Kiley Bean didn’t know where she was.

One minute she had been in the lounge of her home in Okeechobee, the next she was standing in a dome-shaped cavern that stank of sulphur and rot. There was light, dull and ominous, but she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. And she was surrounded by hooded figures squatting around ornately carved circular patterns that decorated the cavern floor. The stone was warm under her bare feet, and she could feel a slight rhythm passing through it, like an enormous heartbeat that was gigantic enough to split a mountain to its roots if the pulse picked up much more. One of the hooded figures stood before her, his black-gloved fingers clutching a staff surmounted by a polished skull. A single horn topped the skull and winked obsidian in the low light.

“Where the hell am I?”

“This world is Seythe, sister of the Flame.”

“Flame? What flame?”

“Your bloodkin. Known to you as Sarah Bean.”

“Sarah? Where is she? I want to see her.”

The figure hissed in the darkness of its hood. Kiley hadn’t seen the face yet, and something told her she didn’t want to. Had she fallen asleep on the couch? Was this a dream?

“She knows much more than you think, and is much more than you could hope her to be. Sarah Bean is the Living Flame, a daughter of prophecy.”

Kiley swallowed hard as the figure went on.

“She holds the power of a Goddess in her breast, chosen by destiny to hold a power and strength that should have been mine—”

This couldn’t be real. It had to be a dream.

“Cuh-come on, really? Are you serious? My sister is the chosen one … or something? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

A silence descended in the cavern and she felt the great heartbeat underfoot pause as well. The figure before her took a long, sibilant breath and then said a few words quietly, “None mock me.”

Suddenly, Kiley was flying through the air—flying fast. Her back slammed into the jagged rock wall of the cavern. Her lungs emptied as if she had been punched in the gut, and she curled in on herself as the figure drifted across the stone floor toward her. He held the staff aloft, gesturing at her with its bone-capped heel. She couldn’t breathe. Not one mouthful of air would pass her lips, no matter how hard she tried to swallow some down to replenish her crumpled lungs.

“None laugh at me, bitchling. None mock me. Ever. Do you understand? I am E’blis, Lord of the Fallen. Once, I was the Creator of Men in this world. You are the sister of the Living Flame and you will obey me, or I shall drive the breath from your body forever and leave your body here to rot.”

With that, the spell was broken. Kiley heaved in heavy breaths of air, her body shivering as the fuzziness and clouding dark colours that had been swimming in her senses began to fade.

He hurt me. This is real, she thought, this is far too real.

Getting to her knees, still dry-heaving, she looked up at E’blis towering over her. One thought alone went through her mind: Oh, Sarah, where are you? What’ve they done to you?

The Stone of Sorrows will be released on 15th December.