The portal was not instant or frictionless. It was not biting and painful like the one that had trapped us. Instead, I was stretched across an impossible distance, one foot in the aetheric realm, the other stretching toward the physical world.
My eyes bulged. My heart thundered. Blood swelled my temples, threatening to burst my skull.
'I'm…being…spaghettificated…'
Beside me, Regis was a long, thin fiber of dark energy, half incorporeal. His voice in my head was weak and echoing.
I snapped forward suddenly, and my feet landed clumsily on solid ground. The existential discomfort of the portal was instantly replaced by a deep, resonant ache inside my core. But before I could look inward, my eyes fell to the ground at my feet.
Varay knelt beside Bairon's body, propping his head and shoulders up in her lap. Tessia crouched beside them, her fingers pressed against Bairon's chest, searching for a heartbeat.
Claire stood off to the side, the griffon-like head of the exoform scraping the ceiling. Sylvie had gone to the balcony and was looking out at the mountains beyond, where we'd fought Agrona's forces.
Tess looked at Varay and shook her head. Varay nodded in return.
That trap had been set for me. Without Bairon's sacrifice—without the talents of everyone else—I'd have been stuck there, maybe forever.
Could Bairon's death have been avoided if I'd been more careful, taken stronger precautions? I asked myself, the pressure in my core causing a building nausea. But I bit the line of thinking off almost immediately. I couldn't succumb to self-doubt and regret, not now. There was too much at stake.
'The battle out there is over,' Sylvie sent, 'but it doesn't look like we've been gone all that long.'
My fingers dug into my sternum as I considered our next step. My core ached from the pressure. Forming this fourth layer hadn't felt like the second or third. This hadn't been a sudden influx and redistribution of aether, nor had it been a long, slow, purposeful absorption. As I'd channeled the river in order to manipulate the space between realms with my spatium godrune, trying to recreate and reverse the portal trap by feel alone, I'd opened my core up to only a fraction of the river's flow. It had still been too much for my three-layer core to handle.
Instinctively, I channeled aether into King's Gambit, causing my thoughts to rupture outward into dozens of individually held threads to better consider the situation.
As far as I knew, I was unique. Even among dragons and djinn, no one else had ever formed an aether core. Despite my strength, there was still so much I didn't know, and no one to ask. I had grown in power by gaining new insight and strengthening my core with new layers, allowing myself to store orders of magnitude more aether within it. But was this the only way for an aetheric mage to grow more powerful? Or would future generations be able to replicate what I'd done, discovering more efficient ways to empower themselves, as people had been doing with mana for centuries?
I pictured, for a moment, a young mage lying on the floor of a small library, reading about the application of aether to form new layers, and all the benefits and dangers of the process. What would that book say? Who would write it?
As one branch of my conscious thought examined this tangent, another was focused on Bairon, Varay, and Claire. It had never been my intention to bring Miss Bladeheart this deep into the basilisk's jaws. She'd proved instrumental in our escape from the Relictombs, but as impressive as the exoforms were, it would not save her in the battle against Agrona.
Varay, Bairon, and Mica had been eager, even insistent on joining me against Agrona himself. In a conference room, it had been easy math: they made my chances of success better. But now—my gaze flicked to Bairon's prone form—expending Varay's life in the following fight felt like a waste.
"Varay, Claire. Take Bairon's body and return to Seris. Keep everyone back from the fortress. We don't know what other traps Agrona has set."
King's Gambit was a buffer between me and the anger or frustration I felt at keeping Tessia with me. She was in terrible danger here, but I didn't know anything about the layout of Taegrin Caelum, and I couldn't sense Agrona to track him directly. Tessia had lived here, explored even his private sanctum. I needed her.
Varay lifted Bairon's limp form easily, then floated a foot off the floor. She gave me a hard look, her eyes burning as they reflected the light of my bright crown. "I would still fight Agrona at your side, Arthur, even now. But I already know your answer. So all I will say instead is…finish this. For Bairon. For Aya. For Olfred and Alea."
She didn't wait for me to respond before flying out the window and over the balcony railing, where she paused just long enough for Claire to join her. The wings of Claire's exoform extended, and she looked back over her shoulder and waved one huge mechanical arm before following.
