The initial chamber had been a large dome, the top close enough to the surface that the quake-torn rents had been able to illuminate it, showing off some old carvings. There were a few old items, some worn and rusty candlesticks and incense burners, but nothing that could be counted as “treasure”.

There was only one exit, and it led into a dark passage. Stathis stepped forward, letting her eyesight adjust, but could see nothing beyond a few paces of bare rock passageway. She picked up a stone and closed her eyes, letting power well up inside of her, imbuing it into the stone. It started to glow with a soft, solar light, illuminating the passageway ahead of her.

Dorothea cooed. ‘That’s convenient! Can you make another?’ Stathis picked up another pebble and repeated the action, handing it over to Dorothea. ‘I’ll treasure it.’

‘Uh, it goes out in about an hour. I can make another one though.’

‘Oh, that’s not quite as impressive.’

They continued down the passageway, Dorothea tucking the stone into her sleeve to shroud the light, then scouting ahead, crouching to hide from anything that might be watching. Stathis strained to try and hear anything – the air down here was still and slightly chill, with a musty scent she didn’t recognise. There hadn’t been any sign of droppings or other evidence of animal life – had this place been sealed entirely? That meant no danger of wild animals attacking but did mean that they might instead find traps or ancient guardians. Stathis grinned. This could be fun!

Stathis waited in position, using her hand to bank the light from her own stone, until Dorothea returned, her footsteps crunching on loose gravel.

‘I’ve scouted ahead a bit, and can’t see anything immediately hostile, or any sign of traps.’

Stathis relaxed slightly but with a feeling of disappointment. At least a nest of dire rats or something would have been nice, so she could have fought something! But she followed along behind Dorothea, letting light bleed out from between her fingers to illuminate more of their surroundings. She could see that this area was more clearly worked, the rock shaped into straight planes and edges, symbols she couldn’t read etched into the wall, barely affected by however long it had been since this place had been sealed away.

‘Can you read them, Carissia?’

Her sister’s eyes flicked over the carvings. ‘No. And it would be a waste of my power to use a spell to do so.’ She brushed a hand over them, wiping off grit and dust. ‘They do not appear magical, and the Genallian Dynasty relied on their dragons for defence, rather than spells or traps. It is likely that the place is deserted, except possibly of some vermin.’

There was a sound from behind them, and Carissia spun, magic flaring between her fingertips. She gestured and there was another small explosion, the sound echoing around the space, shrapnel and dust blasting outwards. When it had settled, Stathis was able to see what had happened.

‘That was just a stone falling down. You sure defeated it!’

‘It could have been an earth elemental. A, um, very small one.’

‘Sure.’ Stathis shook her head, trying to clear out the ringing in her ears from the too-close explosion. ‘Maybe take a second to check first? Better than blowing up something that you didn’t want to.’

Carissia grumbled something that Stathis couldn’t make out, before bringing her palms together in a prayer gesture. ‘I simply do the work of the heavens.’

‘Sure, and the heavens wanted that stone, that specific stone, to get blown up?’

‘Such things are mysterious and vague. But we should move on and find out if there is anything interesting down here.’

Stathis couldn’t tell if she was joking or not, and had to resist the urge to try smacking Carissia with her sword, and find out if that was the will of the heavens. It probably wasn’t, but having to deal with her smug attitude all the time was annoying.

They moved through the chamber, Dorothea moving ahead and crouching low to peer around corners before waving back at Stathis and Carissia when it was safe to approach. The area they were moving through was more clearly crafted, with straight edges and walls, and small square chambers opening off them. Stathis couldn’t tell what the rooms had been used for – they weren’t large enough to sleep in, and if they were for storage, then wouldn’t a single large room have been easier? But there was no sign of traps, or, disappointingly, any treasure either. Although the air was getting warmer, the suggestion of moisture on the stone.

They were walking along a broad passageway, at least ten passages wide, when there was a loud “crack”. Carissia suddenly dropped from sight as part of the ground gave way, stone slabs falling into the darkness. Stathis darted to the edge, looking down in time to see magic flare around Carissia, slowing her fall to a gentle descent, her light illuminating more darkness around her.

‘Don’t worry! I’ll find my own way out.’ She kept sinking downwards, soon becoming just a dot of light, far below them.

Stathis tapped at the edge of the gap with her sword, sending more stones tumbling downwards, hopefully without hitting Carissia, before finding the edge of the weak section. Then she took a step back and made a running jump, throwing herself over the abyss, skidding to a stop on the other side. There was the sound of more stone cracking and tumbling behind her, as Dorothea helped her back up, then went to look at the gap herself.

