He felt the fire of fear and terror jolt through his veins and fill him with unbidden strength. The blade pierced his skin with the cold touch of waiting death, his hot blood running down its metallic surface. He felt the weight of a body on his back; he knew that he would have to throw off his attacker if he was to live.

His body acted in unthinking instinct, muscles bunching as if he were about to pounce. In a sudden movement, he threw himself up off the ground as far as he could, twisting and arching his back. He would confuse and disorient—create uncertainty.

In that uncertainty he would strike. They were armed and he was not. There would be only one chance. He could not fail.

Whirling around in an instant, he landed on all fours with legs ready to throw himself forward. In a sudden blur of motion, he lunged with claws outstretched. With his body flying forward, feet barely leaving the ground, his enthusiasm was suddenly halted as his face struck a wall in midair. A glimmering purple shimmer flared in front of his eyes as he cracked his muzzle against the bizarre light. He growled from the back of his throat. He did not know what this was. Striking it twice with his claws, red sparks flew out from the contact and showered into the air, but the wall did no more than flicker for a moment.

His confidence flagged as he recognized the madness making up the barrier.

He heard the voices then, the voices of the many dead that he held inside him. Mahji, they whispered to him in a chorus of the dead. Magic. He saw visions of purple before his eyes, saw fire crackling with its power. Saw storm and blade fashioned from its will, saw armies of men and beasts crumble to dust before its strength.

It is strong, they whispered. Stronger. He heard it then, the challenge in their words. It was stronger than him. He could not break it. Until it unraveled, he would have to wait. The dead thought him too weak. He hissed in affront, the hairs on his neck standing on edge. These were his lands, and he was strong. Sitting on his haunches with claws flexing in anticipation, he searched for his attacker throughout the cave. In his heart, he knew that it mattered not who challenged him. He would kill them all the same.

The dim light from the earth shone on a figure near the corner. It was her, the one born of the earth just like him. The one that he had saved.

The one that owed him her life. He snarled in the back of his throat, disgust and anger heating his blood. He knew that he should have left her to die.

Her profile was lean, two false fangs in her hand. He recognized them, those teeth of gleaming metal that humans used—daggers, they called them. Red hair gleamed, raggedly cut so that it stayed out of her pale face. A close-fitting black jacket with numerous pockets that stank of sweat and blood covered her chest, and more straps with knives and worse covered her legs. A belt ran around her hips, strapped with knives and other things he did not know. There was a bag of hers that she had left on the ground, an alien smell coming from inside it.

All this he saw, but he did not notice. All that he truly saw were the black swirls running across her face. They were the mark of the earth on her, just like him. They were the same. There was a word for it, he knew. He had spoken it before, in this strange tongue of man.

“Sister.” he spat out in revulsion.

He saw the flash of shock dart across her face. Yet it did not faze her for more than a moment; she was a fighter too, this one. Her hand fell to her hips, pulling out a flask with a purple liquid. She poured its contents in a line in front of her, steam pluming forth from where it touched the stone. Murmuring a chant, the air crackled, a hissing purple springing up from the ground. Then she kneeled, lips moving as ribbons of purple danced from her fingers.

And so she hid behind her wall of madness. Of magic, whispered the dead, and he raged silently. How long would she cower? How long would she tremble behind her pathetic defenses, unwilling to meet him in fang and claw?

“Demon,” she snapped, “you die today.” Pulling two purple crystals out of her bag, she shattered them on the ground, fine powder forming a plume of colored dust. “Making me use this.” she sneered. “I hope you’re worth it.” Eyes closed, she began to chant. The powder shimmered, writhing in the air, pulsing with the cadence of her words. He could feel its power, growing, filling the cave. It was unnatural, not of the earth. This was not what the earth had whispered to him. It was a mockery. It was mocking him.

He growled, his instincts telling him to fight. This was his cave, his land, and he was being challenged. He would show this fool the price of their arrogance. Blood filled his eyes, rage maddening his head. His blood was pumping, his heart racing, his muscles tensing. The weightless euphoria filled his body and he stopped thinking, only feeling. He loved this feeling before a fight. It was primal, it was right. It mattered not who was before him, not when they were here. They were in his land. His den. He would kill them. Rip their limbs from their body. Eat their limbs in front of them. Tear out their eyes. Slash their chest and burn the wounds. Feed them coals. Drain their blood. He would teach them pain. He would make them hurt, teach them a lesson. They were not escaping alive.

