After another blink, he experienced another change of location. This time they were outside, although not in the same place where they found themselves. It was one of the highest areas of those temples, where nothing but height could be perceived. Finnian glimpsed a staircase that must have run up that tower in the distance, but nothing else that he could see while seated.

“For once, I would have loved a more comfortable place to appear,” Finnian said.

“You’d fall asleep, and what you need now is to stay wide awake.”

He didn’t need to repeat himself, especially since a doubt crept into his mind as to where he was every time they moved. How was it possible to be already dawn when it had just gotten dark in the Silver Orchid? He had been there for a couple of hours, long enough for it to be completely opaque, not for the sun to start to rise. On the bright side, he didn’t feel as dizzy as before. That should count as progress!

“Time passes differently here.”

“But we’re in Elthea, aren’t we?” Finnian said, furrowing his eyebrows.

She didn’t answer him, though. Instead, she just looked up at the sun, the same that didn’t dazzle them and would offer them more warmth. If he first remembered Rune, who would enjoy flying in such a spacious place, something similar would happen to Leith, mainly because he understood his guide’s intentions.

“The Fire Gate, isn’t it?” Finnian said.

“That’s right.”

“Right now, I’m glad I don’t have to face anything of that element,” Finnian admitted, grimacing as he imagined an elthean of such powers.

“That won’t make it any less intense than fire.”

“You know that with this transporting us from place to place and with these sights, it’s pretty obvious, right?” Finnian raised both eyebrows as he looked at the older woman. “Do we have to connect with that energy somehow?”

“Something like that. Shall we go on?”

Was there another option? Besides, better to finish as soon as possible and be able to eat. Perhaps time did not flow in the same way, but that did not stop his stomach from roaring occasionally, asking for sustenance. The mental effort was on par with all the confrontations they had gotten into. Opening each door did not involve just “thinking it through” but using his sorcery and resolve to have the expected effect. What he had learned so far reminded him that magic and emotions were intertwined, so those missions were not so wild.

“This gate focuses on willpower and is blocked by remorse.”

“It’s a lot like the water gate,” Finnian admitted.

“Although many consider them opposing forces, water and fire are vital sources that we cannot do without,” the old woman continued with calmness so great that she could convey a catastrophe to him, and she would not be alarmed. “What do you have regrets about? What are your greatest disappointments in life?”

“You don’t mess around, do you? You get right down to business,” Finnian said.

Again, she did not answer him and instead waited for him to continue with the test. The relationship he had with his father weighed heavily on Finnian. They couldn’t be more different, so he kept repeating for a while now. Every time he tried to get him to do something different or rather what he liked, it seemed like a war. He and sports weren’t a great combination, but it had gotten to a point where he didn’t even want to try. He would never be satisfied with what Finnian could offer, not when he preferred to do something different.

It was not wrong to want to be himself, but that also led to more problems. And so he stood there, doubting with every step he took whether it would be enough. If he, like a Signer, could save Elthea.

“You will never find balance if you continue to deny this part of your life. Just because something scares you doesn’t mean you won’t get it. Knowledge is acquired as you grow, not just by being born, and everyone learns from their mistakes.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Even if the sun burns you or makes it harder for you, everyone has the potential within. “

Maybe he was more like him than he would admit; that’s why they argued so much, but that never stopped him from being his own person. Now that he looked at him in a different light, even when he insisted that Finnian should spend less time with books, he was the one who bought them for him!

“Leave the regrets behind and focus on the now.”

Focus on that test and what was within his reach that he could change. He was eleven years old, and many had spent time and effort teaching him to improve. Perhaps everything was in his hands and his partners, though they would not lack tools. Besides, he wanted to go home to prove that he could have a better relationship with his parents. After that, a warmth spread inside him, making him warm up and ignore the coldness of the environment, although there was more to it than that.

“I feel... less heavy,” Finnian admitted, even when it went even beyond.

“It’s an effect of opening each seal,” the old woman nodded.

“What else will happen?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” After hearing that answer, he groaned and rolled his eyes.

He hated people who were mystical like that. What was the trouble with straight talk without so many riddles that didn’t help them? He’d had enough patience to get there without leaving, but this was just one more addition to so many ordeals that would tire anyone.

“Why do you think we came out here, to the highest place?”

“Other than to see the sun?” Finnian said.

Because the sunrise was not the only thing around him, it was not a trick question, as they asked so many times in class, but a genuine one to find out if he was understanding. So far, they had talked about three of the primal forces, but there was one that had been with him from the first moment he stepped through the portal.

“Because of the wind. It is constant at this point.”

The very element he felt most in tune with. Perhaps it was due to the freedom it offered or the philosophy transmitted to him from the beginning, where strategy and different points of view could be vital to facing a problem.

“The Air Gate focuses on love and is blocked by grief.”

Thanks to the dawn, the sky had taken on a vortex of pastel colours of the most varied. The wind enveloped them, not swaying them but surrounding them with its soft fabric as they continued the ritual.

“Let all sorrow appear before your eyes.”

Saying it seemed simple, but seeing it in front of him was quite the opposite. Besides, he was eleven years old. He had not lived long enough to have a long list at his disposal. Out of the clouds appeared the figure of his grandparents and next to them those of his parents. They watched him calmly, neither smiling nor disappointed, but neither worried. It was as if he were not there. And then they disappeared, letting the clouds take another form.

“Loss is part of the cycle of life. But love is an energy that never leaves us and is everywhere.”

The darkness, watching it consume them. He truly believed they were dead and would never see them again. Finnian didn’t have time to assimilate it until that fear was taken away, but it continued inside him and would not disappear as long as he didn’t see them with his own eyes and could embrace them. They weren’t the only ones he missed, though.

A tingle ran from his back to his legs as he saw them and wanted to go looking for them, even though he knew they were nothing more than an illusion. But the image of Aer with his goofy grin as he annoyed Rune was all too clear. Next to him were Leith and Ead, the former rolling her eyes, though both laughed at the sight of Rune hitting his friend. Nero watched calmly but was very entertaining.

They were the first real friendships he had ever had, and he was terrified of losing them.

“Your partners love you, and that love will not disappear. No matter how far apart you are, it will remain in your heart. It may even allow you to open yourself to a new one. Let the grief flow like the wind.”

Tears flowed from his eyes, and he allowed himself to sob. No one would be there to comfort him and make that feeling go away, but they didn’t need to either. They shared unbreakable bonds, and while a part of them was inside him, he was in their hearts.

“Excellent, Finnian,” the old woman said, smiling sympathetically at him as she wiped her face with her sleeve. ”You are getting closer and closer to the end.”

What would he find once he got there? That was the question that haunted him the most, and he had some beads that he was dying to unravel!

“What am I supposed to get in the end? I know the egg is important,” Finnian said, “but I don’t understand why you’re putting me through all this.”

“Sometimes we don’t know where we’re going, but it’s the journey as vital as the destination.

“That still doesn’t answer my questions,” Finnian said.

“You’ve opened four, and you have three more to go. Do you think you can hold your curiosity long enough?”

It was a rhetorical question. No matter how much he insisted or wanted to know more, the older woman, whatever she was, was hermetic. She almost seemed to him like a being who lived only for the mission of protecting the egg. They just had to finish so that, hopefully, he would open that door and clear his doubts because they were not few.