The large stadium has thousands of people and is far from the total capacity. It also has enchanted lights.

“Man, so many enchanted lights,” I say, astonished.

Rene nods. “Right, Zeke has been ramping up buying Enchantment stones,” Rene says as she leads us to a door on the far side of the stadium floor.

With everyone looking down at us, I can feel butterflies flutter in my stomach.

“I thought enchantment stones were in short supply all over the kingdom?” Rene looks at me.

“True, for a while, there was. About three years ago, though, one of Zeke’s consultants found a new chamber underneath some city in a far-off province.” Rene reaches a set of doors and pushes them open.

“Okay, Emmy, I will take you to old man Blaze. He’ll give you a weapon to use if you want one.” Rene says as she leads me through the corridor.

The room’s temperature rises drastically as we get closer to the pounding of a hammer against steel. Finally, we both reach a room with a man standing over an anvil hammering a white-hot piece of metal.

He wears green goggles over his eyes. The man has a stubbled face with grey hair showing around his chin. He has long brunette hair tied back into a tail.

“Eh, who is this here?” The man asks as he grabs a pair of tongs. He claps them around the blade and then sets it in the water.

The man has a southern Malachite province accent.

Rene smiles. “This is Emelia. She is getting ready for her match and needs a weapon.

He smiles. “Well, why didn’t you say something, then?” He turns to a wall and pulls off a cloth, revealing a gaggle of weapons.

“Whoa.” I walk up to the set of sparkling weapons.

“These are not my best creations, but they’ll do for a newcomer like you. So please take whichever strikes your fancy.” He gestures to the wall and begins to return to finish the blade from earlier.

Rene walks up next to me. “Old man Blaze is the second-best blacksmith in the capital,” Rene says as she scans over the weapons.

“Second-best. Who’s the first?” I ask as Rene fiddles with a dagger.

“Riot Silver is his name. He’s the youngest blacksmith in the country—thirty-seven, I believe. He’s young but is the best in history, hands down,” Rene says.

Riot Silver, where have I heard that name before? Didn’t he make a trip to Bladesfall to make some purchases for some rare metals once?

“I’ve heard that name before.” Rene nods.

“He’s very famous. So I wouldn’t doubt it.” Rene says.

Rene looks at me." Find a weapon, yet you only have ten minutes until your match."

Panic sets in as I scan the wall of swords with glittering jewelry implanted in the hilts, long spears made from oaken wood and iron, ends made from the most robust steel, axes, and a few finely crafted war hammers.

Then my eye caught on a golden box overhead in the shops; it sits in the workshop rafters, dropped down from the stone ceiling.

“Sir Blaze, what’s that up there?” I ask the man.

“My protégé brought that to me from some ruins up in the Calvar Valley in the Diamond province in some old abandoned crypt.” I nod to Blaze.

Something about the box calls to me like a silent whisper in my ear.

“Can I see what’s inside it?” I ask.

Blaze looks at me quizzically.

“I wish I knew, but I can’t get it to open?” He says to me,

“Did you tell Zeke about this?” Rene asks.

Blaze reaches up, grabs the box, and sets it on a table next to me.

“Yesim, when my protégé found it, I took it to the King as if the wind swept me up under my feet ere. Even he, with his endless wealth, couldn’t find a way to open it. He told me to keep it and find a way to open it. But been mighty unsuccessful.”

I barely hear them speaking now as I stare at the box, hearing the whispering crawl through my head, begging me to take what lies inside. The red jewel on the top sends a warm sizzling through me.

I reach my hand out and place it on the red jewel on top of it. The jewel casts the room in an orange light. Then, with a slight hiss, the box opens.

Inside sits a bright white horn with engravings in a language I can’t understand. The whispering grows louder, and my mind races to process it, but I can’t keep up with the cacophony.

“Take it.” One of the voices coos.

“It belongs to you. It has chosen you.” A deeper voice rasps.

“Take it, my child. Claim the power of the gods and be free.”

