Each moment that stretched on ached, Vel’s breath shuddering as it left her body. Any moment, someone was going to end her, maybe even do something so gruesome as behead her. Or . . . or she would bleed out first. She was certain she had to be, but she couldn’t feel it. Rather, she couldn’t feel hardly anything.

  Sigurd? she thought, her face growing hot and tears welling up in her eyes. Ed . . . ard? a droplet rolled from her eye, hitting the ground with the smallest, most imperceptible splash, one that she felt. She desperately grasped that feeling, like it was telling her she was still alive. Alive enough to maybe do something?

  Vel scanned over her magic skills, desperately searching for . . . well, anything. [Create silk] . . . [Fireball] . . . [Rock throw] . . . [Water beam] . . . Magic wasn’t going to save her, not with what she had. Perhaps if she knew how to use [mirage]? She wished she could go back to the shadow realm, but that required her to walk, didn’t it?

  “Sigurd,” she coughed out, pain finally hitting the back of her shoulders. She didn’t know if it was from an existing injury, or a new one, just that it was there.

  She closed her eyes, waiting for the inevitable.

  Feeling a weight on her left shoulder, the one she couldn’t see, Vel closed her eyes. Someone was there, a hand holding her shoulder. Then the clash of metal on metal, feet moving in front of her, and shouts sounding.

  [Skill gained: Disguise]

  [0.5 Magic added]

  [Skill gained: Mirror Image]

  [0.5 Magic added]

  What? she wondered.

  “Vel!” a voice broke through the ringing in her ears, and ringing she didn’t even know she was experiencing. It was Sigurd. He shifted around her until she could see his face, his eyes massive as he looked over hers. “Velmira, say something,” he beckoned.

  Hadn’t she? She’d said his name earlier. Did he not hear it? Did she not say it? She opened her mouth, “Sigurd,” she said again, and through all the noise, realized there was no way anyone was going to hear her pitiful pain-filled voice.

  “Damnit!” Sigurd grabbed Vel’s arm, then pulled her up. The pulling, the tugging, all of it shot through Vel, and agony tore through her back like a stampede was attempting to carve her very bones out.

  A scream escaped Vel, tears streaming from her eyes whether or not she wanted them. They kept coming until she was situated over Sigurd’s shoulders, high enough to finally glimpse Enno in battle with two men━two completely identical men. He held them back, as did a [spear master] beside him, holding back his own foe, almost like they were clearing the way for Vel and Sigurd.

  And hooves, oh, she was actually hearing them, not just imagining the pounding alongside the ringing in her ears. More people were coming, and she didn’t know if they were friend or foe.

  “Hold on!” Sigurd called, and soon, they passed from a breeze into a stale and dark environment. The temple doors . . . they had opened. How much has she missed while she’d been laying on the ground?

  I’m in good hands. I’ll be okay now. I can . . . can survive. As she finished her thought, pain shot through her form, and she would have arched her back if she could do even that, but . . . nothing more than her fingers seemed to want to move.

  Heavy doors shut behind them, the only light coming through cracks in the brick walls.

  “Sigurd!” Aden called.

  Amalia sang, her voice echoing in whatever chamber they were in, then so did a blast shortly after. Sigurd all but dropped Vel to the ground, the sharp pain shooting down her spine somehow louder than her own cry.

  “Hey, hey. Velmira,” Aden said, shifting on the stones Vel’s face laid upon. His movement was but a shadow, up until light emanated near him. She’d never seen his magic make that glow, but it was so subtle.

  “If I can attach a man's hand, I can heal paralysis,” he said.

  Paralysis? Is this . . . is that what happened? Vel wondered, closing her eyes as she allowed his magic to soothe her pain. With each moment, that pain became quieter, and Amalia’s voice grew louder. Once the pain was gone, Vel felt herself snap to the present. She curled her fingers completely, then stretched them out and pushed herself up, half expecting to collapse immediately.

  She didn’t. However, the leather armor she wore fell from her chest. The back of it had been cut clean through. Shifting, she looked at Aden, seeing a gash across his forehead that he hadn’t bothered to heal. Rather, he had a few of them. When she turned to look at Amalia yelp at someone’s head being crushed in by a rock Sigurd held, she realized that they too also had some gashes. Aden, she realized, was preserving his magic for the most serious of injuries, and he’d used a lot of it.

  “Are you going to run out of magic soon?” she asked.

  “No,” he responded. “I’ll pass out first.”

  Comforting.

