting the marble hand sail by.

“Darean is the god of the forest and the master of the Nostshu.” The blank white eyes stalked Braiden as he moved. “Don’t you know anything, little Shen? He is the master of order and the bringer of light.”

“He is a destroyer,” Sarathen said from behind the statue. She had slipped around while the thing’s attention was on Braiden and placed both her hands on the back of its thick marble leg. “I release your essence, your consciousness, your soul. Back to Haven, you go.”

“But you burned the world, Shen!” the statute roared, rearing up. It swung its fists behind its legs, toward Sarathen, but the effort proved futile and before it could make another desperate swing, a deep sigh escaped through the statue’s cold lips. The sound echoed down the hallway, replacing rage with quiet resignation. Its face solidified and its body settled into a natural stillness. As the last signs of life drained from the stone body, Braiden bowed his head, whispering, “May the light shine upon you—”

“—And the fortune of creation grant you strength,” Sarathen finished.

“How long do you think she was trapped in that statue?” Braiden asked.

“Who knows? Two thousand years. Maybe more. I wonder if an Ancillary will collect her for the In-between again or if she will be thrust directly back into Haven.”

“ONUS only knows, but I suspect an Ancillary will collect her for the In-Between,” Braiden said. “ONUS must compile her memories before sending her to Haven, or they will be lost. And she has a lot of memories and karma to work through.”

Sarathen shuddered. “Some things are best forgotten,” she said.

“Surely fortune will grant her a respite in Haven before she downloads again. I cannot imagine the trauma she will carry into her next life.”

Sarathen walked around the statue and stared at him. “Or she will create her own hell in Haven,” she said.

“That is a possibility.”

“There is no respite for us. The General of the Light is born again, and this feels like a diversion.”

“The sentient did serve Darean,” Braiden said.

Sarathen nodded. “And maybe he put those clues on the internet to draw us in.”

“Do you think Darean knows he is reborn?” Braiden asked.

“I don’t see how, but something is definitely wrong here.”

Braiden lifted his chin and his eyes grew distant. “We should leave at once,” he said. “We have a lot of ground to cover.” But as he spoke, a low growl cascaded through the hallway and the stone walls around them trembled. They peered into the shadows of the adjoining corridors.

“Apparently, it’s not just a diversion, it’s a trap,” Sarathen said, offering him a wicked grin. “Maybe Darean does know about the General’s birth.” Her crimson eyes flared to life, tinting the chilled stones of the corridor red as if a fire burned nearby.

“If so, a new game has begun,” Braiden said.

Sarathen’s grin morphed into a snarl and she lifted her blade as she rushed down the hallway into the shadows, toward the oncoming monsters.