Young Writers Society

Phyrza

The setting sun shot a blazing path through the battlefield, bathing it in bloody light. Hooded figures, one in bone white, the other bloodred, stood silhouetted, watching the scene unfold.

“And so it ends,” I said, amusement touching my voice.

“No, no, this is just the beginning, my old friend,” the red figure whispered in a way that carried across worlds.

“The Game has reached a turning point, my ancient enemy, but it began long ago, as you well know,” I retorted.

For a moment neither of us spoke as metal encrusted warriors swept through those who stood against them.

“We’re getting old,” I murmured, not with sadness or joy or even resignation.

At this, Parallax actually laughed, a cold sound devoid of any real pleasure. I hadn’t heard it in several millennium. “Some would consider us ancient. Others eternal.”

I almost smiled at that. “The next era promises to be interesting. I can’t wait to see how it plays out.”

“Your pieces are in play, Phyrza?”

“You know the answer to that.”

We stood in silence and watched the world end.

Kevfalcor

1

The sword gleamed in the pale afternoon light. I could see my warped reflection in the polished steel.

"Kevfalcor, let's go," my older sister, Estra chided. “I've got to be at the wall in half an hour. We want you to be home and safe while I’m away.”

I sighed and turned away from the blacksmith shop. "I'm thirteen, you don't have to act like I'm a child."

She smirked at me. "Yeah, but it's fun." Estra was four years older than me, and at seventeen had just become eligible to join the night guard. She had done so immediately.

For three weeks afterward she had taken as much time as she could to practice her swordplay and had even snuck a wooden training sword home. Tonight was her third time being out on the wall, and so far she had encountered nothing, but she was still brimming with excitement and I could tell.

Ten minutes later she stood outside our hut dressed in the grey uniform of the night guard with her brown hair braided down her back. She had a belt, but had no sword attached. No one was allowed to bring a sword to this side of the wall. She would get her sword and shield when she arrived at the protective wall that encircled our tiny village.

Estra smiled at me. “Well, Kev?” she asked. “How do I look?”

I pretended to smile back. “Like a night guard,” I replied. I secretly hated the fact that my sister had joined the village protectors. None of the small villages were ever really safe, but Estra put herself in more danger every time she went to the wall than any of the villagers.

“You look great, sweetie,” my mother said as she hugged my sister goodbye. “I’ll leave some stew for you.”

“Okay,” Estra said. “I’ll be back in a few hours and then go back for the rest of the night.”

She jogged in the direction of the wall. I sighed and closed the door. I hoped my sister would be back soon.

After my sister had left, I ate my bowl of stew quietly. My mother sighed. “I know you aren’t happy that Estra joined the night watch, but she can take care of herself and you’ve seen how happy it makes her!”

“I know,” I admitted. “But that doesn't make me feel better.”

I trudged to my room. “Kev, wait,” my mother protested.

“I’m going to sleep,” I replied, closing the door.

I heard my mother sigh and then heard her feet make the boards creak as she walked away.

I drifted discontentedly off to sleep. I didn’t stay that way for long.

I woke to the sound of the alarm bell echoing off the walls. I scrambled out of my hay bed. It took a short time for my eyes to adjust, but I could tell there was light coming from something. It was still too early to be sunlight. I heard the roaring and crackling of fire.

I rushed out of my bedroom. I hadn’t heard Estra enter it that night. I burst out the door of our hut. The village was in flames.

Our hut wasn’t on fire, but I expected it soon would be. I searched the house frantically for my mother but found nothing.

After a couple of minutes of searching, which allowed me to check all three of the rooms, I saw that smoke had started billowing from the door. I burst outside again. By now, much of the village was billowing inky black smoke which reflected the glow of the flames. Our own house, with it’s wooden walls and thatched roof, was a billowing inferno.

I searched the growing crowd for family members, but found none. My eyes stung from the smoke and I started coughing as I made my way towards the wall. Most of the rest of the village did the same.

It wasn’t far to the wall. By the time I arrived, the portcullis had been raised allowing people to stream out into the night. It reminded me of a massive mouth swallowing everyone. My throat and eyes felt scorched by the smoke causing tears to spring to my eyes, but as I glanced to one side, through the haze and smoke and flame I thought I saw a figure. The figure was dressed in shadows and, instead of fleeing from the flames, reveled in them. I blinked and the imagined figure was gone.

Smoke seared my eyes and cinders danced through the air. Sparks stung my skin.

Flames were closing in around me and I was drawn away from the village by the mass of panicked people.

I was pulled past the wall and then everyone slowed to a stop. People didn’t go past the wall. Hunters, traders, messengers, and occasionally the night watch went outside, but not normal people. It wasn’t safe. Anyway, messengers and traders didn’t live anywhere. I had always wanted to go outside, but the idea had always been stomped on by everyone I knew. Well, I was out now.

In spite of the situation, a smile tugged at my lips. I looked behind me and realized that everyone else had drifted towards the wall, huddling together like sheep. Like the wall could provide protection when you were outside it.

I stepped toward the forest. I was drawn away from the village I had lived my entire life. It wasn’t where I belonged.

Thørn

2

Thørn, you couldn’t possibly have finished the test that quickly!” the teacher snarled.

I just shrugged. I’d filled in every question. I was pretty sure I’d gotten them right, too. As the teacher glanced over my paper, her eyes widened.

“You’ve been cheating, boy!” she shrieked in horror. “Go to the headmaster’s office.”

“But I didn’t do anything!” I cried in protest. This was true. I’d just given my best answer to the questions. It was odd that they’d come so easily, because my class hadn’t studied anything this difficult previous to the test.

“Boy, if you weren’t cheating, then you should be teaching this class along with me,” the teacher hissed, her face twisting as she said this. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun. She wore an inelegant dress that, while still technically being green, gave the impression of being colorless.

I shrunk away. I hated being accused of something I hadn’t done. “Now, go!” the teacher snarled.

My shoulders slumped. I trudged down the hallway. I didn’t try to get in trouble, but it happened to me a lot anyway. It was generally for cheating, and occasionally for starting fights (getting pummeled in the hallway).

A few kids snickered as I left. The headmaster had been seeing more and more of me as I got older. And of course, my father punished me afterward. My mother, who was gentle, had always tried to stop him, but it hadn't done anything to help.

I reached the headmaster's office and hesitated. No one was there. I could sneak out . . .

Well, that wasn't exactly true. There was the Clockwork Secretary. It's bronze gears and cogs whirred. Blue æther glowed within it's perfectly working machinery. It was vaguely humanoid. Humanoid enough to operate standard machines, but clearly different.

I sighed and softly knocked on the door. It swung open so quickly that I wondered if the headmaster had been waiting. He loomed over me, tall, broad shouldered, an ex-soldier. His shaved scalp gleamed, a bright scar arching along it.

"Feltrix?"

"I wasn't cheating," I blurted.

He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I think you should come inside, Mr. Feltrix."

It wasn't a suggestion, it was a command. I stepped inside the dark office. A massive desk stood to one wall. There were no decorations, just the desk. Nothing had changed.

"When will you get it into your head that every time you cheat, you aren't helping yourself. And you make it obvious. I'm going to have to suspend you," the headmaster calmly sentenced.

"What? But I wasn't cheating! I've never cheated! I-" A glance from the headmaster silenced me. "I mean yes, sir."

"And I'm going to make sure this punishment sinks in," He turned around and I saw that he was holding a large tree branch. I knew what he was going to use it for.

My eyes widened. “No, sir, I didn’t cheat! It’s the truth! You can’t . . .” I trailed off, because I realized the honest truth. He could. Everyone else would just think he was punishing a troublemaker. But I would be seriously injured. He was strong enough to cripple me.

He swung, straight at my chest. He could shatter my ribs. The world slowed down. My panic died. And I knew. Anything. Everything. I knew it. Just for a second, everything was clear, and I saw how small everything was. Not just me, not just the planet, but the entire universe was small, insignificant. There were worlds beyond my own, universes I couldn’t comprehend, so utterly alien that the things on them defied rational thought. I saw it all. I knew it all. I understood it all. And then it was gone.

When I woke up, I felt like I was dead. What had happened? And then I remembered. I sat bolt upright and my eyes snapped open.

The Clockwork Secretary was looming over me. It was glowing far brighter than normal. It’s needle like fingers reached out to me. They clamped onto my forehead and pain arched through my mind. I call it pain because that’s the closest I can come to describing it to someone who’s never experienced it. It was pain, but it wasn’t physical. The pain was all in my mind, but at the same time, it was real.

My eyes widened in agony. My instinct fought back against the pain. It wasn’t really a battle. The Clockwork didn’t have actual minds of their own anyway. A shudder passed through the Clockwork. The æther in it flickered, then vanished. The Clockwork crumpled and collapsed on top of me.

I shuddered and took a shaky breath. This wasn’t possible. Clockwork were created with a specialized purpose and did nothing else. What, then, had that Clockwork been doing?

It had been probing. At least that particular Clockwork had had another purpose that I had activated the need for. That had to be it. And if this Clockwork did it, then why not the others? I gently pushed the Secretary off of me and stood up, leaning against the wall as I did so.

The headmaster was slumped against the wall. I was about to ask him if I could leave, but now realized it was pointless. Then I realized something. It was silent. There was no sound. I had heard whispers, mutters, and emotions of the people around me for longer than I could remember, but not now.

The headmaster had quite literally lost his mind. He wasn't insane. The insane still had thoughts, even if they were garbled. This was different. There was no mind left. He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t truly alive, either. He simply existed.

I rushed out of the room and down the hallway. I checked each room, but they were all the same. The minds were blank, gone, lost. Empty.

The building was full of empty minds.

Kevfalcor

3

Several hundred yards into the woods I realized how rash I had been. On a whim I had abandoned the only semblance of safety for many miles. I whirled around and looked back the way I came, but all of the forest was identical.

I saw luminous yellow eyes peering at me from the brush. They were large ovals with pupils enlarged against the darkness. I moved back slowly. Most of me wanted to run in terror. The rational part said to move away slowly and that sudden movements might provoke an attack. The completely irrational part of me wondered what exactly was in the bushes and how it would be interesting to see it during the daylight.

I saw the creature in the bush take a step towards me and into the moonlight. It was tiny.

The creature was vaguely humanoid, but came up only to my knee. It was covered in a dusting of auburn hair. It’s arms were too long, long enough to brush the ground, and it's legs were too short to do anything but waddle. Sprouting from its shoulders were flat, yellow, oval patches. Decoy eyes.

Almost laughed at the strange creature, but before I had a chance to respond, it lept into the trees and swung away with it’s long arms.

I watched it for a short time before a clawed appendage snatched the creature out of the air.

I shivered. Life passed too quickly here. I had to get out. I stepped in the direction I had been going. I decided that that direction was as good as any and continued into the woods.

I stepped quietly through the woods making as little noise as possible. I quickly lost track of time. I could have been walking for months or a few hours. As I traveled, the trees got taller and taller while the trunks got wider until the base of each tree was at least forty feet around.

I knew I was being watched. Whoever was watching me, they were certainly stealthy. I only knew they were there from brief flickers of movement at the corner of my vision. It had crossed my mind that an animal was watching me, but an animal wouldn’t have followed me for so long without attacking or losing interest.

Ever so often I would see something that seemed out of place, like intricate carvings that coated one tree, or the fact that there were no fallen leaves on the ground, only an everlasting blanket of moss.

After the fifth time I caught a flicker of movement, I stopped. “I know you’re there,” I said, hoping that it didn't sound like a shout. I was somewhat nervous about meeting whoever was following me. What if that person had torched my village? “You can come out now.”

Suddenly there was movement all around me and I felt a brief sense of vertigo. No one moved especially quickly, but I realized I had been staring at my pursuers without even realizing it. They had been lurking in the shadows or standing against a tree. None of them had been hiding particularly well, but I saw none of them.

In seconds I was surrounded. I had assumed that only one person had been following me, but there were at least a dozen people around me now.

They were thin and just above average height. They all wore clothes seemingly made from the trees, wearing bark and leaves, which would normally have struck me as awkward and uncomfortable but looked completely natural on them. Many had vines braided into their hair. However, what I immediately noticed was that their ears were catlike, with pointed tips.

I gulped. “Um,” I started. “Hello.” Maybe they were friendly? Their glares and weaponry said no.

“What are you doing in our forest?” spat a figure. “Who are you?”

“My name is Kevfalcor,” I said, deciding to be diplomatic. “And I really just wandered in.”

A second figure sighed. “He’s clearly a half-wit. He knows nothing about what’s going on.”

I disliked people who insulted my intelligence and this one was particularly blatant about it. “Actually, it seems like you are the ones who are at a loss,” I shot back. “You follow a wandering child for miles through the woods? You don’t even know how I got here. And you mentioned I might know something about what’s going on. Clearly you have no clue. So which of us is a half-wit?”

“Interesting,” purred the first person. “Take him.”

Figures surged in my direction and I felt a tiny dot of pain on my left arm. I whirled around to see someone scraping an arrow head against my bare skin. Darkness closed in on my vision and then there was nothing.

Nyx

4

Alarm bells pealed through the darkness, but they weren’t the only sounds disturbing the silence of Alaran. My heavy breathing and the crude armor of palace guards searching for a stolen item to name a few.

I glanced at a softly glowing pouch at my hip. “All this for something so small?” I muttered to myself.

I smiled triumphantly, but it was cut short by an unsettling voice behind me. “It’s really worth much more than any of you think.”

I straightened myself up and brushed a lock of red hair behind my ear. “And I suppose you’re going to try to take it from me?” I growled, turning around. I was glad it was dark so that the figure couldn’t see my unsettled expression.

The figure wore a dark cloak that covered all but the lower half of it’s face. He was smiling maliciously in my direction and I could swear some of his teeth were elongated and pointed. I had met vampires before, fought them, but not here. I hadn’t thought there were any. Anyway, whatever this was, it was much more powerful.

My right arm, coated in a mechanical gauntlet, tensed in preparation of a fight.

“On the contrary, I have no use for the ‘ingredient’ which you have just stolen,” the figure stated. “I have a proposition for you, Nyx. Or do you prefer the Alchemist these days?”

My eyes narrowed. No one here knew who I was. “Who are you?”

The vampire thing smirked. “It doesn’t matter who I am. I need someone dealt with.”

“And if I don’t comply?” I asked.

His smile widened. “Then you’ll be dealt with.”

“That’s it!” I snarled. A bit hasty for an assault, but the thrill of the night and the stranger’s appearance had put me on edge. I flicked my gauntleted wrist in his direction. A column of electricity jumped from my armor at the thing. As the lightning faded I smiled until I felt my hair rise from the electricity. I sighed the lightning blast on my gauntlet had been getting temperamental. I’d have to repair it soon.

I froze when I felt something cold and sharp brush against me from behind. I didn’t have to turn to know it was a blade. The cold voice hissed in my ear. “I’ve been polite so far and I expected you to show the same restraint. Right now I could kill you in countless ways, but I haven’t so I have something I want you to do.”

“What is it?” I gulped, all pretenses of defiance gone. I’d been beaten.

“There’s someone I want you to take care of.” A flickering scene appeared in front of me. I saw an unconscious boy in the middle of a forest.

“I don’t do assassinations and I’m not a bounty hunter,” I reflexively stated. I’d had this request before. I realized the moment of resistance might cost me my life. I’d never had this request at sword point before. “Why do you want him dead, anyway? He’s just a kid. Barely a teenager.”

“So are you.”

I sighed, defeated. “Fair point. So you’re saying he….”

“I’m saying I want you to get rid of him. Quickly.”

“Okay,” I lied. “I’ll do it.”

The thing gave a small chuckle. “You should get out of the habit of lying,” it said. “Especially to me. But remember, he’s in the forest with the elves, and if he isn’t dead in a fortnight, you will be.”

I nodded mutely, at a loss for words, for once. “Go now,” the voice whispered in my ear. “I’ll be watching.”

I set off at a run down the alley, all thoughts of escaping the guards forgotten.

As I ran into the night I heard a soft voice behind me, but this time, it wasn’t speaking to me. “Another piece enters play. Your move, Kevfalcor….”

Alsari

5

The first thing that hit me was the sound. People shouting, selling, moving, arguing, and talking were everywhere. The temperature and smell were unusually unnoticeable. I had been to more places than I liked that stank and were sweltering and stank or frigid.

Finally, I opened my eyes I was standing in an alley just beyond what I assumed was some sort of marketplace.

I leaned heavily against a wall and sank to the ground as what had just happened sank in. Happened to me, to my home. How could it all be gone?

A horrible sensation began in the pit of my stomach, creeping steadily up my chest, through my throat, and escaped from my eyes as tears began to rush down my cheeks

Time seemed to pass differently as I sobbed against the wall. Each moment seemed to take forever, but hours could have passed and I wouldn’t have noticed. I felt like I was falling through an abyss with no end. My entire world was gone.

I might have stayed there forever if nothing had disturbed me. I would have wallowed in my pain for eternity.

“Girl! What are you doing here?” Growled an angry and unintelligent voice. I ignored it. It would leave me to my misery. Just then something heavy and hard struck my side. “Don’t make me repeat myself!” It took some time for the pain to filter in. When it did, it was dull, numbed by the misery.

I looked up slowly. My vision was blurred by tears and staring into my hands so long, but it didn’t matter. “Did you just kick me?” It came out as a croak. I barely recognized that I was the one who had said it.

“Yes,” said the voice of the man standing over me. He had close cropped hair and a grizzled beard. His beat red face twisted slightly in confusion at the question. Apparently he’d never been asked that before. “Now you’re going to give me everything you’ve got.”

“Are you….Are you robbing me?” I said, barely more than a whimper.

“Yeeess,” said the voice in a tone clearly stating that the speaker thought I was the slow one.

I looked at myself. My clothes were dirty, ripped, and spotted with blood; my skin was in a similar condition. What could my attacker possibly want from me?

Anyway, after all I’d been through, I wasn’t about to be defeated by a street thug. I gave a hollow laugh and heaved myself to my feet, sending sparks of pain through my side .

“No,” I said, and this time I noticed with some satisfaction that my voice had less croak and more snarl.

“Did you just say ‘no’?” The thief asked.

I felt my lips twist into a trace of my old smirk. “I’m giving you a chance to run,” I stated.

“You had your chance!” The thug spat and drew a knife from somewhere, but I was faster. I felt the cobblestones at my feet and the soil with bedrock deep beneath it. I formed the stone into a point and struck.

The cobblestones around me melded into a dagger like point impaling my attacker and pinning him to the other side of the alley. He gurgled pitifully in my direction. I glared at him. “Don’t give me that. How many people have you robbed or killed in this alley? How long did you think it would be until someone fought back?”

The thief didn’t show any sign of understanding, which was understandable given that he was suspended a few feet above the ground by a jagged stone spear.

Only then did I notice the stabbing pain in my side. I suspected my ribs were broken. I knew the only real problem in that was the pain. It wouldn’t otherwise hinder me in any way.

I pulled up my shirt enough to examine the wound. I could see a bruise blossoming already where the thief had kicked me. I grimaced. I had no idea where to find help.

I noticed someone skulking at the end of the alley. I pulled my shirt down and moved closer. The person moved closer as well. I dearly hoped it wasn’t a friend of the thief’s.

When I was only a few yards away, I realized that it wasn’t a person at all. It was a machine.

I moved closer to examine it, even though every step, every breath was painful. It had clearly been modeled after humanoids and required technology far beyond anything I had ever seen. Gears and cogs whirred in a well oiled way inside it and I noticed soft blue light emanating from the core.

When I was only two feet away from what would have been it’s face, if it had had one, it reached out a bronze hand. Fascinated, I reached out to touch it, but as I did the machine reached past my hand and clamped its own hand onto my skull.

I felt like tiny bolts of lightning were rocketing around my brain causing immense pain as they did so. Pain from the loss of my home, from my broken ribs, and from the humanoid machine overloaded my senses and I blacked out.

Thørn

6

Shock hit me, shock worse than pain. It was horror and disbelief, even though I knew it was true. How could everyone be gone? I hadn’t had any real friends, but I had known them all for years. How had this happened? And why had I been spared? I didn't have any answers.

I didn't know what to do. The nobility would know what had happened, there being a few Clockwork in the building.

It seemed that there wasn't anything that I could do, so I just turned around and walked home.

As I walked home, I noticed that there were more Clockwork than usual. Their heads turned to look at me. I tried to disappear into the crowd.

On the way, I saw some foot soldiers guarding the gates with permanently stoic expressions and impossibly straight backs. Each soldier wore a white hourglass emblem on their right shoulders. Their armor gleamed and their pike staffs reached far above their heads.

I saw a mounted knight, too, which was surprising. They almost never strayed into small villages like mine. I had always wistfully dreamed about being a knight. It was unlikely, though. Knights were almost always sons of other knights or nobility or at least they were rich.

I spent the entire walk home wondering what I would tell my parents. How could I possibly explain what had happened?

I opened the door when I got home. My father was in the middle of a rant. "Mages don't have to do any real work," he growled. "They get hired for being able to do magic while we slave away and barely pay for our next meals. Meanwhile, they roll in gold coins and eat with the king!"

He paused for breath and probably would have kept talking, but there was a soft knock at the door.

“Are we interrupting something?” drawled a tall, thin man who had appeared at the door. His greasy, shoulder length hair was impossibly black. He appeared to be in his twenties, but his voice was laced with cruelty. Behind him were several soldiers and the knight, all of them wearing the white hourglass. King's men.

He strolled casually in and looked disdainfully at the house. He addressed my parents. “Your son will have to come with us.”

My mother’s thin face paled. “Wh-why?” she stammered, obviously horrified.

The man rolled his eyes. “He’s a mage,” he said in the same, pitiless drawl.

At this revelation, my father surged to his feet. He glared at me and I shrunk back. I wished that all of this was over. My father had told me horrible stories as a child about mages. I had never seen what was so bad about them, myself, but he obviously despised them.

“You have a minute to think about it,” the man sighed. My mother and father went to the only other room in the house.

My father glared at me. I suddenly felt a surge of rage that I knew wasn’t mine. It was my father’s. Our own child, a mage! he was thinking. I was right all along. He really is good for nothing. Why can’t he just leave, be gone from my life forever?

My mother had a much different thought. It wasn’t even a thought, not really. It was an emotion, a single overpowering emotion. Grief.

As they left, I turned to the men. “I’m not leaving,” I said, with absolute certainty.

The man smiled, but it was one that was more an expression of cruel amusement than happiness. “That’s where you’re wrong,” he growled.

Two soldiers moved forward and one reached for me. At this point, I was beyond conscious thought. I was acting on sheer instinct. I lashed out with my mind and the men collapsed to the ground.

The man’s smile widened. “Good I was hoping that I would get to do this,” His mind probed mine, searching for weakness, but I struck back. We were locked in conflict for only a second before he quickly overpowered me. He was about to have access to my mind and everything in it, everything I had ever known. I didn’t like the idea of this horrible man searching my thoughts. With massive effort, I broke free and he was knocked away. Darkness flickered at the edge of my vision and consumed me. The last thing I heard was the horrible man’s drawling voice. You will come with us. You have been summoned by Eternia.

Nyx

7

I glared at my gauntlet which lay in a carefully categorized heep on the table in front of me. It had done what it had been threatening to do for days and short circuited. At the most inconvenient moment possible. I had just been in a fix involving a domesticated hydra, a trio of some of the legions of bounty hunters searching for me, two impressively burly traders dressed unconvincingly as female nobility, and a fire breathing salamander. The salamander had just exploded as my gauntlet shuddered off.

I sighed as I began to reassemble the high tech machinery in front of me. As I did this, an alchemical vial which had been emitting green bubbles for the past few days exploded.

I thudded my head on a table. This was not my day. And I still didn’t know what to make of my close encounter with the Shadow (as I had decided to call it). I didn’t actually want to kill the boy. I didn’t like to admit it, but I did have a conscience.

I realized that it could come down to my life versus his. If it did, I knew which one I would choose.

I sighed. The only tactic I could think of required effort on my part and was sickeningly emotional. I would have to think of a way to not kill the boy and if I couldn’t find a way to in ten days, I would just have to kill him.

I finished reassembling the gauntlet and slipped it onto my arm. I did a quick run through of all the controls to make sure they were in working order. They were. I thought of the boy with his dark hair and slumped figure.

“I could run away….” I muttered. The Shadow had warned me about not killing him, but I could always risk it.

“Don’t get ideas,” murmured a cold voice behind me. My insides felt like they had been turned to ice.

“What are you doing here?” I choked out.

“I said I would be watching,” said the Shadow.

“I’ve only had two days!” I was horrified to see desperation touch my voice.

“Forty-eight hours,” it said. “And you haven’t so much as stepped in the direction of the person I asked you to destroy!”

“I’ve been planning,” I said cooly. People only got angry when they were beginning to get desperate.

“You haven’t,” the Shadow drawled, his composure regained. “You’ve been messing about with salamanders and hydras.”

There was silence. How could he (I decided it was a he) know about that? “Why do you want him dead so badly?” I asked quietly. I had learned a long time ago that information was power and I desperately needed some.

The Shadow paused for a moment. “You don’t need to know.”

“I am the one who’s supposed to kill him.” Silence again. “Why can’t you do it?” More silence. “Are you planning on answering in the near future?”

I turned around but saw only the back wall of my lab. The Shadow was gone.

“Grix!” I cursed. I had picked the word up from the locals, and I rather liked it. I had gotten close. I’d had close to a full conversation with him.

I needed more information to accomplish anything, but something told me the Shadow didn’t feel like providing it.

Just to vent out my frustration, I mixed ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, zinc dust, iodine crystals, and water. It combusted in a puff of purple smoke. It was satisfying to see something explode.

I needed a way to draw the Shadow out. To learn what I was dealing with. To learn how to fight it.

Kevfalcor

8

I became conscious before I opened my eyes. I heard voices all around me, but couldn’t make out what they were saying. I sat up and opened my eyes. It took a few seconds to register everything. I was sitting in what had at first appeared to be a hut of some kind, but I realized was the interior of a gargantuan tree. It must have been fifty paces across with the middle twenty paces being a pool of crystal water. Although there were voices all around me, only one other person was in the tree with me.

He was dressed in the manner of the other figures I had seen with green organic looking robes. He had a kindly, very old face. I noticed pointed ears poking through his silver hair.

“Good,” he said. “You’re awake.” His voice cut through the whispers from the other side of the room.

I nodded and got shakily to my feet. “Who are they?” I asked, gesturing vaguely at the walls. “Who are you? Why am I here?”

The old man laughed. “One question at a time,” he requested.

I sighed. “Where are the voices coming from?”

“This is the Tree of Souls,” came the reply. “The wisdom of the ancestors is preserved here by ancient magic. They provide answers when none are to be found.

“While it stands, we will live in peace. If it should fall,” At the thought, he shuddered. “Our way of life will be lost.”

I was still full of questions. “Who are your people and why did they bring me here?”

“My name is Taanyth,” said the man. “And I’m sure you’ve already guessed we’re elves.” I nodded. “As to why you’re here,” at this, Taanyth looked nonplussed. “You were captured by a particularly ruthless, for lack of a better word, group of us.”

“Why was I captured?” I asked. This had been troubling me for a little while now.

At this Taanyth sighed. “There reasoning is known only to them. They said you were an intruder, that you didn’t belong here, but there’s more to it than that. I just don’t know what yet.”

“What do I do now?” I seemed to trust Taanyth even though I had known him only a few minutes.

“You may stay with us if you wish,” he replied. “Or leave us if you don’t.”

I knew the answer immediately. “I’m going to stay with you.”

Taanyth’s face split into a smile. “I hoped you’d say that.” He crossed the room to me. “Hold out your arm.” I did so and the old elf pressed a hand against my wrist as though taking my pulse. His eyes flashed suddenly green. “Nyvral,” he announced.

“What’s that?”

“Who you are,” said the old elf calmly.

“No it’s not. My name’s Kevfal-”

“I didn’t say it was your name,” Taanyth interrupted. “I said it was who you are.”

I didn’t entirely understand this. “What does it mean?” I asked. I was beginning to feel as though I didn’t know anything.

Taanyth smiled cryptically. “One day you’ll know.” He turned toward a gap in the roots of the Tree of Souls to leave but stopped. “If I were you, Nyvral, I’d take a bath before I left,” he said. “With all due respect, you’re filthy.”

Without another word he left.

I pulled on my elven clothes. They fit snugly and were surprisingly comfortable, given the leafy material.

As I stepped into the sunlight and was face to face with Taanyth. “Good, you’re here, I need you to meet someone.”

I followed him through the village. None of the houses touched the ground, none were even below thirty feet above the ground.

The tree had been grown into living spaces for the elves. I could see them weaving through the forest far above the ground.

I had trouble keeping up with Taanyth because I kept stopping to gawk at the sight above my head. Finally we stopped below a tree that didn’t look much different than the others.

“This is the home of Shalana,” Taanyth informed me. “She’s the weaponmaster.”

“And why am I here?” I asked.

“To learn.”

“To learn to fight?”

“To learn to fight.”

Alsari

9

The jostling jerked me awake. I took in several things very quickly. I was lying in a dark, cramped carriage with almost definitely locked doors, agony was racing up and down my broken ribs, and I had manacled wrists. I had been captured. Again.

Time after that point seemed to pass in a haze. Misery had finally faded, but pain blurred my perception of the universe. Nothing changed in the jostled back of the cart. It was a featureless wooden box probably three yards long. Light came through barred windows high on the right side. Light barely illuminated the entire compartment and I couldn’t see anything through it.

Hours passed with no change until finally the cart lurched to a halt. I heard muffled voices outside. “Second one today. What are the odds, eh?”

Suddenly a door at the back of the cart was flung open and sunlight streamed in, blinding me. “Gahh!” I growled. “Can’t you open it more slowly?”

A man appeared in the door, completely blocking my view of the outside. He smiled benignly at me. “Put the blindfold on,” he said, offering one to me.

My defensive instincts flared immediately. Wincing from pain, I fell away from the blindfold. The man sighed. “Have it your way,” he said.

He pressed two fingers to my forehead. Telepath! I thought before another presence swamped my mind. I dimly saw my hands pressing the blindfold to my eyes without ever having willed them to.

Someone removed the blindfold from my face and another glaring light replaced the first one. My chest and below my stomach were covered by a soft pieces of cloth and I abruptly realized that I was stretched out on an uncomfortable metal table with people surrounding me.

Someone prodded it sending a jagged bolt of pain through me as though I had been stabbed. I cried out in agony, but it faded abruptly and I realized that many of the people around me had warm light emanating from their hands. They pressed their hands against my wound and instead of being painful, their touch felt reassuring as I watched, the bruise faded to nothing and the agony did the same.

By the time it was over and the healers had shuffled away, I was more or less my old self.

The man appeared before me again. “Now can we trust you to put on your blindfold?” he asked kindly.

“Nope,” I snapped. I was feeling much more comfortable around these people, but I was still far from trusting them. The fact that they didn’t want me to know where I was disturbed me.

The man sighed sadly and pressed his fingers to my forehead.

I was dressed in a doctor’s robe, but now I was standing in a small dark stone chamber blocked from the outside world by a velvet curtain. I saw several pairs of feet outside and realized that I was still heavily guarded.

I surveyed the room and saw that there was a steaming tub in the middle. Ah. “I’m glad you thought I could do this part myself,” I called to the people outside as I slipped out of the loose robe and into the steaming liquid.

Although I would never admit this to anyone, after losing everything, being beaten, captured, and mind wiped multiple times, the bath felt good.

