Suncloud stalks Karanos as he shuttles between planes, losing his pursuers. He finally stops when he cuts a path to a picturesque glade surrounded by waterfalls. He sits down on a rock and shutters his eyelids, entering meditation.

He opens his eyes after a few minutes and stretches his arms. “Care to come out of hiding?”

Cayeun chuckles and emerges in a flash from the shadow of a tree, her wings carrying her forth. She’s wearing a thick black mantle reinforced with metal plates; a thin blue dress lays underneath. Skin-tight black leggings stretch from under the dress to her shins.

Through the vision, I perceive Karanos as would Cayeun, his thoughts floating like dandelion seeds across my mind. Suncloud is able to pierce deeper into his surface thoughts than Crystal, who typically can only read what Karanos wants her to know.

“She’s dangerous–why is she here?” Karanos wonders.

I sense Cayeun’s delight at his observation. Her thoughts interpose over my own: I’m here for you, Karanos. You weren’t easy to find. She folds her wings behind and leans forward. “You ought to be lonely out here all alone.”

Karanos’ thoughts are on edge, though to an observer he appears calm, continuing his arm stretches. “Why did she follow me? It can’t be that she’s competing to win the Brightwell contract?”

Cayeun grasps her jaw, hiding a half smile. “I only ask because I’m awfully bored. Perhaps two lonely ascendants can help one another.”

“Talking to her is asking for trouble.” Karanos snorts, his posture stiff. “I’m not lonely. Some of us prefer to be alone.”

Cayeun raises an eyebrow. “Oh really?” She takes a step closer. “Why were those people fighting you before? From the colorful names they called you, it seemed that you knew each other.”

Karanos’ lips press together. “I escorted them to that plane. They were supposed to give me something in return, but reneged on their side of the deal once I’d already brought them to their destination.”

“It’s a lot harder to find a specific plane than it is to return, tracing your trail,” Cayeun comments. “So you stole what they came there for?”

Karanos rolls his eyes. “Steal is a rather harsh word.”

Cayeun’s laugh echoes over the roaring water. She lunges gracefully forward to repose next to Karanos, her thigh brushing up against his. “You must have a sensual touch.”

“Why do you say that?” Karanos leans his shoulder against Cayeun. “You know that she’s just trying to seduce you–so why is it still working?”

“Your fingers, when you slice and stitch planes–they’re delicate, precise.”

“You should leave while you still can–”

Cayeun entwines her arms around his torso possessively, her wings encircling them. “Too late to get away,” she purrs.

“Seriously, why are you here?”

As Cayeun, I stare intently into his eyes, searching for something hidden under the surface. Rather than the small packets of information from before, a veritable stream of Karanos’ consciousness washes over me, impossible to sort through. The art of Suncloud’s practice lies in processing the deluge.

“Do you believe in paradise, Karanos?” she asks, revealing that she knows his identity.

“You know me?” He narrows his eyes. “Or she’s reading my thoughts. Maybe both.”

“Answer the question.” She rubs her wings against him.

He clears his throat. “I believe in the arc of justice. If right and wrong exist in balance, those of us with power should tilt the scale toward good.”

“How juvenile. You didn’t even answer the question.”

He huffs. “Paradise doesn’t just exist, it’s made and maintained. We’ve a long, long way to go before it’s in sight, and we could fail.”

He speaks of a singular paradise as the final destination, Cayeun muses. A place for everyone. I’m not even sure if I can build a personal paradise for myself. “If ever Eternity were paradise, it would have been before ascendants arrived. It’s broken and splintered, scattered like mirror shards. It has an end–an inevitable inertia, sinking into stillness. There isn’t enough time in all the world to piece a paradise together.”

Karanos’ eyes glint. “All you old people are the same–jaded, uninspired, resigned. We have the means to keep Eternity going forever. With infinite time, the only limit is how far we’re willing to go.”

Cayeun reaches for his face, brushing his cheek. “Rift theory,” she says softly. “I’m not the only one who’s heard of you and your ideas. You can’t expect me to really believe you’re out here on an escort job.” She squeezes Karanos’ arm, snuggling up to him. “Let me make an educated guess–you’re moping after Crimson Teeth sent you away.”

“There’s no way she knows about my business with Crimson Teeth unless she can read my thoughts. For her to breach my defenses so thoroughly, she must be powerful...old.”

“You don't know what you’re–”

“You’re just a blue, so I’m not surprised. You’re too inexperienced, mutable. When people like you descend, you become twisted.”

“That’s not why he sent me away. He said I’d be unable to survive a journey, which is bullshit–I can spend days in the void and emerge unscathed.” He finishes his verbal statement with a looping mental mantra: “Stay out of my thoughts!”

So hot-blooded–I love it.

“Holiday’s always tried to be neutral when it comes to the new appointments. It’s probably a political thing. Just try again in another few hundred years.” Cayeun brings her face close to his head, her breath tickling his ear.

“I know it’s political,” Karanos snarls and blushes, his composure collapsing. “And will you stop acting like a harlot? I don’t even know you!”

Her voice is a sultry whisper. “Something to rectify.”

Karanos looks conflicted for a moment, but his expression hardens as he yanks himself free and pulls away from her grasping hands and enticing feathers. “I’m not trying to insult you, but you unnerve me. Good luck with your travels.” He slashes a tear in the veil and glides into it, reality distorting around him like a bubble and closing back together.

Cayeun watches him escape like a cat regarding a mouse. She pounces on the sky, tearing it apart with a wide swipe, crossing from the waterfall glade into a tropical jungle. She moves fast enough that she sees Karanos as he disappears into another rift. Laughing, she pursues him through a few others before he finally stops.

Standing his ground, he takes in a deep breath, then exhales.

