Despite all he’d seen so far, Rhenor was still beyond stunned by the sight in front of him. A siren. An actual siren was just casually looking at them from where she was leaning on the ground with her hands, the rest of her hidden in a pool of water up against the stone wall. Even though he couldn’t see much, Rhenor could tell she was swinging her tail from side to side.

And she did more or less fit the description Rhen had gotten over the years. Vaguely human-looking with scales dotting the skin in clusters, pointy scaled ears, long, dark, flowing hair, sharp claws….

“How are you here?” Kaz hissed at the siren, taking a step away from her. Rhenor frowned at him. Did he think she was going to eat them? Because Rhenor was quite sure sirens couldn’t do much outside of water.

The siren gave Kaz an unimpressed look. “No need to be so hostile. I am simply here to listen to the crystals.”

“Listen to them?” Rhenor repeated, looking at the one right next to him.

The siren hummed, laying her head on her folded arms and closing her eyes. “They’re singing.”

Rhenor shrugged. “We need to keep moving.” He turned to Kaz, who still looked very much disturbed. “Come on.”

“No,” he blurted out, shaking his head immediately. “I mean yes, but...but she’s not supposed to be here.”

“Neither is your handsome companion,” the siren replied, smirking at Rhenor and winking very, very suggestively. Rhenor shuddered. The idea of getting intimate with a non-human was something he did not want to imagine. “There is an underwater cave leading from the ocean to here.”

“No, no, that’s not—”

“Possible?” the siren cut Kaz off. “Or perhaps the dragons aren’t as infallible as you seem to think.”

Before Rhenor could laugh at that, the ground shook again, sending him to the ground, right on top of a growing crystal. At the last moment, he managed to push himself away, before the crystal could skewer him. They needed to move.

“Come on!” Rhenor yelled through the rumbling of another earthquake, running towards the corridor. Thankfully, Kaz followed him this time, running right after. At least until they finally reached the crystal-lined corridor walls, and the siren called after them.

“Another human came by here a few days ago, by the way,” she said in an incredibly bored tone. “Judging by the way she was dressed, I’d say she was a local.”

Rhenor froze at that as well and turned around. “A...local?”

“She didn’t even notice me,” the siren complained. Even at the distance and through the relative darkness, Rhenor could see her rolling her eyes. “Just kept going until she found whatever it is that’s hidden away here.”

And then the siren closed her eyes again and began humming.

“What did she look like?” Rhenor asked her, but the siren didn’t seem to pay him any mind. He sighed, leaning onto the small crystals all around them as the ground continued shaking. He was getting the feeling he knew exactly who was responsible for this now. But he said nothing to Kaz. The other man didn’t seem to be all that interested in a conversation anyway, judging by how he was frowning in thought.

The corridor slowly grew narrower and narrower, partly due to the crystal sticking out of it, but Rhenor and his knife’s handle made quick work of those. They broke surprisingly easily, the shards dissolving into nothing as if they hadn’t even been real in the first place.

Rhen didn’t have the capacity to try to wrap his head around any of this anymore, and so he just kept going, trying not to step directly on the crystals, as that would no doubt hurt a lot. And perhaps it would do much more than just hurt. Being this close to, at least according to Kaz, physical manifestations of magic still didn’t sit right with him, but there was no avoiding it now.

“Do you know who it could be?” Kaz suddenly asked, just as the corridor was starting to get a little wider again. And surprisingly warm. Come to think of it, it had been getting progressively less cold the farther they’d gone, but Rhenor only really realized that just now.

“Yes,” Rhenor replied, sighing. Was the corridor also being lit by something other than the crystals and his torch? It seemed like he could see the stone walls better. “One of the villagers has gone missing right before the storms began, but that’s all I know. And it might not be her at all.”

Kaz just nodded, not saying anything, though a lot seemed to be going on in his head.

“What is it?”

Kaz looked at Rhenor for a moment before lowering his eyes again. “I just…. Well, I think she might be…no longer alive.”

Rhenor swallowed down his discomfort. “How so?”

“This kind of power,” Kaz said, gesturing at the crystals around them wildly. “This much magic…. I just don’t think any human can survive wielding it.”

