Pain greeted Idelle as she returned to consciousness. A dull throbbing in her left arm and leg, and flashes of sharp searing agony in her chest whenever she breathed too deeply. Something heavy was on her back. She tried to push herself up, but something grated horribly in her left arm at the attempt, and she fell back down with a cry of pain. Only echoes responded.

She laid there, keeping her breathing as shallow as she could, trying not to panic in the pitch blackness. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was arguing with Cecilia — no, that wasn’t right. Cecilia had tried to kill her. She’d defended herself. She’d lost.

Idelle clenched her teeth. She was still alive. That was more than could be said for the scattered bodies across the city.

Her arm throbbed. If you lie to me again, I’ll hate you. The memory of her own voice seemed to mock her. If you want to truly hate someone, you need something far more than petty lies, it taunted. Oh, what was that? Your wish came true! Aren’t you happy?

Her fingernails dug into her palm and she tried to force herself up into a kneeling position with only her right arm. Her body screamed at her for trying, her chest shouting to stop, to not under any circumstances do that. She tried to force it and was rewarded with another surge of agony just as she felt the weight on her back shift slightly. She crumpled back to the ground with a whimper.

Idelle closed her eyes and tried to force the pain away, to press it into a little ball and hide it somewhere she couldn’t feel it. Don’t breathe too deep, don’t move, just stay calm, she repeated the words to herself, clinging to them like a lifeline. The pain was so sharp and present that nothing else seemed real in comparison.

Time passed, was it minutes or hours? Something was there, burning in front of her. Strange shapes seemed to dance in front of her eyes, beckoning her forward. Was she dreaming? She might have fallen back into unconsciousness, she wasn’t sure.

She kept breathing, vaguely aware of more seconds slipping away. She felt empty and nauseated. This wasn’t good. But her only option was to be patient, and pray that her abnormal body could pull through.

Eventually, slowly, the pain lessened, receding into the background of her consciousness. She felt her breathing steady; like someone else was regulating it. Good. That was the way. She pressed her arm against the ground again. On the count of three. Three, two, one…

Idelle clenched her teeth and pressed her body away from the ground with everything she could muster. The now-familiar flash of pain came, but she already heard and felt something shifting, and the next moment the pressure on her back lessened as whatever debris she was pinned under fell to the side with a cacophonous crash. She shoved herself in the opposite direction, forcing back a scream as she rolled over her left arm and out from under the remainder.

For a moment she just laid there panting. The pain in her chest was thankfully much better when she wasn’t being crushed from both sides, but the throbbing in her arm had only intensified in exchange.

Slowly, Idelle sat up. Everything was still pitch black. Could she cast a light spell? She reached out to her magic-sight —

A whirling point of something indescribable sang in place, so bright that it nearly drowned out the magic around her. It beckoned her, calling her name, promising remedy, salvation…

The pain receded. She focused out, and a tiny spot of light sprang into being, illuminating a rough-cut tunnel sealed off by a mess of wood and rock. Somehow, she’d been thrown mostly clear of the collapse. Lucky, but that wouldn’t help her further. She turned back, towards the beacon, her mind cold and calm.

She flexed her left arm, but it could barely move past the elbow due to swelling. No matter. What about her leg? She looked down, a long cut visible on her skin. It had already clotted and was visibly closing.

Right, her sword. She spotted the hilt, half-buried under a shower of small rock and dirt. She walked over to it and tried to pull it loose. No luck. She’d have to take the time to unbury it. She let the light flicker out. She could work well enough in the dark for this.

A few minutes later, she hauled the sword free. The blade was still intact, only a few scratches marking its shared ordeal with her. She set it over her shoulder and turned. The distortion in the surrounding magic had faded slightly. She should hurry. Something was wrong in her chest still, despite the fading pain. She needed to feed. To get more strength to heal herself with.

She concentrated, her shimmer of light popping into existence in front of her again, and started down the tunnel, her footsteps echoing into the blackness. If the other end was blocked, she would be in trouble. Best not to worry about it for now.

A minute later, her light started to dim. She frowned at it, then looked up in surprise. No, that wasn’t right at all, the light was the same as ever. Instead, the tunnel walls were ever so slightly glowing.

She dismissed her charm and continued on. Faster now, ignoring her injuries. The passage slowly widened, and another tunnel joined hers as the glow continued to intensify.

There were markings on the walls, she realized. Her eyes scanned over figures, tiny stick-like humans and great monsters both. Some like huge flying birds, others like lions and great sinuous snakes, and still others strange combinations of them all. Here a small figure raised its hands and a bird was struck from the heavens, over there another one stood atop the head of a huge serpentine shadow, the details faded with time.

She didn’t have the time to examine them in detail, her destination still slowly growing fainter in her magic-sight even as she drew nearly atop it. She was jogging now. Flying past pillars and then through a great arched entryway.

The air was cold here, unnaturally so, enough to cause even her discomfort. She ignored it, running through an ancient hall of stone. There was another entryway ahead, this one with great stone doors, words were written across them in a script she distantly recognized but could not read.

She pushed the rightmost door with all her strength, struggling with its weight and her useless left arm. Slowly, it swung open, and she picked her sword back up and carefully stepped through.

