DA [holding photograph of Erra]: What do you think about woman, Tim?

TH: She’s very dangerous, Grand Master.

DA: I’m sure she is. What was it Bruce said? Trouble.

TH: Yes, Grand Master.

DA: When you get to my age, Tim, you realize that playing it safe isn’t always the best strategy. After all, what’s life without a little trouble? Don’t write that down. We wouldn’t want Knight-Inquisitor Dolivo to lose his beauty sleep.

The King of Fire

Four years after the battle of Atlanta

“Why do you do this to yourself?” Grandfather sighed.

I sat on the floor of the library, basking in a pool of gentle light slipping through the narrow, arched window behind me. Blood and dirt smeared my jeans and my T-shirt. Everything hurt, and sorting through the maze of pain and aches was exhausting. My body was pretty much a single bruise. The right side hurt the most, sending a sharp spike of agony through my insides every time I inhaled. The seventh rib was broken. Probably when the bigger one kicked me. I was covering my head at the time, and the broken rib was the lesser of two evils. I was working on it, but I had to conserve magic. They would be coming for me soon.

“I have my reasons,” I told him.

“Are they good reasons?”

“The best.”

Grandfather sighed again. His handsome face, edged with a neat silvery beard, wore a long-suffering expression.

My brother stalked over from the spot by the wall. He moved on all fours, silent like a ghost on padded paws. When I materialized in Grandfather’s palace, he’d taken one look at the blood on my face and changed shape in a burst of flesh. In his human version, he was three feet eight inches tall, a perfectly reasonable height for a five-year-old. I knew this because we measured his height every six months. The current freaked-out iteration was about my height, armed with powerful muscle, leonine jaws with four-inch fangs, and claws that could gut a human like a fish. His fur was so dark, it was nearly black, and against that darkness, his gold eyes glowed, two blood moons hypercharged with shapeshifter hormones.

“It’s not that bad.” It was worse.

My brother pawed at the thick chain stretching from the shackles on my leg into empty air.

“Please leave it,” I told him.

He caught it with his right hand and pulled, testing the strength.

“Stop.” If he yanked it out of the wall, my whole plan would collapse.

He whirled around. The massive jaws gaped and snapped shut, fangs sliding against each other like teeth of a steel bear trap.

“That’s not nice.”

He snarled.

Grandfather stepped forward and rested his hand on my brother’s shoulder. “You are late for dinner.”

The kid let out a soft half-growl, half-sigh that turned into a whine.

“I know. Your sister never does anything without a plan. Off you go.”

“Do I get a hug?” I held out my arms.

He grumbled, but padded over, and nudged himself into my arms. I hugged him, petting the soft fur. “Don’t worry. I’ve got this.”

He sighed and then I was holding empty air.

“He missed my fingers by less than an inch.”

“Your brother is upset.” Grandfather snapped a huge old book closed. “Can you blame him? I am upset. Your mother, if she knew, would be upset.”

If my mother knew, she would drop everything and ride out to save me. I had to keep that from happening at all costs.

“Your grandmother will be livid.”

My grandmother was the one who sent me into this hell in the first place. She wanted to come herself, but she was too much. Too tall, too strong, too beautiful, and too full of magic. She would draw attention and be treated with fear and caution her power deserved, while I had learned to hide my power. I was unknown and easily overlooked as a threat.

“Why Moloch?” Grandfather asked. “Why now?”

“There are children in the hell fortress. He has over five hundred people building his citadel. You should see some of them. They’re walking skeletons. You look into their eyes and there is nothing there.”

The stench of it, sweat, urine, blood, feces, rot of infected flesh permeating the narrow tunnels filled with cells, barely lit with oppressive watery fey lanterns. The voices. The newer captives cried, the ones who had been there for a little while moaned wordlessly, like animals, and those who have lasted the longest just stared, wordlessly, glassy-eyed. The air saturated to the brink with a miasma of pain and misery. I’d cried when they dragged me to the cell from the sheer impact of so much human suffering. I had to get out. It was that or I would break and do something rash. That’s why I came here. I had to anchor myself to something light.

“This is what Moloch does,” Grandfather said. “He views his people as fuel to be consumed in order to achieve his means. He feels no remorse. He believes it is as it should be. This is the danger of proclaiming yourself to be a god-king. You start believing your own press.”

“He isn’t a god.”

“No. He is a man, but he is at least as old as me with all of the education and magic his ancient line bestows and that makes him infinitely dangerous. I know you are aware of this fact, so I will ask again. Why are you there? You can answer me, or…’