It had been longer than I could remember since I had let myself relax. The accumulated dirt and blood that had encrusted me for so long slipped off and I came out feeling refreshed.

I pulled on the gray uniform that had been provided for me. I stepped past the curtain. “You still can’t blindfold me,” I said to the three people who had been sent to escort me. I was actually mildly insulted at such a low number, but I had no inkling of which way was out and so an escape attempt right now seemed somewhat pointless.

“I was afraid you’d say that,” said the telepath. “And I’ve decided we can bend the rules just this once.” I doubted whether there was any truth to those words. He was just trying to ease my suspicions.

I was lead down a maze of corridors that seemed to go on forever. At first I tried to keep track of the passages, but quickly lost track. I wondered the point to making me wear a blindfold.

Finally I was told simply to walk down the hallway. Seeing no real point to refusing and possibly seeing a chance to escape, I complied.

As I strode down the hallway I saw a boy with brown hair, smaller than average, looking extremely nervous.

“Any idea what’s going on?” I asked, if nothing else, just to stop him from looking so terrified.

“No,” he replied shortly.

“Name’s Alsari, what’s yours?”

He paused slightly before answering. “I’m Thørn Feltrix.”

Thørn

10

When I woke up, my entire body was in pain. I groaned softly, but it soon faded. I had no idea how much time had passed. I was in a cell of some kind. The walls were made of stone bricks and I was sleeping on a type of cot. I sat up. I wasn't wearing the same clothes as the day before. I was now wearing a grey uniform. It was uniform that was unmarked except for an insignia on the shoulder of a white hourglass.

I slid off the bed and slipped into a pair of black boots. I pushed the door open. I noticed that there was a place that the door could be barred from the outside and raised an eyebrow. I wasn't a prisoner now, but the people who had captured me were preparing for the future.

When I stepped out of my cell, a guard pointed down a hallway. With nothing better to do, I followed his directions.

The hallway was plain, lined with more rooms. No decorations, nothing. I saw a girl walking in the same direction as me. She wore the exact same uniform as I was. What stood out was that she looked about fourteen, but her hair was completely white. Her eyes were silver and had a mischievous glint in them. She walked over to me.

“Any idea what's going on?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“No.” I was bewildered. I had no idea what had happened.

“Name’s Alsari,” she stated. “What’s yours?”

I wasn’t entirely sure what was happening. Should I tell her my name? She seemed friendly enough, but I couldn’t be too careful…. “Thørn Feltrix,” I said eventually.

I was getting nervous. Had I been kidnapped? This didn't look like a place where kidnapped people went.

At the end of the hall was a circular room with many doors branching off. They were all decorated uniquely and labeled. PYROMANCER was surrounded by flames. NECROMANCER was painted black and guarded by two skeletons.

At the center the room was a Clockwork, but a different type than any I had seen before. It wasn’t very obvious, just a little different. A man in a blue uniform stood beside it.

“Kneel in front of the Clockwork.” His clipped voice was kind but firm. “And relax. We don’t want another dead one.” He knew about the school. I did as I was told, slightly wary. My knees bent and I knelt, looking at the floor. “Chin up.” I looked at the Clockwork and it reached out, hand clamping onto my forehead. It was doing the same thing as the Secretary! But there was no pain this time. It wasn’t probing, just observing.

The hand retracted. “Telepath,” the man announced. “No surprises there.” He pointed toward a section of empty wall. I took a few cautious steps toward it, not quite sure what to do. He nodded encouragingly and I walked up to the wall. I decided to wait.

Alsari was next. She knelt and the Clockwork put it’s hand on her forehead, just as it had on mine. “Geomancer,” the man announced and pointed toward a door with a corresponding label.

Alsari rolled her eyes. “I prefer the term ‘lithomancer,’” she corrected. The door was intricately carved of silver and gold, lined with precious stones and reinforced with steel. She walked confidently through it.

I stared suspiciously at my section of wall and noticed something. It wasn’t wall. It was a door, but the image of a wall had been superimposed over it. It was still locked. I examined the lock and could imagine just how easily it would open. I heard a lock click and the door swung open. I grinned and walked in.

“Good job,” said a boy on the other end, though he sounded slightly miffed. He had a pale face and was wearing a blue uniform. “Some people have stood out there for hours. Others have never made it in.”

“What’s going on here?” I asked, my smile vanishing. “Who are you people?”

“This is the Eternian Academy, if that’s what you mean,” the boy sighed with the boredom of having everything he's ever wanted all of his life. “If you want to be more specific, we’re all telepaths. Very specifically my name is Cobalt.”

“What do you mean by telepath?” I demanded.

Cobalt sighed. “I think you should come with me.” He strode importantly down the hallway. I sighed and followed him.

“You must at least know about mages,” the boy drawled. I was starting to dislike him more and more every time he opened his mouth. “Well, of course, there are different types of mages. You and I are telepaths.”

I decided to just consider the idea of being a mage for now. “But what do telepaths do?”

“Mind magic,” he said arrogance clear in his voice. “Of course, all magic comes, at least in part, from the mind. Pyromancers channel fire through fury, determination, utter loss, and love, the peaks of emotion.” His voice had turned sour. “On the other hand, telepaths use only conscious thought. We can delve into people’s thoughts and memories, speak through them, deceive them, and erase memories. We can move objects with sheer thought and create illusions of things that don’t exist. We can even use an extension of that to become invisible.”

I thought about this. "And what makes you think that I'm a telepath?" I was skeptical about all of these people and still wondering if I had been kidnapped.

"Well, what happened at the school was not unusual for a telepath," he said and I shuddered. Did everyone know? "Pretty much." He had been reading my thoughts. "What you did was harness all the minds together, but when you disconnected, it was messy. The minds broke." It was me. I had caused it. Guilt flowed over me like noxious tar, terrible and inescapable. "The way you dealt with the extraction team was classic telepath as well. You used telekinesis and telepathy. And lastly, the Clockwork Identifier identified you as a telepath."

We arrived in a room filled with blue uniformed people. No one was talking, but I picked up on people's thoughts and realized that they were talking telepathically.

A girl walked up to me and briefly scanned my mind, not deeply, only the past few minutes. She grimaced.

Sorry about Cobalt, she said telepathically. He's been here for longer than the rest of us, so he greets the new people. He thinks telepaths are superior in every way to the rest of the mages.

I grinned. Obviously, I responded.

She grinned back. You learn quickly!

It wasn't that hard, I said. You had already made the connection. I became more serious. How long have you been here?

She thought for a moment. Three years, seven months, twenty-eight days.

And have you seen your parents in that time?

No, came the confident, even cheery reply.

I tried to hide my nervousness. Where will I sleep?

Down the hallway, third door on the right.

Thanks.

Inside, I was shaken. I had looked into her. I had found that not only had she not seen her parents in over three years, she hadn't even been outside.

Nyx

11

An explosion rocked my lab for the thirty-second time today. I cursed as two lime green snails, a bluebird with three antennae which emitted sparks at random intervals, and half an orangish sprocket wrench spewed from the volatile substance at the center of the circle. I’d been experimenting on a binding circle for the Shadow, and the results had been mixed to say the least.

I was confident I had the circle right. It was probably five feet across and lined with alchemical symbols and ancient runes. I just needed the right combination of ingredients to activate it and it should summon the Shadow and keep him from leaving the circle.

Right now, the runes had been glowing a sickly green since I added the last few ingredients. Many of my mixtures had had unexpected results. Often explosions. The most recent one was particularly bizarre. “Grix,” I growled again.

I was rubbish at magic and I knew it. Alchemists could be and still be excellent at what they did, but what I was attempting was more magic than science, and so, particularly difficult.

Sure, I could do the simpler transmutations with no trouble at all and the harder ones in a pinch as well as the more obvious magic, but this was complex and it wasn’t made easier by the fact that I expected the Shadow to pop up and stab me every second.

I gave a heavy yawn. I glanced at the clock. It took me a while to register that it was three o’clock in the morning. One more try, and then I would sleep…. I threw a dash of dragon’s blood and three tablespoons of powdered wraithbone. I placed the beaker in the center of the circle.

In a flash, my etchings turned from sickly green to bloodred, illuminating my lab and casting eldritch symbols on everything. A pillar of smoky darkness shot through the middle of my circle and manifested itself into the shape of the Shadow.

I sat bolt upright, all thoughts of sleep forgotten. I gave a short, slightly manic laugh. “I did it!” I cried aloud. “It worked!”

“Mmm,” said my captive. “Your charming summoning spell finally succeeded.”

I was unfazed. “Not so smug anymore. You’re going to answer questions for me, this time.”

The Shadow stretched. “That’s just not how it works,” he stated with mock concern. “You see, I ask the questions and everyone else answers them.” He began flicking the invisible barrier separating us. It rippled where he touched it. “I see you managed to create a barrier to go with it.”

His smugness was starting to unnerve me now. Couldn’t he see that I had outsmarted him? For all his casually threatening remarks, swordplay, and superior magic I had outsmarted him.

“And since I have, why are you so happy?” I asked secretly dreading the answer.

A gloating smile slipped onto his face. “The summoning spell was effective, and the shield spell, while impressive was….” I distinctly felt the temperature of the room drop. “ ….less so.”

The barrier began to ice over and my satisfied expression fell from my face. He was coming through. I raised my gauntlet and sent fireballs racing from the palm. My magic, coupled with my much more substantial knowledge of alchemy and science was not enough to melt the ice through the barrier.

Finally, the strain of the magically induced ice was too much for the barrier and it shattered like breaking glass before fading from existence. The red light from my alchemy circle flickered and died.

A funnel of black smoke appeared in the Shadow’s hand and eventually shaped itself into a sword. I gulped. It looked like it was made of obsidian as the blade was somewhat translucent and pitch black. The handle was made of a dull silver, and the whole thing looked wickedly sharp.

The Shadow leveled the needle sharp point at my throat. Fortunately I had prepared for the possibility of my barriers failing. I sent a fireball racing towards the Shadow, but he easily avoided it.

He laughed disdainfully. “That’s the best you can do?”

“Nope.” I watched the fuse I had lit travel up the wall and across the ceiling. A series of small explosions filled the room, dropping a section of ceiling onto the Shadow who was buried in rubble.

I laughed shakily. “That’s the best you can do?” I repeated to the Shadow.

The rubble exploded and a dark figure shot out of it. I was thrown across the room and cracked my head against the wall.

As the world faded in and out of view I saw the Shadow moving slowly across the room toward me. “Nope,” he replied. His form glowed with fury. I shot fireball after fireball at him, along with several bolts of lightning. Some were deflected off of his sword while other projectiles were stopped by more powerful magic.

He towered over me, a pillar of darkness and fury, his sword pricking my throat. “Normally I would have killed you long ago, Nyx, but you wanted to talk,” he spat. “So let’s talk.”

Kevfalcor

12

Our swords connected with a crash, so that I nearly dropped mine. But I didn’t. I counter attacked, slicing at my opponent’s side. My attack was parried followed by a flurry of slices forcing me back. I made a hasty stab to stop the assault, but then my enemy flicked the sword from my hand it arced through the air and she caught it. I suddenly had two blades at my throat.

“Dead,” Shalana growled, as she withdrew the swords.

“I’m improving, though, aren’t I?” I wondered.

“Of course you are,” the weaponmaster stated, managing to make it sound like a bad thing. “But not nearly enough.”

“Enough for what?” My question was ignored.

“Again,” was the reply as my sword was tossed back to me.

We sparred again. Our swords made sound echo through the trees. I lost. This process repeated until I was utterly exhausted.

Shalana was about to spar again and I was about to collapse when Taanyth appeared. “Could I borrow Nyvral?” he asked politely.

I still hadn’t gotten used to being called that, but I was incredibly grateful for the excuse to walk away. Shalana looked peeved, but consented.

“What do you think of your training?” Taanyth asked.

I groaned. “Tiring.”

“Yes, Shalana can be….persistent. But it’s necessary you have good training,” he said.

“Necessary for what?” I asked. “It’s staggeringly obvious that you’re preparing me for something, but aren’t planning on telling me what it is. But you’ll have to in the end. And I’m not going to stay in the dark forever.”

Taanyth didn’t speak for a while. We walked in silence through the trees. “I can’t tell you,” he said at last.

“And why’s that?” I growled, frustration leaking into my voice. “Because I’m ‘not ready?’”

“Because he told me not to!” Taanyth snapped. I shot him a quizzical look. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper-”

“Who told you not too?” I asked immediately. “What are you hiding?”

The rest of the hike passed in silence. After an hour or so we reached a tranquil pool of water surrounded by moss covered rocks. By now my anger toward Taanyth had drained, and I was somewhat guilty for getting so frustrated with the old elf. My curiosity, on the other hand, was still piqued.

“What are we doing here,” I said, trying to keep my voice as passive as possible.

“You are here to learn a skill that will be incredibly useful for you, no matter what you do,” he stated flatly, but I saw a smile twitch on his lips. “And I am here to teach it.”

That diverted some of my attention. “What are we going to do?”

“Magic.” This one word response made my already excited curiosity skyrocket.

I was buzzing with anticipation. “Where do we start?”

Taanyth’s old warmth had fully returned. “Take a seat,” he said as he lowered himself cross legged onto a rock. I mirrored the position.

“Focus,” he said. “Focus on the movement of the water, the breath of the wind, the position of the stone.

“Focus on the insect crawling beneath the leaf, on the bird fluttering through the air, on the mouse nibbling on a seed.

“Focus on the movement of the stars, on the balance of the world, on the turn of the universe, and let it flow through you….”

Alsari

13

Stone squished between my fingers, as malleable as clay, then crumbled like dust between my fingers, but reconstructed itself into an iron lump before it hit the ground. I held out my hand and it flew into my palm.

“Good, good,” the instructor cooed. “Now, try it again.”

I gritted my teeth. This drill was pointless. I probably had more experience with geomancy than the rest of the class and the instructor put together. I repeated the process over and over, other new geomancers doing the same.

The instructor returned, with the same fixed, infuriating, unsettling smile pasted onto his face. “My apologies,” he said benignly. “Go straight through that door.”

I crossed the room, abandoning the pitiful drill. I was worried, though, that someone higher up had noticed I wasn’t an average recruit, and I had only been around the Eternian Academy for two days.

From what I had gathered, the Eternian Academy was a sort of mage school that kidnapped children and taught them magic, and was probably run by a telepath. By now I was positive that thought manipulation played a huge role in the control of the recruits, but I wasn’t aware of it happening to me since the first day. Of course, it was only too easy to cover up mind manipulation.

I strode down the hallway. As I did so, my mind drifted to another of the Eternian Academy’s newest recruits, the telepath, Thørn Feltrix. I wondered if he was now learning to control other recruits.

I opened the door at the end of the hallway and noise flooded over me. Metal and rock slammed against each other across the room as people were split into rooms and began dueling. Some used swords, others used warhammers or metal hooks attached to rope. All used the stone floors and walls around them. Geomancers were being taught to fight.

A new instructor walked up to me. Unlike the last one with his permanently cheery smile, this one was tall, grim and imposing with short dark hair and a beard.

He drew a mid sized sword and handed it to me. “Do you know how to use one of these?” he asked.

“Erm, yes-”

“Good.” He gestured to another recruit holding the hooks. He surged towards, me propelled by the ground beneath his feet.

I barely had time to react, parrying the hook, but he impact knocked me off balance and sent me careening into a wall. I had seen this style before, with the magic and metallic hooks combining for a unique kind of long range geomancy. He could attack from thirty or more feet away without fear of retaliation.

I could see the second hook swinging towards me and braced for impact, my feet digging slightly into the solid granite of the floor for support. At the last second I shifted two steps closer to my opponent, my sword moving in a fluid motion. The rope attaching the hook to the person was severed and the hook fell to the ground.

My opponent glared. I smirked. He turned the ground into a hail of pebbles flying with bone breaking speed in my direction, but I used my own lithomancy to alter the path of the projectiles slightly, just enough that they didn’t hit me. The small alteration in their path required almost no energy and barely any concentration. Pebbles bounced off walls, ricocheting across the room, hitting almost everything but me.

I walked through the hail of pebbles as the other geomancer swung with his remaining hook. I dodged and ducked under the first few attacks, but eventually I made a pillar of granite rise from the stone, and the hook, already in flight, imbedded itself in the stone. The other geomancer tugged desperately on the rope, but I had quickly cut it.

I strode up to my opponent and pointed my sword at him. I had no intention of striking, but his eyes were fixed nervously on the tip. The new instructors face split into a horrifying grin. “Good,” he leered, the hideous grin spreading. “Now kill him.”

I froze. My opponent blanched. My mind flashed through options. I wasn’t going to kill my opponent, he was barely a teenager. I could attack the instructor and try to escape from the compound, but that would most likely lead to my recapture and a series of mind wipes and mental alterations until I was a mindless slave.

The instructors smile faded. “Joking, of course,” he said in a gravelly voice. “I would of stopped you before you managed to finish him off.

“How long have you been here?”

“Two days,” I said, still unsure of whether anything he had just said was true.

“Come with me,” he ordered.

This was happening more and more. I was rising through the ranks too quickly to avoid notice. I needed to fade into the background and so far I was failing horribly.

He used geomancy to slide a section of the wall away revealing a hooded figure cloaked in bone white.

“Come with me,” she said in a voice that wasn’t like the cheery-to-the- point-of-condescending voice of my first instructor or the oppressive voice of my second. It was someone I could talk to.

“What do you want from me?” I growled.

“Oh, just to know how a hotheaded, defiant, intelligent young woman of,” she surveyed me. “One hundred sixty? Seventy? And most importantly, a Firstborn from Karadan could end up on Archora.”

Thørn

14

Random objects flickered in and out of existence all across the room. Telepaths were learning to summon illusions with limited success. My own illusion, a duplicate of myself, was certainly not disappearing, but was a bit fuzzy around the edges, had a smudged look to the back of his head, and was slightly taller. I glared at him and his edges sharpened and the back of his head cleared up, but he remained a stubborn inch taller. I assumed that was wishful thinking.

I wondered what the rest of the recruits were doing. The Eternian Academy clearly wasn’t actually a school. It was a training center of some kind for mages.

I felt a thought enter my mind and knew instantly it wasn’t my own. The entire compound had clearly been organized with telepathy, so I had kept my mental ears perked for anything interesting ever since we had learned telepathy yesterday.

At the thought of perked ears, my illusion sprouted dog ears and began listening intently. I returned it to normal and hoped no one had noticed.

When I dug into the thought, I was shocked so much that my illusion flickered out of existence. It was the image of the lithomancer I had met on my first day, Alsari, dressed in a pale white uniform. The image was accompanied by the words Flicker confirmed. Firstborn. Karadan. Unknown power. Question and wipe.

Karadan? I had never heard of them before. Who was that? And what was the significance of Firstborn? Why did it matter if Alsari was the first child in her family?

I dug deeper into the thought, trying to track it. Despite what Cobalt had said, being a telepath was something that I figured out on my own very quickly.

Go back to your own head, Feltrix, a voice in my head commanded. My insides froze. I had been caught. If you don’t stop spying, there will be consequences.

I waited for something else, but nothing came.

That was it? I wasn’t going to punished, mind wiped, or worse? I hastily withdrew but as I did, another thought skimmed my consciousness.

This time it was my own image accompanied by more words. Flicker unconfirmed. Unknown power. Question and wipe.

Eyes snapped open. They drifted through the darkness observing the abyssal universe. The eyes adjusted to the darkness. No. Not an abyss. A ceiling. Fascinating. The eyes became conscious of the fact that they weren’t floating. No. They were mounted in a head.

I was laying in my bed in my room in the telepath branch in the Eternian Academy. “What am I doing here?

“I was….I was learning how to summon illu….no….no….it wasn’t here it was….What am I talking about?

“I was floating. I was eyes. No. I wasn’t eyes. I have eyes. Nice blue ones. Ow! Not good to touch!

“Have to summon illusions. Have to practice. No, without the ears. Stop doing that. Stop doing that right now or I’ll dematerialize you!

“Flicker unconfirmed. Unknown power. Question and wipe. Question and wipe….Question and wipe!

“Mind wipe. On me. Must be. Only way….

“Scrambled. I’m scrambled from the mind wipe. I’ll have to wait. Effects not permanent. Can’t be permanent. Just have to wait….”

I have no idea how long I went on like that for. Eventually I stopped and my mind cleared out.

“Well, that was something,” I muttered aloud. I’d have to get out of the habit of talking to myself.

I breathed in and out deeply to calm myself. “Flicker unconfirmed. Unknown power. Question and wipe.”

Those were the only clues I had to work with. But what did it mean? I had to figure it out. The Eternian Academy hadn’t wiped that. That either meant it wasn’t important or….

I grinned. Or they’d slipped. Now I had a crack in their impenetrable defenses. A crack that could be exploited. A crack that could lead to a break.

Nyx

15

Cold black stone brushed against my throat. I stared along the translucent blade, past the dull silver crossguard and at where I imagined the Shadow’s eyes should be.

This was it. My gauntlet was useless, my traps had been sprung, and I didn’t have enough time, willpower, or energy to escape.

The little of the Shadow’s face that I could see twisted into a horrible smile.

“I’m not going to kill you.” As he said this, he lowered his sword. “Your death will be your choice.” I felt the sword prick my arm. It was barely a scratch, but agony raced through my arm. “I’ve implanted ice in your arm. It will spread, eventually killing you. The only antidote is the boy’s blood. I’d say you have….twenty-four hours.”

Through the haze of pain something sounded wrong. “No,” I corrected. “The ice would block the arteries, become a clot. It would-”

“Magic.”

“Oh.” That overrode any argument I could think of.

“I hope your own death is sufficient motivation to work harder.” And he was gone.

I climbed stiffly to my feet, wincing at the pain in my arm. I quickly made an anesthetic for my arm and gulped it down.

The taste was somewhere between troll lair and spinach. My face twisted in disgust, but after a few minutes, the pain in my arm was dulled. I set out to kill the boy.

I trudged through the forest, crushing moss underfoot as I went. Every once in awhile I’d see a tree covered in carvings or stretching far above the rest, the only sign of the other inhabitants of the forest. I hate elves, I thought sullenly.

I already knew the elves were following me. It’s just what they did. I assumed it made them feel safe to track every being in the area.

I sighed. “You can come out. I come in peace,” I lied. “I mean you no harm, et cetera.”

A dozen elves moved around. “Take me to your leader,” I growled. The elves looked at me quizzically. I hate elves. “And no sedatives. So let’s go.”

I continued on my path to the elven village leaving a trail of bewildered elves in my wake.

“You can’t just-” an elf protested.

“Yes, I can.”

“But you’re a-”

“Girl? It’s very rude that you’d discriminate because of that.”

“No, a-”

“Human? Yes, let’s accept that and move on.”

“How do you know-”

“Where your village is? I besieged it a few years ago.” Despite my foul mood, I couldn’t help smiling at the elves loss for words.

After a few hours of walking, during which I cut off ninety-seven sentences (a new record), we reached the village. I whirled around to face the elves.

“Now,” I commanded. “Where’s the other human?” I actually in a much better mood than when I’d left. Maybe elves weren’t so bad after all.

A thoroughly baffled elf pointed mutely to his left. “Excellent,” I purred.

Kevfalcor

16

My patience was thinning fast. I had been sitting on the rock with Taanyth for hours and hadn’t had a single spark of magic.

“Concentrate….” Taanyth said for what had to be the fiftieth time.

I tried, but nothing miraculously happened.

“Maybe you’re just too used to teaching elves,” I pointed out. “Maybe you don’t know how to teach a human.”

“I refuse to believe that,” he stated firmly. “Magic can make so much possibility and you….”

Before he could put into words what he was thinking a girl appeared from the bushes. What immediately struck me was that she was human. She was actually incredibly un-elfish. When she looked at me, I saw conflicting emotions. Guilt, fear, confusion, maybe even excitement mingled together, but she covered it quickly by brazenly surveying the area.

She was pale, probably fourteen, with blazing red hair tied back in a ponytail and brass armor covering her right arm. It had mechanical valves and tubes sticking out at random places. Her fingers stuck out of the end and the back of her hand had a circular, luminescent section.

“Who are you?” Taanyth asked, in the same kind voice that he talked to everyone in, but now there was an underlying tone of suspicion.

“My name’s Nyx,” she said, extending a hand. “But I’m also called the Alchemist. Arashan, I believe, in your tongue.”

He gave a forced smile and took her armored hand. “Well, Arashan, you are most welc-”

He was cut off as lightning shot through his body. He was thrown backwards and lay still.

I rounded the girl in horror and fear. “What did you do to him?” I demanded.

“Don’t worry, he’s only unconscious,” she informed me as her hair rose around her head in a kind of fiery halo. “Although,” she corrected, considering her words. “I am here to kill you, so maybe you should worry. Sorry in advance. It’s nothing personal.”

“Nothing personal?” I spat. “In what way is killing me nothing personal? Why would anyone even want to kill me?”

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” she whispered so quietly that I barely heard her. “And I know you won’t believe me, but I really am sorry.”

My infuriated, somewhat terrified brain froze. “What?” Nothing about the situation made an iota of sense. I was still trying to make sense when the Alchemist flicked her wrist at me, shooting a bolt of lightning at me. I dove out of the way at the last second.

I hit slammed my knee into a rock, and pain shot through my leg. I gritted my teeth and hobbled to my feet. Another bolt of lightning shot past as I ducked behind a rock. And then the rock exploded.

The Alchemist stood behind where the rock had been, gauntlet smoking, hair whirling around my face, bits of stone flying past her head and a knotted lump of despair filled my stomach.

She flicked her wrist and a blue-white bolt of ice shot from her hand, freezing my feet to the ground. “I really am sorry,” Nyx stated, and this time I believed her.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, grasping at any chance I could.

“Yes,” she corrected. “I do.”

She snapped her fingers and a firestorm shot from her hand. I remember this moment with incredible clarity. Tongues of fire shooting towards me, licking at my body. Nyx had turned her head away, unwilling to watch, but left her arm stretched towards me.

I knew. Knew how tiny I was, how tiny everyone was, how tiny all of Alaran was. But I didn’t have to be. Big things were coming, millennium old plans beginning to manifest and take shape. I was just a gear in a massive machine.

Then reality snapped back into focus. I was being incinerated. Well, I can easily fix that, I thought.

Magic flowed through my hands as I absorbed the flame with ease. Nyx turned around and found me completely untouched by the flame. “Of course,” she growled. “Why do you have to have magic?”

I lunged forward, straight through a bolt of ice and grabbed her gauntlet. I looked at the glowing circle and raised her fist. “Don’t you dare,” Nyx warned. I punched it shattering the glass. “I hate you.” Liquid leaked out of the seal. Suddenly it exploded in such a massive combustion that I shot across the clearing and the world was swallowed in darkness.

Alsari

17

Iblinked. I blinked again. Interesting thing, blinking. I blinked some more. Why was I in my room? Why was I on Archora?

I cursed. “Mind wipe! Of course. Not a particularly careful one, either, definitely left me scrambled. And talking to myself. Why am I doing that? I should stop doing that. Stop doing that, mouth! I mean it!”

I paused and counted to ten. I was getting scrambled again. The mind wipe hadn’t been done expertly, like the person who’d brought me in. He had just left gaps. This person had left a muddled mix of my head. Why was that? Most of the Eternian Academy were experts. Then it dawned on me. I was practice.

In frustration I punched the wall which, being stone, didn’t harm my fist in the slightest. I had battled with gods and demons and the Eternian Academy used me as practice.

I was done with Archora. I gathered my energy to leave, until I realized I couldn’t. It isn’t a thing I can explain. I simply couldn’t leave.

A thought probed my mind. I threw my mental barriers up immediately, but the thoughts continued to probe. After a few minutes I eventually decided to have a parley with the consciousness.

Gods, you’re relentless, I thought angrily. What do you want?

Erm, sorry…. The voice seemed….embarrassed? I just wanted to…. I knew you were mind wiped, so I….

The voice suddenly seemed familiar. Thørn Feltrix? It was you?

What? What are you talking about? Oh, the mind wipe, no, that wasn’t me.

Then who was it? I asked. And why were you trying to get in? And how did you know I was mind wiped? Instead of an explanation, I received a flurry of memories explaining what Thørn had been doing, about his own mind wipe and how he knew I had been wiped too.

I hesitated. I wasn’t sure if I trusted him. Meet me at midnight in the Crossroads. The Crossroads was the central area where all the branches of magic met. If he really did mean well, I may have gained an ally and if not and we met in person, I was sure I could overpower him if he tried to double cross me.

I sensed hesitation. All right. Why midnight?

Because no one else will be there.

Okay. And why is that important?

I sighed aloud. Because it would look strange if you, on a whim, probe my mind and I’m completely okay with that.

Right. See you then. As he withdrew from my mind I picked up on his thought without meaning to. Why is it always midnight? he thought.

I stood in the dimly lit chamber as a door swung open. The door was labeled TELEPATH and had actually been a wall a second before it swung open. Out stepped a figure dressed in the uniform of the Eternian Academy. His eyes were bloodshot and he gave a heavy yawn before he’d made it across the room.

It was almost identical to the geomancer uniform, except is was blue. There was the same red spiral emblem on the chest.

“Thørn,” I greeted, extending a hand. He shook it and I relaxed a bit. Not an illusion, then.

“What’s the sword for?” he queried, nodding at the blade floating a few inches from my side. Holding it lithomantically didn’t add any weight or restrict movement.

“If it becomes important, I’ll tell you.” The telepath nodded stiffly. It couldn’t hurt to keep him afraid, at least until I trusted him.

“Should we start?” he asked. When I nodded, he pressed his palm to my temple and I was briefly reminded of the Clockwork, as they were called, before Feltrix shot through my mind like an arrow.

I panicked and my sword shot to my hand. Without thinking, I swung, slicing the figure in front of me in half.

Nyx

18

The ringing in my ears had started to become intolerable, and so had the splitting headache, not to mention the agony shooting along my arm. And then some horribly inconsiderate person decided to splash water in my face.

I groaned as I wrenched my eyes open and the world drifted in and out of focus before the blurred colors resolved themselves into the person who should be dead.

A blur of images shot through my brain, doing nothing to stop the headache. A column of flame shooting towards him, the boy absorbing a bolt of ice and then smashing my gauntlet. The liquid which was contained within it was incredibly rare and valuable, not to mention explosive if exposed to air; it had immediately combusted.

“You’re still here, huh?” I asked as he tossed aside the bucket. “I suppose it was too much to hope you’d been incinerated.”

He glared at me stonily, which I thought was ungrateful, given my position. I was soaked, hair and clothes sticking to my body, and my hands were bound above my head by surprisingly robust vine - organic, of course, because they were elves - which forced me into a seated position. My gauntlet had, of course, been confiscated. On my other arm, my veins had turned bluish white and were becoming agonizingly painful. I didn’t have long left.

“You just tried to kill me,” the boy growled.

“Yeah, yeah, but I didn’t, okay? Why are you still angry?”

“Why did you even try to kill me? Do you even know my name? Why are you acting so weird about the whole thing? And who are you?” The boy shot them out one after another, each loud and annoying noise shooting a bolt of pain through my forehead.

“I was forced to, no, I prefer not to kill people, and Nyx the Alchemist, like I said,” I replied at the same breakneck speed. The boy was perplexed. Apparently he wasn’t accustomed to having answers delivered to him in the same way as the questions he asked. “Look, I’ll give you more information, but only in a deal.”

