Liya took a breath and rose to her feet, her fists clenching. The soldiers did not stop advancing; they pressed closer, raising hands in caution. She felt rage well up in her, surfacing as tears in her eyes.

The fire's heat blazed against her skin. She took another breath, shaking with anger, and waited for them to get too close.

-------

Liya paused. She checked the note, and then the door again.

Sunlight was falling from high windows on the marble floor. Or was it marble? It was iridescent blue, in any case.

The door in front of her was a dark stone--everything was stone, or metal, or glass--ribbed with paler stripes. A plaque (copper, if there was a such thing here) was mounted beside it; beneath it was a letterbox of the same material. She held up the note again, eyes darting back and forth from it to the plaque.

"When you're well enough, go see Helygen," it read in scratchy blue pen. "(E. Terrace, Suoki Hall.)"

Beneath all of that was a word in some language Liya couldn't read; the letters ran together like cursive. The same word was engraved on the plaque by the door, only much neater.