After everything Kendrick had been through, being summoned to another universe, given an ancient weapon to defend it, slaying demons and a giant crocodilian monster, and fighting a god of darkness, he found it ironic that his journey would likely end in a jail cell.

“Put these on,” said the Warden of the Redrune Academy. He handed Kendrick a burlap sack to be worn on his head and handed one each to the two witches.

“Get ready for a long wagon ride,” said Bellara. “The Academy is many, many sunstrides from here. It’ll take days.”

“What makes you think we’re taking something as slow as a wagon?” the Warden asked. Kendrick could hear him digging through a box of heavy objects that all clunked against each other, dull and smooth—like crystals. He heard the Warden tapping on one and it was all but confirmed then. “Join hands. Miss Cass, you will then take hold of my hand. Remember not to try to escape this portal. Letting go or making any attempt to break free could be disastrous to your health and quite possibly fatal. Am I making myself perfectly clear?”

Glad he said something, thought Kendrick. “You got it, boss.”

“Very well then.”

“Seriously, don’t,” Bellara warned in a hushed tone. “Even if you survived, he’d just find his way back here anyway. The only way out is to play along for now.”

The Warden cleared his throat loudly. “Enough chatter. Now, brace yourselves for translocation. Ahmni vecto!”

Kendrick found himself wishing he could tell Tanathil what was happening or where they were going. It was far too late for that now.

There was a blinding white light and a rush of wind all around him. It shot up from his feet and all the air around him disappeared, his breath catching in his throat. He felt inexplicably claustrophobic and, at the same time, like he was tumbling through some great abyss with no up or down.

A few moments later, the experience was complete and they emerged, presumably, on the other side of the portal. Kendrick fell a short distance to the ground and stumbled for a couple of steps before gaining solid footing. “Everybody else okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” Sahni answered meekly.

“I’m more worried about what happens next,” said Bellara.

“As you should be,” the Warden added. There was a sound of something hard and non-metallic clattering to the floor—Kendrick guessed it was a discarded crystal, the one the wizard must have used to store the aura that was tapped to portal them here. Even through the sack over his head, Kendrick could tell that they were in a much darker place now, probably somewhere indoors. “Wait here. I will confer with the proper authorities on how best to impose the natural consequences of your deeds. And don’t dare to remove your masks—I’ll know if you do.” The receding sounds of his footsteps told Kendrick that they were probably alone now.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kendrick asked. “Portal right out of here?”

“If the Warden is halfway decent at his job,” said Bellara, “then there will be binding sigils placed here in this room. Even if there aren’t, by myself, I could only portal the three of us a short distance. That was the whole reason we couldn’t just portal to the Rift, remember? I might be able to get us to the edge of the Academy grounds, maybe a bit farther... but they surely have lots of scouts roaming at least a one-sunstride radius around the school. We’d never make it far.”

“Are we fighting our way out?”

“What?” Sahni gasped. “Overworld, no!”

“Well, I just mean...” Kendrick threw up his hands, only realizing afterward it was a futile gesture since they couldn’t see him. “I’m just saying, it sucks to go through all that and then get arrested—especially after all we did! And for what?”

“Stealing a priceless ancient artifact, breaking it, and stealing many crystals fully laden with aura,” Sahni replied glumly. “I feared this day would come for us...”

“I’ll take the fall,” said Bellara.

“What? Bell, no, you can’t! I helped you. I’m just as responsible.”

“It was all my idea.” Kendrick could hear the redhead sigh. “Bringing Kendrick here was my idea. Giving him the Psysword was my idea. I won’t have either one of you suffering any consequences. The only reason you two helped me was because I made you.”

“That’s not true,” Kendrick argued. A silent beat. “Maybe at first, sure. But I can tell you right now, if you asked Day One Kendrick to stab a freaking god while in a freefall jump to probable death, that would have been a non-starter! Ultimately, I’m here because I made that choice.”

“Me, too,” said Sahni, the fearful wincing palpable in her voice, “and I can’t blame you for the choices I made. I did make them. Even if I do regret them...” She sighed. “Well, partially. If we hadn’t conducted the ritual, we never would have met Kendrick. Even aside from all he’s done for us and for the Ecumene... well...” Another quiet beat. Kendrick heard Sahni’s unsure little footsteps scraping the stone floor. “My life would have been worse had I never met you.”

“You two really want to risk imprisonment?” Bellara asked. “Even though I’m giving you both a way out? Even though I’m offering to accept all the blame?”

