Suddenly she felt as though she were screaming energy from every orifice, oily tendrils erupting from her like liquid fire. She had so much power thrumming through her, but she didn’t know how to use it.

I’m supposed to do something, she realized, coming back to her senses. She blinked, then stretched out her hands, black energy leaking like amorphous claws from each fingertip as she grasped the centipede’s living half in her left hand and its dead half in her right.

She felt extremely drunk, but forced herself to clumsily behold the array in her mind, completing the circuit. With a dumb smile plastered on her face, she imagined all the energy that was making her loopy entering the empty circuit instead. Wouldn’t that be splendid? It would kill two birds with one stone–her drunken impairment, and the array’s dormancy.

Maria, what’s happened? Ian called out, his voice oddly loud.

Lots of energy, she replied. Lots. You weren’t lying. It’s going away, though.

Into the centipede? Ian confirmed.

Yeah. I’m pushing it all into its body. I wonder if it’ll explode?

What’s wrong with you? Ian asked.

I think I drank too much. I’ll only drink a shot next time.

You can’t get drunk, you’re undead! he exclaimed, exasperation and worry coming over their bond in equal proportions. Damn it, I wish I could come to you, but they’re giving me no reprieve, even with the others coming in close to assist. Ketu’s a one man army.

Maria could only distantly understand what Ian was saying. Good luck.

The energy continued to gush out of her body and into the array, but it was a river flowing into a dried up lake. It wasn’t enough.

Woozy, Maria flew over and yanked another gem free. She placed her hands back on the centipede while the gem sat between her teeth. This time, instead of crunching down with all her jaw strength, she exerted gradually more pressure until the gem began to leak a vapor that built up and condensed into a liquid down her throat. Each drop of the gem liquid that fell roiled the energy in her body, like water when dripped into acid.

This was more efficient, but it was still too slow. Maria knew what needed to be done.

She crunched this gem like the last, but held the liquid in her mouth. Then, slowly, tentatively, she let a trickle through.

The explosion of energy through her fingertips was outlandish, leaving her stunned and reeling. She nearly swallowed the whole mouthful out of shock.

I might have really imploded and died if I did that, she thought. That would be a stupid way to lose a life.

She felt more lucid after expelling so much energy, so she did the only thing that made sense: ingested more of the metaphorical poison. As the ichor of Death fell down her throat again, a flood of energy gushed out, saturating the array, but also the centipede’s body. Her fingers sank into rotten, withered flesh that had formerly been alive and strong.

You’re killing it, you need to stop! Ian exclaimed.

Maria retracted her hands. The energy continued to gush out, though with no outlet, it pooled around her, filling the vacuum, motes of violet mingling with absolute darkness.

I need to give it an outlet, she replied anxiously. She felt out of control, sick, and oddly alive, almost as though she were beyond herself.

Suddenly Ian was beside her. She didn’t even see him come. He was a mass of bandaged darkness, every inch of him wrapped. He looked more like a monster than a man, like the boogieman of children’s stories.

Maria practically fell into his arms–if one could fall in the weightless void. Ian pulled her up to his head and held her close, then kissed her through the bandages.

The energy in Maria’s body reversed its direction of flow, radiating not out but in. It streamed into Ian’s body as he held her in the embrace. The kiss went on for several seconds, longer than would normally be comfortable, but Ian was already holding his breath.

All the while the battlefield raged on beyond the aegis of woven centipede carapaces, the elementalists pitted against Ketu, and Marcus–who was still alive, but injured–striking doggedly at Danessa.

Ian pulled away and placed his hands on Maria’s shoulders. We’re nearly at the nethereal skylights. The centipede is hanging on for life. Hopefully the coil’s energy–paired with the energy you converted and fed into its array–will be enough, else Crystal will have my head.

Maria looked up at him with wide eyes. There was an aloofness about him that left her dumbstruck. She wrapped her arms around his torso and pulled him closer. You are a different creature than I, Dunai. I pity your enemies and rejoice that I am no longer among them.

She couldn’t see beneath the Death energy over his face, so she had no idea what his reaction was. He took his arms off her shoulders and reached for the ornate dagger, pulling it from the void storage sack on his waist. He held it up, its blade only illuminated by the ambient violet glow of the other centipede constructs sent to Maria as sacrifice.

Back to Dunai now, am I? he murmured. With an abrupt shake of his head, he was gone again, whipping through the centipede wall and back into the fray beyond.

Maria placed her hands back on the centipede, avoiding the rotten section. She wasn’t sure what to make of Ian’s melancholic statement, so she chose to ignore it. If Ian said they were approaching the nethereal coil, she needed to be ready to spur the array on and activate it as soon as possible.

