.
I burst through another wall, looking for the Shadow Lord Commander. The thing that had seized Elena. The monster that had taken Dad's life force.
Instead, I found something worse.
A room full of children.
They were all young, maybe eight or nine years old. They sat in cages, their eyes glowing the same sick yellow as the Shadow Guards. But these weren't enemy forces. These were kids who had been turned into guns.
"No," I whispered, my dragon fire quivering. "They're just babies."
One of the children looked up at me. She had blonde hair and blue eyes that should have been innocent. Instead, they were filled with darkness.
"You killed our friends," she said in a voice too old for her face. "Now we have to kill you."
The cage doors opened by themselves. All twelve children stood up at the same time. They moved like puppets on strings, their little faces empty of real feeling.
