I use my hand as a visor to peer up the cliff side. I fly back up to the top, walk over to the mirror that Ash propped up against a small boulder, and stare at the crown of fire that hangs above my head. If the cloak is Sun, and the bracers End, then what’s this?

The drops of fire are perfectly spaced apart like the points of a regular hexagon, Maria observes.

I flick my fingers at one of the tear-shaped flames. It bends around my finger but otherwise doesn’t react; it doesn’t even feel hot. I cycle Death energy around it, once more trying to sense Maria’s soul investiture.

Feel anything? I ask.

Nothing.

I try to activate the crown for a solid hour without success. Eventually, Maria and I agree to ask Ash for help. But first, we agree to end our transformations. I’ve periodically fed the dagger ascendant energy, cutting myself–and the three Maria artifacts–to renew our metamorphoses. I need to see what happens when I let the dagger’s energy fade and Maria and I revert back to our normal forms.

I start sweating as my body reverts. I breathe deeply to fight my lightheadedness while using my practice to enhance the exchange of oxygen in my blood.

Maria’s transformation ends a minute later. The regalia floats off my body and hangs in the air, as though garbing a ghost. Suddenly, lich Maria is standing as though she’s been there the whole time, her hair and clothes unruffled.

“That’s uncanny,” I state, shaking my head. I wince at the resultant pain, like my skull is being torn in two. I position my head between my legs and try to avoid the stars dancing across my vision.

Maria lunges forward in a martial stance, one arm out in front, the other to the side. “I rather prefer having a body,” she comments, already gliding into another pose.

I want to respond to her, but I can’t. My lips and tongue feel disconnected.

Maria’s face falls and she drops out of her stance, rushing to my side. She places a hand on my back. “It’s been a few seconds and you’re already scorching.”

I moan in response.

Can you speak like this? she transmits.

Words elude me completely; I can understand what each word means individually, but not how they all fit together. My ability to interpret language is broken.

Maria lowers me onto my back, then bites her lip and eyes the dagger gripped tightly in my hand. She pries my fingers apart and holds it loosely.

Suddenly, she stabs herself in the chest, then funnels energy through the knife. She disappears as the regalia forms on my body. I sense its presence only vaguely, as though my skin is covered in a layer of thick foam.

“Not...me...too?” I ask, struggling to form the words. Maria only used the dagger on herself.

You’ve already improved, she says. Can you understand me now?

Yes, I reply, though thinking is a strain.

Transform yourself, she instructs.

My muscles are unresponsive, so I use decemancy to drag myself forward and grab hold of the blade. I slice it across my stomach, willing my ascendant energy to flow through it and into my body. The change is like slipping into a cool pool on a sweltering summer day. I feel lucid. The pain is gone, along with the weakness.

“Much better,” I say, standing up.

Good. Now let the energy fade and the transformation revert. You need to acclimate your normal body so you aren’t reliant on this form, and more specifically, the power of the dagger. Right now, if you lose it, you’re practically vegetative.

Although I dread being so weak and foggy, I force myself to let the energy dissipate. She’s right, of course–I can’t afford to rely on the dagger when it can be stolen by other ascendants. And if we plan to use the dagger to lure out Achemiss, I’ll likely be forced to relinquish its usage when providing it to others for valuation.

“I just need to stay...conscious...” I tell myself softly as I lean my head against my knees. “Tell me...a story to keep...awake.”

What kind?

My heavy breathing interrupts my speech. “Don’t care. Need distraction. This acclimation...might take...a while.”

I can’t look in my void storage while I’m like this, she explains. I have books loaded onto my glossY about government, law, and leadership. I could turn back to my normal appearance for a few moments, retrieve the glossY and its ambient energy charger, then read one to you.

I think those topics might just put me to sleep or make my brain hurt more. “Tell me a story about yourself, instead.”

You’ve already seen inside my soul.

“That’s...different. I see bits and pieces. Fragments of the whole. Isolated moments. Give me a story.”

So she does. One story turns into two, and two into many. Whenever I feel my eyelids drooping, Maria flares the power of the cloak. She can’t control it like I can to fly, but she’s able to send comforting warmth into the mantle and coax the fabric into tightening around me like a hug. You’d think that wrapping me in a warm blanket would only help me fall asleep, but the mantle gives me a small burst of energy, just enough to keep me going.9

“How long has it been?” I ask.

Three or so hours, she replies.

“I think it’s time for me to transform again. I’m not going to get better in an afternoon–it’ll take time.” Death energy courses through my body and I control my finger bones, wrapping my hands around the dagger’s hilt. I draw the dagger across my body, starting from the top of my head to my torso, the transformation spreading more rapidly than when I simply stab myself in the chest. As my skin blackens, strength returns to my body.