He glared. “You’re in no position to make a deal,” he snarled. “There are guards out there who’ll-”

“Do what? Kill me? I’m already going to do that in what….eight hours, so you’re in no position to threaten,” I replied with equal ferocity.

That knocked him back a step. His expression softened. “You’re dying? What’s happening to you? Is that why you….?” Most of the anger had drained from his voice.

I grinned malevolently at him. “Deal then?”

His expression hardened. “What do you want from me?”

“A drop of your blood. On my arm, to be specific.”

His expression drifted towards revulsion. “What do you need that for?” I gave him a knowing and obnoxious smile that I hoped wasn’t also manic from pain. “Fine.” He began to unwrap a bandage on his arm, hopefully where something painful had happened to him. When he was finished, it revealed a recent gash, most likely from a stick, that was, more importantly, leaking a red liquid.

The moment the sticky scarlet liquid touched my left arm, the ice in my veins receded along with the agony it created. I gave a sigh. “Well, that feels much better,” I murmured happily. My headache was still bothering me, but I could tolerate it. “Now. What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Wonderful.” So I told him.

I told him about the Shadow and his vendetta against the boy and how I’d tried to resist (exaggerating just a tiny bit at this point), but had been poisoned and forced to act.

“So what you’re saying,” he began. “Is this mysterious being on a whim decides to force you to kill me.”

I didn’t say anything, but glared in his direction. He clearly didn’t believe me, and left in disgust.

He had only been gone a minute before he rushed back in, looking pale. “How did you do that?” he asked breathlessly.

“Do what?” I replied, honestly not knowing what he was talking about, but I already knew how the conversation was going to go.

“Don’t play dumb with me!” he predictably demanded.

“I’m not,” I replied innocently.

To complete the cliché, he stormed disbelievingly towards the door. I rolled my eyes. So dramatic. I really did wonder what he’d seen, though.

“For what it’s worth,” I called after him. “I didn’t want to kill you.” I rolled my eyes again. I hated when things started to get emotional.

Thørn

18

From deep in Alsari’s mind, I was dimly aware that my illusion was down. That meant it had been destroyed and that meant I was in trouble. I carefully, so I didn’t empty her mind, but quickly withdrew from her head. At the forefront of her thoughts, I saw her slicing me in half. Not friendly, then, I thought.

I saw my illusion splinter like broken glass along her blade. The shattered bits of me dissolved before they touched the ground. I crouched invisible next to the door. The crouching was completely pointless as no one could see me anyway. I immediately did what I had been practicing all night. Suddenly, Alsari was surrounded by a dozen duplicates of myself.

“Now, what did you go and do that for?” My illusions said it, which created an eerie effect as voices spoke in unison from all directions. I’d anticipated the possibility that she could become hostile, but directly slicing me in half was more brutal than I’d expected.

“I could ask you the same,” she growled, unperturbed by being seemingly outnumbered.

“But why would you do that?” my illusions replied.

“You’re really knew at this, aren’t you?”

“At what?” asked the illusions.

Alsari lowered her sword. “Being a telepath.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve studied for lithomancy for so long,” she said. “I’m probably the strongest lithomancer in the Eternian Academy. In all of Archora, for that matter. But you, you have no idea what you just did.”

“What did I do?” I asked. I was beginning to trust her again.

“You went all through my mind. You could have taken control of me or driven me mad or worse. But you didn’t.”

“On the other hand,” I shot back. “You would have happily mutilated me.”

She winced. “I’m sorry. I panicked,” she explained. “I trust you. Go and search my mind. See? I want you to trust me.”

By now I did. I closed my eyes, letting my illusions wink out of existence. Alsari’s mind was different than I’d expected. Alien, somehow. As I skimmed through memories, I saw gaps, things she couldn’t explain. I dug into one, but it was blocked by something more powerful than I’d ever encountered. The same went for the rest of the gaps.

I withdrew again. “I can’t find anything. It’s like someone went and blocked all these memories, someone powerful and-”

Cold laughter echoed through the Crossroads. “Of course you can’t find anything.” Illusions of a hooded me flickered into existence, but now they looked malicious.

“Thørn….” Alsari started. “What are you doing?”

“This isn’t me!”

But the cold voice continued. “You should be honored, lithomancer. Those memories were blocked by Eternia herself.”

“Then who is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know!” I cried.

“You should,” the illusions murmured. Now I realized just how menacing I could look if I wanted to, which was good to know, but not helpful right now. Suddenly all of the hoods fell back revealing a familiar face.

“Oh, no,” I groaned. “Cobalt what are you doing here?”

“I have direct orders from Headmistress Eternia,” the illusions whispered gleefully. “She’s very interested in what you’ve been doing and more importantly, what you can do.” With that the force of Cobalt’s mind hit me like a battering ram.

Kevfalcor

19

Nyx the Alchemist was lying. She had to be. No other explanation made sense. I walked away from her prison, which was a tree. Why would some malevolent entity want me dead? And even if he did, why didn’t he kill me himself? But it didn’t make sense that the Alchemist would come up with such an unconvincing lie.

I pondered this as I headed to the Tree of Souls to talk to Taanyth when a person materialized before me in a haze of blue. He wore a long brown overcoat that would have flowed behind him if he’d moved and a tall thin top hat that added two feet to his height. I saw multiple gears, clocks, and watches that he wore like jewelry so that a constant ticking followed him.

When his brilliant blue eyes fell on me his face split into a grin. “Kevfalcor! Brilliant! Lovely to see you, old chap!” he greeted in an accented voice as if talking to an old friend. “‘Old chap?’ That’s odd. Do I say ‘old chap’ now?” And he dematerialized in the same blue flash.

I stood there without moving. “What?” He rematerialized again. “Do I know you?” I asked the ticking man.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That would be absurd. We won’t meet for some time now.” He disappeared again.

I waited a minute. He was back. “Right. Alaran. What am I doing here?” he asked himself. “Of course. Kev, trust the Alchemist. She may be prickly and have a horrid, horrid singing voice, but if you get to know her well enough, she’ll only try to kill you once or twice a month. Or all the time, if she doesn’t take a liking to you.”

He vanished. I stood there, slack jawed and waiting for the ticking man to reappear, but he didn’t. It had to be Nyx somehow. He’d talked about the Alchemist, and that was her.

I stormed away from Nyx’s tree when a thought struck me. It had, of course, occurred to me before, but what if she was telling the truth? About everything? That would mean that I was in danger and a strange ticking man randomly materialized from time to time. On the other hand, I had just been attacked by an alchemist with an exploding gauntlet in the middle of an elven city-forest.

I decided to give the Alchemist a chance. I strode into her prison and the red haired teenager glared at me with amber eyes. “What is it now?” she growled.

“The Shadow. You summoned him, right?” I asked.

“Yes…. and what you’re thinking is an absolutely terrible idea.”

“I might be able to get you out,” I replied.

Nyx grinned. “I never said I wouldn’t do it.”

“Just like that?” I asked. Despite the fact that she’d tried to kill me, she was also growing on me.

“Something will probably explode,” she casually pointed out. “It’ll be fun.”

“So you really aren’t going to object?” I asked.

“Did you expect me to?” the Alchemist replied.

“A little bit, yeah,” I admitted. “We’re talking about the same thing, right?”

“Of course we are,” she calmly assured me. “But you do realize that the elves are never going to agree to this. And I’ll need to be out to do it. And there’s the off chance that we’ll all die. You’re okay with that, right?”

“Death? Hopefully it won’t come to that.” I hoped I sounded confident. This was a terrible idea. “How long will it take to prepare?”

“A few hours,” she replied.

“Grix!” I cursed. “Let’s try to do it tonight.”

A crooked grin spread across Nyx’s face. “Midnight with the Shadow? You’re hopelessly dramatic. I’ll see you then.”

Alsari

20

My mind was nearly swamped in the mental onslaught. Whoever Cobalt was, he was certainly powerful. I managed to shield most of my mind, but it took every ounce of concentration, making it hard to move. I couldn’t fight back. I didn’t know where Cobalt was.

I saw Thørn in a corner, invisibility abandoned, clearly suffering from a similar mental assault. Two people at once? Cobalt was powerful and I knew eventually he’d break through my defenses. I’d have to make sacrifices to win.

I abandoned the defenses around my past memories. The Eternian Academy already knew all about that, anyway. If Cobalt was given enough time to wipe it, though, I shuddered to think of the consequences.

At the same time, I sent a lithomantic pulse, causing a slight ripple through the stone. I felt the pressure where Cobalt’s feet were planted. I quickly shielded my mind, hopefully in time to prevent him from glimpsing much.

I hurled my sword towards where the other telepath should be. It spun end over end, perfectly towards where he should be. It passed straight through the empty space where the opponent should be and buried itself halfway down the blade into the solid granite.

I replaced my defenses in time. I was worried now. If I was going to win this fight, it might be at the cost of my sanity. I felt a sudden withdrawal from my consciousness and realized that Thørn Feltrix was fighting back. I smiled. It was good to have someone on my side.

I sent out a wave through the stone floor so it was like standing on water. Cobalt, who wore a hood, and Feltrix were both thrown to the ground. Before he could bring back his invisibility, I shoved Cobalt to the wall where he sank in a few inches. I could see veins straining to get out, but it was pointless. Suddenly he blinked out of existence. I held out my hand and the sword flew into it. He took the hint and reappeared, still in the wall.

By now Thørn had crossed the room and stood by me. “Can you do a memory search?” I asked. “There could be lots of information in his mind, especially if he’s in direct contact with Eternia, whoever that is.”

“I can try, Alsari, but….Cobalt’s had years of practice and I only just learned I was a telepath.”

He closed his eyes and I noticed a hazy turquoise wisp connect his and Cobalt’s heads. Suddenly, Thørn’s eyes jerked open.

“Did you get in?” I asked. “Did you find anything?”

“No, it’s….odd,” he replied uncertainly. “I think he’s being mind controlled.”

I pointed my sword at his throat. “Who are you?” I demanded. “Why did you attack us?”

At that, the body did something completely unexpected. Cobalt began to laugh. He laughed until the sound echoed all around the circular room and it sounded as though invisible, malevolent beings were watching something be tortured. “Or what?” he drawled. “You’ll kill me? No, the most you could do is kill Cobalt, and why would I care about that? He’s expendable. You two are the valuable ones.”

“Then why did you try to kill us?” I shot back.

“He didn’t,” murmured Thørn. “You’re Eternia, aren’t you? This whole thing was just a test.”

Cobalt? Eternia? He? She? They grinned. “Clever boy,” Eternia drawled. “You definitely have what it takes to-”

“Why are you doing this?” I roared.

Eternia shifted their baleful eyes in my direction. “Alsari the Stoneshaper,” they said, their voice dripping with cold amusement. “You are powerful aren’t you. But so sad. The lone survivor of a dead world. And you watched it happen. And you could do nothing. What was it like? What was it like to watch your world burn and be powerless to stop it?”

That was too much. Eternia was jerked out of the wall and I slammed my fist into under their chin. Their eyes rolled back into their head and the body of Cobalt collapsed to the floor. Thørn just stared. He didn’t look angry, scared, or even shocked at the sudden violence.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked at last. I opened my mouth to deny that I was hiding anything, but he cut me off. “Don’t even think of denying it, because Eternia wouldn’t just senselessly babble until you knocked out Cobalt. So what is it?”

“I can’t….” I trailed off before my sentence had even formed. Without another word I bolted from the room.

I strode through the halls until I got to my room. Without taking off my uniform, I slumped on my bed. All the pent up rage and resentment and misery leaking out of my eyes until I was asleep.

Nyx

21

I left a note in my prison. It was short and brief and mainly to have the last laugh at the elves. Thanks for the free food, but next time a mattress would be nice. I wasn’t entirely sure about it, but I didn’t have much time.

Kevfalcor had wanted to incinerate the vines, but I argued that it might just burn down the forest and he had only been able to produce a spark. I was becoming sceptical about his magical abilities. In the end, he had filched my chemical kit and I had told him how to melt it.

I strode quietly out the door and followed Kevfalcor to a tree house in the middle of the village.

“Why here?” I hissed. “It’s right in the middle.”

“Exactly,” he replied. “If something goes wrong, people will be able to help and anyway, it’s the only abandoned place.”

“And why’s that?”

He frowned. “I’m actually not sure.” We ascended the stairs wrapping around the tree like a vine. They were, of course, grown from the tree. I dashed up the rather rickety steps and burst into the room above. It was circular, with intricately grown windows, which was typical of elves. It was also completely barren, which was not.

There was a thin layer of dust coating the floor, highlighted by the beams of moonlight. Cobwebs coated the two chairs that had been crammed into a wall.

“Let’s get to work, then,” I murmured. “Just one thing before I start. If you’ve broken me out of an elven prison and followed me this far, you already trust me. So why are we doing this? What’s this going to change?”

“The elves will trust you if there’s proof,” he replied.

“Why would I want them to trust me?” I shot back.

It was too dark to tell, but I was pretty sure Kevfalcor blushed. “I had hoped you might stay here.”

Well, that escalated quickly. In less than twenty-four hours, he had gone from hating me for almost killing him to asking me to move to his village. Wordlessly, I set to work. Creating the circle was the easy part and it took much less time than the first one, and I didn’t have to experiment on the binding ingredients.

After just over an hour, I had the circle glowing red. “Two things before I activate it,” I said. “What did you see?”

“I don’t know what you’re-”

“Shut up, Kevfalcor, If you’re only going to lie to me!”

He sighed. “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” he muttered.

“I highly doubt that.”

“Fine. A ticking man appeared out of nowhere and told me to trust you. Happy now?” he replied, clearly expecting me to scoff.

Instead I grinned. “Strider,” I murmured under my breath. “And the second thing. If we do this, there’s a good chance that at least one, probably both of us will get seriously wounded or killed. How okay are you with that?”

“I think we should try to avoid that scenario if possible, but I think we should keep going,” he replied with what I could tell was forced confidence.

I arched an eyebrow. “Suicidal,” I growled. “And you brought a sword? Good. If I’d had my gauntlet, that might help…. I’ve rigged the tree with explosives that-”

“You what?” Kev interrupted.

“-I will only detonate if absolutely necessary,” I continued.

“Absolutely necessary? So if anything goes wrong you’ll kill both-”

“And I am activating the circle now….”

A shadowy figure appeared from the center of the circle. It resolved itself into a familiar hooded shape. “Nyx,” the Shadow greeted.

“Shadow,” I replied.

“It’s Rakfelcov, actually,” he said calmly. “You know, I’d hoped that we’d moved past you summoning and binding me, but I’d also hoped you’d kill Kevfalcor, here, but we clearly can’t all get what we want.”

“Why do you want to kill me?” Kevfalcor demanded.

“You really seem to be asking that a lot,” I pointed out.

He wasn’t listening. At that moment, Rakfelcov tore through the binding seal and shot towards me, obsidian blade in hand. Before I could react, he plunged the blade straight through my midriff, sinking it in all the way up to the hilt. He grinned at me, exposing pointed teeth. “Goodbye, Alchemist,” he whispered as the world went dark.

Thørn

22

I watched Alsari flee the room without a backward glance. She was definitely hiding something, clearly something sensitive and painful to think about, but also something important. I replayed the scene in my head, Eternia taunting her as tension grew.

What had Eternia called her? The lone survivor of a dead world. What was it like? she’d asked. What was it like to watch your world burn and be powerless to stop it? That had to be metaphoric. Otherwise that would mean….

That would mean that I hadn’t been hallucinating in the school. But that would be impossible. On the other hand, Alsari’s hair and eyes as weren’t human, nor any other species that I could think of. I could probe her mind for answers, but I wasn’t strong enough to break through her barriers from a distance and last time I’d tried from actually being there, Alsari had sliced me in half. I wasn’t strong enough yet.

Or it was all pointless and the burning world was a metaphor. But what did it mean?

The next day we learned control. I had been at the Eternian Academy for almost a month and my telepathy was progressing exponentially and at a much faster pace than the other students.

The instructors brought out a bin full of mice that we’d be practicing on, but first he made an announcement. “Is Thørn Feltrix here? Thørn Feltrix? Ah! Good! Please go through that door.” He pointed across the room.

I did so, thinking with growing dread that this was the same place I’d gone before I was mind wiped.

I followed a trail of twisted hallways, getting darker and darker. As I went, realized that the walls had changed from blocks of granite to a smooth, almost glassy surface. Finally I reached a long room, almost a hallway.

Lit braziers holding azure flame lined either side, casting light on a pale, but not quite white rug. I looked straight across the room and saw an empty chair, roughly cut from white crystals.

I froze. I was standing in a throne room. “Excellent,” a soft voice whispered, but it carried across the room. A figure dressed in hooded white robes stepped out of the shadows to the right of the throne. “I suppose it’s only natural that you have questions.”

“Do you plan on answering any of them?” I replied, still admiring the intricacy of the marble pillars lining hall and the arched ceiling far above me.

“Yes,” the figure replied. Her reaction took me completely off guard; I had been expecting more Eternian Academy secrets.

“Erm, okay,” I replied. Now that I had the chance to actually ask questions, they all seemed to frustratingly vanish. “Who are you?”

“Headmistress Eternia,” she said, voicing my thoughts of worst case scenario. I felt a bolt of fear shoot through me. I made myself invisible while simultaneously creating as many duplicates as I could, which happened to be nineteen. Eternia sighed. “I had really hoped you wouldn’t do that. Those don’t work on me anyway. I’m sorry that I scared you last night, I just wanted to make sure you were ready.”

“Ready for what?” my illusions asked as one.

The parts of Eternias face that I could see, her nose and mouth, seemed to become excited. She didn’t smile, but she radiated an intense drive and joy that she hadn’t shown before.

When she spoke, her voice was still barely over a whisper. “Ascension.”

Kevfalcor

23

Rakfelcov was across the room almost faster than my eye could follow. He was a dark blur of movement shooting through the tree. He plunged an obsidian sword straight through Nyx.

I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t scream or cry, I just stood there. Rakfelcov smiled as he whispered something to Nyx. She swayed on her feet as he withdrew his sword, now dripping red. With his other hand he shoved her so that she flew through the window, shattering the intricate design.

The scene seemed to pass in slow motion. Rakfelcov standing there, expressionless, hand still outstretched as he pushed her. Nyx, eyes closed, doubled over as she shot through the air, a rapidly growing dark patch on her stomach. Splintered wood surrounded her as she sailed through the air and vanished into the darkness.

Rakfelcov turned on me, his pointed teeth showing in a grin. He loitered towards me. I readied my sword. “You don’t need that,” he drawled. “Trust me.”

“Apparently you do,” I spat back.

Rakfelcov was perplexed. “Come again?”

“You supposedly have magic, so what do you need the sword for?” I explained.

He laughed. “Don’t try to trick me out of using a weapon, it won’t work.” I was still shocked by the Alchemist’s fall. With her snarky remarks, confidence, and her lack of regard for danger had all made her seem infallible. And she had.

I held out my sword, but it seemed like an awkward imitation of the way Rakfelcov did. He launched himself at me, and something clicked.

I saw where he was about to slice at me and my own sword shot out to deflect it. The weight of the strike sent reverberated along my arm, but I didn’t drop the sword. I looked and saw that Rakfelcov’s obsidian blade had cut into my steel one. That shouldn’t happen. The obsidian should have broken instead, but it hadn’t.

By the time I had processed this, Rakfelcov was swinging again. My sword reflexively blocked it and I realized that he wasn’t winning. I was holding my own against the Shadow. We traded blows back and forth, neither one of us gaining the upper hand.

And then magic came into play.

When the first bolt of darkness hit me, it drove me to my knees. Pain flared through my body, shooting and stabbing wherever it could. I groaned and looked up directly into the eyes of the Shadow. They were twin voids, abyssal orbs set into his head. There were no whites or irises, only black. They were emotionless and unfathomable, the eyes of a killer.

“I must say,” he drawled. “I’m a bit disappointed. I’d been lead to believe that you would put up a good fight.”

“You should stop saying things,” I shot back, jumping to my feet and hurling a fireball at him. Until now, my magic had mostly been unresponsive, but it must have been triggered by the oncoming doom.

Rakfelcov was hurled across the room, slamming into the wall so hard that I thought I heard a crack. He dragged himself, smoking and injured, to his feet, wiping just a tiny trickle of dark blood from his lips. “That’s more like it.”

He attacked again and I realized Rakfelcov had been holding back. The air temperature plummeted. I could see my breath and saw frost form on the tip of my blade. “In thirty seconds you’ll have to make a choice,” Rakfelcov murmured. “Drop your sword or have it fused to your skin with ice.” I tried to summon fire but nothing happened. “You’ll notice at this point that the temperature of your sword point has reached absolute zero. While that would cause permanent damage if you touched it, the handle hasn’t reached that point yet. But all the same, it can’t be heated.”

I realized I didn’t have a choice. Nyx had rigged the tree with explosives and I was going to die to Rakfelcov if I did nothing. I shot a bolt of white hot flame at the floor and the world was fire.

Alsari

24

Quint, Eternia’s representative, glared across the room at me. For the past half hour he had been trying to convince me that there was a reason for all of the Academy’s secrecy. “We had to do a mind wipe to see if you were who we thought you were!” he protested.

“No,” I corrected. “You had to do a mind wipe as practice for the newer telepaths and to keep me from knowing you knew who I was.”

“It was necessary to see if you were resourceful enough to find out who we were,” Quint denied.

“There you go! Changing tactics when one doesn’t work,” I replied. “Do you think you even have a chance of getting me on our side?”

“No,” he replied with stony honesty etched on his face. “No I don’t.”

“Then why are you wasting my time?” I growled.

He walked over and sat in a chair next to me and gestured for me to sit as well. I didn’t. “Look, Eternia wants you,” he explained. “She wants you badly. You’re the most powerful Flicker to come here in decades.”

I was shocked by a non-Flicker tossing the word around so casually. “The woman who tried to kill me wants me on her side?” I asked.

“She isn’t perfect,” Quint admitted. “Her tests often drive new recruits away, but it’s only a test. She would have pulled back before anyone got hurt.”

“What about Cobalt?” I shot back. “I’m pretty sure he got hurt. And what about me? If you know about my past than you know that what Eternia said was….wrong.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, and for some reason I believed him. “Eternia’s methods can be harsh, but everything she does is for the greater good. And what happened to Cobalt, well, we didn’t expect it. And I really am sorry about what happened.”

I nodded. I abruptly realized that this was the first time that I had been able to talk about what happened to my home. The thought somehow made me uncomfortable.

“What does Eternia ‘want me’ for, anyway?” I asked, wishing I sounded angrier than I did.

“She’s trying to assemble a team,” Quint replied. “A team of Flickers. Why do you think she started the Eternian Academy? To help Archora. She wants to help the Myriad.”

“Help Archora? All I’ve seen her do is kidnap and attack children.”

“Mages are strong enough to control anything, if they’re well organized,” he explained. “And if they’ve been trained from a young age, they’ll learn faster. And most people weren’t taken against their will. Do you know what most parents would give to have their child become the elite in a world where it’s nearly impossible to rise from anonymity? It’s a chance most jump on.”

“You still don’t give them all a choice. Thørn Feltrix, and don’t pretend you don’t know that name, was forcibly taken and I was knocked out and mind wiped.”

Quint grimaced. “Like I said, some of Eternia’s methods are harsh, but what better way to change that than to do it yourself? We aren’t your enemy. We just want your help.”

I sat there, analyzing his face. Dark eyes, black hair, his face not yet wrinkled, but it would come in his near future. All of it resonated honesty.

“You could help so many people,” he said. “You could save this world the way yours should have been.

“I can’t promise that it’ll be perfect, but if you do this, you’ll have the power to make changes.”

“And if I say no?” I asked.

Quint looked unhappy. “We can’t allow someone as dangerous as you to wander unchecked. You’ll remain here until you change your mind. But that isn’t something we want to do. What do you say?”

I hesitated. “I’m not saying yes,” I quickly informed him. “But I’ll try it. You have one week to convince me.”

Quint gave a massive grin. “You won’t regret this.”

Nyx

25

Death was significantly more pleasant than I’d expected. I’d kind of been hoping I wouldn’t have to worry about it for a while, but everyone knows that everyone dies. I knew it would happen eventually. It wasn’t actually that bad, though. I was beginning to wonder what all the fuss was about.

I can’t really describe it accurately, but I felt a sense of complete calm, like I was floating in endless darkness, but that was okay. Nothing could happen, nothing could go wrong. I was just there. And then there was pain.

A bolt of red shot through the darkness and the perfect shadow was fractured. Suddenly I wasn’t floating, I was falling, my body racked with pain. Bits of darkness and bolts of red fell with me as the world crumbled around me and I saw….

…. Oh. An elf. Why was he here? Was he dead, too? Was this some sort of afterlife? Did those even exist?

The world faded out, but I felt hands moving me. I was traveling. Why couldn’t I go back to the void? It had been so pleasant there.

I opened my eyes. Everything hurt, but I felt like me again. I was in agony, but I also wasn’t the calm, peaceful person of the abyss or the delirious person who’d been moved by the elves. While neither had been unpleasant and the darkness person had actually been rather nice to be, neither felt natural.

I began to take in what was happening. I was on an operating table surrounded by elves with bandages and grim expressions. “That bad, huh?” I croaked. I was covered by vines and leaves, but they had been removed around my stomach. Blood oozed from the wound, and covered the skin around it.

I looked away immediately. “How is that happening?” I asked. “I’ve seen wounds like this, but not on living people. What are you doing to keep me alive?”

“You were saved,” one elf explained. “Saved by the forest. It wanted you to be here.”

Of course. Saved by the forest. Nothing was more logical than that. I had been run through, so clearly I was saved by a bunch of trees.

“But can we trust you without your chains?”

“Absolutely not,” I replied. Fortunately, the elf didn’t seem to care.

Once my midriff was covered in white bandages which were already starting to turn red, one of the elves turned to me. “Get some rest,” he advised. “It’s the best thing for you right now. Don’t even think of leaving this tree.”

I nodded. “Of course not.”

The elves filed out. I counted. One….Two….Three…. Once I reached one hundred thirty seven, the exact number of ingredients used to fuse a chimera, I sat up and swung my legs off the bed. My head spun and I paused, waiting for the vertigo to pass.

I stood up, but that wasn’t as hard. I tossed the vines away and dressed myself in a white robe, the only thing I could find that wasn’t made of trees.

I walked calmly out the door.

I entered what Kevfalcor had told me was the Tree of Souls and saw an old elf standing with his back turned. “Taanyth!” I called. “That’s your name, right?”

The elf turned. “Yes.”

“Don’t bother with the kindly grandfather act,” I said. The moment I said this, his face hardened and I realized that he’d been hiding that expression ever since I walked out of the forest. “Because I know you don’t like me and I don’t like you, either. But I also know that we’re not enemies. What I don’t know is what happened last night and how I survived it. And I think you can help me.”

He nodded and gestured for me to come over to the water. We peered into it’s depths and I realized that it wasn’t dark or murky, in fact it was crystal clear. All the same, I couldn’t see the bottom.

“I don’t know much,” Taanyth murmured icily. He really did not like me. “But I can show you what I know and maybe you can fill in the blanks.”

The surface of the water became bubbly and then calm. Mirror flat. I stared as my reflection twisted until I saw a scene of the night before. I was dying. I was lying at the base of the tree surrounded by splinters of the tree.

My eyes began to close for what appeared to be the final time when I vanished into thin air leaving only empty bloodstained clothes. I raised an eyebrow. I’d always wondered what it looked like from the outside.

“That was just before the explosion,” the elf explained.

“What explosion?” I asked, wondering why there was an explosion if I hadn’t been a part of it.

“Nyvral destroyed the tree.”

I had almost forgotten that the elves called Kev that. “He triggered the explosives?” Taanyth nodded. “The idiot.” I almost asked if he was okay, but he was fireproof and that might make it sound like I cared.

“You installed them,” he pointed out.

“Just go to the next thing,” I muttered, not entirely to sure what to call the water-projection-thing.

The scene shifted. I reappeared in the middle of the forest. Not wearing anything. I grimaced, looking at Taanyth. “Can you not, you know, look?” I asked. He sighed disparagingly. “Doesn’t happen much, just….when I’m not concentrating on it, the clothes kind of….” I could feel myself blushing.

In the scene, I curled into a ball and vines began to wrap around me cocooning me and keeping me safe from the outside world. I looked like an odd green protrusion sticking out of the moss.

The scene ended, the water returned to normal. Taanyth turned to me. “I’ve shown you what we know. So tell me, Flicker, what do you know?”

Thørn

26

Ascension,” Eternia told me in a voice barely above a whisper.

“Er….Okay. How are we ascending?” I asked. That clearly wasn’t the response she was hoping for.

Eternia sighed. “This will be much easier if I just….”

I felt a mental probe. I drew up my defences, but the probe was far stronger than me. Within seconds it broke through. Eternia didn’t do a mind wipe or control me or anything malevolent at all, actually. Suddenly my head was flooded with images and sounds and emotions. As I slowly sifted through them, I realized that they were Eternia’s explanation of transcendance.

Much of it I hesitated to believe at first. The images explained that this reality, Archora, was one of many. We existed in a multiverse called the Myriad and some beings called Flickers were able to travel between them. I was sceptical and then everything clicked into place.

My mind flashed back to the night Alsari and I had fought Eternia. What was it like? she’d asked the lithomancer. What was it like to watch your world burn and be powerless to stop it? The burning world hadn’t been a metaphor. It had been literal.

And before that. The command to capture and mind wipe Alsari had been Flicker unconfirmed.

Even before that, before I knew I was a telepath, in the school I had thought that I was in a multiverse, but I had later dismissed that as a hallucination.

“So,” I muttered, surprised at how calm I had managed to stay. “I’m a Flicker, then?”

“Yes,” Eternia replied.

“And so is Alsari.”

“Yes.”

“Are you?”

“No.”

“What do you want from us?” The word us felt strange on my tongue as I talked about Flickers.

“I want to help the Myriad.”

“And why does the Myriad need your help?” I still wasn’t sure I trusted her.

“Because I offered it,” Eternia replied. “Mr. Feltrix, the Myriad is an infinitely vast and unfathomable place full of wonders and horrors. At every second, approximately one hundred twenty people die somewhere in it. That’s ten billion, three hundred sixty-eight million people every day. And these aren’t people dying in their sleep. The violent crime in Archora is bad enough, and it’s better than most. Did Alsari tell you that less than fifteen minutes after she Flickered here, someone tried to kill her?

“And there are so many worlds with wars and disasters and monsters stalking them. Not all worlds have humans because in some places they were wiped out. And there are less worlds now than there were at first. An estimated seventy two worlds have been destroyed since they began. The world of the Eternals, Karadan, and more.

“But you? You hold more power than you know. You could change all that. I’m not staying you could stop death in the Myriad, but you could definitely bring it down. I’m assembling an organization of Flickers to help the Myriad heal. Will you join it?”

“You’re trying to recruit Alsari,” I stated. Eternia nodded. “She doesn’t trust you. She’ll never do it. What will you do to her?”

“Alsari is slow to trust, but I hope we can persuade her,” she replied.

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“You didn’t answer mine.”

I grinned. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Kevfalcor

27

Peeling my eyes open was not something I wanted to do. “Come on, Nyvral,” an elf coaxed me. “Taanyth wants to see you.”

I groaned. “Why can’t I sleep?”

“Because whatever it is he wants you for, it seemed important.”