“We’ve been through everything else together,” said Sahni.

Kendrick smiled under his mask. “Why not this, too?” In the quiet that followed—I never realized how much I relied on body language before today, Kendrick thought—he imagined Bellara smiling under the bag on her head before nodding resolutely.

“All right then. No need to rehearse a story. We’ll just tell the truth. And may Aldiel be with us again today.”

***

A while passed in the empty room, so long that Kendrick and his witch companions sat on the floor rather than remain standing for so long. The “godslayer”—I didn’t really kill him, sure, fine, but it sounds freaking sweet, he told himself privately—sat twiddling his thumbs and then tenting and un-tenting his fingers in a mind-numbing little rhythm he created for himself. He had accidentally fallen out of rhythm a second time when a group of echoing footsteps grew steadily louder and the three criminals were no longer alone.

“Bellara Cass,” said the Warden. There were at least three others with him, maybe more, but Kendrick couldn’t quite tell by sound alone. “Please follow us. Your interrogation is about to begin.”

“Is this really necessary?” she asked.

“Please do not speak unless spoken to, Miss Cass. I promise this will all be over very soon.”

“See you on the other side,” Bellara said to her friends, and then the five sets of footsteps disappeared into the echoes of some unseen corridor.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” Kendrick sighed. “After all we’ve been through. What’s the slammer like here in the Ecumene?”

“What?”

“Does Bellara get a lawyer? Any chance she might get probation instead of jailtime? How soon can she get parole?”

Silence. “Um...” Sahni’s voice was small and uncertain. “I don’t know the meaning of those words you’re saying. What are they?”

Kendrick thought for a moment and realized he didn’t have concise definitions, either. These words were leftover memories that passed through the mental filter of his summoning into the Ecumene, tiny, insignificant remnants of his life before, his life in the “real” world, or the one that had been real to him, at least. It infuriated him to no end how he could remember mundane details but not the things that should have mattered most.

Until recently, at least.

“Um,” Kendrick answered after a while, “well, a lawyer is someone who helps defend a criminal.”

“Like, in combat?”

“What? No, in court. They... they argue with the judge and the jury to make sure that the criminal gets a fair trial. But there’s also another lawyer, a... a prosecutor, who argues with that lawyer.”

“I’m sorry, Kendrick, I don’t know what those things are, either.”

He laughed through his nose. “It’s okay. I guess what I really mean to ask is...” He wanted to remove the bag on his head and see Sahni’s face. He had missed her so much when he thought she had died on the battlefield, so much that it hurt. “Do you think she’ll have to spend a long time in jail? Do you think we all will?”

“Truthfully, I’m not sure.” Sahni was quiet after that, shifting slightly on her seat of stone. Then he heard the faintest sniffles and the tiny hint of a whimper.

“Sahni, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. It’ll be okay.”

“I’m scared for her.” Sahni let herself cry a little louder and a little more freely now. “I’m scared for all of us. I was afraid something like this would happen, and now it has. Isn’t that silly, after I nearly died fighting the god of the Underworld, that this is scaring me?”

“No, it’s not silly,” he replied instantly. “It’s scaring me, too.” Kendrick crawled on his hands and knees across the room to reach her. He felt along the floor, trying to find her boot as a frame of reference so he could sit next to her. He ended up slapping a hand clumsily on her thigh. He pulled away and gasped. “Sorry.” She didn’t say anything. Secretly, he was grateful for the bag on his head and the darkness around them that concealed any evidence of him blushing.

He scooted closer to Sahni and put a friendly arm around her shoulder. She cried into his chest, the rest of her body sort of going limp against him. He had that familiar strange feeling like when Bellara had kissed him back in Tanathil’s home village of Sylcourt. He surmised that life-and-death situations such as these had the tendency to create close bonds between people.

As worried as he was for Bellara and for them all, having his arm wrapped around Sahni, sitting with her in the peaceful, quiet dark, feeling her chest rise and fall as she calmed down—on the whole, it was not entirely unpleasant. He wasn’t quite sure how to feel.

But he did not have long to think about it.

When it seemed as though Bellara had not been taken from them for very much time, the Warden and his cohorts returned. “Sahni Khloremi and Kendrick, He Who Pierced the Dark Lord—” Okay, that’s pretty fucking cool, too, he couldn’t help but think “—follow us. These proceedings are nearly at an end.”

