The matte black cube rested on the bed in front of me, its weight pressing down into the surface of the soft blanket. It was heavy, dull, and frustratingly blank, lacking any indication that this was some repository of great insight. Had I not received it from the last djinn remnant, as well as already having worked through the long and frustrating process of unlocking the first two keystones, I might have given it up as some aether-rich broken relic and simply absorbed the power.

Sylvie was sitting at the foot of the bed with her knees tucked up against her chest, gaze distant as it passed through the cube to focus on something very far away. She shifted slightly, a frown pulling down the corners of her lips. She had been troubled ever since the broadcast, although she had kept her feelings close to her chest.

Our journey back to the second level of the Relictombs had been relatively uneventful. Sylvie hadn’t experienced a repeat of her first foray into the Relictombs, which had allowed us to fly through the giant-tree zone and directly to the exit portal. A contingent of Denoir soldiers had been waiting for us, along with my sister. Ellie had proved a bit of a conundrum for the highbloods, as no one knew where she fit into their strict caste system, allowing her to do whatever she wanted—which apparently included pestering and bossing around entire squads of highblood battle groups.

Our reunion had been short-lived, however, as I’d rushed to deliver my news to Seris. That conversation, too, had been brief, as she had asked for time to consider what this meant for our plans. Grateful for that, I’d retreated to a room in the Dread Craven to rest.

After an hour of quiet meditation and absorbing ambient aether, I had found my mind too cluttered to be restful, and so, as I often had since being rewarded with the very first keystone, I found myself intent upon a djinn relic as a way to focus my mind.

Now, staring down at it, I had to wonder what I had hoped to accomplish.

Unlike the first two keystones, I couldn’t even fully enter this one. When my aether imbued it, I felt myself pulled inward like before, but instead of transitioning into the aetheric space—represented previously by a sort of wall of purple energy—I was pushed back.

The frustrating itch from my core only seemed to make focusing more difficult

Acknowledging the scar made the itch worse, and I couldn’t help but focus on it, my mind digging into that itch like fingernails.

Aether no longer lingered around the wound. Aside from the scar, my core seemed to have healed completely, and I hadn’t sensed any effect on my ability to channel or store aether. But that didn’t make the itch any less irritating.

Releasing a small amount of aether from my core, I scratched at its surface to relieve the itch, but this did nothing. The sensation didn’t feel like it was in my core, after all, but in the back of my mind. The worst part was, I couldn’t tell if it was an actual physical sensation or just a thought that wouldn’t let me go.

I cycled more aether, pushing it out and reabsorbing it, a building desperation to scratch the itch swelling in my chest, laced with frustration that the wound had left behind this scar, like a memorial to my failure. Despite taking many wounds, some of them even more grievous, I’d never been left with lingering pain or discomfort, not since my discovery of aether.

‘Maybe focusing on it is just making it worse?’ Sylvie suggested.

I had twin flashbacks to memories from both of my childhoods when my mother and Headmaster Wilbeck patiently explained that scratching my irritated skin would only make the itching worse in the long run.

Sighing, I pulled my mind away from the sensation. I needed to be intentional, purposeful in how I thought—or didn’t think—about it. And so I forced my concentration back to the keystone.

Settling my mind into a calmer place, I activated Realmheart and began attempting to manipulate the aether of the keystone in a variety of ways. Directly imbuing aether into it drew my mind toward it, but I was rebuffed without ever entering the interior keystone realm itself. Poking and prodding at the inherent aether and mana within the relic made the internal structure quake in an uncomfortable way, like I was at risk of breaking it, but did nothing to open it to me or reveal its contents.

“Not sure why I’m so worried about breaking it, it’s like it’s already…broken…” I trailed off, realization wiping away my frustration and replacing it with a sudden wary excitement.

Sylvie’s frown deepened and she sat up straighter, watching me silently.

The scar on my core itched again as I activated it, pushing mana into Aroa’s Requiem. Aetheric motes spilled down my arms and jumped to the keystone, buzzing over the matte surface before being drawn into the relic. Closing my eyes, I let my mind flow with them, and again I was pulled inward. Darkness extended before me, full of distant pinpoints of light.

Then I was shunted uncomfortably back into my own body.

“Did you feel that?” I asked, too excited to be disappointed. “Something was definitely different that time.”

Sylvie shook her head and scooted slightly closer. “But why?”

