Xenia protectively walked in front of me as we were led down a dark passageway. Paintings of a giant snake were spread across the walls of the tunnel, the glow from the lamps on the wall made it even more terrifying than it already was.

Lennox and I continued walking before we stopped in front of a large door. It was black with two gold serpents winding around each other to form a handle.

"This is where I leave you, Princess. The elders wished to speak with you and only you."

A large lump formed in my throat as Lennox turned to walk away, leaving Xenia and me with the large door and who knows what behind it.

I stared at it for a while before Xenia nudged me forward, looking up at me expectantly. I took a deep breath before pushing the large door open.

Xenia sneezed as she took in the air in the room, I too wrinkled my nose as the air was musty and stale.

"Seraphina Alexandra Drogonir, Princess of the Animalian Empire."

I jumped and turned to find the source of the voice, my hand already at Ratiska's hilt. The voice was ethereal and did not sound like anything of this world, but there was nothing in this room besides old stuffed animals and bones.

"Vessel of the Black Fire, look at us."

Xenia's tail went between her legs was what I thought was dead stuffed animals began to glow, their eyes white. The room suddenly filled with light as fire surrounded Xenia and me, the orange flames began to come closer to me before some parts of it turned black. The two colours seemed to wrestle with each other before both were extinguished, plunging the room into darkness once more.

"Who are you?"

"We are the Elders of the Leo Tribe, the warriors who fought alongside your ancestors against the Great Serpent. While our physical bodies might have decayed, our spirits have not."

There was only one voice, but yet there were many, surrounding me as if there were a whole court of people speaking. The shrivelled tigers, lions, panthers and other big cats slowly turned their heads to look at me, their eyes dead but alive. Xenia stood in front of me in an effort to protect me, but her quivering legs betrayed her fear. My hand finding her fur to calm her as well as myself.

"I was told that I could get the answers here."

"You will, Vessel."

"You call me Vessel, why?"

"That is your curse, child, to be the vessel for the Black Fire created by Drakkon himself. The curse that he himself inflicted on every female of the Drogonir line."

"What curse?"

"Your ancestor Darius Drogonir fought the Great Serpent and with the help of Man, the Shifters and Sirens, he was able to vanquish the tyrant..."

"Yes, that I know of. It is in every history book written, he prayed and was blessed with power over nature that was passed down to the rest of the Animalians."

"The books of the past are written by the victors, and your ancestors wanted everyone to know of their triumph, but not of the price their victory came with. That is the curse you now bear for your crime of being a female Drogonir. Drakkon cursed that the very magic that Darius feared would find its way into his family to kill it from the inside out."

"That is a lie, there have been no records of any of my female ancestors afflicted by this... this curse. I would have known...I...I..."

"How could there be records if they were killed the moment they were born? The births of a Drogonir Royal were always kept a secret so that if the baby was born a girl, they were killed and announced to the people that the Queen had miscarried. Think about it, child, have you ever had an Aunt that was blood-related to you?"

My knees sank to the ground as thought about it. I never had an Aunt that was related to me through blood nor had I ever had a female cousin. All my father's siblings were male and so were their children. I remembered waiting outside one of their doors for the birth of my cousin, only to hear a baby's cry before it was silenced and announced a miscarriage. All those times, they were murdering their children. I always wondered why there was no joy when a pregnancy was announced and there was only happiness when the baby born was a boy. I used to chalk it up to boys being preferred but would never have thought this would be the reason why.

"It is a tarnish that the Drogonir family have tried years to rub out from their name, but they couldn't, so they did what they had to do to protect their people and themselves."

Xenia pressed her face against mine as tears streamed down my cheeks.

"H...how am I alive if they killed all the girls?"

"Your parents loved you too much to kill you. Between you and your brother, they had two other children whose crime was to be born a female and paid the price for it. Their love and guilt prevented them from doing the same to you. That necklace around your neck is not just any piece of jewellery. Your parents consorted with Sirens to borrow you eighteen years of time, so for eighteen years, that necklace has been absorbing the energy of the Black Fire. Each ruby was made from Drakkon's blood, the only left in the world."

I took the broken ruby from the pouch and laid it on my palm.

"Your eighteen years are up, child. The Black Fire in you is raging to break free, the rubies in your necklace are its seal and your body...a vessel and prison."

"How do I get rid of it?"

"No one knows, child. But you have to learn how to control it before it controls you. Your temper was one of the reasons why your family was so scared to leave you on your own or let you pursue your military ambitions in fear of your speeding up the time limit already given to you. The choice of your destiny lies in your hands now."

I wanted to ask more and to know more but the lights in the eyes of the cats died down, leaving me in a dark lifeless room.

"No...no...no! You can't just leave me here on my own!"

I walked right up to the mummified cats, but slowly backed away when I saw that my raised hand was engulfed with black flames. I flexed my fingers to see the flames move as I did, but I felt no pain.

"Your temper was one of the reasons why your family was so scared to leave you on your own or let you pursue your military ambitions in fear of your speeding up the time limit already given to you."I closed my eyes to take a deep breath to calm myself when I opened my eyes the flames were gone. There was no smoke surrounding my hand nor did it feel hot or even warm. Xenia pressed her head against my shoulder as I sank to the floor. My head placed in my hand as I cried, not just for myself, but for my parents, my lost family and the children who lost their chance at life.