The group gingerly made their way through the remnants of the camp in the faint dawn light. Amber, much to Adam’s surprise, had woken up less than an hour after the burning of the camp, and seemed none the worse for wear. He had expected her to be weary and lethargic, the way he had been after overusing his magic, but apparently the girl had bounced right back. In fact, Amber was the most relaxed among them by far, wandering through the field of ashes without a care. Adam had expected the ashes to smell like charred meat, but they didn’t. They smelled like ash and smoke and nothing else. He’d expected to find scorched remains and blackened bones, but all he found was ash and the occasional bits of strange slag where molten steel had fused with the ashes. Lily was evidently thinking along the same lines. “Oh god… There’s not even bone left. I… I didn’t think your fire got this hot, Amber.” Amber stopped in her tracks, white flakes of ash swirling through the air around her. “It didn’t. But it does now.” “Amber…” “I’m passion. Passion and fire. When we left this world, I didn’t have anything. Not even fire. It burned me, Lily. But I kept trying. Over and over and over. I thought maybe it would work. Maybe it wouldn’t burn me. And then I’d have my magic and my friends and everything would be all right again. They locked me up, tied my arms, but I always broke out and found more fire…” Lily stepped up a little awkwardly and embraced the smaller girl from behind. Amber made a happy noise and let herself sink into the hug. “I’m back now, Lily. I have my friends and my fire and everything is right. And I’m never letting you go again. I will burn like the sun for you.” Lily stroked the girl’s patchy hair a little awkwardly, trying not to think about the field of ashes they were standing in. Amber had killed so many people here, but… But she wasn’t afraid of the girl. Even after all this time, even after everything she’d seen her do, Amber was still so… so very Amber. She was still the best friend Lily had ever had. “I’m not letting you go either.” As the two princesses embraced, Sven gently pulled Adam out of their hearing range and whispered in a worried tone. “Are you sure this is all right, Adam?” “Of course it’s not all right, but this is war. We don’t exactly have a lot of options here.” “I know, but… So many people, just… Gone.” “They were the enemy, and we are at war. They’re the ones attacking our country. They’d kill us in a heartbeat if we gave them the chance. Justify it however you want, but in the end we’re the only thing keeping them from marching on the capital. I’m not willing to let that happen, and I don’t think you are either.” “And what about Amber? Is it really OK to… to use her like some sort of weapon?” “She wants to be used. Look, maybe if this was a time of peace and we had all the resources we could ask for we could… help her, somehow. Make her less… broken. But for now, she seems happiest when we tell her what to do, and we need her help.” Sven sighed unhappily. “I suppose you’re right. But I don’t like it.” With heavy footfalls, he walked up to the canyon wall, feeling for an almost imperceptible seam in the solid rock. Once he found it, he brought up his arms and called upon his magic, pushing at the stone wall in front of him. With a torturous groan, a massive slab of stone slowly swung inwards, revealing an enormous cavern beyond it. “And here we are. Stone’s Cradle.” Adam nodded. “Seal the entrance behind us. There should still be another way out on the far side, and we want to delay anyone following us as much as possible.” Sven nodded, and once everyone was safely inside he manoeuvred the massive slab back in place. As Amber called up little floating flames to light their way, Sven started piling up every loose rock and boulder he could find behind the entrance slab as a barricade. “There. This would be a pain in the ass to get through from the outside, even for me.” Adam nodded, and together the four of them ventured into the depths of the cavern. They had been walking for almost an hour when they reached the first challenge. The ground shook and rumbled, and a deadly rain of rocks and stones was constantly falling from the roof far above. The layer of loose, uneven stones made the footing treacherous, and getting hit by one of the falling rocks would easily be enough to break a bone or crack a skull. “You know…” Sven commented as he focused his magic. “I always wondered about these trials. What purpose do they serve? Who set them up? I mean, there’s obviously magic involved. This constant rain of stones would have eaten through the roof of the cave within weeks otherwise.” “When I spoke to the Goddess about it last time we were here, she seemed to suggest they were natural formations.” “That doesn’t make sense though…” Sven nodded to himself as he began to sense the stones falling all around him. “Stick close to me, now.” The group crowded close together, following close behind Sven as he deflected any rock that threatened to strike them. “I mean…” He continued as he walked. “They seem designed specifically to challenge both your skill with elemental magic and the related virtue. I remember last time I was here I was so worried about failing and letting you three get hurt that my magic almost faltered. These days I have a lot more trust in my own abilities, but back then this kind of thing was really scary.” “Maybe that’s just how elemental magic works?” Lily suggested. “Stone’s Cradle is supposed to be the source of all earth magic, right? Maybe that much earth magic just warps the world around it until only a skilled earth mage could pass through unharmed.” “But why, though? What’s the point of this? Last time we were here, I never met anyone with elemental magic strong enough to pass these trials other than us and the kings and queens of the other kingdom.” They got past the rain of stone, and Sven saw an enormous yawning chasm in the distance, at least two hundred feet wide and far, far deeper. “Do you think they have new kings and queens in this era?” Lily asked. “They hunted us all across the country in the early days of