“Then why would the earthquakes be happening?” Rhen asked, once again confused. Though he was only half paying attention to what Kaz was saying. The corridor was being lit by something new. Was there a campfire? Perhaps a hole in the ceiling through which the sun could shine inside? And what was that rumbling?

“Perhaps she simply unintentionally changed how the artifact is supposed to work?” Kaz suggested, shrugging. “Or perhaps she—”

He stopped, staring at something in front of him with wide eyes. And Rhenor couldn’t help but do the same.

There was a narrow, stone path surrounded by lava that was bubbling, rumbling, flowing, threatening their lives with its very existence. And it made the relatively large room unbearably hot. Rhenor’s instincts were to run away as quickly as possible and never look back, but as the ground continued shaking, he forced himself to stay still. They’d gone this far, they couldn’t give up now.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Incredible,” said Kaz next to him, his eyes once again full of fascination. This time, however, Rhen couldn’t keep his comments to himself.

“Deadly, you mean. And incredibly dangerous.”

Kaz scratched the back of his neck. “Well, yes, that too.” Then his eyes sparkled again. “But still, I’ve never seen lava before.”

Neither had Rhenor, yet he still wanted to get away from it as soon as possible. Perhaps even sooner than that. He squinted through the shimmering air, noticing something emitting a red glow in the distance.

“Oh, that must be what the artifact draws power from,” Kaz continued. “Lava!”

“Speaking of that, I think it’s just ahead,” said Rhenor, eager to get moving. Before doing that, though, he removed his cloak, deciding that he was less likely to pass out from the heat without it. He looked over at Kaz as he did this, but the other man seemed completely unbothered by the temperature. Rhenor decided to leave that be.

“Yes, I think I can see it,” Kaz said after a moment of staring ahead. “We should….”

“Yes.”

And of course, the moment they took the first step, another earthquake forced them to the ground as lava spluttered around them. Rhen stared at the slowly hardening puddle of molten rock just a step away from his face.

They really, really needed to put a stop to this.

Exchanging a look with a worried Kaz, they started to run towards the artifact as best they could, hoping to reach it before another earthquake. They didn’t quite manage that, but at least none of the following ones were strong enough to throw them down, and they could keep going.

When they were finally close enough to make out a figure standing in front of the glowing artifact, Rhenor looked over at Kaz as they continued moving, but Kaz didn’t look back. Clearly, he had been wrong about the woman—Mera, if Rhenor remembered her name correctly—being dead.

At least Rhenor hoped so.

The closer they went, the more nervous Rhenor got because Mera didn’t seem to be moving. She was only standing there, her back towards them, touching the artifact which was made up of a large crystal and gold framework around it. Rhenor almost rolled his eyes at that—he’d seen enough crystals to last him a lifetime.

Surprisingly, there were crystals only lining the walls and ceiling of this part of the cavern, looking red and orange in the light of the lava. It made them look much more threatening and sharp, but none have fallen just yet. Rhenor wondered if they would melt if they fell in the lava, but that didn’t matter now. What mattered was getting Mera away from the artifact.

If they hadn’t already suspected that whatever she was doing was causing those bursts of magic, they received a direct confirmation when yellow, lightning-like energy spiked out of the artifact, crashing into the crystals lining the walls before reflecting and hitting Mera.

Rhenor flinched, his eyes wide, but to his surprise, the woman didn’t die, or disintegrate, or any of the other things Rhenor had expected. She didn’t even flinch. She just kept standing there, her shoulders rising a tiny bit. The movement was barely noticeable, but with how still she had been until now, Rhen couldn’t miss it.

They were only a few steps away from her now, and so they stopped, exchanging a look. Kaz seemed very nervous, his eyes darting from him to Mera and back again. Rhenor could relate. What were they supposed to do? If they tried talking to her, she might just kill them, but he couldn’t just shoot her without trying to get her away from the artifact. That was just...wrong.

Before Rhenor could do anything, though, Kaz called out to her.

“Um…. Miss?”

Rhenor couldn’t breathe for a few seconds, frozen as he waited for the woman to turn around. But she didn’t react at all. She didn’t even seem to be ignoring them. It was more as if she couldn’t hear them.