“Can we take these things off?” Kendrick asked. “I can’t see shit—and I do mean that respectfully, of course.”

“Absolutely not,” said the Warden. Kendrick thought he heard a smile in the man’s voice, and that unnerved him to his core. “You will be permitted to remove them shortly. Now, as I said, follow us at once.”

Kendrick did his best to oblige. He walked behind the sound of the Warden’s footsteps, hearing the others walking at the back of the group. He heard Sahni clear her throat next to him, and when he reached out for her hand, their fingers laced together. “Is that you?” he asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” she whispered back.

Just to make sure we don’t get lost or separated, he thought. “Hands to yourself,” said one of the other wizards in the party. “Don’t get any strange ideas about escaping.” Kendrick felt a rough, scratchy hand pry their fingers apart, and he resolved not to protest or make a scene.

They traveled down a long hallway that was so narrow, it could only be traveled comfortably single-file—Kendrick was able to touch both walls with his fingertips if he stretched out his arms. He did this on several occasions until one of the Warden’s people, a witch, said, “Please keep your hands to yourself, young man.” He quickly obeyed again.

Judging by the change in sound, the hallway opened up to a much larger room. Kendrick was able to see a bit more light filtering through the burlap in front of his eyes.

“The Redrune Academy has decided that you three will be charged as a group,” said the Warden. “Acting with their full authority, I will now escort you both to Miss Cass, who is waiting outside.”

“Outside?” Kendrick echoed. For some reason, a vision of a public execution flashed through his mind—three thieves hanged from the gallows for a crowd to see. They don’t do that kind of stuff here, do they? Not for what we did.

“I will ask you to abide by the same rules as your scarlet-haired friend,” the Warden said from behind Kendrick’s back, pushing him along gently but firmly by the shoulders. “Do not speak until spoken to, and this will all be over very shortly.”

The hot sun pierced Kendrick’s mask and caused his eyes to shut protectively, the blackness of his closed eyes glowing pinkish-orange even with the added barrier of the bag. He felt a cool breeze across his fingers, his only exposed skin. His ears, more attuned than ever, picked up the sounds of many feet shuffling in the distance, a cough here and there, and some hushed whispers. Really getting public execution vibes here, he thought, trying to maintain his casual humor in the face of his own uncertain fate. Really hoping I’m wrong.

“Bellara Cass,” the Warden shouted so loudly, and so suddenly, it made Kendrick flinch, “Sahni Khloremi, and Kendrick, He Who Pierced the Dark Lord, you have been brought here today so that your crimes may be recorded and proportionally punished. The law does not cease to bind the Ecumene even in times such as these, and especially now that we see a return to normalcy on the horizon. Collectively, you three have been charged with theft of an extremely valuable ancient artifact, the Psysword, as well as ten crystals fully laden with aura. These crimes did not go unnoticed, but heretofore there have been more pressing matters, namely the invasion of our realm at the hands of the Underworld.

“Now that that threat has been ostensibly ended, justice can wait no longer. Because it is your first offense against the law of Kanthos, the appropriate sentence is a fine of 1,200 gold coins.” Could have been way worse, Kendrick thought. He heard Bellara gasp, however. It was only then that he realized he didn’t know much about the monetary system here in Kanthos or how difficult it would be to pay a fine of that size. “I promised you in Crystalcairn that you would get exactly what you deserved, didn’t I? I always deliver on my promises. Bearing this sentence in mind, it has also come to the attention of the Academy that you not only stole these objects from the school, but you also used them—going so far as to deplete all of the stolen aura in the crystals and break the precious Psysword.”

Bellara began to say, “We were trying to save—”

“Enough!” the Warden barked. “Bellara Cass, I will not hear another word. Your confession in your interrogation is more than sufficient and no one else needs to hear what transpired there.” Wait, what? Kendrick wondered. I’m confused. What’s going on here? “While the nature of your aura usage will forever remain a mystery to the public, it is clear you gifted the Psysword to this odd foreigner, and he damaged it in his attack on the Dark Lord Urobius.” Excited murmurs rose up from the crowd. “I’m afraid these actions cannot go unnoticed, either. In light of these deeds, the Redrune Academy has decided that a sum of 1,500 gold coins...” Bellara and Sahni both gasped now. “...shall be bestowed upon you to settle your criminal debt, with the difference provided to you as a gift of thanks for your heroism.”