‘That looks quite deep. Is your sister going to be OK?’

‘She said she would. I’m sure she’ll manage, she’s got her gods after all. Or a god, at least. The bits I could see looked carved and shaped, so they probably all connect up somewhere anyway.’

They moved more cautiously now, both jumping away whenever they heard anything, although there were no more collapses of the stonework beyond a few motes of dust and pebbles from above them. Stathis had entirely lost track of how deep or otherwise they were – the air was getting chiller than it had been near the entrance, but they could have been leagues deep, or just below the surface, it was impossible to tell.

Dorothea raised a hand and Stathis immediately froze. She could hear something, echoing through the passages, a leathery whisper of something, followed by an irregular thrum. She waited, body tense, and then the sound came again, before she looked at Dorothea and mouthed the question; ‘What is that?’

Dorothea shrugged, whispering back. ‘No idea. Something’s moving the air, maybe it’s natural? Like a geyser?’ There was another long pause before the sound came again. ‘I don’t think it’s anywhere close by.’

They moved out, more slowly and carefully now, before Dorothea broke the silence again. ‘So, you think Carissia will be leaving?’

‘I know she wants to. Mother wants her to stay – she’s already a powerful cleric and having a healer around is always helpful. But she doesn’t like having to follow orders and do what she’s told. She doesn’t even like taking instructions from her god, and they’re actually a god! I’ve heard her praying – half the time it sounds like she’s the one giving instructions, or they have arguments about something. I don’t think that’s how it’s meant to work? I thought it was meant to be the god giving orders and the cleric obeying. Not telling Aphari, foundation of the earth, he who abides at the root of the world, to speak faster because you’ve got another appointment.’

‘She must be doing something right to not get smited, I suppose? I imagine having to be just another cleric, even if a powerful one, would be annoying though, you’re always having to follow orders and rules.’

‘Better than lessons though! There’s so many tiny kingdoms that spend all their time fighting with all their neighbours, because someone was a dick centuries ago. Or, more often, everyone was a dick to everyone else, so they spend all their time squabbling about it. It’s such a useless waste of time. No wonder Mother’s been able to get people to join her so easily – it gives an easy pretext of “oh, we have to do this or the Iristari will conquer us by force” and they can stop all their stupid fighting and squabbling. And then they get all of the trade networks and everything else. They should have been working together for centuries already!’

‘Well, you know it’s all for you, right? So that you can have followers when you need them.’

Stathis pressed herself against a wall, before peering into yet another empty room. Was there anything here? Even just some ruined chests or something would be nice, to make them feel like proper adventurers! The floor seemed a lot more uneven that expected, marked and mottled as though by rainfall despite that being impossible, but if there had ever been anything here, it was now gone. Even just a few old coins or some gems would have been nice.

‘I don’t want followers! I guess one day I’ll have to take over all of this, but I don’t know what I’ll do with it. Leading a kingdom, or empire, or whatever, that seems a lot of stress. Give me something I can do, not an endless amount of questions that are apparently my responsibility to answer! I don’t know what the right tax rate on imported fish should be!’

‘Well, that’s what you can have advisors for. I’ll be sure to know the tax rates of all the neighbouring kingdoms for comparative purposes.’ She frowned. ‘Or hopefully have people to do that for me, as it does sound really dull.’

‘See? Even you don’t want all the boring and crappy parts of the job you actually want! I don’t want any of it. I’d take a border-posting if I thought I could get away with it. Or run away and become an adventurer. At least that way I don’t have to deal with anything beyond half-a-dozen people, and how bad can that be?’

‘I’ve heard some of the wizards can be a bit eccentric.’

‘They can’t be that bad. Just leave them to their books and point them at problems, they waggle their fingers and solve the problem. And make sure that nothing gets close enough to stab them, because they fold like paper against anything that gets into stabbing range of them. And that’s still better than the endless cascade of problems that Mother has to deal with. I want problems that I can solve, not things that are just an endless succession of less-shit options, hopefully!’

‘Wow, sounds like you really don’t want it.’

‘Sorry. Just getting stressed out. It’s so much that I don’t even want to think about it.’

‘But what about your special destiny? I’ve seen your wings, you’re something more than human. This is what the Iristari are for – “against fire, against darkness, against death, to hold back the night”. Isn’t it, well, why you were born?’