the last war.” “Probably.” Adam replied. “By all accounts their kings and queens were natives, and we never actually killed them in the end. Their descendants are probably ruling now.” “I wonder why our kingdom doesn’t have any native royalty…” Sven mused as he started gathering flat-topped boulders from all around him, causing them to float away across the chasm and hang in the air like stepping stones. “Maybe they all died.” Amber suggested. “It doesn’t matter.” Adam said firmly. “What matters is that we’re here now, and our kingdom needs help.” “I suppose you’re right…” Sven muttered as he started hopping across the floating stones. Amber followed behind him, almost skipping across the floating boulders with a smile on her face. Adam went next, carefully making his way across the gap. Lily looked at the floating stones uncertainly. “I… I’m not sure I can do this, guys.” “I don’t remember you having a problem with it last time.” Adam called back to her. “Last time I was young and stupid and stubborn! And I was much more used to jumping between things back then.” Sven pondered the issue for a moment. “Hang on, I have an idea.” He made one of the smaller boulders float over and land in front of Lily. “Hop on.” Lily sat down on the rock uncertainly, and then gripped it tightly as it began to move beneath her. Sven actually started sweating as he floated her over, the other floating boulders tumbling into the abyss as he strained to ferry Lily across the chasm. The moment she was safely across, he slumped to the ground. “Wow. That was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I think Lily’s magic interfered with my ability to control the boulder’s movements.” “You mean you weren’t sure it would work?” Lily asked a little shrilly. “I was completely sure it would work until I started. Once you were moving it was all I could do to keep ferrying you over. If I tried to turn you around I would have dropped you for sure.” Lily glared at him, but didn’t say anything further. Adam raised his hands placatingly. “Look, at least no-one got hurt, OK? Although I guess we won’t be adding ‘flying on boulders’ to our list of possible modes of transportation.” He shot Sven a concerned look. “Are you all right?” “I’m fine. I’m fine. Just need to gather my strength.” Sven took a few more deep breaths before getting up. Adam nodded approvingly. “Then let’s get moving. We’re still some ways from the heart of the cradle.” “Just one moment.” Sven started systematically sweeping every boulder in range into the chasm, sending them crashing down into the dark depths. “There. I don’t care how good of an earth mage you are, no-one’s getting those boulders back from the bottom of that chasm. It’s too far.” “Then it will take them that much longer if they try to follow us. Good thinking. Still, we should be moving on.” They turned and headed deeper into the cave, towards the heart of the cradle. The heart was as beautiful as they remembered. A massive formation of glowing green crystal, at least a hundred feet wide and half again as tall. The jagged, spiky ball of crystal hovered just a few feet off the ground, and the uncountable millions of points and facets glimmered and shone with different shades of green. As one, the group slowed to a halt just to look at the towering mass of crystal. Sven couldn’t help but grin. “Wow… I… Part of me thought it would seem less impressive now that I’m grown up, but this is…” “Amazing.” Lily finished for him. Adam was the first among them to get his mind back on the task at hand. “Do you remember what you need to do?” “Yeah, I remember. Here goes nothing.” Sven stepped up and placed a hand on the massive crystal, feeling the enormous, swirling currents of magic running through it. With an effort of will, he started guiding them, shaping them. Little by little, he isolated a tiny portion of the crystal and started drawing it out, separating its magic from the massive pool of energy running through the heart. It took almost ten minutes of work, but he finally managed to split a portion of the energy from the whole. And with that split, a sound like a massive glass chime rang out and a fragment of crystal almost as large has his head dropped into his hands, glowing softly green as he held it. “That’s a lot larger than last time.” Adam remarked. “Well…” Sven replied with a grin. “I suppose Amber isn’t the only one who’s gotten stronger.” Adam nodded, but he couldn’t help but feel worried. He certainly wasn’t stronger than he had been in the last war. His water magic was only as strong as the purity of his heart, and with all his worries, fears and doubts muddling and diluting his will, he was a far sight from the powerful, headstrong child he used to be. He could control his magic to some degree by focusing on a specific task and shutting out everything else, but… He shook his head roughly. Now wasn’t the time for this kind of thinking. Besides, wallowing in his uncertainties like this was only making things worse. “We need to find the way out. Everybody spread out and look for it.” In the end, it was amber who found the small hole in the cave wall. It was less than a meter in diameter, and sloped steeply downwards. Listening closely, they could just about make out the sound of rushing water in the distance. “Are you sure about this, Adam?” Lily asked with a worried tone. “This is how we left Stone’s Cradle last time.” “By being pulled along a rushing underground river for miles, yes.” “It will be fine. Besides, the enemy will have discovered the remains of their camp by now. And there’s no way we’ll be able to get the drop on them if we try to leave this cave via the entrance.” “Still…” “I’m telling you, there’s nothing to worry about.” Adam took off his pack and lay down on the ground, doing his best to smother his own doubts and concerns even as he grabbed the pack in his arms and prepared to slide down the stone chute. “I’m a water mage. I can handle guiding us down a river. Everything will be perfectly fine.” Pushing all his worries away and focusing completely on the task at hand, Adam started sliding down towards the underground river.