Now that I was conscious, memories flooded into my head. Nyx getting stabbed and pushed out of the tree and the tree exploding. I suddenly didn’t feel like sleeping.

“Nyx,” I whispered. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

The elf smiled and it seemed a bit rueful. “No, Arashan will make a full recovery. But you need to get to Taanyth.”

“That isn’t possible,” I replied, frowning. “She was stabbed by a supernatural being and thrown out a window forty feet off the ground. There is no way she survived.”

The elf shrugged. “For better or for worse, she did,” he said. “She’s sleeping in the room over there.”

“And you know this because you told her to sleep?” I asked.

“....Yes,” he agreed.

“Okay.” I would be lucky if she was still in the village. “I guess I’ll go see Taanyth now.”

I stood up and almost wobbled. I reminded myself that I had been in the middle of an exploding tree only a few hours before. Once I recovered without the elves noticing my moment of weakness, I strode out the door.

Most of the other elves seemed to have reacted well from the events of the previous night, although I did see a congregation around the smoldering remains of the once tall tree.

As I passed some of the elves pointed at me and hissed things to the people near them. I tried to move more quickly.

I heard voices echoing around the Tree of Souls when I arrived. At first I thought it was the constant voices of the tree itself, but then I recognized them.

“ ….I couldn’t have done it on my own,” Nyx explained. “I was ninety nine percent dead. But….”

“You said that you couldn’t have done it on your own,” Taanyth pointed out. “So do you think someone helped you?”

“I mean, it’s possible to transfer energy,” she told him. “But I would have to be concentrating on Flickering, which I wasn’t.”

“Do you think someone else could have brought you?” the old elf asked.

“Well, objects are transferable,” I heard Nyx reply. “Clothes and stuff, but to transport a person, that’s not….” I glanced in the tree and saw Nyx dressed in a bathrobe and narrowing her eyes at Taanyth. “You know someone. Someone who could do it.” I saw understanding and almost worry dawn on her. “Who are you working for? Which one? Blood or bone?”

Taanyth gave an almost sinister laugh. “You’re clever, girl. Almost too smart for your own good.”

“Are you working for the Mindbreaker or the Hooded One?” the Alchemist demanded.

“Now isn’t the time,” Taanyth assured her. “You and Nyvral have caused quite the spectacle.”

“And Kevfalcor? How does he play into all this?” Nyx asked.

“I wonder,” he said. “If you really think I’m going to answer these questions.”

Silence followed. I didn’t look, but I could almost feel her fuming. Finally the silence stretched longer than it should have. I stole a glance inside the tree and froze.

Nyx was doubled over, her red hair mostly covering her face, but when she looked up I saw blood trickling from the corner of her mouth and she collapsed to the floor.

Alsari

28

You’re here, too?” Thørn asked me.

“Yeah. Why?” I replied as I glanced around the room. It was the same grey stone that the rest of the building was made of, but instead of the ubiquitous roughly cut bricks, it had an intricate vaulted ceiling that blended seamlessly into smoothly designed walls.

“Well it just….” he began. “I figured that you’d want to have nothing to with the Eternia and her Academy.”

“You’re on first name terms?” I replied, dodging the question.

“Does she even have a last name?”

We stood in awkward silence for a few minutes.

“Do you know why we’re both here?” Thørn asked, breaking the silence. “I mean, I figured that we’d mostly be working alone.”

Finally something hit me. “So you’re….you’re a Flicker, too?” After saying it, I realized I probably should have seen it sooner. That would explain why telepathy came to him so quickly and why he had been recruited to Eternia’s Flicker organization. He nodded and I could tell he’d been wanting to discuss this since we got here. He opened his mouth, but I cut him off.

“How much did she tell you?” I asked. “About….me. And my past.”

“Nothing I hadn’t already guessed,” he replied. “That your world was destroyed. That you couldn’t stop it. That you’re dangerous.”

I nodded. “And you have questions.”

Thørn’s barely hidden grin had broken through. “Yes,” he agreed, but then realized how that sounded. “I meant about being a Flicker. I mean, I’ve only known I was a telepath for a few weeks and now I know I’m a Flicker, too. It’s-”

He was interrupted as the door opened and Quint strode in. When I had first met him, he had looked friendly and calm in wearing gray and pale blue. Now he wore black and midnight blue robes. He gave an aura of power as he stepped into the room.

When he had crossed the room he gave me a friendly smile. He held out his hand to Thørn. “Quint,” he said as the telepath took it. “And you are?”

“Thørn Feltrix,” he replied. “Which, of course, you already know. I’m sure most of the staff in the Eternian Academy knows who I am.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Quint said. “All of us know.” He smiled reassuringly again. “Now. I assume you’re wondering what you’re doing here. You’re here for the same reason you always have been. To learn to help people. The only difference is that now you’re doing so on a larger scale. As a result of your higher status, you’re quarters will be different from the rest of the telepaths and geomancers respectively. But you’re going to use your abilities on many worlds, so you’ll need to have more diverse subjects.

“I’m going to be your permanent instructor. And why you’re here together is because this entire branch of the Eternian Academy is based off of a partner system. Since you two had also had already worked together, you were a good match as well as that your abilities complement each other.”

“Do they?” I asked. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“Of course,” Thørn answered for him. “Telepathy is more useful in diplomatic situations, but if something went wrong….”

“And what about you?” I asked Quint. “What do you do?”

“I’m a necromancer,” he said.

He answered casually, but I immediately stiffened.

What’s wrong? Thørn asked.

Do you know what necromancy is? I said. It’s death magic. We can’t trust him.

Death doesn’t necessarily mean evil, he replied. I say we give him a chance.

You don’t understand. I’ve met necromancers before. None of them wanted anything more than to further their own power.

Has Quint done anything to show you he isn’t different? Thørn replied. I mean, he probably already knows your suspicion about necromancers and he told you anyway. He’s being honest. I think we can trust him.

“I know that my power can be….disturbing,” Quint said sadly, noticing our silent conversation. “And I know that you might not trust me because of it. But I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want to be a necromancer, to manipulate the dead, but I’ve learned that something like this isn’t a gift or a curse. These powers are a tool, like a knife. A knife can be used to kill, it can be used to do mundane things, cut bread. But it can be used to defend those who are in need. All you need to know is what you use your knife for.”

Thørn nodded and glanced at me. I looked at Quint saying nothing. I had seen necromancers slaughter countless people to further their gains, but I liked Quint. I wanted to trust him. He’d done nothing to lose my trust, but I’d never seen a necromancer do anything without there being an ulterior motive.

“I can see that you aren’t going to believe me,” he said. “I hope this can convince you.”

Nyx

29

Kevfalcor glared at me when I opened my eyes. “You were almost dead,” he said, his voice a low growl. “Twice.”

“I’ve survived worse,” I murmured. I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now.

“You’re right,” he agreed. “You were run through and pushed out a window. An hour later, you decided to waltz around the village?” I said nothing. “You shouldn’t even be alive. The wounds were too much. You should have lasted a maximum of ten minutes. How are you alive? What are you hiding?”

“I don’t know, okay?” He looked at me skeptically. “Yes, I lied, yes, I’m hiding things, no, I won’t tell you what they are, and I don’t know how I’m alive.”

Kevfalcor shot me an icy glare. “You have to. How could you not know? Did you use alchemy?” He sighed and seemed to deflate. “Why are you hiding this? What’s Flickering? Who’s the Ticking Man? What do you know about who Taanyth is working for? Why won’t you tell me?”

“You wouldn’t believe me,” I said disdainfully.

Kevfalcor snorted. “I doubt that. So, why can’t you tell me?”

“Because you’re different. You’re not like me. So you can leave me alone now,” I growled. It came out more harsh than I meant it. His face hardened. “What I meant….I….”

“No, you made it clear what you meant,” he spat, his face an icy mask. He turned to leave.

“You’re not a Flicker, Kev! And I am!”

“What do you mean?” Some of the anger was gone. I looked around and saw elves looking at us, trying to hear what we were talking about.

“I can’t talk about it. At least not here.”

“No, we’re talking about it here. Now,” he said, his voice a low growl. I remained silent and shook my head. “Fine. But if you don’t start talking soon, so help, me I will throw you out another tree.”

Wordlessly, he walked out the door. I groaned and slumped into the uncomfortable bed the elves had prepared. The conversation hadn’t been something I wanted to deal with. A headache was shooting through my brain.

I liked Kev, but we’d met only a few days ago. Admittedly, both of them had involved life or death experiences, but he was still becoming strangely friendly.

A delicate looking woman approached me. “The puncture wound caused extreme internal bleeding,” she explained. “You made it worse by moving about. To be honest, you shouldn’t even-”

“Yeah, yeah, I shouldn’t be alive. So I keep hearing,” I grumbled. “Can I rest now?”

The elf nodded. “I think that would be the best thing for you now,” she agreed. “But you will be guarded. You can’t go off like that. This is for your own safety.”

I nodded and dropped my head onto my pillow. For once I’d actually meant it when I said rest. My abdomen throbbed where I had been stabbed, but after only a few minutes, I drifted off to sleep.

Of course, I had nightmares.

Taanyth was speaking with two cloaked figures, one in dressed in flaming red, the other pale and silvery like the moon. He spoke about me, about Kevfalcor, and about the Shadow.

But then they spoke to him. About other people on other worlds. Specifically another boy and girl, both powerful Flickers.

Then the red figure threw off his cloak, revealing another cloak underneath. It was black. Rakfelcov threw back his head and laughed. He laughed so that it echoed around the darkness, and then the other figure tossed his cloak aside, too. He wasn’t human at all, but was actually a machine in the shape of a human. Taanyth recoiled, but when he did, a blade pierced him from behind and then he fell apart and disappeared. Darkness consumed the Shadow and the machine leaving only their laughter behind.

I woke covered in a cold sweat. For a moment, I didn’t think I’d woken up at all. Taanyth stared imperiously at me from the end of my cot.

When my heart rate returned to normal, I realized that this was the real Taanyth and Dream Taanyth was dead, so he wouldn’t be here.

“Whaddayuwan?” I asked. I was still mostly asleep.

“What was that?” Taanyth asked.

“What do you want?” I repeated, my voice thick with annoyance, exhaustion, and exaggerated enunciation.

“I want to know,” he said. “What you plan to tell Nyvral.”

“The truth,” I replied.

“He can’t know,” the elf objected. “Do you realize the role that he has to play in the days to come?”

“Nope,” I replied. “Do you realize that you’re being manipulated by whoever it is you work for?”

“You have no idea who I serve!” Taanyth insisted fiercely, but without raising his voice. “Nyvral may become the most important being in the Myriad and you’re standing in his way.”

“What you don’t seem to realize,” I answered, reaching for a piece of fruit that had been placed by my cot. “Is that when they say important that can often mean world ending.”

“Who are you to interpret-”“And honestly, how do you even know if that’s true?” I asked. “We’re Flickers and if what I’ve heard about the Eternals is true, none of us, you, me, Kev, none of us are more than chess pieces in some grand scheme of theirs. And you’re no Flicker. You have no idea what any of us are capable of.”

Thørn

30

Quint lead us through a labyrinth of hallways. As we went, he talked about the Flicker organization, but I could see Alsari wasn’t listening. Her metaphorical hackles were still raised, but I knew deep down she trusted Quint. I had been softly brushing her mind to make sure she wasn’t going to do anything rash.

“These passages are controlled by geomancers,” he explained. “With the right telepathic command, one passage can take you anywhere in no time at all which is why they’re so convoluted for the rest of us.”

Eventually, we reached a balcony. I looked out and saw that the entire thing was a hollow pillar in the stone walls. It was several hundred yards across and taller and deeper than I could see. All through it, thin stone bridges crossed each other so that looking up or down made it look liked a spiders web. People were walking across it carrying papers, files, goblets of various liquids, and, in one case, a bird that seemed to be in the process of exploding. The entire space was loud and chaotic and echoing and complex and wonderful.

I grinned and rushed to the edge, trying to take it all in at once. For once, Alsari’s unshakable stoic expression had vanished, replaced by an unreadable one. “This,” Quint announced proudly. “Is the Hub. The center of all communication in the entire Eternian Academy.”“And why does this make us trust you?” Alsari asked, her grim tone back.

“Because this,” he replied. “This is what I am. What I stand for. All of my life has been to create this and what is stands for.”

I sent a gentle probe to brush the surface of Alsari’s mind and was shocked to find that it was trusting Quint. I didn’t think that this would convince her of anything, but apparently I didn’t know her as well as I’d thought.

The necromancer turned towards us and smiled. “Are you ready to start training?”

“If you’re a necromancer and I’m a telepath and she’s a lithomancer, how are you going to train us?”

“Not everything we need to learn comes directly from magic,” Alsari answered for him. “We’ll probably learn how to survive a variety of dangerous situations or the lore of other worlds.”

“That’s right. Just because you have different abilities doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other.”

“Of course, I’ve survived the fall of worlds and speak over twenty languages,” Alsari interjected. I still wasn’t used to the idea that Alsari could actually be from another world. Quint shot her a baleful look.

“You also have to keep him alive,” he added, jerking his thumb at me.

“Hey!” I protested.

“This could be difficult,” Alsari agreed.

Quint lead us to a pair of gold-etched metal doors. The doors were actually wooden, for once, but swirling gold designs covered them. “This is the training area,” he said. “If you -both of you- make it through in under ten minutes. Starting….now.”

He pushed the door and they swung open, revealing chaos. Not only had the doors been keeping back a dazzling array of colors, they had been keeping sound in, too. Now I heard all the snarls, explosions, crashes, and more explosions.

Alsari was already in motion. She raced along a rope bridge that hung precariously from the doors. I charged after her, working hard not to look down at what couldn’t be real lava.

Alsari reached a platform at the other end and stopped. Ahead of her I was dimly aware of the trees. I could see her scanning the forest for threats, but finding none, she stepped forward. I watched her step onto a pressure pad and a dozen arrows streaked toward her. I barely had time to react. Summoned all of my concentration and blocked the arrows with telekinesis.

The lithomancer looked at me and nodded her thanks. As I got off the bridge, she charged into the forest. For the rest of the time, we charged through a blur of incredibly dangerous and convoluted traps and riddles in a kind of life or death obstacle course.

I was still trying to work out whether the traps were lethal or not and if I wanted to know. I lurched through the door on the far side of the room and slumped against the wall. I was steaming, my uniform was covered in scorch marks, and there were four claw marks on my side.

When my breathing had slowed I looked at Alsari. “Are they trying to kill us?” I gasped.

She shook her head. “I’ve survived worse,” she replied.

I murmured, “Of course you have.”

“I’m serious, Thørn,” she replied. “If you’re going to survive the Myriad, you need to be able to come out of sticky situations.”“You do realize that when we took the glider across the chasm, it exploded,” I shot back.

Quint emerged from a hallway. He didn’t look happy. “Twenty-three minutes, forty-seven seconds.”

“We got through alive,” I pointed out. “Why does matter how long we took?”

“In the remaining thirteen minutes, forty-seven seconds, a large force could have amassed,” Quint explained. “Large enough to overpower both of you. Again.”

Kevfalcor

31

Darkness fell around me as I walked toward the healing tree. I planned to confront Nyx about her secrets and make her explain everything.

When I stepped in, I had prepared a speech to convince her would probably never have worked in a million years. I wasn’t as angry now, and I would accept a few lies and wait for her to slip.

None of that turned out to be necessary.

Nyx stood right next to the door, her flaming hair tied into a ponytail and an annoyed look on her face. “You’re late,” she accused.

“Er, am I?” I replied. “We didn’t have a set time.”“I figured you’d have shown up at least an hour ago.”

“So, you’ll tell me everything?” I asked.

“No, of course not,” she said. “First I would need to know everything. And, more importantly, have the desire to tell you.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

Nyx sighed. “I do. But….it’s hard to explain some of it, but with all of it, it isn’t something that people do. Explaining it, I mean.”

Once I’d translated that convoluted sentence, I waited for her to elaborate. Eventually, she began talking. “It may sound strange, but I was born on another world. I don’t really know how else to describe it. I was born in a different universe. It’s different from an alternate dimension or a different planet. It’s just different.

“I’m one of the few people called Flickers, the people who can jump from world to world.” She paused, expecting questions, but I waited to continue. “Flickers can be any age or species as long as they can be vaguely humanoid. For every Flicker, there is a time called the Ascension, when the Flicker first learns what they are. It’s usually a traumatic or life threatening experience. And not everyone can become a Flicker. Some say they’re gifted by gods, others say that it takes a specific brand of magic or that we’ve been exposed to something that allowed us to change. Honestly, I think you’re born able to become a Flicker or you aren’t. It’s as simple as that.”

She sighed forlornly. “Being a Flicker can be the most wonderful thing in the Myriad. I’ve seen so much, learned so much. I’ve watched baby dragons hatch, swam to the city of the narglings, ridden rocs through clouds, and seen cities made of jewels. But there are so many dangers, too. There are some worlds that I can never return to, because I’d be killed on sight. As adorable as a wyrmling is, it’s parent is a dragon powerful enough to destroy some kingdoms. Not only is it dangerous, but it’s lonely.”

“Lonely?” I asked. “There are other Flickers, aren’t there?”

“Seriously?” Nyx replied. “I just told you that there are infinite worlds and I can travel between them, and all you’ve got to say is why are you lonely?”

“Well, I have a reason for that.”

“Which would be….?”

“I think I’m a Flicker.”

“Oh.”

“When we met….and you tried to kill me….I think I Ascended,” I explained. “For just a fraction of time, I felt like I was….that Alaran was just a tiny blip of dust in something so much bigger. And then magic just sort of….clicked for me.” What I didn’t tell her was that I also felt like I was being manipulated by a massive, infinitely powerful entity. I decided that was most likely not true. I also didn’t say that after that event, my magic had been pitiful at best, with the exception of the time when I was fighting Rakfelcov. “Is that usual?”

“Pretty standard, yeah,” Nyx agreed, as if this was something completely commonplace. “You were threatened with fiery death, you felt puny and insignificant, your magic was activated, and BOOM you became a Flicker.”

I couldn’t help it. A wicked grin spread over my face. Sparks danced excitedly around my fingers. “This is real, isn’t it?” I murmured. “I could jump from world to world. I could explore….everywhere. I could….” I gave a slightly hysterical laugh and then stopped. “How do you do it?”

Nyx looked at me. “Do what?”

“Stay….sane.”

An evil grin slid over her face. “Who said I did?”

“That’s a joke, right?” I asked, slightly worried about the answer.

“You can judge that for yourself,” she replied, leaving me in doubt. “But you need to be careful, Kevfalcor. It’s far too easy to get killed when you’re confined to one world and when you have access to more, well, it doesn’t get safer.”

“Hang on, a few days ago, you almost murdered me,” I pointed out. “And now you’re giving me a lecture on safety?” Nyx glared. “Does Taanyth know you’re a Flicker?”

“Yeah, he….” she trailed off and I could almost see the gears turning in her head. “He knew….about you and….the Eternals….oh no.”

“What?” Nyx’s senseless babbling had been worrying after her vague comments about insanity. “What is it?”

“I have to talk to Taanyth,” she growled.

“Last time you did that, you almost died.”

The Alchemist winced as she hauled herself to her feet. “Not the point,” the replied through gritted teeth. “He knows something and I need to find out what it is.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, feeling completely left in the dark. Again.

Nyx didn’t respond as she limped out the door.

Alsari

32

Sweat coated my brow as I dashed through the coarse. My lungs pumped in my chest and I could feel my heart thudding. The Eternian Academy obstacle course was extremely dangerous and exhausting. Every time I entered the room it was different, so it could never be predicted. It always needed a good mix of magic, intelligence, strength, and speed. And it always involved explosions.

I wove through trees to avoid the pack of wild dogs pursuing me and felt myself step on a pressure pad. In one fluid motion, I ducked, rolled, and was back on my feet before I could be skewered by arrows. Honestly, I still didn’t trust Eternia or the rest of her academy. No one did anything just to be charitable. Everyone had an ulterior motive.

I vaulted over a low wall and dashed over stepping stones in a river of lava. What could anyone gain by recruiting an army of Flickers to help the Myriad? That was easy. Complete control of it. But somehow that seemed off. I had met people who wanted to take over a world or more and they all radiated a sense of desperation that Eternia didn’t have. I’d seen her only twice since joining the Flicker group a week before, and both times she’d seemed withdrawn but also different from the other would-be emperors that I’d crossed paths with.

A trio of soldiers in identical silver armor waited for me on the other side. I willed their armor to toss them to the other side of the river. They flew through the air like ragdolls and landed in a crumpled heap. And the obstacle course itself was something I didn’t understand. It had to be powered by immense amounts of magic to be constantly changing. And I didn’t see how it wasn’t lethal. One option I’d been considering was that the entire thing was a massive illusion and that the real room was empty.

I stopped before two double doors. Wooden doors. A wall stretched off into the distance made, of course, of wood. Written on the doors was a few lines of an elegant handwriting.

You will always find me in the past.

I can be created in the present,

But the future can never harm me.

What am I?

I cursed. Of course. Riddles. Presumably the answer was a password to open the door. There were so many things I could think of. Of course, there was a much easier way to get through the door.

I willed my sword into my hand and examined the lock. It was too complex to just stab with my sword, but I had a backup plan. A boulder slowly emerged from the ground. It was coated in dirt and old roots, disproving my illusion theory. No way could anyone simulate lithomancy so accurately. The stone flew through the air smashing through the doors, pulverizing a hole in the middle. Only one of the doors was still hanging limply on the hinge.

Quint looked unhappy on the other side. “Did you just smash my riddle?”

“How was my time?” I asked, ignoring the question.

“Eight minutes, twenty-nine seconds, but that’s not the point.”

“I think it is,” I argued as I walked away.

“You can’t smash your way through everything,” Quint said. “And someday you’ll find a riddle you have to answer.”

I stopped and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “What are you talking about?” I growled. “Do you know something?”

“Only what I’ve been told,” the necromancer replied. “You have power and you’ve survived a lot, but that’s made you too confident. There are always battles you can’t win. But you knew that already.”

I felt struck by the reference to my world. The ground trembled and the bricks in the wall started to meld together. “You have no idea what I’ve survived.” My voice was filled with cold fury and most people would have run in terror at this point, or at least backed off.

Quint looked at me with a look of determination. “No, I don’t. But I do know that you’ve always been your own leader and you’ve always been alone.” I opened my mouth, but Quint cut me off. “Yes, that’s worked for you so far, yes, you’ve stayed alive for a long time, but survival isn’t always good enough. When was the last time you fought for a cause and not just for yourself?”

I wanted to scream at him and yell until the entire world shook. But I couldn’t. I just answered. “The day my world burned.”

Quint nodded. “I can’t pretend to understand what it’s like,” he said. “But the purpose of the Eternian Academy is to stop something like that from ever happening again.”

I laughed bitterly. “No. People don’t just do that. What is there to gain?” I said ruefully.

“To gain? Not much,” he admitted. “But if we don’t do anything, we have to live with the guilt of being able to make a difference and not taking the chance.”

Thørn watched me pace back and forth in the hallway and sighed. “What is it?” he asked in a resigned tone.

“What do you mean?” I replied innocently.

“You’re pacing. I thought I was the only one who paced. And I only do it when I’m trying to figure something out, which I’m usually good at. So, what is it?” I hesitated. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just read your mind and help you anyway.”

I smiled. “Are you threatening to help me? How dare you.” I was also about to point out that he couldn’t break through my defenses but then I realized that I wasn’t sure what he was capable of any more. I went on to explain my argument with Quint and how it had almost completely removed my lingering doubts about the Eternian Academy.

“But that’s not all, is it?” he said when I was done. “That’s new, but not worthy of pacing.”

“It’s probably nothing. Just a coincidence.”

“When you say that, it only makes everything sound more suspicious.”

I sighed. “After I broke the door, I looked back and saw that the words had been rearranged. It probably just happened when it broke.”

“What did it say?” Thørn pressed. My mind flashed back to the splintered wood strewn across the floor and the words etched into it. When the door had broken, the words had fallen in a different order. They had been a riddle, but now they were a message created by the broken wood.

I created the past. I am the future. You will never find me. What can harm me?

Nyx

33

Taanyth!” I roared as I stormed into the Tree of Souls. “What do the Eternals want with Kevfalcor!”

Then I realized that Taanyth hadn’t been alone in the tree. He had been having a whispered argument with another elf. He had dark hair, brown eyes, he was average height and weight, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling that there was something off about him. When I entered, the elf looked at me and strode wordlessly away.

“Who was that?” I asked, limping toward Taanyth.

“His name is Laryn,” he murmured wearily.

“And you were argueing with him because….?”

“He was the one who captured Nyvral.”

“Kev was captured?” I raised an eyebrow. “He failed to mention that. I did wonder how a human ended up in an elven village.”

Taanyth sighed. “Why are you here, Arashan? You’ve clearly just told Nyvral everything, so what do you want from me?”

“You knew,” I accused. “You knew that Kev was a Flicker.”

He blinked. “No I didn’t.” He paused, deep in thought.

“You didn’t? ….No, you wouldn’t, would you? Why would you know if the Eternals had no reason to tell you?”

“His name,” Taanyth whispered. “Is Parallax.”

At the mention of the name, the chorus of voices in the tree rose to a crescendo, whirling around me and hissing in my ears.

I grinned triumphantly. “Finally. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to tell me at all. So, why is it that you serve him? Did he promise you riches? Power?”

“Of course not!” Taanyth replied, aghast. “He promised me that my tribe would always be at peace!”

“And you think that he’ll make good on that promise?” I asked.

“He already has. You clearly haven’t been here long. This world is volatile and barbaric. The only thing that ever keeps one group from attacking another is because it has more power. All I want is peace and Parallax has helped me.”

“And how do you help him?” I was afraid of the answer as soon as I asked the question. I could see in his eyes that the Eternal had granted Taanyth’s greatest wish, maybe the most soppy one there was.

“I-”

“He got Parallax me,” said a cold voice from the door. “Now, tell me, Taanyth, who….are….the Eternals?”

I looked to the door and saw Kevfalcor leaning against it.

“Grix,” I cursed under my breath.

“You said you’d tell me everything.”

“Look, if I told you everything I knew about the Myriad, we’d be there for a week, if you hadn’t run in terror by then. And I kind of had some catching up to do with this guy.”

Kevfalcor glared at me. “You two have been dropping hints about the Eternals for a while now. Parallax, right? Who are they?”

I glanced at Taanyth, who shrugged as if to say You should have just explained. “I really think that you should talk to him,” I replied, trying to push the glare away. “After all, I have ‘no idea who he serves.’ He’s old and wise. He knows stuff.” Kev’s icy stare intensified. “I’m sensing some kind of resentment here.”

Tongues of flame began flying from his fingers, which I decided was a bad idea since we were all in a tree. He reached for a sword that I hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He didn’t draw it, but inside me something turned hard and cold. In a few steps, I had crossed the room to meet his glare with my own.

“I’m tired of being left in the dark, Nyx,” Kev growled. “Something big is going on and I want to know what. I-”

“I just told you that we’re in a multiverse!” I interrupted. “That wasn’t enough for you?”

Kevfalcor reached for his sword again. “What are you going to do, kill me?” I asked.

In one smooth movement, the sword was unsheathed, in his hand, and pointed at me. “I could,” Kev snarled. “You don’t have your precious gauntlet.”

That was too much. With my left hand, I grabbed his right wrist and twisted the sword out of his hand while with my right I pressed my palm on his and slammed him against the tree wall. The sword skittered across the ground. “I have fought things that could kill you with a thought,” I hissed. “I’ve taken on armies capable of conquering worlds. You couldn’t kill me if you tried. Don’t ever make the mistake of threatening me again.”

I felt something grab me from behind and I was jerked away from Kevfalcor and slammed against a wall. I looked down and realized that my entire body up to my head had been cocooned in vines and I realized that Kev was in a similar condition on the side of the room directly opposite me. Taanyth stood between us, his arms outstretched and his eyes glowing green from his use of magic. “Enough!” he roared. “You may be young, but I never thought either of you would act so childish. You both need to calm down, or I can leave you up there. Now, Nyvral. You asked a question?”

He nodded stiffly without taking his eyes off me. “Who are the Eternals?”

Thørn

34

It said ‘I created the past. I am the future. You will never find me. What can harm me?’ and you think that it’s a coincidence?” I asked.

Alsari shook her head. “No. Not really. But to be fair, it also said, ‘in always But in can present am,’ so I was a bit sceptical.”

“On the other hand, why would someone write a cryptic message on the floor?”

“It didn’t really mean anything,” Alsari agreed. “But usually when this happens, people do it to send a message.”

“And how would they create this particular message?” I asked.

“That’s the part that worries me,” she replied. “Quint said it was his riddle, implying he came up with it. The pieces of the door must have been moved by telekinesis. All the signs-”

“-point to a telepath,” I agreed. “Telepaths seem to do everything. Why couldn’t it be a cryomancer or something?” Alsari brooded silently for a few minutes. “Honestly, I don’t really think we have enough to do anything definite. There are far too many telepaths here to decide anything definite and this could also just be some sort of prank. We don’t know enough.”

The lithomancer nodded. “I know. But something wasn’t right about the whole thing. I could feel something was off. It was more than just a prank.”

“You can’t just feel something,” I objected. “It doesn’t work that-”

She fixed me with a cold glare. “I’ve been traveling the Myriad for years. My instincts are usually right. Some beings have an aura of power that other people can pick up on. And sometimes it does work that way.” Wordlessly, she left my room.

Even after a few weeks, I still wasn’t used to the idea that Alsari was a world-jumping warrior with years more experience than me, and I could see that she wasn’t used to the talking about it. I knew that if I wouldn’t tell people if I could Flicker. That I could Flicker, I mentally corrected. That was even harder to grasp. What frustrated me most was that I couldn’t Flicker now. The Eternian Academy had me trapped, even if I did trust them.

I understood their logic, though. Their goal was to protect the Myriad from threats and the biggest threats were the ones that could move between worlds. All the same, it didn’t seem fair. I hadn’t asked to be a Flicker and I hadn’t volunteered to join the Eternian Academy. Neither of those things had been my choice but they had happened anyway. Given the choice, I would still have been a Flicker, but I wasn’t so sure about joining the Eternian Academy.

Yes, I wanted the Myriad to be a better place, but I also wanted to explore it and while Eternia seemed bent on solving one of those issues, I didn’t see any room for the other. And even if I liked and trusted Quint and wanted to trust Eternia, something seemed off about the Academy. I’d been in the inner circle of the Academy for several weeks and I still hadn’t really gotten to know anyone except Quint. There were lots of people in the Hub, but they all seemed too busy doing something to get to know me. I got the impression that if this was a bee hive, they would be the drones.

I still hadn’t actually seen anyone else do magic except Alsari and I. While Quint had said he was a necromancer and Eternia was clearly a telepath, I hadn’t seen either of them perform magic after I’d joined the Flicker group, which I decided was desperately in need of a name.

I decided I would go to the obstacle course. I hadn’t run the course more than twice a week since the first day and I still regarded it as torture. I had seen Alsari bolt through, dodging the threats that could be dodged and fighting the ones that couldn’t. She made it look like nothing in the world was more natural than ziplining across a rocky chasm to face a pair of trolls. When I tried, I was generally sprinting fast enough that I didn’t have to worry about anything. That was the hope, at least.

I had mastered the floor plan by now, even though it changed every few days. I still hadn’t worked out who got access to the geomancers’ shortcuts, but I’d eventually figured out how to navigate the maze like passages.

