Eris clutched a hand against her chest as she took in the view. At first she thought she was transported into a dream, a waking illusion: this was some seeing stone revealing unto her a distant part of the continent, perhaps communicating with her in some way…

But the breeze chilled the sweat on her brow. The blood smeared across her skin tingled. Pain still lingered in her muscles from the wyrm’s assaults. The wind billowed her cloak and roared against her ears in volleys.

This was real. As real as anything she had ever seen. If she jumped, she would fall to the city below. She truly stood in Ewsos, in the land of Seneria, ravaged by mana, home to demons and monsters and elves untold…

The old capital was surrounded by black walls one thousand feet high. The city looked like a valley set within man-made mountains. Seven Spires, just like the Oldwalls strewn throughout Esenia, formed turrets, points along its line, stretching higher still into the sky. Atop each Spire grew a thin rod reaching into the nighttime sky—and down each channeled currents of the aether. The aurora itself jumped from the celestial sphere and poured like rainbow waterfalls from the heavens onto Earth. Even from miles off the lights were bright enough to illuminate the jagged shape of the ruined city, and the slag-metal silhouettes of each Spire, almost identical to that first one Eris ascended at the start of her journeys with Rook.

From her vantage point she was near the city’s center. Below extended the ruins of streets lined with columns. Huge bricks toppled on their sides. Apartment buildings succumbed to time. Between each slab of hewn masonry grew fields of grass and forests thick.

And just like the Spires around them, all the plants glowed. Violet, green, some gold and others red: their bioluminescence created a jungle of light within the black skeletal ruins of a once great metropolis.

Every single tree here was Elektronos. They fed on mana, not on light, and this city was now theirs.

Last night in Nanos, Eris had looked at the moon through the sanguine canopy and seen a faded crescent. Here, in Ewsos, in the land of Seneria, the moon was bright and full. But it was only two thousand miles southeast. How could that possibly be?

She stepped about the tower’s edge. More ruins. No end in view. But then she saw the most magnificent sight yet: precisely at the city’s center, near to her perch, was a towering palace. A keep surrounded by turrets. A mountain of black stone and onyx steel. Even the Archon’s Palace in Katharos seemed miniscule in comparison. That castle loomed on a hill over all the city; even the Oldwalls along its borders were dwarfed in comparison. Was it two thousand feet? Four? Ten? Eris was stunned by the scale, and rendered speechless by the thought that nothing so magnificent would ever be made again.

A multi-colored spotlight beamed down onto it. Streaking lines of energy wisping from the stars above down to the palace, like the flowing of the ley line beneath the Archon’s Vault. A breach in the Veil Between the Worlds—a hole in the aether, a point of convergence between two dimensions.

Something terrible happened here long, long ago. Something that forever changed the world. It was a thing she heard of, saw the consequences of, yet never expected to see in her own lifetime. She believed the Old Kingdom destroyed itself with some manner of magic, the nature of which was long since forgotten, but she didn’t know it with any conviction, didn’t give the possibility thought beyond the realm of ancient deeds in dusty books.

The difference between believing and knowing was vast.

For a long time she stared at the palace in awe. Lost in wonder and contemplation. A palace. A tower. The site of cataclysm. The center of the capital. The most important place in the world, then as now…

She had it.

What was most valuable to a governor? What would a king desire above all in his lieutenants? The ability to communicate. The facility to travel. All this, this Orb, this facility, the demon in the basement, the ruins in the woods—it was all a complex dedicated to the singular purpose of teleportation to and from the capital.

The distance was immense. Eris didn’t know such long range teleportation was possible until this very moment. Yet clearly the Archon would visit this complex, activate the channelers, draw power for the teleporter from the demon, and come visit the Regizar in an instant. Receive news. Manage his affairs.

…and keep all his things secure. Eris turned.