He heard her chanting rise to a climax and, without warning, a sudden brilliant cone of flame scorched his vision. It shot through the cave like a devouring beast and before he could move, he found himself in its maw. Fear shot through him, instinctual and unmistakable. In reflex, he raised his arms to protect his face, feeling the fire sear his flesh and heat swallow his skin. The flame licked at his body and ate away at his flesh. He ducked in instinct, the brunt of the conjured inferno blasting over his head. Seemingly as quickly as it had come, the torrent of fire disappeared, scorching the stone black where it had passed and filling the cave with hot steam.

His forearms were red with blood, the scales cracked and blackened from the heat. In irritation, he scraped at his arms, tearing off the useless ragged scales to reveal charred flesh underneath. Still, small tongues of flame clung to his skin and he swatted madly to beat them off his body.

Slowly, the flame died down until there were only curls of smoke rising from charred skin. The burns on his arms were the worst, seared by the conflagration she had conjured. Even though the flames had died away, the skin was still a hideous black that he knew would scar hideously. The tissue was dead and cracked, weeping thick blood that dripped down to his claws. The falling embers from the former flame were caught in his hair as they fell.

He took no notice of the cinders until she chanted once more and they burst into flame upon his body, reigniting greedily upon his furred legs. The embers that he had thought nothing of now blinded his vision with searing heat and light.

He could do nothing but swipe madly as the fire spread, the smell of singed hair and burned flesh filling the cave. He fought and struggled, but his efforts to put out the fire were thwarted by her chanting and magic. His efforts were useless; the licking blaze died down for an instant only to flare up, stronger and hotter than before. While his upper body was scaled and resisted the flame, the nape of his neck and his legs had but fur and were wreathed in hungry fire. The pain was excruciating, his nerves seared aflame as he could do nothing but swipe at the air and claw like a beast. As the inferno surrounded his body, he charged forward with a mindless fury, only to crash against the magic that resisted his wrath.

He struck at the magic in anger with claws and fangs, but still it would not yield. The fire brought out a primal terror from within him, an instinctive fear .In the madness, he devolved to an utterly feral nature, his body a flurry of unthinking movement as he was bathed in the crackling flames. He clawed at his own flesh and ripped at his own skin, drawing forth fresh blood that dried and cracked as it touched the flame. That gluttonous fire ate away at his flesh, relentlessly sticking to his skin despite his efforts to beat it out. His eyes were seared shut by the heat; his ears popped and burned. His skin began to slough and peel, cracking as it fell apart.

He was dying.

The single thought drove terror through his veins far more potent than any poison. His heart clenched and his lungs could not breathe, his body gasping for air that refused to enter his scorched mouth. His movement grew more feeble and erratic as he rolled on the ground, beating helplessly at the flames until finally, he stopped. As if in mockery, the fire slowly trickled out and died with him, her chanting that had been feeding it now slowly ending.

Her chanting ended. He heard her voice, faint and tinny to his broken ears. “Sorry, I can’t you for a lover just yet. Don’t be too heartbroken over there.” She giggled hysterically, the laughter flitting maddeningly through the cave. “Should I blow you a kiss?”

Smoke and steam hissed from his body, faint embers sparking from inside the flesh. His breathing had stopped, the beating of his heart faint in his chest.

Do you wish to die?

Those voices again, taunting him in his mind. They were the dead, he knew. The dead he had saved from that shard of black.

Are you this weak?

He would hiss if he could. The voices were mocking him. He knew he needed strength if he wished to live.

Do you desire strength?

His fading mind was filled with confusion. Of course he wished for strength. Of course he wished to live.

There is strength in you, scion of Andahiel. There is strength in your blood.

A sudden hope took root in his heart, a flowering bud that bloomed amid the ashes.

They would see you falter, see you burn. We would see you rise, see you stand. Push past the pain, scion. Push past the lies. Breathe, scion. Breathe and live. Live and stand. Stand and slaughter.

Their words were a sweet poison in his ears, a numbing toxin that settled into his veins and let him look past the scorching agony. The pain fed upon itself in a gruesome cycle, making his heart roar in his ears and his rage push aside all other thought. Strength in your blood, the dead had said, and he knew it to be true. It swept his thoughts aside and drowned his mind in a thick haze. The madness that took hold of him was no nameless madness. It was a blood rage, a berserker’s frenzy.