‘Yeah, but I never asked for any of it! I don’t want to be a saviour, and all the prophecies and silly and vague. They could mean anything, or nothing. Some of them sound like they were made up by someone doing a lot of drugs, or are really bad poetry. Or both. “The darkness shall gush forth amidst cries and the embrace of night, as the light lies naked and unprotected”. What the hell does that even mean? It’s certainly not something that can be used. Even “go to some place and stab some guy because he’s up to something” would help. Visions of the future always seem stupidly murky and useless!’

She lowered her voice, aware that she was getting quite loud.

‘Wow, sore point?’

‘Sorry. It’s hard to talk about this stuff when everyone acts like I should be thankful about it.’

‘Maybe you should run away from home? Don’t tell the Commander I said that!’ She peered around another corner, another empty passageway.

‘No fear of that! Sorry for laying this on you, but it’s hard when everyone is always around. There’s always guards or wardens or someone around, and everyone thinking I’m going to do something amazing. When I’m older, I want to join the Academy with the other students. Just to try and earn a position, rather than being given it!’

‘I suppose if you don’t do anything official for a while, then people won’t recognise you. You’re a good enough fighter that you should do well. Maybe not the wings though?’

‘No shit. I sort of figured that out for myself! But then at least I’ll know that I’ve got some actual skills myself, see what I can earn.’

‘Well, you’re pretty good. I reckon you can earn a few promotions fairly.’

‘Better than just being given it. If I’m going to be in charge, I want to know what it’s like to do it properly, not getting dropped in at the top. That’s just not fair to them, if I’m giving orders without any idea of what I’m actually talking about. I need to know what it’s actually like in the field, to have properly fought up front. And it was hard enough persuading Mother me to learn how to actually fight, rather than endless training in tactics and strategy. I get that someone has to do that, that there needs to be an overall plan, but it’s not fair to them to be sat miles away hoping everything works out.’

‘Well, that makes sense. But it means you’re going to be doing a lot of running around.’

‘I can probably get a gryphon or pegasus or something? But I don’t want people dying in my name when I’m not at risk, that’s just not fair to them. And I don’t want to get involved with all the politics and skulduggery and everything. It’s a lot easier to just talk it out properly and honestly! And that way people don’t have to spend all their time hiding stuff, or murdering each other in the night.’

‘Well, I’ll be sure to keep quiet about anything you might not approve off.’

‘I don’t think that’s really any better? Having you kill off anyone you think is in my way is a really bad way to go about things.’

‘Hey, what’s the fun of having an intelligence network if you’re not going to eliminate problems?’

‘They’re not problems, they’re people! Well, most of them. Vampires and demons and things, they’re fine. They need dealing with, although assassinations don’t normally work. But don’t go running off and just killing people without explicit permission! And make sure to share any information with me as well.’

‘I’ll share the juiciest gossip, don’t worry.’

‘And what’s actually useful! Although hopefully Mother will be around for long enough to get most people unified, so I don’t have to do that.’

Dorothea raised a hand, signalling Stathis to silence. She heard a scratching, scraping sound, now in a regular rhythm. They both froze in silence as it continued – was it something walking? Stathis risked looking around the corner herself, covering her stone to let her eyes adjust to the darkness, at least as much as possible. The sound kept coming, somewhere out of sight.

Dorothea looked up at her, waiting for instruction. Stathis signalled with her hand to move on, as she drew her weapon and advanced, moving with slow grace, trying to avoid movements that might draw attention from whatever was out there. As she did so, Stathis took a moment to close her eyes and extend her senses. There was no sensation of evil or doom, the place just felt… normal. She let out a breath in mostly-relief – a demon might be exciting, but it would probably be very dangerous without backup, including magical weapons or spells. Even with Carissia helping, that sort of thing would be a problem! But everything around here seemed entirely normal. Of course, that didn’t mean there might not be normal creatures or monsters.

She followed closely behind, for once glad that she hadn’t been given full plate harness yet – the armour would be nice, but moving quietly would probably be very hard in that amount of metal. It was exciting doing something like this though – actually having an adventure of her own for once, rather than being forced to try and learn all about other kingdoms and their imports and exports or figure out what the correct diplomatic response to someone might be. This was fun! As long as they didn’t turn around a corner into some monster, anyway. She really should have taken a proper sword, not just her training one.

Dorothea kept scouting ahead, the strange leathery noise occasionally, but there was no sign of what might be causing it. Stathis wrinkled her nose in distaste, able to smell some acrid stench, signalling to Dorothea to slow down and be more careful, the two of them making steady headway.