I feel my aura begin to slip out, my hold on it broken as the voices plead for me to take the horn. The horn starts to glow with a beautiful, dark magenta aura. The color sings to me as my aura intertwines in a dance with the horns. The world almost slips into the abyss of power before I’m grabbed from behind and pulled away from the horn’s embrace.

“What the fuck! Emelia.” The bliss I was in breaks as Rene’s voice breaks through.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“W-What happened?” I finally shake off the clouds in my mind.

“I have no clue what happened, but your aura began to go haywire and mix with the Horns. This is insane because items with Auras are almost impossible to find!”

The room is in shambles, all weapons bent and disfigured, the furnace smashed in, and a few walls knocked out. I see Blaze standing far away from me, his forehead bleeding, his left arm hanging on by threads of his flesh, eyes wide, breaths heavy and fast. Blood coats his apron. His fingers on his right hand are missing.

“G-get her out of my shop now!” Blaze shouts.

Rene slams the box into my arms. “Emelia go all the way down the hall and go into the door on the left now!”

As Rene pushes me out the door she runs over to Blaze and a glow comes from renes hands and surrounds Blaze’s body. She turns to me and screams “Go now Emelia!”

Blaze doesn’t say anything. He just slides his back down to the ground, shaking uncontrollably. His cries are agonizing. “Get that monster away from me!”

Blaze’s agonizing screams echo down the hallway, causing my heart to crack at Blaze’s eyes. They were just like their eyes from eight years ago. How all of them cursed me as they held their dead children and families. I hear Rene call for a medic and immediately a ton of on standby ones pour into the room where Blaze is.

Instinctively I walk down the hallway through the group now crowding the hall trying to get a look at where the screams are coming from. I reach the doorway Rene sent me to and open it to see a set of stone stairs. Walking down them I can still hear the screams from Blaze, when I reach the bottom of the stairs I see a bench and I sit down, I grip the gilded box in my arm tighter. The sight of Blaze is burning into my memory. I can see his hanging arm, the blood all over the walls and pooling onto the floor around him. The all to now familiar scent of iron and waste makes me double over and vomit all over the floor in front of me.

I try to breathe in deeply but the air won’t come back into my lungs as more of the food I ate comes back up. My body shakes violently as my breathing becomes more frantic, I feel myself begin to panic at the thought of what just happened I don’t even know what happened I blacked out and then Blaze is almost dead why?

“Here, let me help you.”

A warm tingling rushes in and washes away the cold fear and panic that has frosted my mind. I sigh and feel my whole body relax like I’m sent into a Euphoric state. I’m lost in a field of pleasure. It lasts a few more seconds, then disappears.

I feel so arms help me back onto the bench.

“Thank you.” I say hoarsley as the strength in my voice is gone.

She nods. “Of course you were about to go into a panic attack. That was my relaxation trick. My magic sends signals to your brain’s amygdala and helps it control and stabilize your emotions,” Rene smiles and she bends down and picks up the box she sits down next to me and sets it in her lap..

“Can you do it again?” I ask as the tingling has already left.

She shakes her head." No, if I use it too much on someone, they become addicted or dependent on it." She says.

“Too bad that was amazing,” I say.

“Emelia.” I snap my head up at her because she called me Emelia, not Emmy.

“How is Blaze? Will he be okay?” I ask her and she sighs.

“He is stable but we had to sedate him heavily and have one of the dreamers put him to sleep before he went into shock. I saved his left arm from falling off but it will take years for him to recover feeling in it and get it to a functioning or workable state again.” She then turns to me, her eyes boring into mine. She seems to scoot away from me on the bench as she does.

“Emelia tell me, why did you mix your aura with the horn?” She asks me while keeping herself between me and the box.

I think back to the moment I saw the box in the rafters. “It whispered to me and begged me to take it. Then, after that, I woke up with you screaming at me.”

She sighs.” I figured that was the case.” She looks away.

“If I had only known what it was, I could have stopped it.” She leans her head back against the stone wall.