After a few minutes, the passage jilted in a different direction. This wasn’t unusual, and I followed the path hoping to find a new route to the obstacle course.

I took a turn and abruptly came face to face with Quint. He grinned. “Going to the obstacle course?”

“Yes,” I agreed and moved to go past him.

“Actually, there was something I had to tell you,” he said. “You’re going to be receiving advanced telepathy training. Being a necromancer, I can’t really teach you that.”

“Who will I be training with, then?” I asked, somewhat surprised at the turn of events.

Something moved in the shadows and I saw a white cloaked figure. “With me,” Eternia said.

Kevfalcor

35

Just how much do you want to know about the Eternals?” Taanyth asked me.

I groaned, which was difficult because inhaling was harder when you were tied to the wall. “I want to know everything. The Eternals are like….like an itch in the back of my mind. I know you and Nyx have been talking about them, but you clearly don’t want to tell me.” I was so close to learning about them, but I could see Taanyth shying from the question. The vines gently lowered us to the ground and then retracted into the wall.

“An itch in your mind?” Nyx asked. I nodded and she exchanged a knowing look with Taanyth.

“You’re avoiding the question.”

“Fine,” the elf conceded. “The Eternals are a race as old as time. They possessed technology and magic centuries ahead of their time. They lived forever, or as near as you can come, but eventually, they died.” There was silence.

“What?” I burst out. “Is that it? That can’t be all you know! What about Parallax? What about the Mindbreaker and the Hooded One? What happened to them?”

Nyx’s eyes narrowed. “How do you know about that?”

“I-”

“You’ve been spying on us!” she realized. “Listening to everything we say!”

“You were hiding things.”

“Yeah, but how can you be that nosy?”

“These are ancient beings that we know almost nothing about,” Taanyth continued, ending the argument. “They died because, for his own unfathomable reasons, one of the Eternals decided to destroy their world.” I was about to interrupt, but he silenced me. “He’s a Flicker named Phyrza the Hooded. But not all of the Eternals died. One survived, another Flicker named-”

“Parallax the Mindbreaker,” Nyx interrupted. “The one that this lovely elf hear is working for.”

“When did all this happen?” I asked. “When did Phyrza kill the Eternals?”

“Oh, one hundred years ago, give or take,” Taanyth replied looking at Nyx for confirmation. “Two hundred?”

“Something like that,” she agreed halfheartedly. “But what you should really be asking is why does Parallax want you to be a part of this?”

“A part of what?” Before I could get an answer, I heard a crash outside followed by screams and cries for help.

I looked to the door and saw people rushing past, fleeing from something. I rushed to the door with Taanyth and Nyx on my heels and looked in the direction of the crash.

“Lovely.” Nyx’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “It’s good to see a friendly face.”

Rakfelcov stood a few hundred yards away in all his dark-cloaked glory, his black-bladed sword rotating in his hand trailing icy power. I could see the ground around him was coated in a thin layer of ice and he left a wispy shadow where he walked as though there was a dark fire burning in him and smoke was coming out of him.

“Ah, Nyx! You’re still here? Can’t say I expected that,” he said cheerfully. “But it’s really Kevfalcor I came to see.” He leapt across the distance between us with inhuman strength and landed a few feet away, leaving a smoky arch where he’d jumped. I could feel him radiating power.

“He’s gotten stronger,” Nyx whispered. “Much stronger. And that is why you shouldn’t have confiscated and broken my gauntlet.”

I drew my sword, which looked a bit like a toothpick in comparison with Rakfelcov. It wasn’t that his sword was bigger than mine, he was just more. Stronger, faster, more powerful in just about every way. We both new that.

“You guys go get help,” I suggested. “I’ll hold him off.”

“Pfft,” Nyx snorted dismissively. “You’ve met me, right? I know you’ll die if you stay. I know that I won’t either way. Clearly, we’re going to have to jump inside this tree.”

As she said this, which was in the manner of someone discussing the weather, she dragged me backwards into the Tree of Souls. The moment we were inside the gap in the wall sealed over with a new layer of wood. Taanyth stood inside with a green aura surrounding him.

“It won’t hold him long,” Taanyth explained.

“What are you doing?” I burst out. “We could have-”

“Shut up,” Nyx silenced me. “Whatever you’re thinking, it is painfully wrong. None of us, maybe not even all of us, could have taken him on. Oh, and before I forget, it’s taken a lot of thought and deliberation, but I’ve decided to forgive you for threatening my life.”

“That still leaves us with the problem of Rakfelcov trying to get in,” I pointed out.

“There’s always a way out,” Taanyth murmured. His aura flared briefly and a circle of ceiling directly above the pool opened up and a vine ladder made of vines fell down.

Nyx grinned. I knew she hadn’t expected any of this, but she seemed completely confident and at ease. A section of the wall shook and I could see the tip of a black blade protruding from it. Ice spread around it like an infection. The Alchemist gestured towards the ladder. “After you.”

Alsari

36

I strode down the hall, watching a stone ricochet from wall to floor to wall to ceiling, repeated over and over. The acoustics of the hall made an echo as though a dozen stones were bouncing around.

I was mulling over what Thørn had said about the riddle and I agreed that we definitely didn’t have enough information to do anything, but while he seemed content to let new information miraculously appear, I was going to find it.

When I got to the obstacle course, there was no sign that anything had happened to the door. The wood had been cleared up, the doors had been repaired. Everything looked exactly as it should be. Even the spaces between the cracks in the bricks were devoid of the splinters that you’d expect after throwing a boulder through a door. Even the boulder was gone, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t find anything.

What hadn’t been removed was the dust and gravel on the floor. In such a massive complex as the Eternian Academy, and made entirely of rock, stone dust got everywhere. When I sensed the stone dust, I could see distortions where Quint and I had walked, where the bits of door had fallen, where the boulder had smashed, but absolutely nothing else. No sign of any other person ever being there.

That wasn’t what I’d expected. I couldn’t think of a single way that anyone could avoid the dust entirely. Even if the person was a lithomancer, they wouldn’t be able to put every single dust particle in the same place they’d found it and even if somehow they were able to fly, that would still involve pushing air down, which would make the dust go haywire. Instead, everything was perfectly normal.

No one had been here. I hesitated. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t see how to progress from here. Maybe Thørn was right and we’d just have to wait. Something squirmed inside me; I hated feeling to utterly useless. I couldn’t do anything about….anything. I felt useless, trapped, incapable of accomplishing anything.

I made up my mind. I bolted down the corridors to Quint’s office where I found him sitting behind a desk completely covered in papers.

Many of the papers were written in languages that I couldn’t understand, some I could see, weren’t even writing, but diagrams, charts, and more. There were a few alchemy circles, runic engravings and even pictures of anatomy. The papers spilled off the desk, onto the only other chair. Some were on the floor, more papers covered the walls, and I could even see one or two on the ceiling.

“Alsari,” he said. “What a surprise.”

I regarded the ubiquitous papers with a raised an eyebrow. “You’re busy.”

“Yes, but I’m not likely to be any less busy for the next decade or so,” he said weerily as he stood. “So. What is it?”

“The reason I’m here,” I began. “Is to help the Myriad. I’ve definitely trained enough. So why am I here and not out there?”

“You want to go on a mission,” Quint replied frankly.

“I’m not used to living like this. I feel….caged, sort of.”

The necromancer nodded. “It’s been awhile since you had a normal life, hasn’t it?”

I laughed bitterly. “You could say that.”

“But have you considered that this lifestyle might be good for you?” he asked. “It could be good to get back to everyday life.”

“I didn’t come here for counseling,” I said, just a bit more sharply than I’d meant. I place my hands on his desk and looked him in the eye. “I need something to occupy me.”

“And the obstacle course isn’t enough?” Quint replied evenly.

“I’m not accomplishing anything,” I said. “It’s not the danger I want. I want to change things, same as Eternia.”

Quint raised an unconcerned eyebrow. “You didn’t do much of that before you came here.”

“No. I filled that particular void with all the doom that seemed to follow me. Just get me a mission.”

The necromancer sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll check with Eternia and see if she can get you a mission. I can’t make any promises, but I’ll see if you can be more active.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I started to leave.

“Alsari,” Quint said, and I stopped. “You may think you’re invincible because you’ve survived your world ending and because you’ve been traveling the Myriad for so long, but you’re not. You’re not infallible. So just….be careful, okay?”

Nyx

37

Vine ladders, as it turns out, are not particularly stable. When you press with your feet, the vine swings away making the entire process very difficult. This is not helped by the fact that a malevolent being is doing it’s very best to bore through the tree after you.

When I’d finally clambered to the top, Taanyth closed the hole in the ceiling and pulled up the ladder. Not in that order. When the gap had been closed, the murky and insufficient light vanished and we were plunged into complete darkness.

A tiny candle flame flickered to life on Kev’s pointer finger, dimly illuminating the dark room. I looked around the shadowy room. “So this is where you keep it all,” I murmured.

Surrounding us was what looked like all of the things that the elves had confiscated. Ever. There were bloody weapons, severed hydra heads, mysteriously glowing boxes, and everything in between. I grinned and shoved aside a battle axe engraved with twisting runes and picked up my gauntlet.

“That’s better,” I murmured as it slid back into place on my arm. I felt complete again. I wasn’t sure if I had gone that long without wearing it since it had been made.

“It’s still smashed,” Kev discouragingly pointed out. “And I’m guessing that explosive fluid was important.”

“Mmm, very important,” I muttered distractedly while assessing the damage to my gauntlet. “Incredibly rare, too.”

“So, how is your gauntlet useful, then?”

“I have a spare.”

“Of course you do,” he said. “If these things are so valuable, how do you have more than one of the gauntlet fluid?”

I heard the wooden wall of the chamber below us shatter as Rakfelcov smashed his way into the room under us.

“That’s a story for a time when death isn’t imminent,” I said briskly. “So, you may have to wait a while. Now, I need the two of you to channel magic into me.”

“Why?” Taanyth asked suspiciously.

“Because I don’t think I can do this twice in one day.” Kev and Taanyth exchanged looks. “Oh, come on! There isn’t much time.”

Boy and elf each gripped one of my arms and magic flowed through me. It was interesting to feel Taanyth’s calm, peaceful magic that was nonetheless strong, far more powerful than I’d expected. In stark contrast, the magic being channeled from Kev was wild and reckless, difficult to control, and even more powerful. I was surprised at the wildness of Kevfalcor’s magic; he hadn’t shown that side of himself. It was also strange, different than any of the magic that I’d encountered before, especially on Alaran. It was actually more like the the specialized magic of Archora, but still very different. It was really most like a blend of magic from all corners of the Myriad, but that wasn’t really my most pressing concern when Rakfelcov was trying to smash his way into the tree.

But this was more than enough magic. I let myself lose my grip on the world and drifted through the Shadow Realm, the gap between worlds. It wasn’t the best name because there were, in fact, no shadows. There actually wasn’t anything, so no realms either. It really wasn’t anything. There were no shadows, no light, no darkness, nothing that is describable. It just wasn’t. It was cool, but not cold. It was empty, shear nothing, yet it held infinite possibility. I could feel the infinite worlds of the Myriad drifting at my fingertips, but steered a course for the most familiar place to me in the Myriad.

I appeared in my lab, thankfully fully dressed. I hadn’t been sure after the last time. Not much time, I chided.

My lab was in ruins after Rakfelcov and I had fought. Benches, tables, and lab equipment was shattered and there were several holes burnt through the floor along with an evil smelling green cloud which I decided to avoid.

I looked frantically until I found it, still in the bag I stole it in. It was the first time I’d met Rakfelcov. Joy, another cheery memory to add to the collection, I thought sarcastically.

Fortunately, the damage to the gauntlet was extremely minimal, the only damage actually being to the glass. Sadly, liquid storm geist was explosive if in contact with air, so I’d have to replace the outer container and reattach the new one to the rest of the gauntlet.

I worked quickly, my hands flying over the connectors, gears, and wires. It felt good to be back to work. It took about ten minutes to repair (record time), but I estimated that Kev and Taanyth would last five minutes max against Rakfelcov, so I had to hope that they were still alive.

I gathered my energy and Flickered back to the Tree of Souls. The world formed around me and I saw Rafelcov, sinister as ever, locked in combat with Taanyth and Kev. The elf’s eyes shone green through the darkness and vines shot toward Rakfelcov, who slashed through them mercilessly, but had more trouble deeling with Taanyth’s more elemental magic.

Kev was a pillar of flame, a scratch on his cheek was dripping blood, but his was sword whirling with more skill than I knew he had, his fire effectively blocking Rakfelcov’s shadow and ice magic. Still, I knew they were outmatched. Rakfelcov was just too strong, magically and physically, to be stopped by these two.

All three of them, shadowy creature, elven druid, and warrior mage, froze as I appeared. I grinned. “You’re alive? Good. So. What did I miss?”

Thørn

38

Eternia strode through the passages, her cloak billowing behind her. We arrived at the destination almost immediately, so I assumed that the geomancers had been helping her.

I was in the same room as when I first met her. It was bigger than I remembered, the pillars seeming to stretch even higher before reaching the vaulted ceiling far above me and the empty throne seemed farther away.

“I’m learning telepathy here?” I asked. The surroundings were imposing enough that I didn’t think I could concentrate.

Wordlessly, she turned around and the room shrank. The ceiling lowered, the distance between me and the throne shrank, the throne vanishing all together. The pillars melded into the walls and the room continued to change until Eternia and I were standing in a small room, roughly fifteen feet each way with decorations similar to those in my old school.

I was in awe. “Was that-” I tested the wall with my hand and it passed through it. “Illusion? How can you change something that big?”

“By willing it to be so. If I wanted to make the illusion more substantial, like you did when you shook hands with Alsari in the crossroads, I would augment the illusion with telekinesis.” I knocked on the wall again and felt that it had developed to something like the consistency of wood.

I grinned. “That’s incredible. It looks, even feels real! How….” I paused. “How is this possible? To do this, you….you have to visualize every fibre of every plank of wood on the wall. Every flaw on every floor tile. How is that possible?”

Eternia smiled, and for the first time I saw her as a real person. She was the leader of a powerful organization, but she still had her own thoughts and cares, and was a skilled telepath.

“It took me years to do something like this,” she said. “Years well spent. You have the potential to do something like this.” Suddenly, the room began to expand, outward and outward, until it wasn’t a room at all. I was standing on a hill covered in perfect green grass looking over an azure bay, and mountains fringed the horizon. I could even feel the breeze off the bay and the warmth from the sunlight. “And someday you will. But remember, and this is the most important rule of illusions, you can make the illusion seem real in every way, but never make the mistake of believing that it is.”

That didn’t seem like standard advice. Of course I wouldn’t think my illusion was real; I wondered when that advice had been needed. I nodded anyway.

And illusion and telekinesis are only a few of our abilities, she voiced in my head. You’ve already used mind wipes, though a bit more work might be used in the future. You’ve also used memory searches and telepathy, but one of the most useful skills that you’ve barely touched is mind control.

I….yeah, I agreed. I controlled a mouse. Once.

Mind control is one of the more difficult abilities, Eternia said. Even I can barely control two people at once, but if you master it, it is well worth it. At this very moment, Alsari is preparing to embark on her first mission for the Eternian Academy, but to become strong enough to join her, you’ll have to learn control.

Hang on, am I going with her this time? I asked, not sure if I was ready for this. Or is she going alone? I wasn’t sure which idea I was more uncomfortable with.

That depends, she said as a soldier, similar to the ones who had taken me to the Academy, walked in. Let’s see what you make of him.

You want me to control him?

Eternia nodded.

I looked apprehensively at the soldier. He hadn’t done anything to provoke it. Apparently he noticed my indecision. “It’s alright,” he said comfortingly. “I volunteered for this. I’ve been controlled before. I’ll be fine.”

I nodded and stretched out with my mind. When I touched his, I noticed him consciously trying not to resist, which had failed horribly. You can’t just force your mind not to resist something. I pushed thoughts of compliance towards him and the resistance disappeared.

After that, it was relatively easy to control him, but it was also confusing to look at myself through his eyes. He was taller than me with bigger feet and I tripped a lot at first. I could still feel the soldier’s mind pushed to the back of his head. Growing in confidence, I made him jog around the room before returning to my own body.

“That wasn’t so har-” My voice caught in my throat as I realized that there was a blade pressed against my neck.

Kevfalcor

39

The Alchemist reverse faded into existence, first just a smoky outline, but swiftly growing more substantial. I froze, watching her drift onto the world, and was dimly aware of the fact that Rakfelcov and Taanyth had frozen as well.

Nyx flashed her trademark barely-sane grin. “You’re alive?” she confirmed. “Good. So. What did I miss?” She extended her re-gauntleted hand and a bolt of lightning shot from her fingertips, connected with Rakfelcov, and hurled him across the room.

Of course, he wasn’t dead. He shot to has feet and a blast of cold flew from his hand at Nyx, who calmly negated it with a fireball before shooting her own ice at Rakfelcov. He absorbed the blast, but it reminded me that I was still there and I broke out of my trance.

I lurched towards Rakfelcov and he was forced to block my blade with his while Taanyth’s vines attacked with renewed ferocity. He began to fall back. The onslaught was just too much; he couldn’t fight the three of us at once and win. That didn’t necessarily mean that he had lost, he just wasn’t winning quite so much.

He was still managing to defend himself from us, but he couldn’t find room to attack. That’s when I noticed a pattern in his movements. I watched how he moved and analyzed his style, and realized what he was about to do.

I watched and saw he was about to decapitate Taanyth’s newest vine, dodge a bolt of lightning from Nyx, and shoot a suppressing shadow at me. But, before he could, I shot a preemptive fireball towards him while stabbing at him with my sword….but he dissolved into smoke.

Nyx paled while Taanyth looked how I felt-confused. “Where is-” I started to ask, but then my heart missed a beat as I felt his blade pressed to my throat.

“You’re getting to be annoying, Kevfalcor,” he hissed in my ear. “And you’re about to find out what I do to-”

His voice was cut off in a strangled hiss and his blade disappeared. I dashed across the room the relative safety of Taanyth and Nyx, but they were already in movement towards Rakfelcov. I looked and saw the elf who had captured me-Laryn?-with his sword drawn backing away from Rakfelcov. Laryn must have stabbed him, at the risk of his own life, to save me.

Now Rakfelcov was bearing down on him, seemingly unharmed by his stab wound. I joined Taanyth and Nyx, and prepared to attack. Rakfelcov was surrounded. He vanished in a burst of darkness, and this time he didn’t reappear.

I stood, breathless from the fight staring at the spot where Rakfelcov had been only seconds before, not entirely sure what to do.

“Okay, we have a problem,” Nyx said.

“Does it require immediate repair?” I asked. “Because I’m not sure I’m ready for a new problem.”

“It isn’t that new,” she said. “Rakfelcov wants you and me dead, apparently very badly, but doesn’t seem that willing to just straight out kill us. I mean, he could just materialize next to us when we’re sleeping and stab us or something, but he doesn’t. Why not? What does he really want? And, if we follow his pattern, he’s only going to keep coming. We’ve beaten two out of five times, and both times in ways that won’t necessarily be repeatable.”

“Five times? This is the second,” I objected.

“No it’s not. I met him three times before I met you, and none of those times ended well.”

“Can I ask what just happened?” Laryn asked.

“How did you get in here, anyway?”

Laryn nodded at the hole in the floor that Rakfelcov had burst through.

“There’s a very powerful and malevolent being attacking Nyvral,” Taanyth explained.

“And me!” Nyx interjected. “I’ve been attacked, too!”

Taanyth seemed to be struggling not to respond to the Alchemist’s cheeky remark and I could tell that even though they were willing to fight side by side, Nyx and Taanyth were still far from friendly with each other. “What you just fought,” he said after a while. “Was that being, Rakfelcov, or the Shadow.”

“You say that like it explains why he just ravaged our forest for the second time this week.”

“We need to figure out a reliable way to get rid of him,” Nyx said, completely ignoring Laryn.

“You mean one that doesn’t involve blowing up trees?” I asked.

“Actually, I was about to suggest that we rig them all with explosives-”

“You will never do that!” Taanyth interrupted.

“….But I figured Mr. Nature wouldn’t be too happy with that,” she finished.

“I’m not agreeing with Arashan’s methods,” Laryn said diplomatically. “But she’s right. Rakfelcov needs to stop.” It took me a few seconds to realize that he was talking about Nyx.

“Yeah, but how do we do that?” I asked. “It took all four of us at once to beat him. Or two of us and a fiery inferno, and that resulted in one painful injury and one near-fatal one.”

“He’s very powerful,” Laryn agreed. “But nothing is all-powerful and Rakfelcov’s bound to make a mistake eventually. We just have to make sure that we don’t make one first. What we really need is more information.”

“There’s so much we don’t know,” Taanyth agreed. “But how do we find out more? Rakfelcov’s nowhere. It’s like he just appeared that night in the city.”

Alsari

40

A peeved Thørn approached me at the Hub. “You’re coming with me?” I asked.

“Mm,” he said distractedly. “Just had to endure an hour of mind control or impalement. Not important.”

I raised an eyebrow. He was practically begging to talk about it. “What happened?”

“There were these two soldiers,” he explained. “The rules were simple. Use mind control to stay alive. Do you have any idea how much concentration it takes to keep two people functioning at the same time as well as making yourself breathe and blink and do all the essentials?”

“Um, I’m a lithomancer. How should I know?” I asked.

Thørn sighed and a new memory popped into my head of the exhausting amount of energy it took. “Oh. Now I know.”

Quint approached us. “Okay, so your first mission will be to locate a warlord who’s been reeking havoc on Uthara,” he explained. “Once you get to him, give him this.” He held out a metal cuff. “It will put him in a cell in the basement.”

“He’s a Flicker?” Thørn asked.

“No.”

“Hang on, you have technology to make non-Flickers change worlds? That’s not even near possible!” I exclaimed.

“We’ve been making huge leaps in alchemy, science, and magic over the last few-”

“No, this isn’t magic, this isn’t science, this isn’t alchemy, and this isn’t possible!” I exclaimed. “What’s going to happen when it doesn’t work?”

“It will work,” Quint assured us. “It’s been tested and used in the field many times.”

“But it can’t!” I protested. “There’s no way….it’s not….” I came into a state of unnatural calm. I Thørn push thoughts of serenity into my head. Quint was still wrong and still saying impossible things, but I could handle it now.

Thørn, I thought. I didn’t ask for you to do that.

I know, he replied.

Thanks.

“Okay,” I said evenly. “We’ll try your world-shift-non-Flicker-impossible- thing, but when that doesn’t work, we’ll finish the mission my way.”

“What’s ‘your way,’” Thørn asked, and I ignored him.

“Don’t you mean ‘if it doesn’t work?” Quint asked.

“No.”

“Okay.” Thankfully, he didn’t press the matter. “You’ll also have to wear these.” He held out another set of the metal cuffs, and Thørn slipped his on like a bracelet.

“And what are they for?” I asked.

“These are to make sure you Flicker to the right place,” Quint explained. “Remember, this is Thørn’s first time Flickering. They also make sure you Flicker back to the Eternian Academy.” His gaze shifted to me. “And not somewhere else. Not only that, they make Flickering much easier so the process is manageable twice in one day.” He paused. “I think that’s it. Alright. Off you go, then.”

“That’s it? No helpful tips?” Thørn asked, sounding alarmed.

“Umm, don’t let the pointy things impale you.”

“Thanks.”

“Let’s go!” I urged. For the first time in too long, I was about to leave a world, and I couldn’t wait.

Thørn looked nervous. “This maybe isn’t the best time, but-”

“You don’t no how to Flicker? That’s fine.” I gripped his hand and pulled myself into the Shadow Realm.

Nyx

41

You trust Laryn?” asked Kev.

“Well, I have a hard time trusting anyone,” I replied. “And you don’t trust him because….?”

“He was the one who captured me,” he explained.

“You mean he followed you through the woods before ambushing and tranquilizing you?” Kev nodded. “When we met, I tried to kill me and you blew up my prized possession, and you trust me. Right?” I flashed my most untrustworthy grin.

He laughed. “I’m not going to answer that.”

“Probably smart,” I said.

We continued in the direction of the tree we’d destroyed in silence for a few minutes.

“So, do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“About the fact that you went crazy over something that you knew absolutely nothing about and then threatened to kill me? No, not really.”

“I wanted to apolo-”

“I know you didn’t really, you’re not one of those people who enjoy apologizing, but it’s okay.”

“Why are you taking this so well?” he asked.

I grinned in the self-satisfied and incredibly annoying way that meant I knew something he didn’t. “I have a theory.”

“Is there any chance you’ll tell me?” Kev asked, without so much annoyance as resignation. He knew he’d crossed a line with the Eternals.

I pretended to consider the idea. “Nope.”

He smiled sadly. “I thought not.”

There was another pause and then we arrived at the tree we’d blown up. Walking around the shrapnel which peppered the area around it, I thought about what it had been. Once it had towered over a hundred feet above us, matching the rest of the trees’ height. Now it was a blackened stump.

I stood unsteadily on the uneven stump and looked at the blast. “Where would Rakfelcov have been?” I asked Kev.

“About here,” he replied. “But all the evidence would have been incinerated.”

“Naysayer,” I muttered under my breath. “All the visual, maybe even physical evidence would have been incinerated, yes.”

I continued to examine the place Kev had indicated. He rolled his eyes. “Do you think there will ever be a day where you answer an implied question?”

I rubbed some of the charcoal between my fingers, watching shiny pieces flake off. “No.”

“What are you looking for?” he asked.

I licked the charcoal. “All ubb duh pizzikal ebidence iv gond,” I began.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he chided.

I glared halfheartedly. “Sorry, Mother….” My smile faded at the memories the words brought up. “All of the physical evidence is gone,” I repeated. “But there’s still some magical residue.”

“What does magical residue taste like?” he asked.

“Varies. Generally spicier than spiritual residue, although there was this one clergy I met that tasted almost like cinnamon.”

“What?”

“Not important. The point is,” I continued. “This magic is….different, somehow. Strong, but sort of….artificial.”

Kev looked completely baffled. “And what does that mean?”

I frowned. “I don’t know.”

I thoughtfully traced the rim of the softly glowing centrifuge on my gauntlet. “What’s in there anyway?” Kev asked.

“Liquid wraith mixed with dragon’s blood and ichor,” I murmured absentmindedly.

“And that’s explosive?”

“Well, the wraith is still alive, or as alive as a wraith can be, so, yes.”

“Hang on you liquified and mixed a live wraith with dragon’s-”

“I just said it, it doesn’t need repeating,” I muttered offhandedly and then looked up. “Come on.”

I began walking in the direction of a different tree. “Where are we going?” Kev asked, as he followed.

I pointed at the tree. “That’s the training center, right?” Kev grunted an affirmation. “That’s where we’re going.”

“Do you always need someone’s help to Flicker?” he asked.

“No. My magic isn’t actually that powerful,” I explained. “Alchemy doesn’t require a lot. But the real reason that I had you two help me is that if you Flicker once, you’re mostly fine, but Flickering twice in one day is exhausting. I wanted to go, get back, and still be able to function, so I used you and Taanyth.”

When we reached the door to the tree, a tall, muscular elf with a spear blocked our way. “What’s your purpose in the armory?” she asked, glaring down her nose at me in a stuffy way. I hated her immediately.

“Hello, Shalana,” Kevfalcor greeted her. “A little while ago Rakfelcov attacked and I realized that I couldn’t defend myself well enough, so I decided to come here to practice.”

“I can help you refine your technique,” Shalana offered, continuing to glare at me.

“Thanks, but that’s okay,” he said calmly.

“And what about her?” I was beginning to get the feeling that she hated my existence.

“She’s with me,” he replied, clearly trying to keep her from stabbing me.

Shalana stepped aside. “No use of unauthorized weapons and no killing or maiming inside the armory.”

We stepped inside and walked down, for the first time in too long, a hallway. The rest of the rooms in the forest were made of trees, and so were circular.

“Hallway,” I remarked.

“Mm,” he said. “This tree is just the entrance.” He paused and grimaced. “I….just realized that near death experiences have also become everyday experiences. I mean, less than an hour ago, I was fighting for my life, and now I’m feeling….leisurely.”

I realized that I wasn’t used to talking about delicate things like coping with life or death situations. “Well,” I began. “It’s probably a good thing if you get used to it. Taanyth and, by extension, Parallax have plans for you and that never ends well.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? That’s the best you can do?”

“Um….yeah.” Neither of us could keep a straight face.

We continued walking down the corridor until Kevfalcor asked, “Why are we here?”

“Oh. Right. We’re going to fight.”

Thørn

32

Interplanar travel was not what I expected. I wasn’t entirely sure what I expected to begin with, but this was much more peaceful. In fact, I’d barely noticed I was leaving my world. There was no tug or rush or sensation or even any abrupt change. I just drifted away.

Alsari’s hand was still firmly gripping mine, but I got the feeling that she wasn’t the one leading us. Our cuffs were. There was no sense of motion as we drifted between worlds, but there was a sense of travel. It wasn’t a sense of travel because it took time, it just was. I marveled at the endless possibility of places I could go, but then I realized that I couldn’t. The cuff held me back and pushed me towards a certain place on a certain world that I assumed was called Uthara.

And then the world formed around me. Alsari’s hand released mine. She shivered with exhilaration.

“That felt good,” she declared. “So. First time Flickering. What did you think?”

I grinned, still trying to process it. I’d just traveled between worlds! I laughed. Flickering wasn’t very draining, but doing it twice in one day without the cuffs definitely would be. I wasn’t sure how that worked or how I knew that. Then again, I’d just traveled between worlds, so, anything was possible. “So, this is what you do?” I asked. “Jumping from world to world and doing…. other things?”

“Pretty much, yeah,” she replied. I was beginning to see a new side of Alsari. I could see that the loss of her home and her imprisonment in the Eternian Academy had made her bitter, but now she was more free than she’d been since I met her.

“Freeze!” a voice near us ordered. I had been so caught up in the excitement of Flickering that I hadn’t taken in what was around me. We were in a hallway that wasn’t made out of granite bricks, which was a pleasant surprise. What was less pleasant was that advancing down said hallway were a trio of soldiers. They were dressed in robes and turbans the color of sand; I’d seen similar clothes worn by merchants before. They also brandished curved swords at us.

I froze, unsure of what to do. I’d never had a legitimate threat to my life before. Alsari, however, was far less frozen.

“Forgot my sword,” she remarked as one soldier’s sword flew from his hand and into Alsari’s. “Not sure about the curve.” It thinned and lengthened until it was identical to the other swords I’d seen her use.

By now the soldiers looked uneasy, but then one ran. Straight at Alsari. He tried to stab her, but she sidestepped and knocked him out with the pommel of her sword. The process took only a few seconds. The rest of the guards lost their nerve and bolted down the hallway.

Alsari pointed in the direction they’d gone. “Could you knock them out?” she asked as if it was a normal request.

“Right. Sorry.” Up until then, I’d been in a kind of trance. That snapped me out of it. I reached out with my mind, and felt the soldiers’, which were wild with panic.

They didn’t speak the Common Tongue, but I could still understand their thoughts. They planned to alert their captain that there were intruders. I projected a powerful urge to sleep into their minds, and they faltered. The more tired they got, the less resistance their minds had. Their fatigue snowballed and they collapsed on the floor. “They should be out for a few hours,” I told Alsari.

She smiled. “I’ve never worked with a telepath before, but I’m beginning to like it.”

“Um, just how many times have you stormed fortresses?” I asked.

