“My grandfather once told me I wasn’t a person but rather a thing,” said Elena. She didn’t sound like herself when she said it, but then Rusk remembered he hadn’t really known her all that well in the first place. Maybe it was the words instead of the tone that threw him off guard. “This portal. I wonder if it follows me around because I’m not really alive. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now. For as long as I can remember I haven’t really felt that living connection to anyone or anything. Maybe I’m not really here.”

“If that’s true then you aren’t dead either,” said Mandy. “Maybe you’re a conduit, which is both and neither at the same time.”

“Regardless of the categorization,” said Iraiah. “You’re still useful either way. This portal thing. It connects straight to the necromancer who’s got his hands wrapped around the country, yeah?”

“Right.”

Rusk flattened his mouth into a line. He didn’t like where this conversation was going. They were all camped out in a neutral location, making decisions in a place where they couldn’t be overheard or stopped or ambushed. It was a forested area, but not densely, and not his forest either. He realized like an anvil on his heart that he really did miss his own forest. His own territory. When had that happened? When he was a kid all he’d wanted to do was leave, and now all he could think was how much he wanted to go back. To return to that place that had so bored him as a child. He almost scoffed at himself for the absurdity. But there was another location that entered his mind as well. A place away from everything. A place he could rebuild if given the opportunity. Sanctuary Island. Where Flow no doubt had run back to.

Why had she abandoned them? Why now? What had scared her?

“Hello.” Iraiah snapped her fingers in Rusk’s face. “Earth to leader guy.”

“It’s Rusk,” corrected Mandy. “And he’s not our official leader. Technically we don’t have one.”

“Yeah well whatever. He’s not paying attention is what I was trying to get at here. We’re formulating a plan. Wanna pay attention?”

“Sorry.” Rusk cleared his throat. “But regarding this dead portal. I don’t want to use Elena if it kills her to do so. I don’t care what she categorizes herself as right now. I won’t take what life she has from her. I won’t do it. We’ll have to come up with something else.”

“With all due respect,” said Gedresial who was flying circles around the portal and hadn’t stopped the whole time they’d been camped out there. “We may have no other choice.”

“It’s okay,” said Elena. “It hasn’t been much of a life to begin with. I barely remember anything of my time even when I was out at sea. Already my grandfather’s face is fading. Maybe I’m not meant to be anything but a conduit. Or… whatever.”

“No!” Rusk stood up, and Loretta and Felix who they’d recovered jolted at his intensity. Iraiah shrunk away as well, so uncharacteristic for her. So that left Mandy and Elena and Gedresial.

All of them were staring at him expectantly. They wanted him to come up with something on his own if he wasn’t going with their plan. But Rusk couldn’t think of anything. Rusk realized he could never think of anything when the moment counted. That he’d always just rushed in, just winged the whole journey. Now it was eating at him. He had to be better. Be worthy of the Hero title. Because he still wanted that, to make Iya Tarfell proud. To prove his parents wrong. To save the kingdom, and whoever else he could. The place was overrun with monsters and necromancers and even the walking dead now. He didn’t have a plan that could encompass all three problems, but he could certainly try and solve one at a time. Maybe there’d be happy accidents in between. Maybe the solutions would spiral into each other and blossom outward, fixing even more problems once the course was set in motion.

And maybe his efforts would fix the Hero Bad Luck Stigma too. Because that was still a thing, just a thing that had fallen to the wayside throughout the journey. He’d learned to ignore the stares. To walk around anyone gossiping. To avoid those who would reveal their location to the king. Or worse, to the necromancer. And Rusk was beginning to believe they had no king. Not really. Not a live one anyway. Elena’s story was making him more and more aware of that.

And the dead portal’s taunts weren’t helping either.

“You ragtag individuals will never overthrow me,” said the dead portal, the monster.

“I don’t have to overthrow you,” said Rusk. “Just the person you channel yourself into. Through.”

The dead portal chuckled.