Whoosh. Suddenly, the burlap sack was yanked off of Kendrick’s head. When he opened his eyes, he saw he was standing on a stone stage of sorts, and beyond it, a crowd of hundreds of onlookers instantly broke out into uproarious cheers and applause.

“No way!” Kendrick exclaimed. He looked at the Warden, who, for the first time since Kendrick had met him in jinn or human form, was wearing a warm smile. “Was this the plan all along?”

“I told you it would be over soon,” the Warden replied. The noise of the crowd drowned out their conversation. “There were some formalities that needed to be adjourned before the real reason we brought you here.”

“Was Olser in on it the whole time?” Bellara asked.

“Of course. He’s out there in the crowd...” The Warden grinned and craned his neck to see better. “...ah, first in line for the ale. The Slayers of Adrogan were not far behind us. Those who had a hand in bringing down the other Prime Sins are in attendance as well. This is a celebration of our victories in recent days. And let me just say that your exploits as a trio, and your actions on the Plains of Anurath, are already quite famous in Kanthos.”

“We won’t be going to jail, then?” Sahni asked hopefully, poking the tips of her index fingers together.

“Not unless you commit any additional crimes.” Now the Warden wore a neutral, matter-of-fact face. “Even a hero is still subject to the law. I would advise against any future acts of thievery, especially since the threat of the Underworld has ended for now.”

“And we’re all 100 gold richer now, too,” Bellara said, grinning from ear to ear. “So, I think we can buy whatever we need for the foreseeable future!” They stood and basked in the glory of the celebration for a while until Bellara had more questions. “So, what happens now? You said in my interrogation that there would be more to discuss after we were sentenced.”

“As stipulated,” said the Warden in a businesslike tone, “we will require an additional interview in which you deliver to us any extant notes related to the spell you used for this one.” At that, the man gestured at Kendrick with a tilt of his head. “Magecological impacts are difficult to judge when the Three Realms are thrown into chaos like they have been recently. However, though he is exceptional, it appears his exponential aura increase has stabilized for the time being. Readings taken today are consistent with what you told me about what was witnessed on the Plains of Anurath. Additionally, two separate readings taken covertly today show no change in aura.” There was a pause as the Warden prepared to say something that might not have been popular among the three of them. “The fact remains, however, that he will need to be sent home eventually. We at the Academy have decided we can grant you a maximum stay of one year. We will help oversee the return portal if necessary. Of course, we’ll be in touch with you regularly, Miss Cass.”

At this, the Warden departed with a smile and a small wave to go and converse with the official-looking group of wizards and witches.

That revelation was bittersweet. Kendrick would miss the Ecumene, Bellara, Sahni, even Tanathil and the other Slayers of Adrogan, and all the adventures he’d had. He would carry the loss of Gydeon in his heart and mourn the friendship that could have been. He would miss wielding the Psysword as well. Something that he was so reluctant to touch in the beginning now felt like a fifth limb of his, and the idea of being without it felt fundamentally wrong.

But Kendrick knew that the Ecumene was not his home. Not forever. His mind wandered back to the vivid vision he’d had in his most recent near-death experience following his attack on Urobius. He remembered the beach, and Willow, and their conversation about moving to a place called Canada. Who was she to me? A friend? Why did she want to leave the place where we lived? She was the one in the bed, when it was raining outside... Why were we there? And who was at the door? If the full picture of his memory was a puzzle, he had established the corner pieces and a good portion of the edges, but the rest remained unsolved.

“Question,” said Kendrick. “When I go back home, will I have lost a year or two there, too?”

Bellara shook her head. “I don’t think so. Based on some of the notes I copied from what I learned from Zorgen, I believe the portal creates a space-time isolation connected to a specific moment. When you go home, you should return to exactly whatever you were doing, and wherever, whenever you were, when you were summoned to the Ecumene.”

“Is that what you want, Kendrick?” Sahni asked, approaching him with a friendly smile. “Now that the war is over, I mean. Will you be happy to go back home?”

Kendrick breathed in deeply and sighed. “Yes and no. I’ll miss you... both... I think more than I can put into words.” He smiled back at them. “But I know that something... more importantly, someone... is waiting for me back home. I don’t know what or why. But I think someone else might be counting on me for something.”

“Hmm, maybe you were not the bumbling buffoon I thought you were when we first summoned you here,” Bellara teased him, elbowing him in the ribs. “Were you a hero in your own universe, too?”