  “Well, they locked the doors,” Sigurd said, righting himself. He turned, a sliver of light catching some of the blood spray across his face. “From the outside,” he said.

  “So they wanted us in here,” Amalia sighed. She turned, and Vel followed her gaze past scattered temple rubble, part of the ceiling in the hall they were in was collapsed, leaving a hollow space that went to nowhere. Maybe a crawl space? She didn’t know. Turning her gaze beyond that, however, her eyes landed on a large, round stone door that looked as if it was meant to roll away.

  Carved on the door was a scale, unbalanced. To the left on the heavy side was a sparkling blue sapphire, and on the light one a diamond, she assumed at least. Standing up, Vel looked down the opposite side of the hall, which came to an abrupt end with rubble that looked almost intentionally piled up to the ceiling.

  “This was a trap,” she said.

  “Yeah,” Sigurd nodded, stepping up to the door. Vel followed him, though she felt a bit odd on her feet, her knees weaker. At this rate, she didn’t have many fights in her, and really, she’d not done so well in any of her fights this far. She killed a man, and hadn’t thought about how going in alone to do so might have been stupid━something she seemed to have done twice.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I need to wisen up, she thought, stepping beside Sigurd. She examined his face, his eyes squinted, then turned to look at the inscription on the door he was reading.

  Only those of the Holy Order of Retribution may enter. Judgement has been weighed by the gods. Those who pass judgement will be granted entry into this holy space.

  With the oath of pure blood and the sacrifice of sin, those selected may justify the scales of retribution.

  “What does it mean?” Velmira asked, looking back to the scales.

  Sigurd furrowed his brow, then shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said, and knelt down, inspecting a long and deep impression at the base of the door. “Looks like the door is lowered, which means something is holding it up. If we can figure out what that is . . .”

  Amalia stepped beside Vel, and pointed to the gems, “Why would those still be here?” she questioned.

  “What do you mean?” Vel asked.

  “They’re valuables,” Sigurd answered. “They should have been stolen ages ago. Abandoned places like this usually get pillaged.”

  “Right, so that begs the question, what’s keeping them in place, and does that have anything to do with the riddle?” Amalia asked.

  Frowning, Vel ran a finger over the sapphire. She then pulled it, and it popped right out of the socket. The door rumbled, and turned towards the diamond until the scales were horizontal to the floor. “Or maybe that gap is for something else,” she surmised, blinking.

  “So, justifying the scales is the riddle then?” Amalia asked. She tilted her head. “They are rather . . . askew, like it’d been intended for this to be justified.

  “Why couldn’t this take a key like any other door?” Aden huffed.

  Vel shrugged, then pulled the diamond free. The door rumbled as it turned until the opposite plate was pointed towards the ground, where the sapphire had been previously. Vel jumped as the sound of metal against stone echoed. She twisted around, looking towards the entrance. Arrows laid scattered against the ground there, some of them lodged into the two bodies of priests, not priestesses, that Sigurd had left at the door.

  “What did I do?” Vel asked.

  Amalia plucked the sapphire from Vel’s hand, and placed it where the diamond used to be. The door shifted again, but Vel turned instead to see another wave of arrows fly down from the ceiling, this one closer.

  “I think the first move was free,” Aden said, moving closer to the door with the rest of them. “Guys, I can’t heal if I’m dead.”

  “Yeah, no kidding,” Sigurd said.

  “More importantly, why did they lock the door, why aren’t they corning us in here? Do they expect us to keel over and die from being unable to unlock this door?” Amalia asked.

  “Or it’s in case the extra men the crown sent beat the church knights,” Sigurd said.

  “So those were horses?” Vel asked, recalling them.

  “Yes, backup. Apparently the king and queen didn’t think one little squad was enough.”

  “They were right,” Aden said. “Half of them d . . . yeah.”

  Taking a deep breath, Velmira looked back at the door, which was still weighted towards the left side, but only slightly. “How many more moves do you think we have until we’re next?” she asked.

  “Three,” Sigurd answered. “So only two to figure it out.”

  “There are only two slots, but neither stone works,” Amalia said, “unless there is a key.”

  “Then we need ta find a stone, between the weight of the two stones,” Aden said.

  “And that fits in the slot perfectly,” Sigurd said.

  Velmira ran her hand over the sapphire sapphire and the space it was in. Pulling it could trigger the next set of arrows, and placing something else another set. If they had to make any more moves than that, they could be waiting for someone to dig them out of this temple. She wasn’t keen at the idea, considering how long Edard had already been captive for.

