That week, their focus was on acquiring the remaining stones, one for speed, one for accuracy, and one for sharpness of sight.
Thalso had told them these were the core traits of a strong warrior, and none of them disagreed. Soon, they had gathered all but the accuracy stone.
"Why is this place so hot?" Taria muttered, swiping sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her tunic.
The chamber was a furnace of glowing red rock, the floor crowded with jagged stone mounds jutting upward like the backs of buried beasts.
"I can't feel anything," Kaedros said flatly.
"You're resistant to fire," Rauk reminded him, heat shimmering in the heavy air. "But what are we supposed to do here? There's nothing to fight."
He was wrong.
The ground ruptured with a deafening crack, and a massive snake erupted upward, its flesh fused with molten lava. Two heads rose, each with four obsidian eyes gleaming with hunger. It hissed, the sound like wind across burning sand.