She stood on the roof of a rounded tower. The area was small, narrowed like the tip of a pen, but looking over the edge she saw the tower’s base farther down was much wider. Another stone wrapped in gold mana wiring was at the roof’s center, surrounded by a spiral staircase leading downward. The wires would have likely been affixed to one of the nearby Spires which, in the ancient days, powered the whole of the city. There was so much static energy in the air from the sunder in the Veil that she had no doubt the teleporter on this end would work, so long as the other remained on in Nanos.

Best not to dwell too long. Seneria was no place to be stranded.

She blinked. One millisecond alone; the next, exactly as her eyes opened, Robur appeared before her. He lurched, much as she had.

“Eris!” he gasped. “What…”

He trailed off as the sights came into view. She gestured, staying silent. Frank confusion flooded her as she watched him gawk. Why did he follow her? What was wrong with this boy? She understood him for nothing.

“The Archon’s personal teleportation device,” she said, folding her arms.

“This is Seneria,” he said at length. “It’s very dangerous here.”

“Taken to the ends of the Earth, to the home of the Elves, the land of eternal darkness, and that is the first comment you care to make?”

He nodded. “We should go back before—”

She stepped past him toward the staircase. “Will Kauom be joining us?”

He quieted and pursued. “I don’t know, he didn’t want me to touch the stone. He was very upset. I believe he thought it was a Lightning Wall.”

Then they might be spared his presence yet, she thought. She glanced down the stairs. The core of the tower within was dark, illuminated only by moonlight: she saw several windows, all open air.

“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” he continued, but Eris was already below neck-level on the stairs.

The case creaked with each step. It spiraled with elegant steel wires around a central pillar, but wasn’t tall. After a few seconds of descent she reached the ground, Robur not far behind.

Four windows with stunning views of the city surrounded them, all about the pillar. At their feet gutters for collecting run-off water ran toward each opening. There was nothing else down here except a dark alcove before the stairs’ final step, a rounded disk set in the black stone of the walls. Large enough for three men, give or take.

Eris frowned. She stepped into the alcove. Robur hurried after.

“Is it some sort of shelter?” he asked.

“Yes, a shelter at the top of a tower,” she replied. “You have it precisely.”

“I wonder why they would build such a thing…”

She did not. She scouted across the wall. It was coated with dust, but soon she saw what she searched for, buried beneath an eternity of residue: a blue jewel at wrist level. She wiped the dust away and touched her thumb to the jewel.

A yellow forcefield appeared around the alcove’s border. Eris turned, then felt a lurch—suddenly the ground fell out beneath her. She and Robur went with it. They both stumbled on their feet but the sensation of plummeting lasted only for a moment before fading, even as they continued on their disk downward, sliding without friction against the walls.

She expected a teleporter. This was an elevator.

A slit in the elevator’s cylindrical shaft revealed the tower’s atrium before them. An immensely high ceiling. Thick windows webbed with cracks on the left and right walls. Pristine banners hung everywhere, each with the heraldry of a black cave against a field of blue. The ground floor was bisected by a low wall and a small flight of steps: the lower half, toward where the elevator now led, hosted desks, chairs, tables, and glass display cases; the upper, bookshelves, another alcove, and a large table.

An enormous library. A museum. A study hall. And giving light to everything were three chandeliers in a triangle that glowed steadily pure white—chandeliers that floated without any support in the air.

The elevator came to a stop. The ground was painted with a seal, the same heraldry of a cave, but this was etched with Regal characters in a circle about its edges: ARCHONATE OF NANOS.

Eris retrieved the Archon’s Orb from her backpack and clutched it close to her chest. Just in case.

“Did you read about this?” Robur said.

She shook her head. A chill silence loomed over the huge chamber. Her heart pounded. This place had the feel of a haunted manor, like the old abandoned districts of Katharos where even adventurers were too afraid to explore.

The glass cases along the lower level were exhibits. Ten or so throughout the room, in a straight line from one window to the next. Beneath each sat an artifact of conquest. Golden jewelry. Curved swords. A helmet forged after the head of a lion. Eris glanced at each as she walked toward a window; a pair of elephant-headed statuettes caught her attention. A man and a woman, human in body. Beautiful in craftsmanship. Painted with gold. Ivory, no doubt. Nothing so fine still existed in this world…

Their heads turned to track her as she passed them by. Even she stumbled backward in surprise. Her back hit the cracked window. The statuettes’ heads stopped and lingered on her like the Regal Avatar in the Archon’s Vault—just watching, just waiting.