“The godrune lets me sort of…push time through an item, turning back the clock on something that is broken.” I considered the exit portal from the snowy zone where I’d met Three Steps and the other Shadow Claws. Then I remembered the visions of a potential future I’d seen when attempting to unlock insight into that first keystone. “Whether because of my own failures in understanding or some natural limit due to my affinity with spatium aether arts, I couldn’t master it, not the way I did Realmheart. There are…limitations.”

Still, I was eager to keep trying now that I’d made some progress—or at least thought I had.

Activating Aroa’s Requiem again, I let the amethyst motes gravitate toward the keystone on their own, not controlling them directly. I purposefully held my mind back, not wanting to be drawn into the keystone only to be forced out again, which would prevent me from tracking the godrune’s progress.

Aetheric particles buzzed over the keystone, some sinking into it, but only just below the surface. I felt them hanging there, suspended, almost trembling with suppressed purpose as my intention overrode the particles’ natural inclination.

I felt certain that Aroa’s Requiem was the key, but some keys turned differently than others.

My intent, I realized. Just as I had to purposefully consider the scar in a certain way to keep it from burrowing through my conscious mind, I had to channel the godrune with a specific intent as well. Because it didn’t simply allow me to fix a static object, but manipulate the way time had worked on that object.

That was the key. The relic wasn’t broken or in need of fixing, but perhaps it had to be aligned with a certain state it had been in time to open.

“Ingenious,” I muttered, wondering at the djinn mind that had created such a puzzle.

Feeling myself beginning to grin, I adjusted the way I was holding the godrune in my mind, and started pushing the channeled aether through the keystone. I envisioned it not as repairing some broken internal component, but rather turning back the hands of a clock, setting a series of cogs into motion within.

As these metaphorical cogs turned, I put pressure on the relic, trying to ease into the keystone realm within.

The room went dark again. And slowly, very slowly, the dark gave way to plum purple, then light pink, and finally I found myself before a wall of amethyst energy.

It had worked, but I was not drawn through the aetheric barrier, nor could I push myself into it.

But I knew now what needed to be done. There were four keystones. Each was needed to progress my understanding of the aspect of Fate. Since Aroa’s Requiem had brought me to this point…

With my mind entangled within the keystone, channeling aether into Realmheart took time. My connection to the godrune felt distant and tentative, but I was certain about my course and so never doubted what I was attempting to do.

Dozens of white lines of pure mana appeared in my vision, spilling out of narrow gaps in the barrier, invisible without sight of the mana particles.

Leaning forward, I drifted into one of the gaps. It carved through the aether like a maze, but by following the trail of mana I easily passed through. And it appeared within what I could only describe as an aetheric lightning storm.

Violet clouds of aether burst with bolts of hot white mana with a noise like shattering glass, the crashing flashes coming one after another with sickening frequency. Within moments, I felt my temples begin to ache and burn, my consciousness already being drawn out of the keystone realm and back toward my body.

I gritted my teeth and leaned into the sensation, forcing my way forward.

A bolt of mana struck me, and my mind lurched to a memory.

“It’s okay. I’m okay, Art.”

Tessia’s voice. Gentle. Her hands, a soft caress…

I sank to the cold, hard floor. Sobs ripped from my throat. Head resting in Tessia’s lap.n0𝑽𝓮𝓛𝗎𝓈𝚋.𝒞0𝑀

Her hands were warm, keeping me anchored, her voice like a healer’s magic, easing the pain…

A second bolt struck me from a different direction, and suddenly, the emotion was gone, leaving me hollow as I considered the ramifications of colliding technology and magical advancement, pondering what Dicathen might look like in three, four, even five hundred years.

Flash.

Bile rose up in the back of my throat as my mind was yanked to the memory of a lecture on mana beast differentiation while I’d been at Xyrus Academy.

Flash.

Eight years old. A maid standing in the doorway of a noble estate, looking down at me curiously.

“I hope we didn’t overstep! Maybe you didn’t want her to make friends with Alacryans—”

“No, I’m glad to hear she’s had people here.” I didn’t voice that I’d felt guilty about leaving her and Caera, despite understanding that it was the best decision. “She’s always had a lot of eyes on her. A lot of pressure with…me being who I am.”

“I can’t even imagine…” Mayla lost focus, her gaze downcast, then suddenly snapped back to the moment. “Right, Ellie. She’s this way!”