Kaz gave Rhenor another look, fear in his eyes. Not that Rhenor blamed him. This entire situation was making him very disturbed as well. Kaz tried again, his voice quite noticeably shaky now, but with the same results.

Rhenor sighed, taking a step forward. “Mera.”

The woman’s head sprung up at that, and both Rhenor and Kaz flinched. Rhenor couldn’t move, his breath stilled as she slowly turned around, one hand still on the artifact. Like this, Rhenor could see its magical power flowing into her hand. In fact, even through the haze in the air caused by the lava, there seemed to be a glowing aura around her.

That was nothing compared to her eyes, though. The pupil, the iris, none of that was visible through the yellow-red glow of the magic she was absorbing. With the artifact almost behind her now, it looked as if her medium-length brown hair was on fire.

Rhenor had found himself reaching for his knife at the sight automatically, but he forced himself not to do that. It wasn’t likely to help.

“Who...who are you?” Her confused tone managed to get Rhenor out of his shocked state. With those glowing eyes, she was still far too intimidating for him to relax. Also, they were surrounded by lava, which he was once again reminded of when it sprayed on the ground next to him.

Rhenor swallowed, forcing himself to look at Mera instead.

“Residents of Arlow,” Rhenor finally replied. Mera blinked at him.

“Y-yes, Arlow….”

Did she not remember where she lived? How much of her was still there?

“I…” she continued. “I remember, yes.” She grinned almost triumphantly. “I went to this cavern. To prove that there wasn’t anything odd about it. Instead, I found an old draconic puzzle. And this….”

She turned around again, putting both of her hands on the crystal. She’d sounded almost joyful as she said this. Another burst of energy flew out of the crystal, the resulting earthquake sending Rhen and Kaz to the ground.

“You have to stop,” Kaz exclaimed as he dragged himself up again even while the ground was still shaking, his voice unsteady. “You’ll destroy Arlow.”

Mera turned around again, once again looking confused. “I’m not….”

Rhen breathed out. “Yes, you are. What you are doing is causing earthquakes.” She looked doubtful, but she did seem to be listening to him. Rhenor wished he had more experience with this kind of thing, but he tried to convince her further, anyway. “Arlow is right above us. The earthquakes will destroy it.”

Mera took one hand off the crystal, looking from Rhen to Kaz. So close….

“Just take a step back from that artifact, and—”

“No!” Mera yelled, grabbing the artifact with both of her hands again. And glaring back at them with incredible rage, her eyes glowing with an even harsher light. “You just want to take it for yourself!”

“No, that isn’t true!” Kaz tried to argue, but Rhenor knew already it was hopeless. He didn’t manage to tell him that, though. All he could do was stare as the draconic artifact started to shake violently, his body frozen in fear.

As another series of earthquakes followed, stronger and more dangerous than ever before, Rhen and Kaz once again found themselves on the stone ground, lava spraying all around them, as pieces of the crumbling cave ceiling began to rain down around them. Rhenor watched, unable to look away, as right above them, a huge crack started to show, the stone splitting as the earthquake continued.

“You won’t get it!” Mera yelled over the cracking of stone and rumbling. “No one will. It’s mine!”

Rhenor looked up at her. From her words, he would have thought she was getting ready to kill them, but she was still only holding onto the shaking artifact, which had started to emit a high, whining noise. It had been barely audible over the sound of the falling rocks and bubbling lava, but it was getting louder.

A few seconds later, it got to a point that Rhenor and Kaz both had to cover their ears, the ear-piercing noise quickly growing unbearably loud. The artifact shook harder and harder, and it was then that Rhen realized what would happen.

It was going to explode.

And most likely kill them all.

Time slowed down to a trickle as Rhenor started to hear loud cracks, as if glass was being broken, along with the horrible whining noise that was about making his ears bleed. Looking over at Kaz, Rhenor wanted to at least tell him that he didn’t blame Kaz for bringing them here. That at least they’d tried to save people, and that would make this a good death. But the other man wasn’t paying attention to Rhenor at all.

Rhen watched him grab the cord with the stone around his forehead and pull it off, slamming it onto the ground while yelling something Rhenor couldn’t understand over the noise.

A blinding flash followed, forcing Rhen to squeeze his eyes shut. And then, suddenly, there was only silence.