A nearby desk had a scroll on its surface. Covered with dust, yet the scroll itself seemed no different than the day of the Fall. The words still legible. Eris extended a cautious finger and prodded the papyrus—

Her skin was scalded. She pulled her arm away, yelping; then it was like a match had been set where she touched the parchment, because fire engulfed it all. The scroll disappeared in seconds. Withering away. Writhing unto itself. Disappearing into ash.

She clutched her fingertip.

“All here is not as it seems,” she said.

Robur nodded. “We should go now—”

“We are not leaving empty-handed.”

He fell silent. Eris glanced out the window again. The moon hadn’t moved. Darom and Seneria were separated by the Hepaz’s broadest point, but still only a thin strait of a few miles. Yet there it was always day, and here it was always night.

She went toward the glass surrounding the gilt necklace. A number of thin blades, each topped with green gems, resting atop a velvet cloth. The craftsmanship was astonishing. It would be worth a fortune—if she could stand to sell it.

The glass itself was strong and still solidly in place. She realized the folly, after what she’d just seen, in trying to take this thing for herself, but she needed it. So much mana swelled through the air here she decided it would be easiest to concentrate a small blast of energy, a shockwave that would shatter the glass and let her grab the necklace quickly.

A moment of focus. Fingers against the side of the display case. As simple as a quick puff of air, she sent the mana from her hands. Sure enough the glass shattered. She grabbed the necklace, expecting it to melt, but it didn’t—it was solid, cool metal, heavy in her grasp.

She put it on. Her attention turned elsewhere.

Robur still looked out the window. Staring now. Frozen.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“L-l-look!” he stuttered.

“At what?” she said, irate. She finished pulling the last strands of her hair from the necklace’s chain, and that was when she saw.

A golden streak. Through the glass. Snaking through the air. Zipping like an eel swimming through water. Toward them, toward the window. It was a snake with a lion’s mane trailing behind asymmetrical horns, ten feet in length, and with an aura of pure mana—

Another demon.

When it reached the glass it stopped, levitating, its head separated from Robur’s by only a few inches.

It looked past him, straight toward Eris.

She jumped for cover. Back into the elevator.

A being of pure mana. A demon that fed on magic. It sensed her when she cast her spell. Perhaps it would take Robur and content itself with that, except he was spellsick, his Essence tapped and drained. She was the one it wanted. Unless she intended to run there was no choice but to fight somehow, or…

She exhaled, trying to conceal herself. Breathing out her mana.

She peeked around the corner.

Robur cowered behind a display case. The demon pressed itself against the window; at first there came a dull bang, but slowly its luminescent scales passed through the glass, like it was nothing but fog, rematerializing on the other side. The air around Eris crackled as it swooped down in her direction.

She pulled herself back. Now she breathed in, trying to smother whatever signal might be left of her Essence.

The demon hovered, swaying in the air, toward the shattered glass display case. It lowered its nose and sniffed. When its head raised it looked precisely at Eris, its eyes—blue eyes—seeing her without any doubt, but disinterest apparent.

For the next ten minutes Eris watched as the demon floated up to the chandeliers and basked in their light. It rubbed against their metal frames like a cat rubs against a warm oven in winter, basking in the glow, before smelling new prey: its head turned off toward a wall, as if no wall were there at all, a predator homing in. Then it bolted off. Through the wall. Ignoring it as easily as it had the glass. Phasing entirely through after only a moment of pause.

She couldn't believe it. It ignored her. Left her alone. Just like that. She realized she'd been holding her breath, and now she gasped for air, coughing. They were alone again. The demon let them be.

Eris scrambled to her feet.