Every passing second was an agony of suspense. Maria couldn’t see the outside and had no idea how close they were. Ian’s barrier was so tightly constructed that Vik’s air couldn’t even get in. The vitality of the centipede, the other combatants, and Ian’s distinct, Death-veiled figure were just about all she could see.

Suddenly, Ian’s Death energy cloaked the rest of their allies, and Maria knew without being told that the time had arrived. Her fingers tingled with anticipation.

That was when she felt it–the anxious stirring of the centipede, its entire length writhing as though in rapture. Energy coalesced along its length and healed it, restoring its ruined vitality. Energy then filtered down into the array, coursing through the circuit.

Maria closed her eyes and sent her attention into the array, speeding along the natural process of gathering energy. She could tell that the centipede understood what she was doing and welcomed the assistance. It was a bizarre, if effective collaboration.

Working together, it only took moments until the array activated.

Ketu and Danessa died.

She sensed immense jubilation and triumph over their bond, but Maria only felt tired, if intrigued by the centipede’s alien intelligence. She liked winning, but y’jeni, what she wouldn’t give for the chance to quietly meditate and decompress.

Maria left the centipede and carved a path through Ian’s centipede wall, rejoining the others. Vik had recreated an orb of air around them, giving them all a moment to catch their breaths.

“–bring it to another plane,” Ian explained, gesturing with the dagger. His face was bereft of the Death energy tendrils, but it wasn’t his normal face. He’d used the dagger on himself again, though this time the third eye was missing from his forehead. His skin was as dark as the void, his features made more angular by bony ridges. Everything about him seemed more predatory.

“You and Maria had the greatest hand in victory,” Marcus conceded, surprising Maria by being the first to seemingly agree. “However, is there a vulnerability close enough to reach? If we can’t get there fast enough, others will kill the centipede out from under us.”

Ian snapped his plane compass open. “I’ve been steering it toward one this entire time. It’s on the surface, but if we move quickly, we can do it.”

Vik and Alan shared uneasy expressions, but ultimately agreed to the unexpected plan.

Maria couldn’t blame them. Covered in Death energy and under the dagger’s transformation, Ian was extremely intimidating, and Maria had spent time around a number of powerful, intimidating practitioners. There was just...something about the way his eyes pierced into everyone like he was seeing into their souls. Maria knew he couldn’t see the souls of the living–he lamented it all the time–but looking into those smoldering violet eyes, she almost believed he could. The intensity was unsettling, and Maria knew he wasn’t doing it on purpose. Maybe it’s the shape of his brow when transformed, she mused. It makes his eyes look more sunken in, putting them in sharp relief. Or maybe it was how expressionless he looks, like his entire face is carved from stone.

Since they all agreed to Ian’s–technically, Crystal’s–plan, they moved quickly, steering the centipede past the nethereal coil and toward the surface. The centipede bucked once it realized it was being forced away from its source of energy, but together Ian and the elementalists controlled enough of its body to resist its efforts and drag it downward.

They hit the atmosphere of the plane with a ferocious hiss. They were moving too fast–Maria’s job was to bleed off the heat of their descent and keep them alive. In that task, Vik was an indispensable partner, the woman reducing the air density to decrease the resistance, while she blasted them with wind to slow them down. They were moving so quickly that their concern wasn’t being caught by other ascendants, but splattering the centipede across the ground.

Ian dove ahead, plane compass in hand.

Maria had a strong sense of déjà vu as Ian reached out to slash the sky. Less than a year ago–even when counting dilated time–he seemed to have stood in this very place, full of uncertainty. He’d struggled to part the veil, nearly severing his hand on its shorn edge.

Now the veil appeared to peel away of its own accord as Ian ran two fingers down it, mimicking the gesture that Karanos favored. He then clasped both edges in fingertips coated in blue energy and tore the veil apart with a ferocity unfamiliar to Maria, his strength enough to form a hole ten feet across. She realized with a start that his fingers were dark talons, not formed by Death energy, but induced by the dagger’s transformation. While Ian had let his Death energy tendrils drop, Maria couldn’t see his arms beneath his armor. She wondered if they, too, were black.

The other ascendants rushed toward the hole in the veil and enlarged it, no small feat given the elasticity of the veil’s edges, especially on this plane. Peeling the veil away required all of their concentration and effort.

The centipede froze, visibly shocked by the veil’s sundering.

Maria was also surprised, but for a different reason. The scent of sweet flowers wafted into her nose, dulled by her undeath, but still she remembered where she’d smelled those flowers before.

The fragrant veil.

Ian seemed to realize it just as she did, his eyes growing wide. He moved to shut the veil, but the others held it open, confused by his change of heart.

It was too late, anyway: the centipede pounced on the opening with gusto, its body filing through the veil like an eel in the muck, swishing back and forth over the ground, its many segments churning up the ashy terrain.

Messeras is going to kill me, Ian transmitted, and disappeared into the new plane, his hands glowing blue and violet.