Zu Mari was immensely thankful for his inner phoenix as the long day finally came to an end; even with all his years of grueling physical training, he doubted he would have lasted the day without the spark of heat glowing within him to keep him strong.

The line of prisoners with their captors (now numbering seven, three men and four women, all in the dark olive robes that set them apart from the rest) departed the ruined city as the sun sank slowly beneath the cloud of smoke. Feeble rays lit up the glowering cloud overhead, streaking crimson light across its underside like a promise of carnage.

Outside the city stood a door, though at first Zu mistook it for a huge painting. A mountaintop scene in bright daylight, a many-spired castle in the center of a bustling town at its crown, with a golden road suspended in the air, winding its way from the town’s gate toward another distant mountain.

It was beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful sight Zu had ever beheld. And then they stepped through the door, and a crushing weight knocked Zu to his knees. He wasn’t the only one. Almost the entire chain of prisoners collapsed in the same moment, some sinking to their knees, others hunching as though pressed down upon, while some fainted away entirely.

Kia clung to Zu as best she could with her hands bound. The defiant man who’d tried to convince her to run knelt doubled over, shoulders hunched and his face contorted in concentration, but he kept his head raised.

Zu liked him already.

Aside from the spiritual weight of their new surrounds, the air felt thin and fragile. Zu gasped for breath, dizzied.

Then their captors began kicking and slapping, dragging people to their feet, shouting to wake those who’d collapsed. Zu got to his feet with a nagging sense of something having changed. Once he got over the initial shock of the weight of so many presences with such concentrated spiritual power, something nipped at his memory.

In the moment he’d stepped through the door, he thought he’d heard a woman’s voice. A tiny exhale of relief, a whispered ‘Finally!’.

It wasn’t the voice of the goddess Serena, though that was his first thought. And unless his sword had gone through another, very strange, evolution, it couldn’t be Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death. Zu reached for the sword anyway, only to find the connection directionless and weak once again. He checked the other two, Death Shadow and Little Otter, in case he’d mistaken the source of the sensation. No, all three were as distant as they’d been at the start.

“Phoenix? You trying to speak to me?” he whispered softly.

The phoenix continued to flicker silently in his core, faint and stable, without a word.

“Move, kevnis! Line up!” shouted Menya, accompanying the yell with a jab of focused energy that jolted through Zu’s body unpleasantly, leaving tremors and weakness in its wake.

He wanted to snap back, but gritted his teeth and stepped forward until he stood neatly lined up with the others.

They’d arrived on a balcony on the side of one of the castle’s many spires. Golden-orange light shone down on the town and castle, the sun warmer and richer than that of Zu’s home planet. The sky was different too, the blue deeper. He hadn’t noticed with the sky blotted out behind clouds of smoke, but this world was actually beautiful.

Looking out across the bustling town, the pristine towers and intricate buildings, he could almost forget he was here as a prisoner of a war he’d never waged. Zu swallowed against the weight still pressing in on him from all sides, panting for air in the strange atmosphere, and the moment passed.

“When the Master arrives,” said the woman who’d been leading the line, “you will bow. You will not speak unless asked to. You will not move unless ordered to.”

There was a quiet urgency to her voice, insistent and compelling. Zu found his full attention drawn to her, inexorably.

“If you are selected, you will do exactly what is requested of you without speaking or arguing. No matter how debasing. The Master does not forgive any slight. If any of you harbors thoughts of defiance or resistance, forget them now.”

Her gaze lingered on the defiant man, who stared back at her unflinching.

“You will bend, or you will be broken.” For a moment her face lost its hard, grim expression and softened, just a little. “I cannot force you to choose wisely, but know that your life is in your own hands. If you survive, we will meet again. I know you will probably hate me, and wish for vengeance. If that is the path you choose, know that it is a path walked in pain and ending only in regret.”

“Nira,” growled Menya warningly, and the woman nodded and stepped back, Menya taking her place. The cold-eyed woman spoke briskly, with none of Nira’s emotion. “Your old lives have ended. To the rest of the world, you are dead. If you ever try to leave this place, you will die instantly. You have no family, no friend, no ally who can save you. Here you will learn your new place in the world and be equipped for your new future. If you resist, you will be punished. If you defy the wrong person, you will not be protected from their wrath.”

Nira moved to the front of the line and began unwinding the silver thread that chained them together, coiling it into a ball in her hand as she released each captive in turn.

“This is your first chance to prove your obedience,” Menya continued as she was doing this. “Remain in line where you were placed, and you may live another minute.”

Zu trembled as Nira unlooped his own chain, then moved on to Kia’s. Adrenaline rushed through him and his inner phoenix flared and stretched, no longer shackled and bound.

He wanted to grab the girl and run, to leap off the balcony before this Master arrived to enslave them all, to fight them all.

But… the risk was too great.

Zu Mari held in his urge to act, though it seared his pride, and stayed in line.