Suddenly, Tessia's hand was in mine, and her head pressed against my chest. The relic armor flowed from her to wrap around me. She stared down at me, her hand now separated from mine by the fine scales between us. "I guess it thinks you'll need it more than me," she said, trying but not quite succeeding to sound stoic.
I knew it had responded to my singular focus on Agrona. One distant sliver of my consciousness acknowledged the inherent selfishness of the moment. My instinct was not to protect Tessia at all costs but to seek every advantage for myself in the coming fight. A separate thread answered that defeating Agrona and stopping Epheotus from falling out of the sky was how I protected Tessia. Her and everyone else.
I squeezed her hand harder, then let go and gestured questioningly to the door. "Where should we look first?"
"Ji-ae," was all she said, and together we stepped out of the study and into a wide, arched hallway lined with stuffed mana beasts.
I stayed a few steps ahead as Tessia guided us through the dense catacomb of halls and chambers. Sylvie and Regis brought up the rear. Although we readied ourselves to be attacked at every turn, there was no sign of any other life within the fortress. Even focusing King's Gambit into Realmheart, I couldn't sense any mana signatures other than our own.
Twice, we reached stairwell doors that opened on solid walls, one of which had "Out of Order" carved into the stone blocking our path. An entire floor had been transformed into a maze, the hallways and rooms moved around to create the paths in an obviously ramshackle fashion.
"He's toying with us," I said when we reached a path that dead-ended into a window, over which was a sign reading, "Emergency Exit."
Sylvie hummed her agreement. "Infantile distractions to confuse and frustrate us."
Tessia let out a long, steadying breath. "This doesn't feel like the action of a cornered deity."
"Personally, I'd prefer it if he was desperately trying to keep us away," Regis grumbled. "The death field and Relictombs portal had the appropriate air of gravitas, you know what I mean? This is just insulting."
Finally, when we arrived at the chamber leading into what Tessia described as Agrona's private wing of the fortress, we were again brought up short by an unexpected sight.
A dragon's skull had been wedged into the doorway, holding open two huge, fire-scarred doors. The mouth yawned wide, forcing us to move through it in order to keep going forward.
"Is…is it my mother?" Sylvie asked, paling. A sickly heat rushed up my neck as her emotions leaked into me.
With King's Gambit actively buffering me against my own emotional turmoil at the disturbing thought, I laid my memory of Sylvia's features over this skull, comparing the size and shape.
I didn't answer Sylvie's question. I didn't need to.
One by one, we stepped through the jaws and out the back of the skull into the chamber beyond. A wide red carpet had been laid down, extending beyond the room and into the next.
The jaws creaked slightly as Sylvie passed between them, and there was a whisper on the air that I couldn't make out. A cold, bitter hatred stirred like bile in my guts.
I squeezed my bond's shoulder. "This will be over soon."
A voice oozed out of the stone around us. "Such confidence! You have always thought very highly of yourself, Godkiller."
We all froze, looking around. Aether flooded through my channels, collecting in my limbs and hands as I prepared myself to react.
"Ah, but do I detect a little jumpiness?" the voice continued. It was a rich, jocular baritone. There was no question who it belonged to. "Well, come on, then, come on. Rude to keep your High Sovereign waiting, especially when you time your visit so poorly. I'm quite busy enjoying my victory, but I suppose I can always make time for my daughter and her pets."
The carpet led through several lavishly decorated chambers before descending a strangely placed staircase, which seemed to have been carved out of the middle of an already existing room.
The stairs descended into a large, barren, empty space. It seemed to be an entire level of this wing, empty except for a single structure. There were no walls, no hallways, just one giant empty space. At the very center, a large podium, topped with a glowing crystal and surrounded by revolving rings of stone, seemed tiny in the emptiness.
The crystal structure was identical to those I'd seen in the Relictombs ruins.
"Ji-ae," Tessia confirmed a moment later.
Agrona stepped around the edifice, bathed in the crystal's glow. "Welcome, honored guests, to the heart of Taegrin Caelum."