He’s so angry, Cayeun realizes, her heart rate rising along with her anticipation. Passion is passion, in the end–love or hate are irrelevant.

“Having fun?” she asks.

“No.”

“Then let’s start over.” She dives forward and surprises him by piercing through his chest, fingers bypassing bone like a hot knife through butter. As Cayeun, I feel Karanos’ heart pulsing frantically in my hand.

Karanos looks at her in disbelief, but she simply waves to him with her off hand, a coy smile plastered on her face. “How’s the pain? I adjusted it a bit.”

He continues to stare in shock.

“I toned it down, obviously. Not all ascendants are masochists.”

She rolls her eyes, then tears the heart from his chest. Just as he expires, Cayeun brings a hand to her head and smacks it with her full strength. Suddenly she’s back in the waterfall glade in the clothes she was previously wearing. Karanos appears soon after...naked.

Before he comes to his senses, Cayeun rubs a crystalline ring on her index finger and her clothes disappear. She smiles and saunters over to the prostrate ascendant. “You’re interesting. If you come with me, I’ll give you some persistent clothing.”

He climbs to his feet and turns his back on her. “If you had any, you’d be wearing it.”

She was, I muse inwardly, amused by Suncloud’s boldness.

Cayeun walks behind him, her wingtips arcing around and brushing against his legs. The rushing waterfalls drown the small sounds of movement as she steps on the slick rock. Karanos is stiff as a statue as Cayeun caresses his shoulder blades. Soon her fingers dance eagerly over his back and wrap around his torso, her body pressing against his. She reaches her hand down to his hips–

“Alright, I’ve seen enough,” I blurt, shaking off the vision. I realize that the back of my sweater is coated in blood. A finger-tip sized cavity still gushes blood from between her breasts, the liquid dripping down her toned stomach.

“You missed the fun part,” Cayeun pouts. “He ends up slapping me–that’s when I knew we’d really hit it off.” She laughs at my blank expression. “You take things too seriously, Ian, to your detriment. You’re like Karanos in that respect, though at least he knows how to relax and go with the flow every once and a while.”

She must be able to sense my agitation. I don’t understand what she wants, which is probably the point–she likes to keep people off balance. Maybe some people find her behavior alluring or mysterious–and I can’t deny that I’m somewhat intrigued–but I’d rather she be more straightforward.

Her eyes shift from fiery to almost...sad. “If I were any more straightforward, I’d be grinding on you. I was hoping you’d come to that conclusion on your own after the vision I showed you–my interest in Karanos was rooted in curiosity.”

I flinch.

“Why deny yourself?”

The words come out far more confident than I feel: “I don’t need to justify myself to you.”

I hate that this woman has seen so much of me. I hate that she refuses to put on any clothes to put me on edge. I hate that she ruined my sweater and that I can’t even take the sticky thing off without playing into her lewd hands. But most of all, I hate that she knows my hate. I trust Crystal–I don’t trust Suncloud.

“Beware, Ignatius Julian Dunai–don’t make the mistake of feeling so strongly that you stop feeling at all. It ruined you in the loop and it’ll ruin you now.” She fiddles with her bangs. “Eternity can be a place of healing, if you let it. Connecting to your old world using my transmission artifact will open the floodgates. You left your world in a state of crisis–unless you’re physically there and can intervene, ignorance is bliss.”

“I need to warn Euryphel.”

Cayeun sighs. “He already knows that the loop technology needs to be destroyed.”

“He doesn’t know that it’ll cause the end of the world,” I argue. “It needs to move up on his priority list, and he needs to get others on board, as well.”

“If you’re so sure. Don’t be disappointed by what you learn, or what happens.”

The more time I spend with Cayeun Suncloud, the more familiar I become with her brand of power manipulation. The sensuality, the craziness keeping you off kilter, the way she can read your mind but still demand a verbal conversation...she orchestrates every interaction so that she has the upper hand on multiple axes of power. Karanos was right that she’s trouble.

I bow my head. “Can we return to Cadivu?”

Suncloud bites her lip. “Wait another twenty seconds.”

Excuse me?

She literally just stares at me for the next twenty seconds. Then, her expression morphs into one of excitement. “Ten minutes–I thought it would never come.”

Wait, ten...minutes?

Oh no.

She holds up her left hand and a ring appears on her ring finger. It’s a silver color with a shining blue gem at its center. The gem is illuminated from below, azure light refracting over the red-yellow surroundings of the lava plane.

She holds out her hand and a white, hand-held microphone falls into it. She holds it out to me. “Take it–this is what you came here for. It’s yours for five years, after which point I’ll come looking for it myself, which is something you don’t want to happen. As for damaging it–don’t.”

It doesn’t look like an artifact. I reach for it, only for Cayeun to pull her arm away like a naughty child. “It’s no fun if I just give it to you.”

Y’jeni, why are ascendants so crazy?

“What do I need to do?”

“It’s simple–take it from me.” She brandishes the artifact again, waving it back and forth.

Another test. Fine, I’ll bite. Ascendant energy glows in my hand, a red herring for what I have planned. I take a step forward. Ascendant-empowered Death energy erupts from within Suncloud’s closed hand, forcing her fingers to spasm. Bones sourced from my void storage knock the transmission artifact to the side and back around toward me.

“Cute,” Suncloud says.

I collapse in pain. I feel like I’m being skinned and turned inside out, the world around me my own distended hide, like I’m trapped inside my own flesh. I try to break free from the mental domination, only for everything to cut off.

Suddenly I find myself naked and on the ground, Cayeun standing over me. I guess I died. I summon a robe of Death energy.

Cayeun grins, the artifact in her grip. “Karanos may be unmatched at traversing the planes, but when it comes to mental manipulation, you’ll be hard pressed to find someone better than me. Let’s hope you’re the quick study Karanos made you out to be.”