I think one more experiment is in order, Maria says. Let me return to my humanoid form. We’ll see how long you can last when you’re transformed by the knife.

I do a few stretches while I wait for Maria to revert back. It’s easy to take for granted the ability to move. I freely immobilize myself in combat when the circumstances call for it, especially now that the consequences are so reversible in Eternity. I can sever my spine to cut off pain in my lower body and be none the weaker for it.

But now I’ve lost control. I can’t heal myself with my own power. Even with the might of my practice brought to bear, even after dying in Eternity and coming back–I’m beholden to the dagger’s transformation ability. It’s as though all I’ve been told is a lie: I can be hurt in Eternity, made lesser, ruined. I knew it was true with respect to the mind–I spoke frequently with Messeras about how Eternity makes people worse. But I’d considered my body inviolable.

Nothing is impossible in Eternity, I remind myself. I remember the youthful form of Floria wasting away in isolation, praying for an end. Not even death.

Maria reappears as herself after a few minutes and I feel her absence like a blow to the gut. I gasp and my knees buckle. Maria is at my side from the beginning, supporting my shoulder.

“Can you understand me?” she asks.

“Yes,” I reply. “At least I can for now. I feel weak, but I can still walk.”

She supports me while I pace the area, leaving tracks in the desert bluff dust. Gradually–over the span of fifteen minutes–the weakness intensifies. Maria is forced to use increasing strength to keep me standing steady.

After thirty minutes, breathing is a chore and my limbs are like jelly. I trip and fall to my knees, gnashing my teeth in frustration. “I can’t believe this is what I’m reduced to,” I say. “Dependent on an artifact–on you.”

She smiles. “I don’t mind you being dependent on me.”

I narrow my eyes. “You said it yourself earlier–having a body is preferable to being–“ I pause, gesticulating weakly while I collect my thoughts. I can still think and speak, but even those competencies are waning. “Y’jeni, a piece of equipment!”

“Three pieces of equipment, to be precise,” Maria says. Her expression grows frigid. “Ian, I think there’s something you don’t understand.”

I tilt my head. “What?”

“You are under an affliction of the soul.”

“I think I already understand that much,” I reply. “That’s why I can’t just die to reverse the damage.”

“But my main point is that you were afflicted because someone pushed you too far. Someone with no regard at all for safety and limits, who disdains consequences.” She grits her teeth. “Do you know what he said, when you fell unconscious?”

“No.”

She begins a poor impersonation of the ancient’s voice. “‘It’s possible I might have broken him.’ That’s all he had to say. Not, ‘oh my goodness! Ian is unconscious! We need to save him!’”

“He’d never say something like that.”

Maria glares. “You know what I’m trying to say. He didn’t act even slightly concerned.”

“Because he was confident that he could fix me,” I retort.

“I don’t know why you’re so sure of that,” she says grimly. “I was the one that saved you, Ian. Without me, you’d still be unconscious. Anyway, when I assume my ‘equipment form’, I don’t blame you. I blame him.” Her eyes smolder with energy from her Sun affinity. “Now that we’ve come this far, we’re going to take whatever we can from him until there’s nothing left to offset what we’ve lost, then we’re going to return to Karanos and Crystal.”

“That was always the plan.”

“Perhaps in the beginning,” she says bitterly. “But that ended when we placed our confidence in him, blindly believing that he’d lead us to greater heights. He’s eccentric enough to be charming and seem almost harmless–after all, what reason would he have to hurt us? But you can’t trust a man who has no remorse.”

“I don’t disagree with you.” I reply, sighing. “I think it’s time to see him and see if he can help us figure out the purpose of the fire crown.”

Maria wraps her hands around mine. In a sensuous gesture, she pulls them up so the knife blade rests between her breasts. Her face is an inch from mine. Suncloud’s diadem artifact isn’t activated, so her skin is deathly pale to my dark black. In the beginning, I had a strong preference for kissing Maria when under the artifact’s influence, when her skin was warm and lifelike, her lips pink and healthy. I could pretend that she was still alive, that what I’d done to her had never come to pass.

I’ve since gotten over myself.

We embrace as I plunge the dagger into her chest, its blade scoring her sternum. In a blink, she’s gone. I whip around and stare into the far-off mirror, beholding the regalia anew. The weakness and mental fogginess dissipate.

“Thank you,” I breathe.

She doesn’t respond, but the mantle tightens around me like a hug.