Alsari thought and I saw her counting on her fingers. “Eleven….” she said hesitantly. “Yeah. I think that’s it.”

“Good to know.”

“So. Where’s the warlord?” she asked.

“How should I know?”

“There are three unconscious soldiers. Can you search their minds?”

“Um….yeah. Sorry. Still getting used to all this,” I said, hastily searching the soldiers’ minds.

“Infiltration?”

“ ….Yeah.” I created an illusion of the floorplan. “So, here we are.” A red dot appeared on the illusion. “And the warlord’s chambers are here.” A second dot appeared. “So, we go through here.” A red line snaked through the three dimensional map. “But we should be careful of the warlord. Even his soldiers are afraid of him. He has powerful magic, so we should be careful.”

“Magic,” Alsari repeated grimly. “Quint failed to mention that.”

“It’s possible he didn’t know,” I pointed out. “He isn’t a Flicker. He probably only knew what he told us.”

“We should get going.” We began to move down the path I had highlighted. “That’s possible, maybe even likely, but something still feels wrong. Don’t ask how I know, you’ll disagree with the answer.” I closed my mouth and followed the lithomancer down the hall.

Kevfalcor

33

We’re going to fight?” I asked with a small smile.

“Mhm,” Nyx agreed.

“Why?”

“You need to get better at fighting for your life or you’ll lose it.”

“So, you’re going to fight me?”

“Yes.”

“And you think that’s a good idea?” I replied. “I’ve got magic and swordsmanship, all you have is a sparky glove.”

The Alchemist raised an eyebrow. “You could also say I have years of fighting experience as well as one of the most powerful weapons on this world, and you’re a magical novice with a pointy bit of metal.”

We arrived in a sandy arena, but it was far from the most interesting place to fight. It branched off into a system of bridges that went far above the ground and bridges near the level of a rushing stream. There were short hallways, rocky hideouts, dark caves, and more. The entire place was designed to create as many different places to engage in combat as possible.

We stood on opposite sides of the arena. For a moment, nothing happened. “Well?” Nyx asked. “What are you waiting for?”

“What if I hurt you?”

The Alchemist laughed. “Don’t worry. You won’t.” I stopped waiting and rushed at Nyx, sword drawn.

It didn’t last long. When I reached her, she caught my sword wrist, twisting the blade out of my grip, and held it to my throat. I had lasted all of five seconds.

Nyx smiled spitefully. “Well, that was extremely pitiful.” She tossed my sword back to me, and I barely caught it. “Again.”

I backed up. Trying not to indicate what I was planning, I surreptitiously shot a fireball at her. I later reflected that it’s difficult to shoot a fireball at someone without them noticing it.

About halfway between me and her, the fire was blocked by a ‘bolt’ of ice. “That is very annoying,” I growled.

Nyx smiled cheekily. “It’s what I do.”

I backed onto a rope bridge, hoping that she would follow me. To my surprise, Nyx followed me onto the bridge. I reached another arena when she was about halfway across.

Flames danced from my hands onto the bridge. The fire rushed down the vine and wood. Nyx seemed unconcerned.

She reached into a pocket and pulled out a metal pad with a big, red button in the middle. “Uh-oh.” I wasn’t sure why, but the name ‘Nyx’ in the same sentence as ‘big, red button’ filled me with terror. I had no idea what was about to happen, but I knew it was not going to be good.

At the far end of the bridge, there was a massive explosion. The force shook the bridge sending a wave through the length. When the wave reached Nyx, it launched her into the air, over the fire, and right next to me.

I halfheartedly swung my sword at her, but she caught it with her gauntleted hand and twisted it out of my grip.

“When did you rig the bridge with explosives?” I asked.

“Kev, I rigged everything with explosives.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“That is correct,” she agreed.

“Are you going to answer it?”

“No.”

“We just blew up a bridge,” I pointed out.

“Yes we did,” Nyx agreed.

“Should we tell someone?”

“They’ll figure it out.” She paused. “Again.”

“Oh, joy,” I growled. The combined length of both fights was about a minute.

“Keep in mind,” she said. “Only one of my hands can protect me.”

“What’s that supposed to-” I was cut off as I dodged a bolt of lightning.

Nyx grinned. “Just like old times, right?”

“‘Old times?’” I repeated, jumping out of the way of a fireball. “That was last week!”

“Same thing,” she replied as she blocked a fireball.

I charged at the Alchemist, releasing a wave of fire in her direction. She emerged unscathed, but by that time I was too close. I slashed with my sword at the same time I shot a fireball at her.

She was forced to dodge both, which pushed her back onto a narrow log. She stood there as if daring me to follow. I did.

After the first few steps, the ground dropped off so that we were standing at least ten feet above the ground on a wooden beam. Almost immediately, I wobbled and was almost struck by lightning.

“Come on,” Nyx coaxed. “It’s not that hard.” She shot more lightning.

When I regained my balance, I advanced on Nyx. I became more aggressive with my attacks, but I didn’t seem to make any headway, either. The Alchemist was still calmly poised and shooting fire, ice, and lightning from the section of log she’d planted herself on.

Nyx made fighting perched on a log above the ground look perfectly natural.

“How long have you been doing this?” I asked between ice bolts.

“Fighting warrior mages on logs above the ground with nothing but a sparky glove? Longer than I care to admit.”

“You make yourself sound old,” I said and noticed a small smile brush her lips.

And then I was struck by lightning. I felt the jolt of electricity pass through my body, oddly without pain. I felt more impact than actual pain, but the force threw me off the log and back onto the arena.

I saw Nyx tower over me. “Again?”

Alsari

34

Infiltration was surprisingly easy. None of the soldiers had enough skill to pose a real threat, and even if they did, the entire complex was made of stone. If they had wanted to keep me out, they should have built it out of something else. Like wood.

Thørn proved to be a valuable asset. If any of the soldiers slipped past me or turned and ran they would only make it a few feet before collapsing on the floor. He also learned useful tidbits of information from the minds of the unconscious soldiers such as the fact that they served the warlord mostly out of fear. He hadn’t been able to find out any of the specifics of the warlord’s power or what he’d been doing, but owing to his holographic floor plan, we made speedy progress.

He could also track the minds of the soldiers that we couldn’t see. They appeared on the floor plan, too.

“We have a problem,” Thørn said. “Some of the unconscious soldiers have been discovered. The one who found out is heading to tell the captain now.”

“How many soldiers do they have?” I asked.

“Well, there were about two hundred that occupy the base at all times, plus a force of several thousand that occupy surrounding encampments and towns. We’ve taken down about twenty, and so I’d guess the captain would send a dispatch force of another twenty to comb the halls, searching for us. Nothing we won’t be able to deal with once they split up, but once we do, he’ll send a larger force. We can’t fight everyone at once.”

“When did you become a tactician?” I asked. He was right, but I didn’t know how he’d have come up with that answer.

Thørn frowned. “I ….don’t know.”

That was strange. Anyway, there wasn’t time for this. “Okay, about how long do we have to get to the warlord?”

The illusion popped up again. There was a winding path to his chambers. Thørn’s grimace told me that that wasn’t a good sign.

“Okay, new plan,” I said. “What direction is he in?”

“That way, but-”

I reached into the stone and tore at the walls, pushing them apart until there was a passage leading directly in the direction the telepath had pointed. It cut through all the rooms and halls in between, and I could see six or so soldiers.

Thørn’s jaw dropped. “You just….how did….?”

“Come on,” I said, leading the way into the rough-hewn tunnel.

“You could have done that at any time?”

“There’s a time for subtlety and this is not it.”

I was more reluctant to admit this, but the effort had taken it’s toll on me. Moving that much stone, especially when I couldn’t see it, was not easy.

The effort would definitely slow me down, and a sense that had kept me alive for a long time was going haywire. I wasn’t sure I knew what I was dealing with, and wasn’t sure I could handle a particularly intense fight if it came to that.

Still, the six guards wouldn’t be much trouble. By the time they reached me, Thørn had already knocked out two of them. Suddenly, one of the guards attacked a second, knocking him unconscious. The other guards turned on him, not knowing who to trust, and fought until only one soldier remained standing. I quickly dispatched him.

I looked at Thørn, who grinned. “You did that?” I asked.

“Yeah. Mind control’s great, isn’t it?”

“And you learned all this today?”

“Most of it,” he confirmed.

That was fast, I thought. Thørn was learning incredibly quickly.

He scrutinized me carefully and it took me a while to realize that he was reading my mind. I was shocked and hastily blocked my mind. After so much practice at detection, the young telepath had slipped into my mind without my noticing him.

I fixed him with a glare. “Never read my mind,” I growled.

Thørn seemed didn’t seem surprised by my request. “Okay. But sometimes it’s necessary to-”

“This isn’t one of those times,” I interrupted.

“If I can avoid it, I won’t,” he begrudgingly told me. “Now, come on. We have a warlord to catch and not much time.”

We continued down the rough hallway, when a voice wafted out of the darkness.

“Is something wrong with the door, or do you always make holes in the wall?” the voice asked.

We walked through a doorway concealed from view by black cloth and into a fairly usual square room. Some of the walls had maps, presumably of the surrounding area on them. There were some silk pillows on a couch off to one side, but the rest of the room was bare. The walls without maps were covered in the same black cloth so it looked like they were dripping with shadows.

“Really, Stoneshaper, it’s very rude. I’ll have to get that replaced now.” I shivered at the mention of my title.

“You know who I am.”

“Feltrix, before you ask, I’m not a telepath,” the voice said. It knew who Thørn was, too.

A figure stepped out of the shadows, but it looked more like he materialized out of darkness. He was dressed entirely in black with dark hair and eyes, which contrasted starkly against his pale skin. He didn’t look any older than Thørn, but he had a crooked grin that didn’t match his age.

“Who are you?” Thørn asked, and I could tell he was trying to keep his voice from wavering. He’d never been in a situation like this before. Honestly, I was impressed he’d made it this far.

The hooded figure’s smile widened. “I’m the warlord you’re looking for,” he said, confirming what I’d been thinking. “But my name is Rakfelcov.

Nyx

35

Okay, that’s a first,” Kev groaned.

“Getting struck by lighting? Get used to it.”

“Well, look at your hair.”

“It’s all sticking up, isn’t it?” I asked.

“Nice try with the ponytail, but somehow it’s still sticking up,” Kev confirmed.

I sighed. “I’ll really have to work on that setting.”

He laughed. “Okay, are you ready for another round?”

“You realize I beat you every time, right?”

An impish grin formed on his face. “Not every time,” he said.

“Oh?”

“There was the time where I blew us both up.”

“That doesn’t count,” I said. “I was going easy on you.”

“Were you?” Kev sounded sarcastic and amused. “Convenient, how that worked out.” I rolled my eyes as he stood up and dusted himself off. “Again?” he asked.

“Well, you’re eager,” I observed. “To get beaten.” I saw the corners of his lips twitch at the jibe. His retort was cut off when I shot a bolt of lightning at him.

We sparred for hours, and Kev still didn’t manage to beat me. He was improving fast, though. I knew a day was coming where he would win, and that day wasn’t far away.

Fortunately, my gauntlet was undamaged. It’s metal sides had withstood so much that it would have been shocking for them to break, but I still checked them after every fight. I traced the scratches that scarred it’s surface and thought about all the things I’d done with it and smiled ruefully. Was I getting….sentimental?

Kev wiped sweat off his forehead with the back of his left hand. The other was still holding a sword. “What are you thinking about?”

“Insolent children,” I said, grinning wearily. To be in combat for so long was utterly exhausting, no matter who you were. “Um, where do I sleep? The entire time I’ve been here, I’ve slept either in the hospital or jail. Neither of those are somewhere I really want to be in.”

Kev sighed. “I guess you’d have to ask Taanyth.” I grimaced. “I know you don’t like him, and I don’t really know why, but he’s a good person.”

“He’s hiding things, for one,” I pointed out.

“Sounds like someone else I know.” I ignored that.

“And he acts so….benevolent.”

“And that’s not a good thing?” Kev asked.

“But the thing is, he’s not as nice as he acts. I can’t stand it when people act so perfect and aren’t.”

Kevfalcor nodded. “But does it matter more what he’s thinking or what he does?”

I grimaced. “Alright. I’ll talk to him.”

I strode out of the arena and through the hallway. I noticed disapproving glances from the elves as I left. Apparently Taanyth wasn’t the only one who didn’t like me.

When I entered the Tree of Souls, he didn’t waste time with pleasantries. “What do you want?” he asked.

“Lovely to see you, too,” I grumbled. “I want a place to sleep. And preferably one not reserved for the dying or prisoners.”

“Why are you here?”

“What?”

“It’s not a complex question,” Taanyth said. “This isn’t your home, your village. This isn’t even your world. Why are you here?”

“I guess….to stop Rakfelcov,” I explained.

“No. That’s not who you are, Arashan,” he contradicted. “You’re a rogue and a thief. Not a hero.”

I sighed. I had hoped that I wouldn’t have to explain this; I knew Taanyth would hate the reason. “I’m here because I have no where better to be. I haven’t had a home for a long time, many Flickers don’t, and I just world-hop to my heart’s content. Right now, I feel like being in this village, so that’s where I am.”

“You just randomly decided to stay here?”

“I have a special attachment to places where I’ve almost died. I mean, Duran is nice this time of year, but I’d most likely be enslaved, so I decided to stay here.”

Taanyth, as predicted, looked disapproving. “Fine. There’s an empty tree next to the one you destroyed.”

“Really? You’re letting me stay?”

The old elf looked unhappy, but he nodded. I was shocked; that seemed drastically out of character for him.

“Um….Thanks. I guess.”

Thørn

36

I suppose it’s too much to ask for peaceful surrender?” Alsari asked.

Rakfelcov laughed. “Yes, that’s too much. I have no desire to be interrogated by the Eternian Academy.”

“Interrogated?”

Alsari, don’t listen to him. He’s clearly trying to split us. Anyway, he probably deserves to be interrogated.

I know, she replied. But it’s not that that bothers me. What does Eternia want to know that Rakfelcov knows? He’s clearly more than just a warlord.

Can we worry about this after we’ve caught him? I asked.

Fine.

We turned to Rakfelcov. “So you’ve reached an agreement, then?”

“How do you know what we’re thinking?” I asked.

“Because I know you. Both of you.”

“How do you know us?”

Rakfelcov grinned but said nothing. There was a pause and then bolts of shadow shot through the room. I was hit and my body was wracked with pain, but I rolled into the corner.

After a few minutes, it passed and I made myself invisible. At the same time I made an illusion walk out of the corner, but Rakfelcov ignored it.

“Since I see that illusion, I know you’re not there,” he muttered, blocking an attack from Alsari.

That was okay. As long as he didn’t know where I was. I allowed my illusion to vanish and focused the rest of my thoughts on penetrating Rakfelcov’s mind.

He seemed to be more than a match for Alsari, but she was holding her own. Both of them were master swordsmen and their respective magical capabilities complemented that nicely.

As I attempted to force my way into Rakfelcov’s thoughts, I knew his mental barriers were too strong for me to actually break into his thoughts, but hopefully it would distract him enough to give Alsari the upper hand.

I began to glimpse flashes of Rakfelcov’s memory.

I opened my eyes for the first time and blinding lights shot into them making my head throb. I couldn’t see the rest of the room, but a cloaked figure loomed over me. I struggled to stand up, but I was tied to a cold, hard slab of stone. Chains cut into my wrists, ankles, chest and neck. I was completely immobilized, but I continued to struggle.

“Well, Rakfelcov,” the red cloaked figure drawled. “You’re going to do very nicely. Not as well as Kevfalcor, of course, but that’s to be expected.”

He reached out and pressed a finger to my forehead. Pain radiated from that point like lightning was shooting through my skull and I cried out, but the pain continued. After what seemed like hours but was probably only minutes, the pain vanished.

“You know what you have to do?” the figure asked, and I nodded. I had been a blank slate minutes ago, but now I had a purpose. I was Rakfelcov. I was the Shadow. I would complete my task. No one would stop me. Then the glare of the light seemed to swallow up everything and the scene changed.

My eyes snapped open. The plan was in motion. Project Maelstrom would soon be complete. The Alaran division had shown some resistance at first, but it was coming along nicely anyway. It was one of the riskier plans, but it was worth it. And the Archora division had clicked so easily it was almost laughable. So why was I here?

A cloaked figure walked out of the shadows, but this time he was wearing white. This was someone different. He looked less human. While the red cloaked figure had been almost completely covered by his cloak, I could still see the lower half of his face and his hands. This new person wore a white scarf over the lower half of his face and had his left hand was covered in a glove. The right hand was far more threatening, though. In the place of flesh was a twisted metal claw of a hand. I couldn’t even see his skin.

However, some similarities remained. The cloak looked similar, even if it was a different color. I was bound in a similar way to when Parallax had bound me, but this time there was no light except for something greenish that flickered behind me. I tried to turn to see it, but I couldn’t.

A second thought occurred to me. I almost tried to teleport before I realized that the cuff that Parallax had given me was gone.

“No, you can’t teleport yet,” the figure murmured. He extended a hand with the cuff in it. “Don’t worry. I’ll give it back when I’m done with you.”

“Who are you?” I roared. This wasn’t part of the plan!

“Parallax didn’t tell you about me? I’m insulted.” I stayed silent. “He did do a good job on you, didn’t he? At least, for him. I could do much better. Just think of this as an upgrade.”

He pulled out a large syringe filled with inky liquid and plunged it into my arm. I felt an immediate surge of power and watched the darkness spread through my veins. And then the white cloaked figure was gone and the cuff was back on my arm.

I opened my eyes, breathing hard. It took a while to separate Rakfelcov’s thoughts from mine. My plan had clearly backfired. The memories had overwhelmed me.

My head was still whirling when I realized that something was very wrong. The sounds of combat had stopped, replaced only by silence. Alsari stood still, halfway across the room looking worriedly at me. A lot closer to me was Rakfelcov. Even closer was an obsidian sword pointed at my throat.

Kevfalcor

37

Darkness fell as I lay sleeplessly in my bed. It was comforting to feel the wind flowing around me and hear the rustle of the leaves. The elven houses made nature feel close and peaceful, but I still couldn’t sleep. I was exhausted by training with Nyx, but the problem was I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Rakfelcov was too strong. He felt invincible.

I knew that if I trained I would make progress, but I felt like there wasn’t anything that I could do to actually beat the Shadow.

I stood up and stared at the silver moons, casting pale light down through the windows. They were calming to look at, and everything was beautiful draped in moonlight.

And then I looked at my sword, propped up in the corner. What was happening to me? A few days earlier I had been no one living an average life in an average village. Now I was being hunted by a phantasmal monster and dueling with an interplanar alchemist in a village of elves.

It wasn’t like alchemists, monsters, or elves were unheard of, I just never thought I would meet them.

My life had taken a drastic turn over the past few days, but somehow I was thriving. Instead of falling apart, I felt like I was being….completed, somehow. I was learning magic and combat and it was wonderful.

Suddenly, staring at the twin orbs of light floating in the star specked sky above me, it struck me that I could just….Flicker. Right now, if I wanted to. And I did. But I couldn’t.

I still had to deal with Rakfelcov. But couldn’t I just escape to another world? It seemed like the perfect solution. But still, something felt….wrong about it.

I couldn’t just leave everyone and everything I’d ever known. A little voice at the back of my mind informed me that, yes, I could. In fact, it told me, I already had when I’d left my village.

That was different, I thought. The village was burning.

So is this one. Rakfelcov’s not going to stop. You should flee the burning village.

I groaned, flopped onto my bed, and tried to stop arguing with myself. Maybe Nyx had a trick to not go insane.

Maybe she just went insane.

I jerked myself back to reality. One day I would leave Alaran and explore the Myriad, but first, I had to deal with everything that was going on here.

I held out my hand and willed a tiny flame to appear just above it. It was still hard to believe that I had power over nature like this. I looked as the orange firelight pressed against the silver moonlight and they both struck a blaze to the shadow.

It was calming, somehow, to see the two lights mix and push back the darkness. I clenched my fist, extinguishing the fire and for the second before my eyes adjusted, the whole world looked like the shadows, but that was okay. The shadows weren’t evil, they weren’t a metaphor of Rakfelcov, they were just shadows. The darkness was comforting, too, and I used that split second to drift off to sleep.

The rest of the week was….normal. Relatively speaking. I practiced magic. I sparred with Nyx. Nyx argued with Taanyth.

But under all of what I had come to look at as normal, Taanyth seemed worried and Nyx seemed restless. I knew that I was tense.

Nyx being restless wasn’t surprising. She probably wanted to go to another world. Taanyth being worried was harder to explain, but I’d chalked it off as the suspense of waiting for another attack from Rakfelcov. I was worried about that, too.

Another thing that could be worrying him was the growing unrest among the elves. They didn’t know about the existence of Flickers or of Taanyth’s bargain with Parallax, but they knew about Rakfelcov and that was enough. On the surface, everything appeared normal, but I could hear whispers of unhappiness.

Taanyth was still a popular leader, but he was no longer the unanimous leader.

“The elves are unhappy about Rakfelcov,” I told Nyx. “And that reflects badly on Taanyth.”

“Yeah, I guess it does,” she replied, seeming unconcerned. “I’ve seen plenty of rebellions; they’re not so bad.”

“Rebellion?”

Nyx shrugged. “Probably not. Elves are infuriatingly peaceful.”

“Peacefulness is infuriating?”

“Let me put it this way,” she said. “We waltz into the village, I knock out their leader, you blow up one of their houses after I summoned a monster their, and then we almost get their leader and one of their citizens killed when we battle that monster later. No one has told either of us to stop endangering leaders, summoning dangerous beings, or blowing things up, which is good because I wouldn’t listen to that last one. But the point is, they’re passive to an extreme. I doubt that of the, say, three thousand people in this village, a single one of them has done a chaotic or reckless thing in their entire lives. They’re content in a world of madness. I hate complacency.”

I nodded, though I wasn’t entirely sure if I understood. Nyx was an alchemist. She worked with reason and fact. Despite that, I was beginning to understand that she also worked with chaotic explosions and loved the thrill of discovery. She worked with order and logic, but she embodied chaos.

Alsari

38

Thørn’s eyes opened and then crossed as they focused on Rakfelcov’s sword point. When he realized the gravity of the situation, panic splashed across his face, but he didn’t make a sound.

Rakfelcov sighed in disappointment. “I really didn’t want to do this,” he said, mock dismay filling his voice. “It really would be a shame if I had to kill Mr. Feltrix. I suppose if you both return to the Eternian Academy, I wouldn’t have to.”

What do we do? Thørn’s terrified voice filled my mind.

I guess….what he says.

“I’m waiting,” Rakfelcov drawled.

I willed his sword to fly out of his hand, but the shadows immediately darkened and the temperature plummeted. “I really wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Look, let’s be reasonable,” Thørn said.

“I am being reasonable. You’re alive.”

I hate to let Rakfelcov get away, but I’m not sure we have a choice, I thought, hoping Thørn heard me.

“I’d appreciate it if your conversations were out loud.”

Hang on. Don’t do anything, Thørn replied.

Why not? What are you planning?

Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.

That doesn’t answer the question.

“Leave now or I’ll start cutting fingers off,” Rakfelcov interrupted boredly.

I tensed, ready to Flicker.

Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.

Just how attached to your fingers are you?

Very attached, but that’s not the point.

Rakfelcov rolled his eyes and thrust his sword through Thørn’s hand and….nothing happened. There was not blood. Thørn didn’t react. And then he blinked out of existence.

Rakfelcov cursed. “An illusion! How could I be so stupid?”

“I helped a little.” Thørn’s voice came from every corner of the room and twenty different illusions of him flickered into existence.

Rakfelcov looked as though he wanted to glare at Thørn, but that was difficult to do without having your head literally on a swivel.

Suddenly, bolts of shadow radiated from his body. I dove to the side, but most of the illusions were caught in the line of fire. Most of them just blinked out of existence, but one doubled over like he’d been punched in the stomach.

His veins darkened like he’d been poisoned and I could see the infection climbing up his throat and across his chin, closing in on his eyes.

“That’s a nasty poison I invented,” Rakfelcov said, a touch of pride in his voice. “It won’t kill him, but his mind will be permanently shattered. Have you ever met an insane telepath? Trust me, you don’t want to. Anyway, he can be cured, but only with a touch of the Shadow Realm.”

“I can’t trust you,” I pointed out.

“Too true,” Rakfelcov agreed. “But you don’t really have a choice. So you can have another shot at capturing me, and you don’t have a great chance of winning alone, as your friend goes insane and spreads his madness. Or you can go back to the Eternian Academy, who will probably send you after me again, and have a sane friend. Your choice, but I suspect you’ll choose the second.”

Thørn looked at me, his panicked eyes turning into inky orbs. I lunged for his hand and pulled him and myself into the Shadow Realm. We were dragged out of the world and propelled back to Archora by the cuffs. Only now did I realize that I should have tried to use lithomancy to remove mine. It was too late now.

Archora formed around us. We were in Quint’s office. He seemed surprisingly unperturbed by two Flickers materializing in his office, and I realized that he’d probably been sending Flickers on missions for a long time.

I hauled myself to my feet and saw that the poison in Thørn’s veins was receding and his breathing was becoming steadier.

Quint stood up, looking worried. “What happened?”

“Long story short, Rakfelcov’s not in the basement,” Thørn said.

Quint sighed disappointedly. “What went wrong?”

“He poisoned Thørn,” I said. “If we didn’t Flicker, Thørn would lose his mind.” Quint nodded forlornly. “You knew this was going to happen?”

For a second, hesitation flashed across the necromancer’s face. “No, I had no idea he could poiso-”

“But you knew he would beat us,” I continued, advancing on him.

“Look, I didn’t send you on this mission.”

“But you knew how it would end. You even told me specifically be careful before I left.”

“I knew you had a fighting chance. I also knew that the odds still weren’t good.” Quint avoided looking us in the eyes. “I argued with Eternia, told her not to send you on this mission, especially because it was your first and you were still hesitant, Alsari, about joining us-”

“Oh, so you wait until people are happy to sacrifice their lives for your cause?”

“That’s not what I said! Just let me talk.” Quint paused slightly before continuing. “Eternia said that it was important that you fought Rakfelcov now, that you needed to be tested to see if you were ready.”

“Ready for what?” Thørn asked, his voice a low croak from the corner.

Quint shook his head. “I don’t know,” he murmured. “And even though I knew you probably wouldn’t be able to bring Rakfelcov in, I never suspected that your lives might be in danger! If I’d known….If I’d known I never would have….”

I smiled coldly at Quint. “This was a test. Not just from Eternia, but from me. And the Eternian Academy has not performed well.”

“You were testing us?” he asked.

“I know that trying to escape the Eternian Academy wouldn’t be wise, but now I have no illusions about. What. You. Are.”

Nyx

39

Things on Alaran weren’t looking good. I had most definitely overstayed my welcome with the elves. Even the elves who didn’t know me, the citizens, shot me dirty looks as they passed. None of them had ever liked me, but they hadn’t shown it outwardly either.

And there was another problem: Rakfelcov. He was beginning to seem invincible. He had attacked Kev twice and me five times and we still didn’t have a single clue as to how he was so powerful or why he was targeting us. It might be time to move on to a different world, one with less things bent on killing me. It would be hard to find, but I could do it.

The problem was, I had unfinished business here. I had started Kevfalcor on his path to really being a Flicker, not just being able to Flicker. Leaving now filled me with as much dread as abandoning an experiment before I knew the result.

I sat at the window and looked up at the twin moons of Alaran, at their cratered, pitted surfaces.

It was ironic. They looked so distant and ethereal from here, but I’d been to places infinitely farther away. Kev would go to those places, too, places with foreign moons, places he could never imagine if he stayed on Alaran for the rest of his life.

I made a decision. I would leave Alaran, but not without Kev. He was the best friend I’d ever had, other than Strider, but he was basically an adoptive father, so that didn’t count.

I smiled at the memories of long ago the name called to mind. Maybe I’d go back to Archora when I left, I doubted he would still be there, but maybe I could track him down through the gossip of other Flickers.

A knock at the door pulled me back to reality. “Kev, what is i-” I began to say, but the figure in the doorway wasn’t Kevfalcor.

He had middle aged features and dark hair; nothing about him really stood out. It was the elf who’d helped us fight Rakfelcov, Larn or something like that.

“My name is Laryn.” So that was it. “May I come in?” he asked politely.

“Er….sure.”

“A few days ago, when that creature attacked, you saved my life,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Uh, don’t mention it.”

“And I got you this,” he extended his hands revealing a tiny, intricate, brass mechanism that glowed a soft blue. Æther. This was a mechanism that he couldn’t have gotten anywhere on this world, much less in the forest. “It should make the lightning setting on your gauntlet run more smoothly.”

“Where did you get that?” I asked in a hushed tone.

“Archora. I assume from your garb and weapon that you were born there,” Laryn explained.

I probably shouldn’t have been so surprised, but my jaw dropped. “What, you thought that you and Nyvral were the only Flickers on Alaran?”

“No. But I’ve never met an elven Flicker from Alaran before,” I explained. “You’re mostly too….”

“Passive?” he finished, and I nodded. Ascencion usually occurred during an emotional or life changing experience, and these elves didn’t seem to have enough emotions for that. Not everyone could Ascend. It was very rare, and not all potential Flickers actually jumped the breach between worlds. “We aren’t. Not really. We fight, we’re imperfect, just like any other species. The difference is that we’ve managed to fence ourselves off from the real world, so fighting isn’t always necessary. Shalana leads the guards, but the citizens don’t need to fight and most of the time, the guards don’t either. Most of us spend our lives in peace.”

“Not you, though. What happened to you?” This was a sensitive topic for almost all Flickers, and there was a general taboo against asking. Still, I was wondering just how much Laryn would go into about his people. And anyway, I was curious.

As expected, his expression hardened. “I could ask you the same thing.” I said nothing. He turned to leave. “Anyway, I should be going….Thanks again for saving my life….”

“Yeah,” I replied. “Don’t mention it.”

I frowned when he left. He’d given me a lot to think about. Did he present Kev with a gift, too? Did Taanyth know he was a Flicker? If so, why didn’t he tell us? Was he going to tell Kevfalcor? How did he know that Kev was a Flicker?

I flopped face down and spread eagle on my bed. Why didn’t answers come at the same time as the questions? Life would be a whole lot more convenient if they did. I supposed I could just go ask Kev. And Taanyth.

A few minutes later, I stood in the entrance of the Tree of Souls. Taanyth gave me a strange look from inside. “I guess you may as well come in,” he said.

I did.

“What is it you want from me this time? You never come without a reason.”

“You are correct,” I agreed, already regretting my decision to come here. “I was wondering if there were any Flickers in the immediate area that you knew of.”

Taanyth thought for a moment. “No. Word doesn’t travel quickly on this world and I’m not an actual Flicker, so little of it reaches me. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” I lied, and he scrutinized me suspiciously, but I had more important things on my mind.

Why hadn’t Laryn told Taanyth he was a Flicker? Other than the fact that you didn’t just go around telling people you could travel between worlds. That was generally the reason, but the old elf already knew that was possible, so why not tell him? Maybe Laryn didn’t know that Taanyth knew, maybe he didn’t want him to know for his own reasons, but a much more chilling thought struck me. Maybe Laryn didn’t want Taanyth to know he was a Flicker because he knew about Taanyth’s connection to Phyrza the Mindbreaker.

