Page 85 of Damned and Broken Gods
The track widened, and I spotted the marker that Bhartina had told me to look out for—five stones stacked atop each other. I took a left, the path taking me around the mountainside, past outcrops of spindly trees with bare branches, until, just as promised, there appeared a crevice in the stone—five feet wide and six feet tall. A tight squeeze for an Asura but perfect for me.
This was it. The beginning of the journey.
I took a deep breath and stepped into the gloom. The air was dry but had a strange smell to it that I couldn’t define. A network of slender lines appeared in the walls, glowing soft orange and spreading like veins across the rockface. Moths fluttered in my belly as I went deeper. A shift inside me warned that I was approaching something important.
The tunnel widened, the ceiling rose, and the glow intensified until a wall of obsidian stone blocked my path. Not a dead end, because there was space around it and a little above it, just not enough for me to squeeze through.
What was I supposed to do now?
Had I taken the wrong tunnel?
No. Bhartina hadn’t said anything about a second tunnel.
Strange lines cut across the wall of stone.
Why was it so different from the rest of the tunnel?
I took a step toward it, and the orange glow flickered. A low groan filled the air, and the stone wall in front of me moved.
I leapt back, heart slamming against my ribs, breath trapped in my throat as the wall shifted and unfurled. Arms, legs, a blocky head.
A stone body.
Crimson fractures bloomed across its form, and two glowing red eyes opened on its face.
It stared at me unblinking.
Unmoving.
Okay…This had to be some kind of test, right? I cleared my throat. “Um…Hi. I’ve come for the ember thing…” I smiled and shrugged.
A grinding sound filled the air, and the ground beneath my boots vibrated.
“You walk on firebones, Flameborn.” The stone man spoke without a mouth, the voice somehow emanating from its body. “Few enter this throat and leave with breath.”
“Um…good to know…But I’m hoping to keep my breath if it’s all the same to you.”
It regarded me steadily for several beats in which I felt my lungs tighten, as if it was measuring my breath by drawing it out of my body.
The odd feeling passed, and it spoke once again. “I am the guardian, the witness of becoming. To pass through my heart, you must burn away that which does not belong. You seek the ember of self, the seed of awakening, then you must forge your own path to it and place your soul bare upon the stone.” His eyes flared. “Do you commit?”
“Wait, what does that mean?”
“Do. You. Commit.”
Fuck. “Yes, I commit.”
His eyes dimmed then brightened as if he’d blinked. “Very well. Answer correctly and keep your breath. Fail and relinquish your life. You have three chances.”
Ice gripped my nape. “Wait, what?”
“I have no weight, yet I shape stone. I cannot be seen, yet I burn in bone. I die if held, I live if freed. Name me, Flameborn, and you may proceed.”
Shit, a riddle. A fucking riddle. Okay, breathe. I was good at riddles. I’d read a few. Played enough games with riddles in them. Watched movies with riddles and known the answers.
Wait, what had he said?
Have no weight, yet shape stone? Something about not being seen and burning bone…die if held…live if freed. Ooooh. I had the answer. Fire. It had to be. It could shape stone, right? Burn in your bones, like pain, and it died if you covered it up. It had to be. I took a deep breath. “The answer is fire.”