“Creatures of the aether,” she said. “They feed on spells. Do not cast anything while we are here, lest he come back for us.”

Robur nodded. With nothing else of obvious pecuniary value in these cases she turned her attention toward the atrium’s second level, the library and whatever was against the wall beyond.

Turn back.

She felt a lurch in her muscles backward.

It cannot outwit the demons forever. This blasted land was annihilated by the pernicious Elves: it will suffer their fate if it lingers.

Your presence does nothing but prolong my stay, she thought in response. She wanted desperately to refrain from making a scene.

It hesitates in using magic to neutralize me for fear of attracting the demon. I am emboldened by the aether here, like I am returned to my cave. I may use this opportunity.

Do what you threaten then, wyrm. Do not waste Essence on pointless talk.

Tension faded. A wave of pain, then she was back in control of her own faculties. Another reason to go quickly.

Up the stairs she went. At the top she saw the library up close: scrolls and countless books. She was careful not to touch anything this time. At a glance they were mostly chronicles, histories, ledgers, logbooks: no spellbooks, nothing beyond cursory interest. Not compared to what else she saw in this place.

A round table. Large, for meetings, with a number of chairs in disrepair about it, and at its head a clear throne. Behind it another alcove.

Beneath it, a staff. On the ground. Dropped carelessly. A staff with a red gem on one end.

Only initiated Magisters were given staves of power in the modern day. They were valuable, powerful artifacts, tools of amplification for the Essence. They could be used to channel mana from the air far more efficiently than any human might do alone. And this was one cast aside, left out for the taking.

She grabbed it.

The red gem at the base’s top glowed. It was warped into the smooth shaft as if the wood itself had come alive and swallowed it hungrily. Granulations of blue mana streaked through the haft.

The staff was a tremendous artifact. Leaving with nothing but that and the necklace would be satisfactory. But she knew, somehow, she would find something more here. She needed to. Nothing could deter her.

Behind the table she found another alcove, another elevator. She tapped its crystal. Just as before the disk underfoot descended quickly. Soon they came to a stop in another open atrium. This one’s ceiling was much lower than the other. The only light came from the crackling, flickering field of lightning projected against a door on the atrium’s opposite side.

A malfunctioning Lightning Wall.

Eris snapped her fingers to conjure a flame, and only just remembered. Was it worth the risk of attracting the demon? Might she evade it second time? The answer was no. Not for this. Darkness would have to do.

Where there were windows in the room above, here were two pedestals. Dark lines of mana wire ran up to them, then toward the Lightning Wall and the ceiling. A small slot was visible in each—a square hole. She recognized that from Dakru Spire. Placing a stone within a similar slot within the Spire’s base activated a portal that led to the top. These must be the teleporters, currently inactive, that connected this tower to the city streets. Who knew where the keys were now.

She stopped at the Lightning Wall. An archway was formed, like an empty portcullis. Electricity arced from a small metal box, an emitter, on the other side of the gate, lashing out senselessly against a damaged receiver on the opposite side.

Normally the destructive energy of such a device was visible only when triggered.

She spent a moment gazing through to its other side.

Through the flashes of white fire she saw another pedestal beyond, with another slot for some key. Yet this was larger, not square but rounded, spherical, almost precisely the size of…

The Archon’s Orb.

“We lack the proper keystone,” Robur said. “And it’s damaged anyway. It’s impossible to get across.”

“Be quiet,” Eris said. “I will find a way.”

So many months in search of the Archon’s true vault. So much pain and sacrifice. She couldn’t turn back now. Yet even with the proper keystone, this Lightning Wall would prove lethal—it no longer cared for proper authorization. It siphoned mana from the air and struck senselessly out at all those around it. Until it was destroyed it would continue that cycle forever.

But she would stop at nothing to discover the secrets of the Old Kingdom.

Her eyes glanced toward her new staff’s red gem. She tried tapping mana from the air, and she felt the magic-infused granulations in the wood throb with energy. The gem glowed. Pure power radiated from it. Her Essence focused to a singular point.