She turns to look at me again and points at the box.. “Do you know what this is?” She asks.

I shake my head.

She pauses and thinks for a moment. “This is a Soul Avatar. It is incredibly priceless. Only four of them exist in recorded history; they have been found.

“Holy Fates, and I touched that thing!” I stand up and back away from the box.

Rene doesn’t move to stop me, just sits there looking up at the ceiling as she bounces her leg up and down.

Rene pinches her nose and sighs. “Dammit.”

My chest tightens as my fear takes hold.

“This is not good, Emmy.” Rene looks back at me.

“Is Ezekiel going to be angry at me for this?” I ask feeling my hands grip the seats.

Rene laughs. “No, Emelia, he will be excited.”

She finally smiles again. “You just became most likely the third strongest person in this city, plus you are an Elemental, too. Also, you most likely will become his favorite person on the council.”

“Fates, you could give Alva a run for her money with the right training. Honestly, you could become one of Zeke’s biggest assets.”

“That makes me feel even more scared, but the third strongest is such a massive jump in power so soon.”

“But,” Rene says.

“You cannot use this until someone properly trains you,” I nod at her.

“Okay, that’s perfect.” I am not ready for whatever power that thing gives me.

“Emelia, for now, don’t worry about it. Ezekiel will want to watch your training personally, but he’s busy for now, so just put it out of your mind.” Rene stretches as she stands up.

“I would like to ask you something. How are you feeling?” Rene walks over to a closet and pulls out a mop. There is a faucet in the wall and a grey bucket hung from its handle.

I look directly at her. “What do you mean?”

She turns the faucet on, and I watch as she fills up the bucket. “Don’t play dumb. I am not a Dreamer, but even I can see the effects Bladesfall had on you.”

Oh, she is a doctor, so I guess she would notice. “It sucks my best friend and adoptive mother are dead. I had to watch as they died so.” I pause, trying to hold back the tears.

Rene dips the mop into the bucket and cleans up my vomit, saying nothing.

“I don’t know how to feel right now. Everything has moved so fast since I woke up in the cell.” Rene says nothing and just continues to clean. She looks up at me and smiles.

"Mostly I feel anger at the embers for killing everyone I knew. I regret not saving everyone or being so weak that I needed to be protected." I say and then Rene finishes cleaning and comes back over to sit next to me.

“That’s rough, Emmy. I genuinely can’t imagine that feeling.” Rene looks up at the ceiling.

“What comfort I can provide you is I know how you feel in the sense of not having your family anymore.” She looks over at me.

“What happened to yours?” I ask her as she leans back again, her head resting against the wall.

“This is your therapy session, not mine.” She smiles again.

“I come from a different continent than Esterpine.” She says, looking off into the wall. Or through it maybe.

“Which one?” I turn to face her.

“Zantaven.” She answers.

I remember it being a more desert-like continent from Janet’s lectures. “Zantaven.” That is all I say.

“Home to the Sand pirates of the Golden Sea.” She sighs, adjusting her legs.

“Yeah, they don’t have the best reputation in the world,” I answer.

They have a business operation in every part of the world, making them the world’s most notorious and organized thieves. She stands up, pushes off the bench, and walks to put away the bucket of my bile. She dumps the soiled water out into a drain on the floor. rinses the bucket out and throws the mop head into another bucket. She closes the door and leans back against it..

“My mother and father were a part of them. The Bloody Minister captured them and most of their squad and almost wiped out the entire operation in Zantaven.” Rene pushes off the door and comes to sit back down next to me again.

“Long story short, they died, I think, because the group gave me enough time to make a break for it and escape.” I stay quiet, not knowing what to say at all. I feel myself chew on my nails.

“But maybe another day I will go further into detail, but for now, it’s about time for you to fight Alva. Do you feel up to that?” She looks at me.

I think for a moment I stand up and do a few stretches and hop up and down a bit. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Rene nods. She stands up and walks over to the big wooden door and a handle to raise it. “Good, then get ready.”