She was greeted by a beautiful circular chamber, dozens of meters across. Five more sets of stone doors were laid at intervals around it, with the seventh pair of wooden doors already slightly ajar. More pillars were carved from the rock around her, each ornately engraved with complex patterns. The walls between them held more of the faint paintings from earlier, endless worlds of illustrated stories that would take hours for anyone to look over fully.

A spiraling series of tiles led into the center of the room, converging in what seemed to be a great circle. But the full pattern was impossible to make out.

It was obscured by the great mass of darkness that lurked in the center of the room. A twisting, impenetrable fog of blackness, with tendrils of frozen air flaking away from it slowly as it curled around on itself. It moved like it was almost alive, like a dense swarm of insects lazily drifting as they devoured something.

No, not “like” at all. It was devouring something, Idelle realized, as she lowered her sword and stared. The fading source of the disturbance that had sent magic all across the city haywire was deep in the middle of the fog, tiny fragments slowly flaking away and scattering into twinkling dust. For a moment, she took in the scene in breathless wonder, barely even aware of her injuries or the headache that was starting to make itself known again.

Then, the girl’s eyes narrowed. The fog was unexpected. She didn’t know how it would react. Experimentally, she took a step forward, her sword once again held at the ready. Another step. Still no reaction. Carefully, she continued closer.

As she closed two-thirds of the distance, the fog suddenly twisted faster, congealing on her side of the room. She paused, considering. Then, like lightning, she stepped forward, her sword slashing through the blackness in a wild, uncontrolled swing as she tried to compensate for her broken left arm. The dark mess gave way to her blade, falling back, but even as her teeth shone in a rictus of triumph it condensed back and washed almost lazily back towards her.

She cut through it again, and then again, as she stepped back, retreating halfway towards the wall before the fog returned to normal. Not that easy then.

That was fine, she still had one more trump card. She considered. Yes, she’d risk it on this next strike. Even if she didn’t act, she would die here regardless before too long. She could feel her body failing, something in her chest had been crushed beyond her ability to heal, and even as she stood here her heart was working harder to try and compensate.

Slowly, she walked back towards the fog as focused. Her body was light, ethereal, bereft of not only pain but weight as well. There was nothing to hold her back, nothing that COULD hold her back. One strike. That was all she needed.

She leapt. The intangible inky mess in front of her split around her sword, fanning out to both sides like the petals of an eerie flower. Then the blade slashed into something solid, cutting deep into it before it was jerked out of her hand as it stuck in place. She nearly stumbled as she landed, awkwardly avoiding her own blade as she frantically lunged forward.

For a second she saw myriad lavender reflections of her own face spread in front of her, eyes wide and lips curved into a snarl. Then, as the fog closed back around her, she pulled the sword free, grabbing it by the blade in her haste. She pressed her face against the gash it left and drank deeply.

She almost screamed, choking on the blood.

The first sweet mouthful felt as if her throat had caught aflame, and the fire almost instantly spread into her own blood; forcing itself through her heart to the rest of her body. It attacked her without hesitation, tearing her body apart from the inside as she tried to control it. There was a horrible bitter taste mixed with the flame as well, a sickening astringent flavor that made her want to puke. No, not just a taste, there was something else in the blood, a dark poison filled with a cold bitterness that seemed to fight only the flames, ignoring her body.

She growled, fighting the flame, trying to control it, trying to make it hers as it tore her apart. She would not be denied! It was hers now! The flame tore at her further, even as she drank more of it. She —

No, what was she doing? The flame would destroy her, Idelle screamed to herself. The fog was around her now, freezing cold, eating away at her skin even as her blood boiled. She felt her body being ripped apart from the inside. Desperately, she focused instead on the other liquid, ignoring the flame, pushing it back even as it tried to flow into her, and gulping down only the black filth within it despite the horrible flavor.

She felt the poison bite at the flame, eroding it even as the conflict further ravaged her. Her vision blurred. The flame was weakening as the black liquid further permeated her body, swirling under her skin. She desperately grabbed at the excess as it spilled through her, forcing it into her broken blood vessels to try and heal them even as they continued to shatter, her heart desperately pumping to keep up. Just a moment longer…

The flame seemed to flicker. In an instant, she asserted herself over it. It spread itself out through her body, no longer a scorching dagger but instead a gentle warmth that pushed away the icy fog.

Images flashed through her mind, strange fragmented scenes that intoxicated Idelle even as they threatened to overwhelm her. A mountain, taller than the skies. A sun, burning, vast and untouchable. A strange cage with five sides. She struggled, trying to remember who she was, what she was doing, but the deluge of information continued, growing ever more incomprehensible. She felt dizzying joy and melancholy that seemed eternal, saw shapes that seemed to twist out of reality with a thousand sides, looked at a tree only to see every leaf at once, down to each individual uncountable vein…

Something thrashed, and she once again felt her ribs shatter as she was violently flung out of the fog.

She hung in the air for a moment that seemed to stretch out, endless.

Then she smashed awkwardly against the ground; sliding almost to the edge of the room. She laid there for a moment, dazed, her body urgently absorbing the rest of the black ooze she’d drunk to repair itself. Her head swam and for a moment the thought flashed through her head that she really would die here.

Her vision stilled. The girl forced herself back onto her feet, frowning as she felt her ankle twist in a direction it wasn’t supposed to. That was broken too. And her sword…

She looked towards the center of the room. The fog was slowly unwinding itself, painfully squirming its way in her direction. Too bad for it. She wasn’t dead yet.