It was the battlelust that washed away pain and inhibition, that gave damned men the strength to kill twenty of their number. It was sweet power, a rock to cling to in a river of torment. He caught it, caught its trickle of strength. That trickle grew to a stream, grew to a torrent that drowned him in its turbulent rapids. He drowned in its power.

You cannot die here, scion. There is vengeance you must repay, blood debts you must collect.

He was dying, and he did not care. He wanted to kill her. He needed her to die. In that instant, he forgot. Forgot that she was his sister. Forgot the death he had courted to save her. All he knew was the humiliation he had felt. All he knew was the pain and dread that he had felt. All he knew was the cold death that he had felt. That he was still feeling. He would make her feel the same.

His heart was racing now, the blood crashing in waves against his skull. He howled in a rage of bloodlust and frenzy before leaping forward, sharp claws a flurry of black that cut rips in the air. Once more, he struck against that unyielding wall of magic. He did not know how she had made it. He did not care; it kept his fangs from her heart, and so he would break it. Shatter it to pieces. He would make her suffer, pay her back for this agony. He would plow through it and crush her with his claws. It would be vicious, quick, and bloody.

The dead hissed in anticipation, the sound like frozen agony. This flame of hers feasts on your flesh. We can drown it with our spirit for you, scion. Our death for your life. With your will, we can snuff it out.

With the thought barely flickering through his head, he felt a sudden rush as white ribbons creeped down his arm. They spiraled about his body, sheathing him in a blinding cocoon. Smoke hissed in the tongue of serpents, burning his eyes where it touched. In moments, the ribbons peeled away to reveal a scarred body without a trace of flame. No sparks. No embers. He saw her staring in disbelief, staring in confusion. It filled him with pride, with confidence.

Now kill her, scion. Taste her blood on your tongue.

When the dead spoke again, their voices were fewer. He did not notice. The thought of blood filled him with excitement. Black claws flexing, lips peeled back as he growled, he rammed himself into the wall. She twitched in reflex, or perhaps in pain as blood trickled out of a corner of her mouth. With a growl, he threw himself forward again, slamming into the magic. There was a popping in his shoulder, but he did not care. Once more he tackled the wall, ramming it with the weight of his body. Still it stood, unyielding in spite of his fury.

The damned thing would not break.

Again and again he slammed himself against the spell, uncaring as his body shattered from underneath him. Again and again he broke himself against the wall until the pain filled his mind and became all that he could feel. His charred flesh was cracked and bleeding, long since broken by the fire. He was breathing hard now, blood trickling from numerous wounds on his arms and shoulders, but he cared not.

He bellowed in vexation and anger, at her incessant contempt and his own inability. Why was it that he could not break this magic? He had strength enough to break the grip of death, so why was he unable to break this magic? These were his lands, his to command. He was strongest here, and she was weak. Her bones were frail, her skin dust, her heart fragile, so why could he not break this magic?

The constant pain and his own pent-up frustration made him claw madly in fury until something inside him finally broke. His blood rage drove him into a frenzy, pounding the wall with his shoulders, raking it with his claws. His racing heartbeat was like drums in his head, each hit driving pounding pain deeper into his skull. The dull ache filled his mind, growing stronger, narrowing his vision. It hurt.

Howling in anger and agony, adrenaline pumping, he slammed with all his might into the wall that she had conjured. He slammed with the urgency and wrath that filled every fiber of his being, and it acceded to his demands.

In a showering cascade, the wall shattered and she fell to her knees, coughing up blood. Purple blood, crackling with madness. Crackling with magic.

He had done it. Elation surged through him, emboldening and blinding. He could see her skull crushed before him, her eyes dripping through his claws. The blood rage had driven all reason from him, now that he had been pushed to this bestial breaking point.

He charged forward without hesitation, elation and confidence filling him as he flexed his claws in anticipation. She was chanting something in front of him, her body swaying, he was not paying attention. In the last few moments he remembered the liquid that she had poured in front of her, looking down to see that darkened patch of stone in front of him as her chanting peaked in intensity.

There was a sudden crackling and heat filled the cave as yet another purple barrier flickered into existence in front of him. His eyes watched, unbelieving, his skull cracking on its spiderwebbed surface.

Cracking on another damned wall.