As we walked, Mayla kept up a constant stream of small talk, explaining the research she and Seth had been helping with, at least as best as she understood it. She awkwardly danced around the subject of my presence in their lives being the reason for their unusually potent bestowals.

“Being honest, though, I’m actually pretty ready to, you know, go home…” She shot me a quick glance, gauging my reaction. “I don’t want to go to war in Dicathen. And I really don’t want to fight dragons.” She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself.

I thought back to Agrona’s message. Would these people really be spared his wrath if they simply agreed to lay down their weapons and go home, putting this entire uprising behind them and abandoning what they’d hoped to gain? It was difficult to picture. But surely even Agrona wouldn’t punish kids like Mayla and Seth for being dragged into this all without even understanding what was happening.

My thoughts caught on a snag.

Even if they weren’t punished, they’d still end up at war with Epheotus. Mayla was a Sentry, and a potentially powerful one. How long would it take before she ended up right where Seth’s sister had…

Agrona might not punish her, but he would burn her as kindling in his conflict with Kezess, and he’d never even know he’d done it.

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I said after too long a pause.

A short hike later, we reached a guarded compound. The mage at the gate seemed to know Mayla by sight and let her through without question. He considered me for several seconds before seeming to make up his mind and waving me through into the outer courtyard.

I heard Boo’s low moan and the thunk of mana arrows before I saw Ellie. Her arm was wrapped in a glowing cast of mana, her bow drawn, a mana arrow conjured against the string. A shooting range took up the right side of the courtyard, while large doors opened into the rest of the compound. A strong hum of mana came from within, and many mana signatures milled about throughout the building.

Boo looked up and grunted. Ellie glanced at me over her shoulder, her brows pinched together in a small frown, then turned back to her target and released the arrow. It split into multiple arrows mid-flight, each of which struck a separate target before exploding in controlled bursts of mana that sent up a cloud of debris.

Seth, who had been sitting against the nearby wall with his eyes closed, flinched and nearly toppled from his bench. He grinned in embarrassment as he opened his eyes; seeing me standing next to Mayla, the grin slipped away.

I raised my hand in greeting, remembering the last time I’d seen him. I didn’t blame him for being upset with me. After all, one moment I’d been his professor—his mentor even—and the next he’d watched me fight two Scythes before vanishing out of his life without a word. And that was before he knew I was an enemy of Alacrya.

“Hey, look who I found!” Mayla said, her chipper tone sounding slightly forced as she took her basket and hurried over to the others. “And, um, I brought the food, too.”

Seth gave me a stiff nod as he took a couple of rolls filled with meat and cheese. He immediately shoved one in his mouth, staring down at the other as he chewed.

Boo looked at Ellie and growled something.

“I’m not hungry yet,” she said, firing off an arrow that spiraled into several beams of light that flashed rapidly, making them difficult to look at.

Boo growled again, lower this time.

“No. I need to keep going. My arm feels fine,” she shot back, an edge of anger creeping into her tone.

Mayla glanced from Ellie to Seth, then gave me an uncomfortable smile. “Um, anyway, Ellie’s been able to tell us all kinds of stuff about your continent. It’s been pretty…interesting…” She trailed off as I approached my sister.

Laying a hand gently on Ellie’s arm, I said, “El, if even Boo is saying so, then it’s probably time for a break. You’re going to hurt yourself—”

“I can handle it,” she snapped, releasing the held arrow. It fizzled and missed its target, bursting harmlessly against a stone wall. Grimacing, she drew and fired a quick shot, making the arrow bend and twist through the air so that it struck a different target.

I watched quietly, my focus on her broken arm and the strain she was putting on it each time she drew her bow. As she shot, I realized she was also activating her spellform to push and pull mana throughout her body in an exercise to strengthen her control over it, something Lyra said would be essential to fully utilizing the spells it granted her.

Clever, I thought, pride intermingling with worry.

Watching my sister push herself so hard only reminded me of the many ways in which I had failed. My most important goal in this life was always to keep my family safe. It was hard to argue that I’d done that as I watched my wounded sister practice killing our enemies.

I glanced at Seth and Mayla, who were sitting on the bench eating in silence. Mayla looked away too late, trying to act as if she hadn’t been listening intently.

Taking a step closer to my sister, I turned my gaze on the targets out in the distance.

“I couldn’t do it,” I said quietly, afraid to see her expression. “I couldn’t save her.”

There was a pause before Ellie fired another arrow. “Yeah, I figured.”

