The scream came before anyone understood what had happened.

Kael stepped out of the shadow into the blinding light of the Core cavern.

"Vane!" Aurelia’s voice echoed like a clarion bell through the immense hollow chamber.

The entire platform went dead silent. Engineers froze. Guards turned in shock. Grand Marshal Vane’s head snapped toward the upper ledges, his jaw dropping as he saw the princess standing side-by-side with the barefoot boy in rags.

"Impossible!" Malakor shrieked. "The hunters said they were crushed!"

"Your hunters failed, traitor!" Aurelia yelled, her voice reverberating with royal fury. "By order of the Royal Crown, I command you to lay down your weapons and surrender!"

Vane’s shock quickly morphed into a cruel, ruthless grin. "Surrender? To a child and a runaway girl? You brought yourself right to my feet, Princess." He turned to his captain. "Kill the girl. Bring me the boy's head!"

A dozen iron golems, their glowing red cores sputtering with stolen life force, lurched forward, their massive metal fists raised.

Kael didn't back down. He closed his eyes, taking a deep, slow breath, shutting out the noise of the machinery, the shouts of the guards, and the fear in his own chest. He reached into the very heart of the mountain.

Help me, he prayed into the ground.

The mountain responded with a thunderous roar.

The solid stone floor beneath the iron golems dissolved into fluid quicksand. The multi-ton metal machines shrieked as they sank instantly up to their shoulders, trapped in solidifying rock.

Kael leaped off the ledge, falling thirty feet into the open air. But he didn't hit the bottom. A pillar of smooth granite rose up from the depths like a rising elevator, catching him safely and carrying him straight toward the grand stone doors of the Vault.

"Block him!" Vane screamed, drawing his broadsword and charging down the walkway himself.

Aurelia dropped from the upper ledge onto an overhead supply rope, swinging down onto the platform with her silver dagger drawn. She landed cleanly behind Vane, cutting through his cape and kicking the back of his knee, forcing the heavy commander to turn his attention to her.

"Your fight is with me, Vane!" Aurelia shouted, parrying his massive sword with quick, acrobatic strikes.

Meanwhile, Kael reached the massive Vault doors. The surface of the stone was covered in complex, moving gears made of granite.

As Kael pressed his bloodied palm against the center of the door, a deep voice echoed inside his mind—not in words, but in the memory of ancient stone:

Will you conquer the world, child, or will you carry it?

Kael looked back at Aurelia fighting for her life, at old Doran standing guard, and at the tortured, bleeding Core behind them.

May you like

$I stepped down from a classified military transport and headed directly to the ICU, where my wife was lying with twenty-seven broken bones and a fractured skull. Outside her hospital room, her mother and six sisters stood smiling as though they were waiting for lunch to arrive. The detective assigned to her case leaned in and whispered, "Captain, this family practically controls the entire county." I stared through the glass at my wife's bruised and swollen face before answering, "Good. Because my authority extends far beyond this county."$