  Edard, Vel thought, then dug her hand under her shirt for her pendant. It was a magic sapphire, one she hoped to keep, but right now . . . Examining it, she realized the size was perfect, carved in the same diamond-like shape as the sapphire in the socket.

  “Maybe this will work,” she said, then pulled the necklace off. She pried at the wires that held it in place with her metal nails, pulling the gem free. Practically felt like a sin to do it, and her heart felt a bit bad for ruining the gift Sigurd gave her, but right now, she really just needed to get to him.

  “You’re sure about this?” Amalia asked.

  “What else do we have to try?” Vel asked.

  “Do it,” Sigurd suggested.

  Vel nodded, and reached up, pulling the sapphire free. The door rolled back to the left, and Vel looked behind her, watching as arrows scattered against the stone ground, one stopping just before it hit her foot. Sigurd’s prior estimation was wrong. If this wasn’t the right answer, then someone was going to die.

  “You all should step back,” she suggested.

  Sigurd snatched the sapphire from her fingers. “No,” he said. “You and the others will stand at the other door, I’ll place the stone.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” Vel said, voice dropping as she gave him a stern look.

  “Velmira, either you stand back, or I’ll shield you with my body. Either way, I’m putting my life on the line. Move back,” he said.

  Amalia grabbed Vel’s arm, but she shrugged it off, her face heating up as she faced the hunter. Pointing a finger, Velmira said, “I’m not risking your life!”

  “And I’m not risking the lives of everyone in the world.” Sigurd’s words cut to Vel’s center. She was carrying the entire world and . . . All of Ymril depended on her to return. It was no wonder they sent reinforcements, even if she hadn’t originally wanted them. She had hoped a smaller team could go undetected, but that wasn’t so. Now half of them were dead. If they had started with more people, perhaps more of them could have lived. Even if they had cavalry, they could have plowed through invisible men.

  “But I need you,” Velmira furrowed her brow.

  Sigurd took a deep breath, then moved across the room, arrow shafts crunching beneath his feet. He picked up one of the dead priests, and got the guy situated over his shoulders, then over his head with a grunt.

  Stepping back towards the door, he said. “Move. Back, Vel.”

  Amalia pulled on her arm, and Vel obliged, allowing the singer to pull her back towards the other end of the room as Aden followed. Never taking her eyes off of Sigurd, his arm shaking as he held up the dead weight, Vel tightened her hands into fists.

  Please, please be okay, she thought. Sigurd reached up, her sapphire glinting in his hand in a sliver of light. He placed it in the slot, and Vel found herself clinging to Amalia, waiting painfully long as the door shifted. The arrows, at wrong moves, had come immediately, so these ones, well, they were slow enough if they were coming that Sigurd took several steps back. Or . . . they would fill the whole room for all she knew.

  The door came to a stop, the scales justified━perfectly even to each other. Then, it rumbled, rolling away and revealing a massive room beyond, decorated by light from the windows and moss that grew over large slabs that had fallen from above.

  Velmira let out a sigh of relief, running to Sigurd. She placed her arms around him as he dropped the dead priest. “Don’t you ever do that again!” she scolded.

  “Sure,” he lied. Oh, how she could pick out that obvious lie. For now, however, she forgave him, stepping back and moving into the lit room beyond.

  The room almost looked as if it didn’t fit in the place, too beautiful, honestly, for the old stone. The moss was so vibrant, and there were flowers sprouting between stones and rubble. She climbed over what looked to be the floor of the second level, which was missing, save for a few halls supported by pillars.

  “This place could collapse at any time,” Amalia said, looking about. “We need to get out of here as soon as we find Edard.”

  Vel nodded, then paused when she felt something hit her leg.

  [Iridescent Hide level 7]

  One the uneven ground before her was a baby earth elemental, its little sapphire eyes bringing a smile to Vel’s eyes. After all this time, these things were still so cute.

  She looked towards the basin at the center of the room when it rumbled, the massive rocks there, looking formed from mossy crushed stone, rose up, floating. Vel tilted her head back as it grew in size, eventually a stony structure forming with the largest as its head, and the smallest stone on the ground with three between them. There was air between each rock, and a stream of water spiraled up around it passing over the rocks as the massive elemental picked up smaller baby elementals around it. Little earth ones, tiny tornadoes, droplets of water with . . . eyes, and then little balls of fire as flames joined the mix.

  “Holy . . .” Amalia stumbled back, and Sigurd grabbed Vel’s shoulders, dragging her away. “What is it?”

  Sigurd urgently whispered, “Get back! It’s a mother elemental!”