Thørn

40

Quint seemed shaken by Alsari’s words as she stormed through out the door and I briefly glanced at his mind. He was beginning to question his loyalty to Eternia and her academy. So was I. I wordlessly followed Alsari through the door.

She continued silently through the winding hallways and as she went I could feel the fury radiating from her mind. Eventually she stopped moving and rammed her fist into the wall, creating a crater in the otherwise uniform grey stone.

She heaved a sigh. “I think we can both agree that we can’t trust the Eternian Academy now?” she asked, her voice no longer filled with anger. I assumed punching the wall helped.

I nodded sadly. “Still, I don’t think we have much choice in staying. They seem to be able to send us where they want us. Or keep us hear.” At the back of my mind, I wondered when I’d taken off my Flickering cuff.

“That’s another thing. The manipulation of Flickering is a seriously underdeveloped concept because-”

“Because less than half a percent of the multiversal population knows we exist? Yeah, that does tend to slow down it’s progress.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Anyway, how can they do all this? They have technology centuries ahead of anything on any world. Everything about the Eternian Academy seems off.” I nodded in agreement, even though I’d barely ever been off Archora. “So, what are we going to do?”

I was taken aback that she was asking me what to do. She’d had so much more experience actually Flickering; I wondered when she’d started thinking of me as the one who knew what to do.

Honestly, the answer to that question was I have no idea, but I couldn’t say that. “At the moment, we can’t really get out, so I guess the best option is to try to act like nothing’s wrong. At the same time, we’ll keep an ear open for anything that might help us escape.”

Alsari nodded, brushing her ebony hair behind her ear and crossing her arms. It hit me that she had white hair, white eyes, unnaturally white skin, and the Eternian Academy had dressed her in a white uniform. Alsari seemed to be waiting for an actual plan when I’d only really stated what was easiest to do and come up with.

“So, I’ve been wondering,” I began, mostly to distract her from what an unimaginative plan I had decided on. “Why do you call yourself a lithomancer instead of a geomancer?”

I saw hesitation flash across her face, but it cleared. “On my world,” she said, her voice catching slightly. “On my world we never used geomancy. Lithomancy isn’t really the kind of magic that I used. Lithomancy is used by the Firstborn to see into the future, deliver prophecies and such.”

“Firstborn?” I repeated, the word striking a chord in my memory. Just before I’d been mind wiped, I’d heard telepath’s communicating. The message had been Flicker confirmed. Firstborn. Karadan. Unknown power. Question and wipe.

“That’s what I am,” she explained. “One of the Firstborn.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, but I already knew the answer. The pieces of a puzzle had finally fallen into place.

“Well, I’m not human, Thørn,” she said, almost smiling. “I mean, look at me!” She extended her arms so I could see how much paler she was. “Anyway, I began my training as a lithomancer, but I could never get the hang of prophecy, but I eventually, um….discovered this form of lithomancy.”

She was hiding something and I could tell, but she had just revealed a lot about her past, so I didn’t press it. But if she’s a Firstborn, then that must mean she was from Karadan. And then I realized that she might be the Firstborn, since her world had been destroyed. And then I realized the more immediately important piece of information that Alsari had provided.

“Could you tell a prophecy?” I asked. “It might help us get out.”

“That’s the problem,” Alsari said. “Prophecies don’t help. They can’t tell a future that’s changeable. People want prophecies to get advice or end up wanting to change the future, but that can’t happen. What will happen will happen. There’s no changing that.”

“Can you just….try?” I asked, subtly influencing her mind. “It might help.”

Alsari grumbled. “Fine. But I was never very good at this and haven’t tried it in a very long time, so don’t blame me if this doesn’t work. Anyway, prophecies are unreliable at best, so being pessimistic about the results is a good thing.” I agreed and she turned to face the wall and pressed her hands against the wall. It wasn’t like the other times I’d seen lithomancy, the stones didn’t move, they began to softly glow.

I heard a quiet voice and almost didn’t realize it was Alsari.

“The last Flicker

Of the last light,

Darkness comes

To the final fight.

The Maelstrom forms

To face the blight,

But one will fall

To darkest spite.

Eternity ends,

Fading from sight

As Ghostfire falls

Through endless night.”

Kevfalcor

41

We’re leaving!” Nyx informed me as she barged through the door without knocking.

Her red hair was more ungroomed than usual, her clothes looked like they hadn’t been changed in the past few days, and her gauntlet was sparking at the joints.

“You can come in,” I said sarcastically. “Where are we leaving exactly?”

“Alaran!” she proclaimed. “It’s not a good idea to stay.”

“And why not?”

“Aside from the homicidal being trying to kill us? Laryn’s a Flicker,” she pointed out.

“Laryn’s a Flicker?” I was surprised, but then I realized that I would meet lots of Flickers who wouldn’t reveal what they were. “Okay, why is that grounds for abandoning a world?”

“Taanyth doesn’t know that,” she replied, over enunciating the words as though speaking to a young child.

“And?” I was beginning to feel dimwitted.

“Okay, what are the reasons you don’t tell someone you’re a Flicker?” she asked, beginning to pace. I’d never seen her this frazzled before.

“Because it sounds crazy?”

“Yes. But, Taanyth already knew of the existence of Flickers, so that one doesn’t matter.”

“Okay, maybe he didn’t know that Taanyth knew about Flickers,” I replied evenly.

“Possible, but Laryn’s perceptive. He knew you and me were Flickers, and he must’ve put the pieces together after he saw us repeatedly meeting with him.”

“Okay, what’s your theory, then?” I asked, hoping Nyx would get to the point. She almost always did that immediately.

“My theory is,” she said. “Laryn knew that Taanyth was working for Parallax and didn’t want to end up in the Mindbreaker’s sights.”

“Parallax the Eternal?”

“That one, yes.”

“And why is that so bad?”

Nyx looked ready to pull her hair out. “The Eternals are ruthless and dangerous beyond belief. They can’t be trusted. Laryn knows that. Taanyth even admitted he was getting you ready for something Parallax wanted! Now Taanyth knows exactly where we are, ergo Parallax knows where which are, ergo we’re both in extreme danger unless we leave….how about now?”

“Look, I’m not ready to leave this world. It’s my home! I-”

“You’re going to leave Alaran eventually,” Nyx coldly observed. “Now is a better time than anything in the foreseeable future.”

“Yes, I’ll leave eventually, but I’m not going to right now!” I had actually given leaving some thought, but I really wasn’t ready for that big a change. On the other hand, if I did leave, I’d be able to explore the Myriad, see amazing things, but….it would still be there when I was ready. However many times I said that, I still had a powerful urge to Flicker to another world.

“Why? What do you have left on this world? You might have a family or village out there somewhere and you might not, but if you do, they don’t seem to be that interested in you, because if they were, why would you still be in the middle of the woods with a bunch of pointy-eared pacifists?” Nyx stormed out the door, slamming it behind her.

“I….” my voice trailed off as I realized that I hadn’t even thought about my family since I’d entered the forest. What had happened to them? Were they…. okay? Where they worried about me?

Before I could give that more thought, Nyx’s head popped in the door. “So, just to be clear, even if people, say didn’t like you here and….maybe formed a mob to get you to leave, you still wouldn’t?”

“No!” I shouted.

“Suit yourself.” Nyx pushed the door open the rest of the way revealing a group of roughly one hundred unfriendly looking elves, many of them holding torches or kitchen implements.

“That’s not fair,” I protested. “You peeked.” The elves continued to glare at us. “Okay,” I said, addressing the malcontent elves. “Um….clearly you’re not happy….and I’m not sure why….”

“You came here and brought disaster!” one elf called.

“Destruction follows wherever you go!” another roared.

My insides turned to ice as I realized that the mob had come together against me. Not just me, I amended. Nyx, too.

The complaints continued, until the entire mob was filled with shouts of anger. It looked like it was only a matter of time until they became violent.

A flash of bluish light silenced the crowd, Nyx had shot a bolt of lightning through the air. “We didn’t cause your problems, what do you want us to do about it?”

That comment threw chaos into the crowd. I could catch cries of the tree, destroyed, that monster, Taanyth, attacked, and explode.

Nyx turned to me. “My guess is that maybe wasn’t the best thing to say.”

“You might be right there.”

The random calls of dissent resolved itself into a single world. “Leave! Leave! Leave! Leave!” they chanted, and then surged towards my temporary house.

Nyx and I turned around and raced the other direction, farther into the tree. The mob flooded the room, driving us up the spiral staircase. Once we were there, the elves could only attack us one at a time.

“Okay,” said Nyx as we ran. “I can hold them off long enough for you to Flicker. Go to Archora, at a place called the Archives. I’ll meet you there.”

“That’s not a good plan!” I replied. “You still haven’t recovered from Rakfelcov’s first attack!”

“I’ll be fine,” she said, but I noticed her slowing down. “And anyway, do you have a better idea? We’ve reached the end of the stairs.”

She had a point. We’d reach the top; there was a sort of porch with a thin railing and no furnishing.

“We could try reasoning with them….” I said feebly.

“Have you ever tried reasoning with a torch-wielding mob? It never ends well. I see one option. We’re going to leave.”

It was too late to come up with a plan now. Elves flooded onto the porch, completely surrounding us and filling the rest of it. I could see more of them fighting to get into the house from above while a figure I recognized as Taanyth tried to reason with them. It wasn’t working.

“Go!” I could see Nyx getting more frustrated. “I can Flicker faster than you! I’ll catch up. Remember, Archives, Archora. Now go, you imbecile!”

She shoved me back to the railing where she stood protectively in front of me. None of the elves seemed anxious to be the first attacker.

Meanwhile, I finally realized I didn’t really have a choice. I had to Flicker. It might be that or die. None of the elves had attacked, I assumed because they’d seen Nyx training, but I knew it was only a matter of time. I could see fury and hatred in their eyes.

For a moment, I wasn’t sure I could Flicker; I didn’t know how. And then I realized that wasn’t true. I did. Flickering for the first time was a lot like the first time I’d used fire magic, mostly instinctual. I knew I had a lot to learn, but I’d already mastered the basics.

I passed a parting glance at Archora. The leaves, deep green with veins branching out, those were my leaves. The homes, intricately woven into nature, those were my homes. The elves, there faces contorted with anger, as much as they hated me, those were my people.

I gathered my energy, and gradually let my grip on this reality drift away. I could travel anywhere in the Myriad, but I focused on a world called Archora. The Archives. Just as I was about to leave the world, a bolt of pain pulled me back.

I opened my eyes and saw an elf had just stabbed me with a pitchfork. It didn’t sink in far, but it was still painful and bleeding. The elf who’d done it looked horrified at what he’d done and dropped the pitchfork immediately, attempting to rush through the crowd and down the stairs.

I looked at Nyx who was surrounded by the mob. She tossed lightning and ice from her gauntlet, holding the elves at bay. She had a cut over her left eye and I could see a bruise swelling on her cheek. Neither injury was serious and I was sure she’d be fine, but I wasn’t sure the same could be said about my own wound if it wasn’t treated.

We locked eyes and Nyx dodged a pot that had been flung at her head, tossed a tiny vial that exploded next to an elf who wore a colander instead of a helmet, and darted through the ranks of her attackers to get to me.

She looked at my wound and muttered “Grix” under her breath. “We have to go. Fast.” She grabbed my hand and I could see her preparing to Flicker, so I tried, too, but it was impossible to concentrate through the pain.

More elves crashed towards us, the momentum of the mob pushing it in our direction. Eventually, they collided with us, pushing us towards the porch railing.

Oh no, I thought. They’re going to push us off the tree.

We were pushed closer and closer to the railing, our feet skidding on the wood until we crashed into it, our momentum smashing through it. For a second, Nyx and I were plummeting through open air. And then we were in the Shadow Realms.

Alsari

42

My eyes opened and the glow faded from the stones in front of me. For a moment I was confused. And then it hit me. “Prophecy,” I whispered and then I whirled around to face Thørn. “You made me! You forced me to do a prophecy!”

The telepath shook his head. “No. I convinced you. You agreed to it. I wouldn’t make you do anything.”

“You used magic on me, though,” I objected. “I told you never to do that!”

“I was going to convince you eventually. I just saved us a few days of me trying to convince you.”

“You can’t know that I would have done it.”

“Yes I can. I know you. It was going to happen eventually.”

I turned away. “Don’t tell me what the prophecy is,” I commanded.

“You don’t remember?”

“I never do.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, Thørn, it’s just how the magic works!” I said, stress leaking into my voice. “I don’t remember my prophecies, and I think that’s for the best.”

“And why is that? You could get useful information.”

“Did you?” I asked.

“Did I what?” Thørn replied.

“Did you get any useful information? Did you find out anything that could help anyone in any way? Was there anything that wasn’t symbolic or a riddle? Were their any answers?”

Thørn silently shook his head.

“I told you,” I said. “Prophecies don’t help. There’s nothing about that that we can understand until it actually happens and trying to change it never ends well.”

Thørn grudgingly nodded. “Nothing about that will help us get out, but if we can figure out what it means-”

“No!” I interrupted. “If you understand the future then you’ll try to change it and the future can’t be changed. And if you want my advice, you’ll find someone to erase the memory from your head.”

He showed me a lopsided grin. “You’re telling me that you believe in fate?” he said. “People who want to find order in a chaotic world call the future fate and destiny only exists in a place where free will doesn’t.”

“It’s not fate,” I growled. “It’s what will happen because of the choices people make. It isn’t meant to happen, it’s just what will happen. I don’t believe in fate, I believe in magic and magic is predicting what will happen. The future isn’t set, it’s predictable.”“You’re walking a very fine line, there.”

“But I’m right. People still have free will, but it’s possible to predict their choices and the reaction to that. It’s not fate, it’s cause and effect. But you have to believe me, knowing the future is dangerous. Just….don’t do anything stupid.”

Thørn gave me a look. “You know me.”

“Which is why I know you won’t listen.”

As he walked away, I could almost see the gears in his brain turning.

When he was gone, I heaved a heavy sigh and when I looked down, I realized that my hands were shaking. It had been so long ago the last time I predicted the future, I had been ….eight? Nine? I wasn’t really sure. It was far more draining than I remembered. I silently vowed never to predict a prophecy again, they were too dangerous, too unpredictable.

I pressed my hands against the wall, stretching my senses out so that I felt what the stone felt. I every footfall in the academy, every recruit, every instructor, even Eternia. I knew where everyone was. There was an unusual concentration of people moving frantically in….the rooms I’d been brought to when I was captured.

They’re expecting people, I realized. They’ve found more recruits, maybe even Flickers. Maybe people I know.

I raced down the convoluted hallways, making my way towards the Hub. I could get to anywhere from there, but before I could, I ran, almost literally into Eternia.

“Going, somewhere?” she asked, smiling slowly.

“Yes,” I responded, trying to rush past her, but she caught my arm in an iron grip.

“Don’t worry,” she said, her ghastly smile spreading. “You’ll meet the new recruits soon enough.” And then she released me, continuing on her way.

How had she gotten here so fast? I’d been monitoring her movement only moments ago, and she’d traveled far too large a distance. And what had she been doing? She almost never strayed from the throne room.

More importantly, why had she let me go? Eternia knew everything that happened in her academy and I had more than just a suspicion she could read minds. She had to know what I had been doing. Why had she been so uncharacteristically….happy? I couldn’t tell for sure what that feeling was.

Anyway, something had gotten her in a….positive mood, and whatever it was, it worried me.

Nyx

43

Book leather. Cracked parchment. Ancient dust. All these smells and more filled my nose; I didn’t need to open my eyes to know we were in the right place. I hadn’t breathed in the stale, musty air of the Archives for too long and it felt good to be back.

I opened my eyes and stood up. Before us stretched lung rows of book shelves, each at least twenty feet tall and stretching on for what seemed like forever. It was completely deserted.

“Tolaren!” I called out, my voice echoing through the one gargantuan room. No response.

I heard a groan from the floor and looked down to see Kevfalcor, blood beginning to pool around his left side. “Who are you calling to?” he moaned. “Who’s Tolaren?”

“The person who raised me,” I said offhandedly. “But apparently he’s not here. Now, we really need to bandage that wound.”

Kev laughed weekly. “I just traveled between worlds. Wouldn’t it be ironic if I got killed by a farming tool?”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re being melodramatic. You’ll be fine. It’s just some, um, blood.” Honestly, though, he was beginning to look pale from blood loss. I’d have to stop the bleeding quick.

I rushed over to the drapes and ripped them down from the window. I came back and crouched as I began to wrap the maroon cloth around Kev’s midriff to stop the bleeding. Once it was tight enough that his eyes began to bug out, I was satisfied that it was working.

“You know,” he said in a strained voice. “You’re bleeding, too.”

“Just a cut,” I said as I wiped my hand across my forehead and it came back sticky and red.

“You smudged it,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m fine. And so are you.”

“No I’m not,” he said, a smile flickering on his pale lips. “I’m dying.”

I almost punched him. “That’s not funny. And no you’re not,” I stood up. “I’m starved. I’ll look for some food. Do you want anything?”

“A chair,” he said, so I left him on the floor with a threat on his life if he dared to move.

I started walking between the shelves to the back of the room, but it was so large and empty that it felt foolish not to run. I bolted down the halls and wondered how long it had been since I had run without being chased.

Eventually, I reached the end of the shelves. There was a small wooden door with a burnished brass handle. It wasn’t special or fancy in any way, but it triggered so many memories. I traced the grain of the wood, the place where I’d tried to carve my name when I was four, but before I could open the door, I heard an accented voice behind me.

“So,” it said. “You came back.”

I smiled sadly at the familiar tone. “I always said I would.”

I turned around and saw a tall figure, maybe in his late twenties, with messy brown hair and a brown trench coat. Even here, I could hear the sound of his many watches ticking endlessly.

His face broke into a familiar grin. “Come here,” he said, holding out his arms.

I rushed to him and embraced him, wrapping both arms around his waist where I finally felt safe. For a moment, I was a tiny girl again, lost and alone, but I’d finally found a friend.

“I missed you, Strider,” I said, wiping my cheeks.

“I missed you, too,” he said, mussing my hair affectionately. “Have you destroyed anything important lately?”

I laughed. “Yeah. I just can’t stay out of trouble, can I?”

“No. I tried to teach you that when you were younger, but I still haven’t learned that trick yet, so it didn’t work out,” Tolaren said with a chuckle.

“It’s good to see you,” I murmured.

“I know. And we’ll catch up later. But right now, Kevfalcor Ghostfire needs your help.”

“What? But I just got here,” I said, taking a few steps back the way I’d come. “What did you call him? And why does he need help?” But when I turned around, Tolaren Strider had vanished without a trace.

“Of course he did,” I said to myself, and then I realized the more pressing concern.

Kevfalcor was injured, weak, magically drained, and weaponless. If something attacked him, there was nothing he could do.

I dashed back down the endless rows of books, cursing my inability to run faster. As I went, I reflected that I’d had a very emotionally draining day.

When I was about a hundred feet from Kev, I froze. He was completely surrounded by about twenty soldiers, all of them dressed in the standard armor and weapons. Pike staffs, dangerous to fight against, but easily dealt with if I got close. Metal helmet and breastplate, vulnerable to lightning.

Another figure stood apart from the rest; she wore no armor, but she was dressed in a very pale uniform which contrasted with her raven hair. She was probably a mage, likely the leader, and definitely a problem.

But it wasn’t their weapons that worried me, each soldier had a white hourglass emblem sewn on to their right shoulders. Technically, they were King’s men. Really, though, the Archoran government was controlled by a far more dangerous force. These were soldiers of the Eternian Academy.

Thørn

44

Alsari raced towards me, clearly worried about something. “Thørn, something big is happening!” she called before I even turned around.

“What do you mean? What happened?” I asked.

“So, I felt into the stone and there are a lot of people moving around in the West Wing, specifically in the rooms-”

“Where we were brought when we were captured,” I finished.

“Exactly. They’re bringing in a new recruit, probably a Flicker. The first place I went was there, but on my way, Eternia stopped me.”

“Eternia? She was really, you know, there?”

“It wasn’t an illusion, if that’s what you mean. She seemed, I don’t know, happy, almost. And then she said, um.” She paused, trying to remember the exact words. “‘Don’t worry, you’ll meet the new recruits soon enough.’”

“Recruits, with an s? As in, more than one?” I asked.

“Yeah. They must have a way of knowing that there are more people coming,” Alsari pointed out. “For a spy to discover a mage or Flicker, get back to the Academy and then for the Academy to dispatch a team to get them to where the Flicker is, that would take too much time and would just turn the whole thing into a witch hunt.”

“I know. They control the Clockwork,” I said. Alsari stared at me blankly. “The Clockwork aren’t on any of the worlds you’ve visited?”

“Let’s pretend for a second that I don’t know what they are….”

“The Clockwork are metal people, but they aren’t really people. They don’t have minds. They’re built, not born, and they’re powered by æther.”

“Æther?” Alsari repeated.

“You haven’t seen æther-”

“No, I know what æther is, but I’ve never heard of it being used as fuel.”

“That’s just how æther works on Archora, I guess,” I said. “Anyway, when I was captured, a Clockwork probed me and you said the same thing happened to you. I think that all of the Clockwork have a hidden protocol that gets activated in the presence of magic. I assume it registers whether the person is a Flicker, whether they have magic, where they are, and sends the information to the Academy. The Academy is a huge organization, Eternia probably has minions everywhere. The Clockwork probably also sends the information to the nearest base of operations, who then capture the mage and deliver them to the Eternian Academy.”

“That sounds right,” Alsari agreed. “But how do the Clockwork communicate? Through the æther or something?”

I frowned. “I’m actually not sure. But we need to get more information on these new recruits.”

“It doesn’t sound like it will be that hard. Eternia made it sound like they were going to be working near us.”

I nodded in agreement before parting ways with Alsari and going down the winding corridors, not stopping until I reached my room. I had other things than Eternia’s recruits on my mind.

When I got there, I locked the door and called to mind Alsari’s prophecy. I’d recently discovered a mental trick where if I made an illusion of the thing I was thinking about, it was easier to visualize and remember.

As soon as I thought them, words were etched into the air in azure, my favorite color. The last flicker of the last light. That could mean a lot of things. It could be purely symbolic, in which case I didn’t know what it meant; it was too vague. The word symbolic? appeared

On the other hand, the word flicker was too much to just call symbolic. It must mean something maybe the Last Light was another Flicker organization and the prophecy was referring to the final operative.

I felt a bit guilty about lying to Alsari, but I knew it was too much for me to resist, unraveling a prophecy. I would end up working on it subconsciously, so I might as well devote some real attention to it. Anyway, she was still keeping so many secrets from me, it wasn’t exactly unfair.

The Last Light - Organization?

Or maybe the prophecy was talking about the distant future when a world ended. Or a not so distant future. World ending?

I moved to the next line. Darkness comes to the final fight. Okay, part of that was much more obvious. Important battle. Darkness, though….That could represent doom or maybe a person. Darkness connected to that line of the prophecy. Evil entity? And connected to that. Rakfelcov??? That was really far fetched, though. It relied mostly on him being a Flicker. Or maybe the battle was on Uthara. Uthara? connected to the Rakfelcov branch.

Doom? connected to the base of the Darkness branch.

There was a knock on the door and I quickly unsubstantiated the illusion. “Come in,” I said, willing my surprise not to show in my voice.

I expected it to be Alsari despite the fact that she never knocked. Instead, Quint walked slowly through the door.

“So I assume you already know we have new recruits,” he said with forced cheeriness. I could tell that he felt guilty about sending us on the mission.

I nodded. “Alsari figured it out. Flickers, right?”

Quint nodded. “Two of them. You and the Stoneshaper will be working with them.”

“How do you know where mages are all the time?” I asked.

“The Clockwork,” Quint said, confirming my suspicions. “Anyway, the recruits you’ll be working with, their names are Nyx and Kevfalcor.”

Kevfalcor

45

Soldiers closed in around me, cutting off most of my view of the ceiling. I was still lying on my back on the floor.

Without warning, a soldier was struck by lightning, the electricity dancing on his armor and the force throwing him across the room.

“That was a warning shot,” Nyx said, but wasn’t just one of her usual quips. There was something steely and lined with cold fury lacing her tone. “Anyone makes a move towards the boy and they end up more than unconscious. The Eternian Academy has no business with me or Kevfalcor and I think both of us will be better off if you leave. Now, preferably.”

Some of the soldiers began to back down, but not to retreat. They formed a phalanx a little farther back, but the woman dressed in the white-blue uniform didn’t.

“Really, Nyx, this would just go a whole lot easier if you didn’t fight us. No harm will come to either of you. We only want to help,” she said in a calming voice.

Nyx responded with a hollow laugh. “That would be a whole lot more convincing if you brought negotiators instead of soldiers, which is unfortunate, because I hate bureaucrats.”

The woman sighed. “There is just no winning with you, is there?” she said, the discouragement clear in her voice. “We only want to help!”

“You could just surrender,” Nyx offered. “You say ‘there’s no winning with you’ like we’ve met.”

“I’ve read your file. It’s the most extensive of any non-member of the Academy.”

“Well, you’ve certainly had enough time to work on it, with all the time you’ve been chasing me.”

“Are you ever going to give in?”

“You really don’t know her if you think chasing Nyx will make her do something,” I said from the floor.

The woman sighed sadly again. “So we have to do this the hard way?” she said.

Nyx adjusted her stance. “Surrender is still an option,” she said. The woman made a hand gesture and the soldiers fanned out, splitting into two groups. “I’ll take that as a no.”

More lightning flew from Nyx’s gauntlet, striking three people at once, but ice began to coat the woman in blue’s hands.

Nyx was forced to retreat as the soldiers closed in, approaching fast despite their losses. The woman’s hand shot forward and ice flew from her fingertips, forcing the Alchemist to dodge it.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” she called as she shot more ice.

“You know, I have a hard time believing you when you’re trying to turn me into an ice sculpture, cryomancer.”

“You made it obvious that was the only solution.”

“I did, didn’t I?” she replied, dodging a pikestaff and incapacitating a pair of soldiers.

The cryomancer strode up to the center of the battlefield. I could see the temperature around her dropping as frost began to coat her gauntlet and she began to shiver.

Nyx’s lightning changed to fire, which worked better to keep her from freezing, but it wasn’t as effective as the lightning against the armored soldiers.

“You’ve lost, Nyx,” the cryomancer coldly remarked. “Just come quietly.”

The Alchemist raised her head, her hair mostly white with frost, fury contorting her face. She launched a ball of fire at the cryomancer, but it dissipated before it could make contact.

I sat up and concentrated, channeling my remaining energy into a wave of fire that shot towards the soldiers. They rushed around chaotically, desperate to avoid it, some knocking into each other.

The cryomancer got the full force of the flame; her icy power protected her, but she was still knocked to the ground. Nyx was completely thawed.

“Just go!” I called. The Alchemist gave me a sad look and then ran the other direction. I gave a satisfied sigh. I hadn’t expected her to listen.

The cryomancer walked over to me and, to my surprise, her expression wasn’t angry so much as frustrated. From her conversation with Nyx, I assumed they’d been attempting to capture her for a long time, so I was glad she’d escaped. On the other hand, I hadn’t.

“Get a stretcher,” the cryomancer called to the soldiers; her authority was obvious. “Get two medical Clockwork and prepare the carriage driver. We’re going back to the Academy. Except you three. Track the Alchemist. Don’t reveal yourself or she might Flicker and do not engage. Get the standard issue surveillance equipment from the carriage.”

My vision began to get hazy from all the energy I’d spent. The cryomancer gave me a look that was equal parts frustration and concern. “Are you alright?”

My vision tunneled and I blacked out.

I woke up to the sound of wooden carriage wheels on uneven cobblestones, but strangely, I didn’t feel the jostle that should come with it. I was being carried on a stretcher at about waist height by two metal people.

They were human height, looked to be brass, and had an extremely intricate design. I could see their inner workings with lots of whirring gears and I could see an azure glow emanating from the heart of them. They had pointed hands and no facial features, but they were still humanoid.

I looked around and realized that I was in a holding cart and that the metal people must be keeping the stretcher stable somehow.

One of the metal people turned it blank plate of a face towards me and, before I could flinch away, pressed it’s palm against my forehead. I lost consciousness immediately.

I woke up with a glaring light in my eyes. I squinted, but it still sent tiny pricks of pain ricocheting through my head. I was on what must have been an operating table. It was cold, very uncomfortable metal and I was surrounded by people dressed in powder blue robes. I was dressed in a loose gown of the same color that had been adjusted to reveal my wound. I looked at the four puncture wounds oozing blood, but the medics’ hands began to glow with a soft, warm light and my wound closed.

All of the physicians immediately left the room and the cryomancer approached me. “You should be able to stand.” I tried and succeeded in doing so. “Come with me,” she commanded. Seeing no other option, I did.

We walked down winding hallways made with granite blocks. I said, “You know I have a lot of-”

“Questions, of course you do,” the cryomancer said. “In their.” She directed me into a small room with a brass bath tub in the center. It was filled with steaming water. “Get in before the water gets cold.”

I untied my robe and slipped into the tub. It felt good to be in heated water. The last time I’d had a bath was when I first came to the elves, but that had been cold water. Having an actual bath had been a rare commodity in my village. Sometimes someone would sneak out to a nearby river and other times they’d hire someone to bring water into the village, but the process of getting enough water and then heating it once you got it was very expensive. I’d heard tell that nobility on Alaran were rich enough to have a bath once a week. I smiled ruefully. It felt strange to refer the Alaran as someplace I wasn’t.

I was on a different world now with different people. Now that I’d been separated from Nyx and captured, I wasn’t sure I could ever go back.

“My name is Gale,” the cryomancer said. “And I’m part of the Eternian Academy. We’re an academy for mages. And Flickers. Our goal is to help the Myriad. We aren’t your enemies.”

“Nyx seemed to disagree,” I replied. “And I’m kind of inclined to agree with someone who’s saved my life over someone who’s kidnapped me.” Nyx had also tried to kill me, but that wasn’t the point.

“You were going to agree with Nyx and Nyx wasn’t going to come without a fight,” Gale replied.

“Maybe that’s a sign that you should just leave her alone.”

“Nyx fights anything she doesn’t understand,” Gale said imploringly. “And as long as she isn’t with us, she’s a threat.”

I stepped out of the bath and pulled on a scarlet uniform with a white hourglass emblem sewn into the shoulder. I walked out and showed Gale my unimpressed look.

The cryomancer sighed. “Look, just stay with the Academy for a week or two. If you don’t like it, we’ll send you back to Alaran.”

I didn’t see a better offer coming. “Fine,” I begrudgingly agreed.

Gale gave a small, slightly artificial looking smile. “Welcome to the Eternian Academy.”

Alsari

46

Nyx and Kevfalcor,” Thørn told me as he burst in the door.

“What?” I asked, but I already suspected the answer.

“Those are their names. The names of the new Flickers who are joining the Eternian Academy. We’re going to be working with them.”

“Nyx as in….Nyx the Alchemist?” I asked.

“Not sure. Do you know her?” Thørn asked.

“Only by reputation,” I replied. “But if it is the Alchemist, she’s one of the oldest and most powerful Flickers left in the Myriad.”

“What do you mean ‘left?’”

“All things die, Thørn. All things come to an end. Everyone knows that. But some people have found a way to prolong their lives, some come by it naturally. It doesn’t mean they’re really immortal, they just don’t age. The longer life you have, the more powerful you can become. Nyx studies alchemy. She’s one of the few who discovered it.”

“What?” Thørn asked.