He laughed. “I don’t know. Maybe. I mean, let’s be real, I’m pretty badass, so why wouldn’t I be? No wonder your spell snagged me over everyone else!”

“It was your untapped mind, remember?” She knocked on his head playfully. “A completely empty, blank slate ripe for—!” The rest of her words were lost in a gleeful squeal as Kendrick picked her up and pretended to dip her toward the ground. She nimbly backflipped out of his clutches and repaid him with a headlock, grinding her knuckles against his scalp.

After they roughhoused like this for a while, all three of them relieved to be cleared of any criminal wrongdoing, a short, frail-looking wizard brought out three small brown bags tied with gold thread and silently distributed one each to them, smiling politely. They were heavy with jingling coins. “Hell yeah,” said Kendrick, beaming. “How’s about we go buy some refreshments, yeah?”

“I think they’re free, actually,” said Bellara. “I don’t see anyone else paying for them. Plus, we’re heroes, remember? Heroes eat free on a day like today.”

As they walked down from the stage to join the crowd, Kendrick’s bittersweet feeling was nagging at him. He couldn’t help but ask another question. “So, I have one year left here tops. What do we do until then?”

Bellara smiled back at him, leading the way. “We enjoy ourselves. We’ve earned it! Sahni and I have always wanted to go sightseeing in Varyngard. With this much gold, we could even see the other continents—Alfrheine, home of the elves, Orgendas, home of the orcs, and maybe even the Isles of the Fae if there’s time! Would you like to see all that?”

“I’m game!” Kendrick readily agreed. His stomach did a small somersault at the prospect of leaving the relative familiarity of Kanthos, the continent that humans called home. Another part of him was filled with excitement. After coming so close to death so many times, he realized he had no good reason to fear a little travel.

Then Sahni cast him a worried glance, her brow furrowing upward. “Kendrick, will you even remember it after you return home? Or will you forget about the Ecumene? About us?”

He wrapped an arm around each of the witches as they approached Olser and the other Slayers of Adrogan. Tanathil was even among them, bleary-eyed after apparently being woken from his fleeting nap but clearly happy to be among the celebrants. They held flagons of ale and loaves of bread and steaming turkey legs and other trappings of an excellent feast in the making.

“After everything we’ve been through?” said Kendrick, shaking his head. “Never. I’ll always remember. The Ecumene will always be in my heart.” Sahni had tears welling in her eyes, but she smiled, and so did Bellara. “So, what are we waiting for? Let’s go make some more memories for me to take home with me!”

They ate and drank and traded stories for the rest of the day as the sunlight bled into a brilliant magenta sunset. There was a parade in honor of the heroes of the war, followed by a solemn moment of silence for the fallen. Kendrick thought of Gydeon. When that observance concluded, one of the orcs present said that it was orcish culture to celebrate twice as hard in the absence of a friend or loved one so as to honor their memory, and this custom was readily adopted by everyone on the grounds of the Redrune Academy.

They partied through the night until the following morning dawned on them. Kendrick was hardly even tired by that point. He had plenty of time to think in little moments between drinking games, live entertainment, all of the courses of the feast that were brought out for them, and impromptu speeches given by Olser and other leaders at various times. Kendrick thought about his journey in the Ecumene. He had gone from a reluctant recruit, a terrible fighter, and an unabashed coward, to one who cut down shades, imps, even demons, to a Slayer of Adrogan, and finally, He Who Pierced the Dark Lord. It still gave him pause to think that he was counted among the heroes of this war that he was, at first, so fearful to fight.

That fear never really left him, not in full; it was simply overpowered by something else inside him. Courage. And he realized that that courage would never have blossomed within him were it not for the support of his two best friends in the Ecumene, Bellara, the feisty, redheaded battle witch, and Sahni, the gentle, blue-haired healer. He thought of Willow back home, the mysterious troubles that awaited him upon his return, but no matter what he faced there, he knew that he would tackle it head-on.

He knew he would never forget his adventures in the Ecumene, nor his deep, treasured friendship with Bellara and Sahni. He would never forget the surge of his aura channeled through a crystal embedded in orkanite metal. Even broken as it was now, he would never forget the power of that bladeless weapon, the weapon he’d used to help save the world.

Surely Kendrick and his fight against the Dark Lord Urobius would be recorded in the storied history of the Psysword Chronicles.

Even now, though, basking in the light of victory, part of him knew that the weapon’s story would not end there.

Nor would his.