The forty brainwashed graduates advanced in synchronized lockstep along the suspended iron gangway.
Their iron practice blades gleamed with a dull, sickening red luster under the volcanic glare.
The gangway was a narrow, sixty-foot span of iron grating suspended directly over the bubbling lake of orange magma.
Every step they took sent sharp metallic echoes clattering against the cavern walls.
From the back of every neck, a thick crimson thread pulsed like an exposed artery, connecting their spines directly to the massive star-iron crucible.
Their drained Golden Cores flickered through their torn white academy tunics, glowing with a sickly, unstable amber light.
In the front rank marched Julian, his tall frame rigid and his knuckles white around his notched sword hilt.
Beside him walked Cheryl, a brilliant young scholar whose treatises on botanical meridians had once won the imperial golden seal.