“The purpose of alchemy is to create a Philosopher’s Stone,” I explained. “It allows the owner to-”

“-Turn any metal into gold and create the Elixir of Life. I read,” Thørn finished. “So you’re saying Nyx created a Philosopher’s Stone?”

“No,” I replied. “And keep in mind, this is only rumor, but I heard that she synthesized the Elixir of Life without a Philosopher’s Stone. She can’t turn metals into gold, but she is immortal. And very dangerous. If they’ve managed to capture her then the Academy is more powerful than I thought.”

“So, how old is Nyx, then?” Thørn asked.

“She’ll look fourteen or so,” Alsari said. “In reality, she’s in her mid eighties.”

Thørn nodded, not looking particularly surprised by that fact. “And do you know anything about the other one? Kevfalcor?”

“Kev-fal-cor,” I muttered, testing the syllables to see if they brought back any memories. They didn’t. “I’ve never heard of him. He might have Ascended recently or he might just keep a low profile. I don’t know.”

Thørn sighed. “Quint said they should be here in about half an hour.”

I groaned. “I guess that means that there’s nothing to do except wait. I hate waiting.”

Forty-seven minutes later, there was a knock at the door. Thørn didn’t have the patience to walk over to the door, so he telekinetically opened the door revealing a woman dressed in the uniform of a cryomancer and a boy about Thørn’s age with dark hair in a pyromancer uniform.

“Kevfalcor,” the cryomancer said. “This is Thørn Feltrix and Alsari the Stoneshaper. Thørn, Alsari, this is Kevfalcor. He’s from Alaran.” With that, she left.

For a moment, no one said anything. Finally Thørn voiced what I had been thinking. “Nyx the Alchemist isn’t here?”

Kevfalcor shook his head. “She escaped. I was wounded; I couldn’t go with her. So you were expecting us?”

“Yeah,” Thørn replied. “Someone told us you and Nyx would be coming.”

“So you and Nyx are friends?” I asked. He nodded. “How did you meet?”

He smiled. “She tried to kill me. Well, she was forced to. By a, uh, I’m not actually sure what he is. Anyway, she was forced to try to kill me by Rakfelcov.”

My heart skipped a beat. I looked over to Thørn who had a friendly smile frozen onto his face, making it look more like a grimace. Kevfalcor looked worried. “Oh, that’s not good. That reaction is never a good sign.”

“We’ve crossed paths with him before.”

“And you’re still alive. Impressive.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

There was a pause. “So, what can you tell me about the Eternian Academy?” Kevfalcor asked.

I immediately blurted, “Don’t trust them for a second.”

Simultaneously, Thørn offered, “They’re definitely shady, but I think they should be give them a chance.”

I glared. “You’re an optimist,” I accused.

“No. I’m a realist. You’re a jaded pessimist,” Thørn shot back.

“What if Kevfalcor get’s the wrong idea about them?”

“I think Kevfalcor can decide for himself what the right idea is.”

“I can,” he interjected.

This prompted yet another awkward pause. I was getting tired of those and was running out of things to talk about.

“You don’t look like an Utharan, Kevfalcor,” I observed.

Kevfalcor looked confused. “A what?”

“You don’t look like you’re from Uthara.”

“Call me Kev and I’m not from Uthara. I’m from Alaran. This is the only other world I’ve been to.”

Thørn’s face morphed into a grim mask. “So if you fought Rakfelcov on Alaran and we fought him on Uthara, he’s not just some warlock. We’re dealing with a Flicker.”

Nyx

47

From this vantage point, perched on the roof of a tower, I could see most of the city. The uneven roofs were mashed together like a giant quilt; most of them were tiled or shingled, but a few of the ones with wealthier occupants had decks on them. The roof was a good place to be in order to get some perspective and, in my case, to plan my next move.

I hadn’t been to Archora in almost thirty years. I’d need to gather information from the locals. Preferably conspiracy theorists. They were usually right. Or criminals, who had nothing to lose by telling the truth.

I also had a new problem on my hands. The Eternian Academy knew I was on this world and they weren’t going to give up on catching me easily.

“What are you doing here?” a voice said behind me.

I smiled. “Good. You came.”

I turned around and inspected a group of seven people standing behind me. Most of them were probably in their twenties or late teens, a few were older. They were covered in soot smudges and dressed in dirty and torn clothes, a few wore pieces of makeshift armor that looked like pieces of scrap metal that had been welded together. All of them carried long poles, probably for vaulting over the gaps between roofs. One of them in his mid twenties was holding his pole at me in a threatening way.

“What are you talking about?” he said. “You didn’t ask us to come here.”

“Did I not?” I replied. “I caused a commotion with the Eternian Academy, and yes, I know who they are, which attracted your attention. Then I allowed myself to be spotted fleeing the scene on the rooftops, which is more than enough to cause suspicion and, of course spread the story like, um, you don’t really have wildfires here, do you? Anyway, I then set up a makeshift lab on this roof so you’d think I’d settled and then performed a few pointless and explosive alchemical experiments. If that’s not asking you to come here, I don’t know what is.”

“Okay, you asked us to come here,” the man conceded. “Why? And who are you?”

“I need to find someone and, more importantly, a group of someones,” I explained. “And my name is Nyx the Alchemist.”

The man laughed and then the rest of the group laughed, but I could tell it was forced. I frowned. “Why is that funny?”

“Everyone knows,” a younger woman explained. “Nyx the Alchemist disappeared decades ago.”

My frown deepened. This was going to be more tedious than I thought. “I’m pleased that you’ve heard of me, and, yes, I disappeared twenty-seven years ago, but I’m back now and I am me.”

“Then why are you still a wee girl?” a grey-bearded man with an accent asked. “Answer me that, ha?”

“Maybe you need more of a demonstration,” I growled. The people looked at me blankly. I extended my gauntlet and shot a ball of fire at the person who had spoken last, burning his beard and singing his eyebrows off. “Does anyone else have a question? No? Good.

“You’re clearly odd people. You’ve adapted to living on the roof. Who does that? Answer: rogues, criminals, the poor, rebels, even. Which are you? I’d guess all of them. If I’m right, which I always am, you know about the Academy, how it controls the government, how the king is merely a puppet. I haven’t been around here for a while. So tell me, what has the Eternian Academy been up to recently?” Most of the rogues stood with their mouths hanging open. I rolled my eyes. “You know, this gauntlet does a whole lot more than get rid of eyebrows if I want it to. Just how attached to your fingers are you?”

“Fingers?”

“How can you all have discovered the Eternian Academy and yet still be so insufferably thick?” I growled.

Finally, someone spoke. “There have been three missions in the past few weeks, including the one yesterday. Other than that, the Academy’s been dark for months.”

I turned my back on the rogues so I could look at the city. “Tell me about the other two.”

“They were the standard missions, nothing that surprising about either of them. Over there-” he pointed. “They got….not sure, but I think he was a telepath. The entire school was mind dead, but he couldn’t have been powerful enough to do all that on his own, but he was the only one to have survived. He was about your age-” I assumed he meant fourteen and not eighty-seven. “With brown hair. Small. He didn’t know he was a mage.

“The other one, she was a bit older, but she had white hair and pale skin. I assume she was albino, but I couldn’t see her eyes. Anyway, she didn’t look like any other species I know of. This mission happened just a few hours after the other one. Anyway, she knew what she was doing. She was a geomancer. Knew what she was doing, too. A street thug attacked her and she….made a stone spear out of the ground. Pinned him to the wall. But, when she found a Clockwork, it knocked her out without a struggle. She didn’t seem to know what it could do.”

“No. Not a geomancer,” I muttered to myself. “And definitely not a species he’d heard of. A Firstborn from Karadan.”

“If you go after either of them, they’re dangerous,” the man warned.

“So am I. I need to get into the Eternian Academy and the only way I can think of is getting captured. That’s not something I want to do, so you’re going to help me.”

“How are we supposed to do that?”

“Do you know where the Academy is?” I asked. The only response I got was blank looks. “Grix. Do you have someone who keeps records of the attacks?”

“Of course, but he’s back at the base. You’re not coming back to the base. What do you want to talk to him for?”

“Firstly, I am coming back to the base and trying to stop me is a bad idea because I can single handedly conquer your entire organization. The right hand, to be exact. And secondly, I need to talk to him because I can find out where the Academy is.”

Thørn

48

Grix!” Kev loudly cursed. “One of the reasons I came to this world is to escape Rakfelcov.”

Alsari looked grim. “Even though he is a Flicker, he won’t be able to find you here,” I pointed out.

“I wouldn’t count on it,” Alsari and Kev both said.

“Great. Now there’s two of you,” I muttered.

“He knew that we were with the Eternian Academy-” Alsari began.

“-And exactly where I was and who I am before we’d met,” Kev finished.

“So what you’re saying is that he’s keeping tabs on us, somehow? Or sensing us with magic?” I asked. “Sounds plausible. But that’s not the point. What is the point is that the Eternian Academy sent us to capture Rakfelcov. Not kill, not mind wipe. They weren’t trying to neutralize a threat, they were trying to enlist an ally.”

“But….that doesn’t make sense,” Alsari argued. “Quint said that Eternia expected us to fail. So what was the point? All they really did was make an enemy.”

I frowned. She was right. That made no sense. It was possible that the Academy just made a mistake, but it wasn’t likely. It was also never a good idea to count on your enemies making a mistake and I abruptly realized that that’s what the Eternian Academy was. An enemy. I still liked Quint and respected Eternia, but….I knew I couldn’t trust them and that they were using me. Alsari was and always had been right. The Eternian Academy was untrustworthy. But what was their plan.

“Kevfalcor,” I said finally. “Describe to me in as much detail as you can remember….never mind.” No description could possibly match living the experience, so what was the point in asking for it? I probed Kevfalcor’s conscience, but when I did, I met a wall. I withdrew to see the pyromancer glaring at me.

“What was that?” he asked. “You just….decided to jump into my mind? I met you about five minutes ago!”

“Have you met any telepaths before?” I asked, completely ignoring his complaints.

“What does that have to do with it?”

“I thought not. Can I have a moment?”

Kev’s annoyance was growing and I could tell. Still, he left the room.

Alsari turned to me. “What happened?” she asked.

“It’s Kev, he blocked me, but it….I don’t understand. He’s never met a telepath before and yet…. I mean, even you can’t keep me out. The only person who I know of that can keep me out is Eternia. And he just….”

“What about Rakfelcov?”

“Well, he didn’t really keep me out. I mean, I got in, but he overwhelmed me. I still can’t remember what happened.” That wasn’t true, but I didn’t want to tell anyone, not until I learned what the memories meant. “Anyway, that’s not the point.”

“The point is that you need to accept that there are some people you can’t beat.”

“What?”

“Magic can be mostly instinctual especially for people from Alaran. If he’s strong enough to block you, there’s a good chance he already can.”

“And you’re….okay with that? That he blocks better than you?” Alsari had always struck me as someone who wanted to be the best at everything. Nevertheless, she shrugged.

“I still want to be better,” she said, making me wonder if she could read minds, too. “But I learned a long time ago that no one is unstoppable and no matter how powerful you are, someone will always beat you.”

I sighed, but before I could respond, Kevfalcor called from the hall, “Can I come in now?”

“Sure,” Alsari replied.

Kev entered, still looking disgruntled about the mind probe. “What was it you were talking about without me?” he drawled.

“Your mental blocking is very powerful and I wasn’t sure how it could be without you having met a telepath before,” I explained.

“And how did you decide I did it?” he asked.

“We’re still not sure,” I admitted, exchanging a look with Alsari.

“Why were you trying to probe my mind anyway?” Kev queried.

“To see what you know about the Eternian Academy, although they probably wouldn’t have let you see anything that they didn’t want us to see. Also, to see how your memories of Rakfelcov line up with ours.”

“That sounds reasonable,” he replied. “But if you don’t ask me first, I might end up incinerating you.”

“Umm….Out of curiousity, why incinerating specifically?” I asked. An orb of flame appeared in his hand. “Oh. So, if you’re from Alaran, do you have other magic besides pyromancy?”

“I’m actually not sure. I only learned magic about a month ago,” he explained.

“So did I,” I replied. “Anyway it would be really helpful if I could look at your memories of Rakfelcov.”

Kev grinned slightly. “How long have you been waiting to say that?”

“Ever since you left the room.”

“Fine. But don’t look at anything else.”

When I began to probe his mind, I half expected to meet another block, but I didn’t. When I entered Kev’s mind, I found that he was far more chaotic than I’d originally assumed, and very powerful, but at his core, he was loyal and adventurous. And then I began sifting through memories.

Kevfalcor

49

As Feltrix closed his eyes, a whisp of blue connected his temple to mine. I felt his mind touch mine and forced myself not to resist, which was harder than it sounds. Every one of my instincts told me that I should resist and light him on fire. Not necessarily in that order. Still, I knew that I would regret that and that it really made sense for him to probe me.

Once he was in my mind, he was easier to ignore. Except for the fact that he was standing in front of me. About a minute later, he opened his eyes.

“You’ve been through a lot,” he observed.

“I suppose so,” I agreed. “Did you get anything useful?”

“Nothing jumps out at me,” Thørn admitted. “But there has to be something. I’ll….go work on that.” He strode from the room.

“I’ll look at my new room,” I decided, mostly to break the awkward silence, and then I left the room.

I leaned against the hard, uniform granite of the wall for support. My chest felt tight and I heaved a sigh. This was the first time I’d really had time to stop and breathe since arriving on Archora. What was happening to me? My life had been taking astonishing twists and unlikely turns; I wasn’t sure I could keep up. Yet somehow I was. I squeezed my eyes shut and promised myself that I was going to adapt to anything that came.

I opened my eyes and saw my surroundings in a new way. The Eternian Academy were enemies, I was a prisoner, I needed to escape. My advantages? They didn’t know I was their enemy, and I would probably find allies in Alsari and Thørn, although I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to entirely trust someone who could and would read my mind and Alsari seemed like she was a loner. Disadvantages? I was pretty sure that they knew that I didn’t trust them. And….really everything else.

I strode down the hall, deciding that it might be a good idea to go to my room after all. When I got there, the door looked mostly like any other. It swung open noiselessly on well-oiled hinges. That was unfortunate. It would be nice to know whenever anyone entered my room. On the other hand, it looked completely bleak, everything in a monochrome. There were no decorations. There were two grey chairs and a bed. There was an oval rug on the floor.

I sighed. “Home sweet home,” I muttered to myself. This didn’t look like a place that people lived. It looked like a place that was made for other people to temporarily live in, but no one actually did. The entire room was completely unremarkable.

On the pillow was a note with the seal of the Eternian Academy. I tore it open and pulled out a short not written with strange, almost luminescent blue ink.

Kevfalcor Ghostfire! Brilliant! Good to see you. Except I don’t. Anyway, if you ever want to escape the Eternian Academy, I’d start by talking to Quint. And Thørn Feltrix. And Alsari the Stoneshaper. But you’ve already talked to Alsari and Thørn, so you might as well just go talk to Quint.

-An Old Friend

P.S. Nyx sends her regards. She didn’t actually say that, but I’m sure she meant it. Well, not sure exactly, but you know what I mean.

I read the letter again. And again. That definitely wasn’t from the Eternian Academy. Who was it really from? I had no idea.

The contents, however….that could be useful. Unless the whole thing was a trap. I decided that I couldn’t get a whole lot more trapped and that if someone did want to trap me, this would be possibly the most clumsy way of doing so that I could think of.

I consulted Thørn and Alsari on the matter of trusting Quint. I didn’t want to show them the letter, but I decided that of all the people I could talk to right now, I trusted them the most. Sadly, they seemed to disagree on everything.

“You can’t trust him or any other necromancer,” Alsari proclaimed. “They’re dangerous and power hungry. Quint was the one who told us to fight Rakfelcov!”

“He was following Eternia’s orders,” Thørn argued. “And what has he done to make you think he’s power hungry? From someone who can read minds, if you can trust anyone in the Academy, it’s Quint.”

“Thank you for your conflicting opinions,” I said sarcastically. “My decision is so much easier now.”

Feltrix and the Stoneshaper had lost interest in me entirely and continued to bicker heatedly as I left the room.

I followed the path that led to Quint’s office, through the twisting, convoluted hallways. Soon I was completely disoriented. And lost. The halls were empty with no one to ask for directions.

“Hello?” I called, feeling completely stupid. “Hello? Is anyone their?”

“Are you lost?” Gale asked from behind me.

“Yeah, I was looking for Quint’s office,” I said. “Could you just point me in the right direction….?”

“If I pointed you in the right direction, you’d never get there,” she grumbled. “The whole hallway system is run by geomancers, but the only person they change it to accommodate is Eternia, so the halls end up like this. I’ll walk you to Quint’s office.”

“Great.”

We walked along in silence for a few minutes. “So,” I said, entirely to break the silence. There was no response for a moment.

“So?” Gale finally replied.

“So….when did you join the Academy?”

She sighed, calling back the memories. “I was four. Both of my parents were dead. My father was a merchant, but he was killed by nomads while traveling. One day a few years later, my mother was out running errands and she was killed by a street thug. No one knew her well, no one noticed she was gone. I would have stayed in the house until I starved to death, but the Academy found me, gave me a home, a name, a family. All of my life has been created by Eternia; I owe her everything.” She turned to face me. “I know that Feltrix and the Stoneshaper will try to sway you, turn you against the Academy. I know that much of what the Academy does can be harsh, but I plead that you never to think for a second that we are the ones you’re fighting.”

Alsari

50

Kevfalcor was an anomaly. He was a Flicker, very powerful, but also very young. He was still going to have to learn most of his power, but he was already far more powerful than an average Flicker of his age. So was Thørn, for that matter. But Kevfalcor, he would definitely be noticed in the Myriad, especially if he was battling beings like Rakfelcov and keeping company like Nyx the Alchemist. It would be like keeping a bull quiet in a china shop. Thørn might have been subtle enough to stay hidden and was forced to stay quiet when he was captured by the Academy, but Kev wasn’t. He had a dangerous streak of excitement and chaos hidden in him somewhere. I could see his reaction to being on Archora; I didn’t know how I hadn’t heard of him.

I also had a problem. Thørn was hiding something. I wasn’t sure, but I suspected he had found something in Rakfelcov’s mind, something he wasn’t telling me. That was just suspicion, though, it was completely plausible that he didn’t remember. More recently, though, I knew for sure that he was hiding something, I could tell with every fibre of my being. This time, though, I was almost positive that I knew what it was. Thørn was trying to understand my prophecy. Of course, I had no proof, so he could just deny it and call me paranoid, but it would be just like Thørn to try to understand a convoluted prophecy. I had told him not to, but I wasn’t really surprised he’d disobey me. I had never been under the illusion that I could control the telepath. Still, I was annoyed that he hadn’t listened to my advice.

I sighed. None of that was necessarily true. I didn’t know for sure if he was really trying to understand the prophecy, but I had to stop him if he was. He still didn’t understand what knowing the future did or just didn’t care. I did, though. I had seen people driven mad by the future or try to prevent it only to cause it. Knowing the future was never good. It never helped.

I had to find out for sure whether Feltrix was trying to understand the prophecy. I could try spying on him, but there was a good chance he’d catch me. That wasn’t an exciting prospect. I could confront him, but it would be only too easy for him to simply deny that he’d been trying to solve the riddle. That left me with one option, one option that I’d really hoped to avoid. I could enlist the Eternian Academy. They had eyes everywhere. They knew everything that happened in the Academy. There was only one problem. I’d have to tell them about the prophecy. I grimaced at the thought. I didn’t really have an option. It was have the Academy help me or let Thørn try to understand the future.

For a moment, I wondered if that would be such a bad thing, but I banished the thought. I had seen people try to understand prophecies and every time they did, they tried to change the future. Whenever anyone tried to change the future, it ended in disaster. Most people had good intentions, they tried to avert an impending disaster. Their efforts always proved futile or, worse still, caused the disaster. Others tried to use things they saw coming and twist it to their own selfish desires. This was actually more successful because they weren’t trying to change anything. Neither result was good.

I’d talk to Quint. He was the only member of the Academy that I had positive connections to. I still didn’t trust the necromancer, but he was the only person other than Eternia that I knew and I trusted Quint infinitely more than Eternia.

I raced down the hallways to Quint’s office. Thørn was probably working on the prophecy right now, but when I arrived, someone was already in his office.

“....Do you ever have any….reservations about the Academy?” Kev asked. I abruptly halted outside the door. What was he doing?

“What do you mean?” Quint asked. “Are you implying that I’m not loyal to the Eternian Academy?”

“No! I mean, no,” Kev replied. “I’m just asking whether the Academy has ever made any choices that you don’t think are in the best interest of the Myriad.”

There was silence and I was sorely tempted to peek through the gap between the ajar door and the wall. Finally, I heard a sigh. “Sometimes the Academy acts in ways….that I wouldn’t choose to,” Quint admitted. “But that doesn’t mean they aren’t the best option for the Myriad’s protection.”

“It doesn’t mean they are, either,” Kev replied, sensing an advantage and pressing it. “A lot of what the Academy does is good, but you have to admit that a plenty of it is also very shady. Kidnapping children? Coercing Flickers into working for them? Operating in secret? Come on. The Myriad may need protectors, but these ones could be a whole lot better.”

What was Kev playing at? What had prompted the heart-to-heart with the necromancer?

Another sigh. “Look, you may be right on most of that,” Quint begrudgingly admitted. “But the Eternian Academy is the best contribution that Archora has given to the rest of the Myriad. Anyway, there’s nothing I can do about that.”

Kev chuckled. “Isn’t the whole point of the Eternian Academy that you can make a difference?” There was a pause and footsteps and I realized that someone was heading for the door. I immediately distanced myself from Quint’s office, heading for a different room.

After the door opened and closed, I heard Kevfalcor approach me. “How much of that did you hear?” he asked in a low voice.

“What are you talking about? I’m heading to the bathroom.” This wasn’t so much covering up my eavesdropping as a test for Kev.

He caught me immediately. “I don’t have time for lies, Stoneshaper,” he growled.

I gave him a small smile. “Very good,” I commended, hopefully not as patronizingly as I thought it sounded. “I heard enough of your conversation with Quint to understand it.”

“So you know what I’m trying to do?”

“No.”

For a second, Kev seemed to consider something, but then abandoned the thought and walked wordlessly away. Kevfalcor was an anomaly. He was young, powerful, unknown, unpredictable, and keeping secrets.

Nyx

51

The secretary squinted at me through, round, thick lensed, scratched glasses. “What is it you want, young lady?” he asked kindly.

I gritted my teeth. The man was ancient by Archoran standards. The average life expectancy was fifty. This man was in his late seventies or early eighties. It was a miracle he hadn’t died of natural causes. He had a long white beard and a completely bald head. He had less teeth than I had fingers and he seemed to be both blind and deaf. I had been trying to explain to him what I needed for the past half hour and he finally seemed to realize that I was talking to him. I wanted to scream at what I was starting to call progress.

“Papers,” I growled. “Any records you have on the time of Eternian Academy attacks.”

The secretary’s brow furrowed. “Murdan Radem? Who might that be?”

“E-ter-nee-in A-ca-de-mee,” I said, raising my voice. “How did you get ‘Murdan Radem’ out of that?”

“I’m sorry, I just can’t understand you when you talk so quietly.”

“Look, if you don’t give me those records right now, I’m just going to leave,” I decided. The secretary looked at me blankly through magnified, milky eyes. I strode behind the desk to a filing cabinet labeled Eternian Academy and opened the drawer marked as Attack Records. I opened the drawer which slid out with a screech. Inside was a jumble of papers and files. I grabbed all of them in a chaotic mess.

“Thank you,” I muttered as I strode out of the room.

The rogue leader approached me as I left the secretary behind. “You can’t be there!” he objected.

“Apparently I can,” I replied. “I need a map of the city, some string, a pin, and some graphite.”

“What?”

“Preferably soon. Look, I’m helping you and it would be a whole lot easier if you didn’t resist my….help. I’m really just surprised you’ve never done this before.”

“Done what?”

When the supplies I’d requested arrived, I began to work. I looked at the first file which listed among other things the attackers’ method of transportation, the time that the mage or Flicker had been located by a Clockwork, and the time it took for the Academy to arrive at the scene. Fortunately, that was all I needed.

I took the pin and connected the graphite to the pin with the string, stabbing the map where the attack had occurred. The attackers had arrived on horseback about an hour after the Flicker had been located by the Clockwork. That meant that if the Academy traveled at a brisk pace and wanted the horse to have energy for the return trip, they were about eight miles away. I adjusted the length of the string so the graphite was eight miles on the map from the pin and drew a ring around it.

I looked at the time, method of transportation, and location of the second file and drew another ring. I made another ring. And another. And another. After nine or ten files, I was definitely seeing a pattern. Most of the rings overlapped at one point. The point the attacks had come from. What was strange was that their were a few anomalies. Some of the attacks were way off course, but that wasn’t right. That had never happened when I had done this before. Still, the overwhelming majority of the rings overlapped at one point and that was enough.

And then I realized where the Eternia Academy was. Right at the heart of the city.

“Of course it is,” I muttered. “You do like the position of power, Eternia.”

The Eternian Academy was in Castle Syraden. Eternia had turned the most secure and influential location on Archora into an academy.

“We’re storming the castle,” I said. The rogues stared at me blankly. “Do I have to draw everything out for you people?”

“You’re not actually….serious, are you?” someone asked.

“That’s where the Eternian Academy is, so, yes.”

The group of about thirty people burst into laughter. My face twisted into a frown and I shot a ball of lightning close enough to someone to make her hair stand on end. The laughter ceased.

“We’re storming the castle,” I repeated.

“No we’re not. The castle is nigh on impregnable,” someone objected. “And guarded by a total of well over a hundred. Eternia also has the entire population of mages under her control. A frontal assault is suicide. Anyway, who are you to give us orders? We were doing just fine without your help, but then you suddenly walk in with your fancy glove giving orders like you own the place. Well, you don’t. We don’t need you and we don’t want you.” There was a general murmur of agreement from the crowd.

I sighed and brushed a lock of hair behind my ear. These people were going to need some persuading. Why couldn’t everyone just agree with me? It would save so much time. “Didn’t you all form to stop Eternia and her tyranny?” I said, my volume rising into speech mode. “Didn’t you come together to put an end to all this? And what have you really done? You’ve watched their movements, maybe even harassed a transport if you got brave. Meanwhile, the Academy controls the country without question and makes diplomatic and military advances to conquer the rest of Archora! And what are you doing? Watching from the rooftops? You finally have a chance to do something! This is the first time you’ve been able to do any lasting damage! So what will you do? Stay safe on the roofs and watch as your world falls apart or you can risk life and limb as you help me get into the castle and then be on your merry way as I save the world. So. What will it be?”

Thørn

52

Rakfelcov had a weakness. I had finally found the chink in his armor, his flaw, but at the same time I didn’t understand it and I was afraid to exploit it. I had run through Kev’s memories over and over and I had finally found something. I created illusions of scenes, analyzed his fighting style, magical abilities, and personality and I had finally found his weakness. Rakfelcov was holding back. The reason he hadn’t killed Nyx, Kev, Alsari, or I was that he wasn’t trying to. The only time that he might have been fighting as hard as he could was when he fought Alsari, but even then, he could have used the power to hurt or kill me much more effectively.

He had superhuman speed, strength, and durability; he had powerful ice magic and even more overwhelming shadow magic, maybe even the power of teleportation, and yet he had failed to kill anyone in two different encounters with Kev and Nyx and then again when he fought Alsari and I. He was simply too powerful to have failed that many times. And yet he had.

That led to more problems than it solved. I couldn’t fathom why he would pretend to try to kill us; I couldn’t think of a logical explanation for what he was doing.

That also created another problem. Rakfelcov didn’t know that I knew he was holding back. That was good. On the other hand, if we fought again and he realized that I knew he wasn’t fighting as hard as he could, he might stop pretending. If or when he did, I wondered if he would be more than we could handle.

Still, we could use my newfound knowledge to turn the tables on the Shadow and eliminate a dangerous enemy. It would be a risk, though, and it would be infinitely more safe and easy to simply avoid him and hope to never encounter him again. I wasn’t naïve enough to count on that happening. I needed a contingency plan. For that, I needed to talk to Alsari.

I dashed across the hall to her room. “Alsari!” I called. “Alsari, I found something.”

“What is it?” she replied suspiciously as she entered from another room. “What did you find?”

“I was going through Kev’s memories,” I explained and Alsari seemed to relax a little. “When I realized that Rakfelcov’s been holding back. When he fights, he’s going easy on us. He didn’t kill us or Kev and Nyx because he wasn’t trying to. For some reason, he doesn’t actually want to kill us.”

Alsari frowned. “And you’re sure?”

“Well, sure might be an exaggeration. I mean, one time Nyx got stabbed and-” I stopped. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“But what could be gained by pretending to kill us?” Alsari wondered.

“I’ve been wondering the same thing,” I admitted. “The only thing I can think of is to distract us from something bigger. If we keep running away from Rakfelcov, we can’t see the bigger picture. The four people we know he’s targeted, Nyx, Kev, me, and you, are all Flickers.”

“So Rakfelcov is attacking us to stop us from realizing that he or someone he works for is planning something on a multi-world scale,” Alsari summarized.

“I can’t picture the Shadow working for anyone.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” the Stoneshaper said darkly.

“The only thing I don’t understand,” I said. “Is why not just kill us? The only thing that seems logical is that he would feel guilty, but Rakfelcov doesn’t seem like someone with a moral compass.”

“That’s true,” Alsari agreed. “Have you told Kev?”

“No, I was about to go-”

“Well, don’t. I don’t trust him. I’ll try to think of an explanation for what Rakfelcov is doing.”

Maybe there was a subtle undertone in her voice or a tiny difference in her expression. I don’t know. But I found it. My eyes narrowed. “You’re hiding something. You know something or at least suspect it.”

Alsari was taken off guard. “How….how did you get into my mind?” she asked, a tiny note of panic in her voice.

“I didn’t. But I can, so there’s no use hiding it. Just tell me.” Secretly, I was annoyed that she was still hiding things. Of course, she still hadn’t told me about her past or the destruction of Karadan, but I understood that those memories were still too sore. I also felt a bit hypocritical because I was keeping the fact that I was working on the prophecy a secret.

Alsari sighed. “And I assume there’s no point in trying to talk you out of it?”

“You should always assume that.”

“There is a legend among the Firstborn that many thousands of ago their were a division of gods far more powerful than the ones we worship now. They created impossible things, they were powerful and intelligent and wonderful and cruel. They could be anything from a tiny seed to a massive mountain. They were everything. They were infinite. They were creators. They were destroyers. They were all. They were….eternal. That’s what we called them. The Eternals. There were so many tales of what the Eternals did; if I told you them all we’d be here for a fortnight. But one part of the legend is wrong. The Eternals weren’t gods. They were Flickers.

“What’s important right now is that sometimes Eternals would play games. But these games, they weren’t like what you’d think of. The Eternals try to gain tactical control over the Myriad. Games can take hundreds of years and when they are played, the players care about nothing else. Even death doesn’t always mean the end for a game.

“Eventually, games became so dangerous and complex that they were banned. All games were immediately ceased. Except one. Two Eternals, Phyrza the Hooded and Parallax the Mindbreaker continued to play, so the rest of the Eternals took action. Phyrza, however, expected this and destroyed the Eternals’ world. Only two remained. Phyrza and Parallax. The Game continued and continues still. I’m worried that Rakfelcov is just a pawn in the Eternal Game and he’s trying to draw us in.