Everyone around the fire readied their weapons but none got up from their seats except Mandy who was already standing. The blaze cast all of them in a subtle but harsh glow. Forcing shadows where there would never be any during daytime. The starlight was smothered by smoke rising out the fire. The trees swayed in a tempestuous wind.

“It’s really okay if you kill me. If it helps.” Elena knelt and put her arms out, closing her eyes. “I’ve had enough. Go ahead.”

Rusk felt his chest compress and before he knew it he was kneeling in front of her, grabbing her by the shoulders. He clenched too tight at first and forced himself to release some of the tension, so as not to hurt her. “I could never do that. Never. And you shouldn’t want me to. We’ll figure this out, okay? We’ll figure out all of it. And then we’ll beat the king and the necromancer and we can all leave this country to its rehabilitation and take refuge in Sanctuary. Okay?”

“But I’d never be allowed in Sanctuary,” said Elena. “Grandfather said so. Before he drowned. Before he died. I wasn’t ever supposed to be seen there.”

“Well tough,” said Rusk. “Sanctuary’s gonna be under new management. So the rules are all changing. I’m gonna rebuild it, after all this necromancer shit is over with.”

The dead portal erupted into a shrill audacious laughter.

“Shut up!” Elena spun around and screamed at it so loud it startled all the others. “I’ve had enough! I’ve had enough of you! If Rusk won’t do it then I will!”

And then before anyone could stop her she leapt right into the portal itself, and Gedresial was cawing and shrieking as his orbit interrupted, and Iraiah was on her feet and Mandy had drawn an arrow. Loretta and Felix sat stunned, neither of them having the means or the strength to figure out what had just happened. Or Felix figured it out and couldn’t do anything, rather.

And Rusk. He just sat there in awe, in shock, and watched as the portal shrank and shrank and then he was up on his feet again and leaping through himself and even though the Dragons Knock yelled at him not to he pulled everything he could from the Elva, yanking with all his spiritual might as the portal shrank over him and Elena. And he grabbed hold of Elena’s ankle and wrenched her out, but when he looked at his surroundings once the light faded and the dread had dropped out of his chest he realized he had no idea where he was.

Then he remembered.

He was before the king.

And the king was dead on his throne, a corpse made up like a doll, and the necromancer was laughing in a corner, watching Rusk and yes, Gedresial too, swirl into existence before him.

“Well, and here I thought I’d have to hunt you,” said the necromancer. “Welcome to my kingdom, boys! Seems in your haste you’ve forgotten reinforcements. Oh well. I can always hunt them down later.”

Rusk had the Dragons Knock knocked and fired before the necromancer could move out the way, and it struck the necromancer right in the heart.

But the staff raised between the tip of the arrow and the necromancer at the very last second prevented the Dragons Knock from doing any real damage. For a split second Rusk was sure he botched the whole thing.

And then the rest of his comrades came careening through the portal behind him, and Mandy had her own special arrow knocked, one Rusk had never seen before, and she fired with an expression like a placid lake right at the butt of Dragons Knock, which cracked the necromancer’s staff in two and struck him with Dragons Knock tip, right in the heart.

“You cannot kill me,” said the necromancer as he doubled over. “I have the power of a monster in my veins! I am death! I have cheated the cycle! You cannot—”

But they could, because he fell over the Dragons Knock, and it ate at him with its supernatural light until there was nothing left but dust.

Panting inside the chamber of the king, Rusk turned to see his comrades. And realized they were monsters. All but Mandy. And Iraiah hadn’t gotten through.

So Felix and Loretta and Elena and Gedresial all looked at Mandy and Rusk with hunger.

“Don’t kill them,” Rusk instructed.

“Of course not,” said Mandy. “We’ll need to find a cure.”

“And make sure they don’t kill us while we try.”

They had their work cut out for them. And the king on his throne twitched, some semblance of recognition in his eyes as life flooded back into them now that the necromancer was dead. But it was only enough to wheeze and then die a permanent death. Still, Rusk had given him that one freedom, and his spirit was satiated. No haunting revenge for our Heroes.