The Agrona before us was identical to the flesh golem that had been imprisoned in Epheotus. He was about equal to me in height, but his branching horns made him look much taller. He hadn't replaced the ornamentation that once dangled between the prongs. Instead of their previously gaudy appearance, the black, sharp-pointed horns like antlers added an imposing air to his features, enhanced further by the red-tinged armor of white scales that clad his body from throat to heel.
My jaw tightened as I looked more closely at the armor.
Agrona cocked his head, brows rising. "Oh! That look on your face." He laughed deep in his chest. "I know what you're thinking, but no, I did not make my armor from the body of my once-beloved. Bringing her skull up from the dungeon to welcome you into my home, Sylvie dear, now that was what Sylvia would have wanted. But she could not protect me in life, not even from herself. I would not trust her to do so in death."
He made a show of brushing gauntleted hands down the front of the armor as if flattening the scales. "Although, it certainly is possible this was some relationship of yours. I didn't get a name before I flayed him. Honestly, I'm glad you're here! It's nice to have a reason to pull the old gear out of the closet, you know?" His grin sharpened into something hungry. "One should really try to dress for the occasion, and being reunited with my daughter and the foster son I never had here, on the eve of my ultimate victory…well, it does demand some finery."
I followed Agrona's blathering with one thread of my mind while the others focused elsewhere.
The crystal was flaring, light jumping through it rapidly, and I could feel the attention of the djinn projection housed within it spread throughout the room, her senses like physical tendrils in the air. She was no doubt feeding Agrona a constant stream of information about every prickle of our skin or rising of a hair on her neck, reading us like books.
But her senses weren't the only thing in the air here. I didn't need to activate the spatium godrune to feel the push and pull of an extradimensional boundary. It was why he'd emptied out the chamber: to allow more room for him to condense and play with some kind of pocket dimension, not unlike the one I'd hidden in while navigating the fourth keystone.
That, of course, was how he'd defeated the assassins Kezess had sent, I realized. It seemed almost too obvious now that I was standing so close to the fold in space. Agrona had learned some trick that allowed him to form pocket dimensions of his own. How he'd done it was an interesting question, but not the most important one. Why was space folded in this room? Another trap? With the assistance of King's Gambit, I began to knit together a dense collection of theories that painted a clear picture.
"Well, don't just stand at the stairs, come in," Agrona continued, holding his arms out.
The carpet beneath our feet began to move, and we were all pulled forward several feet before I slammed my will down against his. The carpet ripped in half, folding up in front of us. Immediately, it melted into a trail of blood that ran quickly away into grates underneath where the carpet had been a moment before.
Agrona seemed to take no notice. "Tessia Eralith. Tess. 'Cecilia's meat puppet.' Good to see you again. Who'd have thought that you'd be your own woman again one day with a fully functioning body and shiny new white core—a nice trick, that, by the way. Imagine, working so hard to be freed of all purpose and everything that makes you special. You could have ridden on the shoulder of greatness, but now you will be nothing at all. When this world is gone, there will be no one left behind to remember your meager accomplishments."
Tess stiffened beside me, her jaw working.
"Do not speak to her," Sylvie answered, striding forward to stand between Agrona and the rest of us just as I was about to do the same. "You have no right to address Tessia. Is this really how you're going to spend your final moments, Father? Wasting these last few breaths on crude, futile teasing?"
"Such a fierce dragon you've become," Agrona answered. His fingers picked at the edges of the dragon scales that made up his armor. "You could have been so much more, but, alas. Kezess Indrath does have a particular ability for ruining everything he touches, and even my blood could not protect you from that."
"It's over, Agrona," I said. Tessia and I moved forward to stand on either side of Sylvie, while Regis pressed against Tessia's other side protectively. "I'm going to kill you, and your people will cheer your death."
"Oh, but of course, Godkiller. You heartless brute, you. A vicious killer in this life and the last. Even slaughtered your best friend's girl, not once but twice!" He clicked his tongue, crossed his arms, and shook his head in mocking disapproval. "Imagine, my working so hard to give Cecilia and Nico a second chance in this world after you ripped out Nico's heart by shoving a sword through Cecilia's, just for you to come along and do it all over again here."
