The Eternal War: The Dragon's Valkyrie

The Black Heart

Saidy drove her feet into the stone, propelling herself down the hall as fast as she could. The clicking of her boots striking the hard floor echoed throughout the hall as she continued through the ever-present dim.

It wasn't long before it hit her, like she'd run into the wall itself. Iron filled her nose—it brought that dreaded memory with it. When other people saw red, it usually meant they were filled with rage, but when Saidy saw read, she was reliving her most dreaded nightmare. The memory of her first kill flooded her mind; the terror came with it; although, it was duller than what she'd just experienced.

However, the fourteen years that followed were much more real and horrid than anything this cave could show her. I must be getting close. She pressed on, shoving the memory back into the far corners of her mind like she always did. After a few paces more, Saidy found herself standing in front of a large door, or what she thought must be a door.

A giant stone slab covered in similar glyphs of those on the walls barred her path. However, a faint green glow emanated from the writing that covered its intricate circles. Saidy recognized a phrase among the writings at the top of the stone—The Blood Door.

It was slightly different, but she was sure that was the translation. Asmodus de' sangeune. Asmodus was similar to the word she'd learned for door, Asmodai, and sangeune and de' were in their same configuration for blood and the. Moreover, the door reeked of blood.

"It must be a different dialect, then. Yrden did say that Druidaic has evolved from some other language that is much older than life itself, whatever that means."

She scoured the door for other words that were similar to what she knew. She found sangeune again, along with something that looked vaguely familiar to price. Her mind churned with the text as time turned in untold amounts. The stone was surprisingly warm when she touched her fingertips to it to get a feel for the words that had faded. It was unlike when she touched the wall upon first entering the cave. There was a constant chill that hung in the air that the wall also emulated, so to feel an almost human warmth coming from this was a strange occurrence indeed.

Price and blood... she thought. The smell of it still clung to her nose, constantly forcing her to fight back the memory that always came with it. It was hard to concentrate on the text when the flashes of her baptism kept filling her eyes instead. Saidy grew frustrated with it, plunging her fist into the wall only to be sent flying backwards.

Anger was certainly not the answer. Saidy shook her head, dusting herself off after climbing back to her feet.

"There must be some enchantment that repels any who try to use force," she groaned.

She mused over the spot where her fist had connected with the stone. It looked like a purple mold had grown at the spot.

"Is the wall bruising?" Saidy's brow knit together as she bent over to examine it closer.

An idea struck her. Price had been written in four circles surrounding the main glyph. In the center of that glyph, however, blood was the word that existed.Maybe Saidy didn't need to know the rest of the text, maybe it was allmisleading prattle meant to throw off someone trying to decipher it. She considered that she would probably waste away before understanding the copious other scribblings etched into the wall before figuring it out. Perhaps the price of entry was blood itself.

Saidy drew one of her swords and pressed her thumb into its edge. The crimson shone even in the dim light against the silver metal as it ran along the edge toward the hilt. She pushed her thumb into her palm, allowing the blood to pool in it before placing her hand on the door in the center of the largest glyph.