She shot another, then another. The pulses of mana from her spellform swelled significantly, and then…a tremor ran through her. An arrow vanished from the bowstring, and even her cast seemed to falter, the mana fading in and out around her broken arm. She gasped in pain, and the bow slipped from her grasp to clatter onto the ground before sinking to her knees.

Boo moaned and rushed over to her protectively, pressing his nose into her hair and snuffling. Gold light flowed from him, suffusing Ellie.

Mayla and Seth were both on their feet. Mayla had one hand over her mouth, while the other clutched Seth’s in a white-knuckled grip. Seth was chewing on the inside of his lip and looking nervous.

I reached for Ellie, but she batted my hand away with her good one. “I can do it myself!” she snapped, clutching the broken arm to her stomach. Slowly, mana oozed into shape around it, recreating the cast. From the sweat on her brow and the way her shoulders trembled, though, I knew she was in incredible pain.

“El, let me—”

“I said I got it!” she yelled, pulling back and glaring up into my face. “What’s the point, anyway!”

She fell back onto her rear and curled her torso around her arm, tears welling up in her anger-filled eyes. “We’ve had to sacrifice so much—endure so much—you’ve had to leave me and mom all the time, and we still can’t even save the people we love!” Her voice grew louder and more raspy with each word until she was shouting. “I want dad back! I want Tess back. I want my brother back!”

All I could do was stand there, letting Ellie’s emotions wash over me. “I’m just…so mad. And I feel so helpless. I can’t do anything myself, can’t change anything! No matter how strong I get, I’ll never be strong enough to make a difference in a war where even you can lose a fight. And that scares me, Arthur—it terrifies me.

“Sometimes I wish we all still lived in Xyrus—or even Ashber—just some regular rural kid like any other girl my age. I could just look up at this great figure named Arthur Leywin and know deep down that he was going to protect me and everyone I loved—solve all our problems—and I could leave big important matters to powerful people like him. But I can’t.”

She stared into my eyes, her jaw working as she clenched her teeth. “Because that same person is my brother, and I see how even the powerful people all around me are struggling, and I know it might not be enough—they might not be enough—you might not be enough—and so I have to do something, but I’m just never going to be strong enough for it to matter…”

The words spilled out of her until she had no more breath, and then she deflated, struggling to breathe, trying and failing to keep herself under control.

As I reached for her, Seth appeared next to me before easing down in front of Ellie. Mayla sat beside her, wrapped an arm around her, and rested her head on Ellie’s shoulder, heedless of the huge bearlike mana beast hulking over them.

“I…understand what you’re going through, Eleanor,” Seth said haltingly. “And you’re right. About it all. Vritra, but I miss my sister. And I used to think just the same about her, you know? I…” He paused, clenching his jaw to hold back his emotions before speaking again. “I don’t think I’ve ever felt as helpless as when the news came back that she’d died. I hated you Dicathians for that, and I hated the highbloods and the Vritra clan for sending her. But…I think I hated myself even more. She’d been so set on getting me the healing I needed—I’ve always been sickly, frail—and I thought maybe she wouldn’t have volunteered for such dangerous assignments if it weren’t…well, you get it.”

Ellie had gone quiet. Whether because they were her peers or just not her brother, she seemed more ready to accept the comfort they provided in that moment.

“Professor Grey…” Seth cleared his throat. “Um, Arthur…your brother…he was the first person who made me feel seen, like I was worth something, since Circe died. Like someone actually cared.” He shook his head, an amazed smile on his face. “And then I learn he’s not even from this continent. It really knocked me for a loop, you know?”

He sat in silence for a moment, then seemed to remember he had been speaking. “Anyway, my point is that you never know who’ll have power in your life, or whose life you’ll impact. Maybe you’re not as strong as a Scythe or Sovereign. That doesn’t have to be how you change the world. Maybe…maybe you’re just kind to someone.” A flush suddenly crept up his neck to his cheeks. “I don’t know, I just…well, I just wanted to tell you you’re not alone.”

He reached out and patted her hand awkwardly before standing up and taking a step back. Tentatively, he looked at me from the corner of his eye. I smiled appreciatively, and he looked back at the ground.

I started to speak, wanting to add something—anything—but I caught Boo’s eye. The guardian bear gave me an empathetic nod, and I understood what he meant. She was going to be okay. What needed to be said already had been, and Ellie was in good hands.

Returning his nod, I turned and left.