I cocked my head slightly, handling the conversation with one thread while the rest spread out around me, tracking my friends, feeling the edges of the pocket dimension, reading the mana and aether as it interacted with Ji-ae's probing senses, and most importantly, reaching for Myre's tether, with which she had linked me to Kezess.
"I didn't slaughter them," I explained, surprised he didn't know more about what had happened. "You twisted Cecilia into something unrecognizable, and Nico was going to follow her down any hole, no matter how deep or dark. As long as you were in their lives, there was no possibility of redemption for them, but my victory didn't require their redemption."
I looked at Tessia. "I don't forgive either of them for all the terrible things they did with their lives here, not least using your body to perpetrate their crimes." My gaze returned to Agrona, hardening. "But Cecilia didn't choose to be the Legacy. It made her a target in both lives, preventing her from ever having a chance. So I took that away, cut it out of her, and opened a way for them back to Earth. There, they'll live mundane, powerless lives. Not because they deserved it, but because doing so harmed you. Whether they find some redemption for themselves there, I'll never know, and I've made peace with that."
"I've made peace with that," Agrona mimicked, bobbing his horned head from side to side. "So mature of you. I'm sure the families and bloods of all the people they killed in my service completely understand." He flapped a hand in my direction. "Your arrogance really is the most amazing thing. After all, you've come here, basically alone, thinking you're going to kill me. The audacity."
I let a small smile curve my lips.
The tether binding me to Kezess grew hot. I felt the portal open, the sudden approach, the warping of space and rebalancing of all energy in both worlds.
"I'm not alone."
Agrona's eyes snapped to our left just as white light congealed into two figures. For a moment, the two silhouettes stood frozen in the light, like holes burned in reality.
Kezess's and Windsom's auras filled Taegrin Caelum an instant later as the two stared across the barren chamber at Agrona.
"Finally," Agrona said with a welcoming smile.
The trap I had sensed snapped into place.
Windsom stepped smoothly in front of Kezess, whose expression didn't even flicker. Aether flexed around him as he physically gripped the edges of the pocket dimension before they could close around the pair.
Behind Windsom, Kezess did not move, but the world seemed to be moving around him, reshaping. For an instant, he appeared to be both the ageless, relaxed man and a towering white-gold scaled dragon. The floors and ceiling warped and broke to accommodate him.
Blood sprayed the floor, and space seemed to twist. Activating the spatium godrune, I pushed Sylvie and Tessia away, creating more space between them and the closing trap.
The balance of power changed so suddenly that it was like having the air sucked out of the room. My vision went white. The sharp clatter of falling stone assaulted my ears, and dust filled my lungs. Sylvie's worry pinged my thoughts, and Regis shifted beside me, the Destruction rune activating defensively.
I blinked several times as my vision returned. Kezess was gone. Windsom stood exactly where he had a moment ago. His eyes, like two bright galaxies within his sockets, were wide, his mouth moving wordlessly.
Blood began to seep from his cheek, and a dark stain spread across his military style uniform, red creeping across the gold highlights against the black. The light and color faded from his eyes, and a belated, "Oh," gusted between blood-flecked lips. Then, his body collapsed into several pieces.
A lingering silence stretched across the room.
Regis took a step forward, inspecting the bloody pile with a tilt of his head. "Well…I guess you Windsom, you lose some."
Agrona, twenty feet away beside the djinn housing, burst into laughter. He hadn't moved, but the mana surged violently around him. He laughed for a long, long time. "Oh, but that's good." He wiped away a tear and looked at me more seriously. "Well done, Arthur. I knew you, of all people, would convince Kezess to leave his hidey hole. The long, slow death he'll suffer as his body withers and starves within this prison is, I think, exactly what the djinn would want for him. Don't you agree, Ji-ae?"
'Arthur…' It was Sylvie's voice in my thoughts. She was pulled back, unable to maintain a constant connection due to King's Gambit, but she let her uncertainty leak into my mind with her voice.
Her fear was justified, but I didn't share it.
"Don't you want to check in on him, make sure he really is contained?" I asked, my voice even, a facade of curiosity laid over my expression.
Agrona's brows knit together, his fingers flexing. The mana bowed outward in response, making the spinning rings of Ji-ae's housing flutter in their orbit. "No more games, I'm afraid. This was entertaining, but it has played out exactly as intended. I don't have any more use for you, my daughter, or the meat puppet, so it's—"
"I insist," I interrupted.
Agrona responded instantly, his power lashing out. The air itself divided as it became a weapon, a void space where particles of mana and matter were separated.
Regis dissolved into incorporeality just ahead of the attack, flitting into my chest.
The in-between space of the pocket dimension was already flexing between us as I pulled it open with the spatium godrune. It swallowed Agrona's attack, then wrapped around the two of us.
His face split into an enraged snarl, but he had already shown me just how fast his trap could close when he captured Kezess. His arrogant post-victory glow soured and then rotted into fear. My last fleeting glance of the physical world, just as the pocket dimension sealed around the two of us, was of Sylvie—features drawn tight by controlled—grabbing a panicking Tessia. Then, the pocket dimension absorbed us into itself.
In one way, it didn't feel as if we'd even moved. We still stood on solid stone, the wide, empty room opening around us. But the air was colder, and the charge of mana and aether was different. As my eyes refocused, the room seemed to expand infinitely. At the outskirts of my perception, a sort of fog lifted up, curving above our heads like I was looking at the inside of a snowglobe.
Kezess, standing a hundred feet away, turned slowly to face us. Violet lightning seemed to spark through the thunderous purple of his irises.
Agrona smoothed his features, putting on a wry, almost congratulatory smirk. He looked immediately diminished, small within the undefined extent of the pocket dimension. "Well, isn't that a neat trick." His expression tensed, and his will pressed against the walls of the space, but the outside dimension pushed back, not allowing him to leave. "Impressive. You've, what? Cocooned my pocket dimension inside another?"
I shook my head, looking at him as if he were a particularly unintelligent child. "That would have been more work than necessary."
All it had taken was to condense the space around his pocket dimension as we'd been sucked in, barely a flicker of power through the spatium godrune. He couldn't open the space to leave because there was too much outside pressure pushing in. The only way out was for me to release the godrune.
Kezess was looking at me. "Windsom?"
I shook my head. "Dead."
Kezess's nostrils flared as his head swiveled back to Agrona.
But Agrona was still focused on me. "After all this, everything you've learned, you have the two of us locked in a box and you're still going to take his side?" He rolled his eyes. "In contrast to his genocide, what exactly are my crimes? Making my people strong? Fighting back against his authoritarianism? Helping the last remnant of the djinn race get justice for the genocide of her people?" He was gesticulating with each word now. "I assure you, Arthur, if you weigh those dead at his hand against mine, his pyre will stack a hundred times higher."
The number was far greater than even Agrona knew, of course. I made a show of hesitating, considering his words.
To my right, Agrona, whose crimes had been directly against me and mine. His war had killed my father, and far too many of my friends. He'd butchered Sylvia, who had loved him, and he'd ordered the death of my bond, his own daughter. Any one of his crimes condemned him to death in my eyes.
But to my left, Kezess. He'd brought me into his world, trained me, named me an asura. We'd clashed, yes, and those I loved suffered because of his order to wield the Worldeater Technique, but even that had been an act of war. I had made nearly the exact same choice in my previous life. No, Kezess's crimes weren't against me, but against those long dead. People I'd never known, civilizations that existed only as faint dots surging across a map in my mind.
"I don't agree with what Kezess has done, but I do understand him," I answered, releasing the gates of my core so that aether flooded my body, lifting me up off the ground. "And when you're dead, and we've saved this world and Epheotus, we can protect it together. In a more human way." I didn't look at Kezess as I spoke.
Agrona didn't appear surprised as he gave a bitter laugh. "A fool right up until the end. I'd say he will chew you up and spit you out, but I won't let that happen. You are still trapped within the seat of my power, both cut off from your own." His face was slashed by a gruesome smile. "Come, then. You have wished to die, and I am nothing if not gracious."