She leveled the staff at the Lighting Wall. She prepared a forcefield, as strong as she could muster, and placed it right around the emitter: using the staff as a channeler she held it there like a net around a rampaging animal; a green cloak of mana descended around the small metal box on the other side of the portcullis.

Streaks of lightning still shot outward, but the net caught each.

“The demon—” Robur started.

Eris was already across. Robur followed after her. Once they were both passed she let the emitter free, and a crack of thunder roared as a blast of gathered lightning shot out against the damaged receiver.

Eris put her hand against the gem. The power within was immense. An infinite supply of mana. She never would fall spellsick again. She withdrew as much as she could, as quickly as she could, into her palm; presently she felt a fireball against her left fingers, a bolt that would vaporize any living creature, and she threw it overhand against the emitter.

Fire streaked through the darkness. When it impacted the Lightning Wall’s emitter there came a blast: fire roared past them, scorching their hair and blinding them and leaving them in complete darkness seconds later. When all was cleared, the lightning was gone. The way back was open.

And every spell-hungry demon in Ewsos would have their scent.

Eris hit the staff against the ground. The gem’s glowing increased, giving off enough light to see. She ran quickly then to the pedestal. Retrieved the Archon’s Orb. Placed it within. It slotted easily, sliding downward…

A red portal opened before them, but not before she saw the shape of golden scales materialize through the walls. The demon serpent was back.

It saw her clearly now, saw her staff, saw her Essence. She heard a sickening rumble from its mouth as it drew its tail into the room. She tried to jump into the portal, but something invisible caught her arms, bringing her up into the air. She swiped at it with her staff to no effect. Robur drew his dagger and stabbed upward, but the blade went clean through its body, as if nothing at all were there—

Eris continued her ascent toward its mouth. Its jaw opened. She felt her Essence draining, the world around her turning gray. She let out a burst of energy and the process only hastened—the demon was immune to spells, it delighted in them, bathed in them, fed on them.

The air left her lungs. Her muscles burned. Only one idea left, she raised the staff to the serpent’s belly, then stuck the gem within. There was cursory resistance, like fighting off fog, but nothing truly physical. Once it was lodged within she thought back to how she used the staff a moment before, drawing mana from the air, and did just the same thing again: she tapped the serpent of its Essence and used the staff as a channeler, a focuser, helping her draw energy from the one place she needed to.

The demon roared again. The gold of its scales flickered white. It let Eris go as mana flooded into her system. She hit the ground hard, her head colliding with the teleporter’s pedestal.

“Run!” Robur said. He tried to lift her up, pull her toward the elevator, back toward the exit—

“No!” she said.

She scrambled to her feet, and before the demon could right itself, she ducked inside the portal. Robur followed after.

Her head bled. She felt feverish. Her vision was blurry. But she heard nothing. Felt nothing.

They were deep underground.

Someplace very dark. Someplace untouched by ambient mana, where the aether couldn’t penetrate. She detected no trace of mana in the air—yet still, she sensed powerful magic about. The only light came from her staff.

It was a closet. No grand vault. No stunning treasury. A closet. And once she lifted herself to her feet, once she saw the reward for her close encounter with death, she could not have been more pleased.

An Archon was a mundane man who ruled with the consent of his Magisters. They granted him miraculous artifacts with which to confirm his reign. This closet contained a taste of those artifacts.

Another jade ward. A black circlet streaked with golden lines, set with a Manastone gem. Four iron shields, all enchanted. Two leaf-bladed swords, enchanted. A bronze cuirass emblazoned with musculature, enchanted. Enchanted jewelry, enchanted finery, more metal pieces of armor.

After so long. So much teasing, and being dragged about. Finally they found what she wanted all this time.

“Take all you can carry,” Eris said. She pretended she was well, but she felt horrible. Drained. About to collapse from exhaustion, and likely concussed.

“Was this worth it?” Robur said.

“This would have been worth far more than a bruise on my forehead,” she replied.

He fell silent. Nodded.

They took all the jewelry, shoveled into their packs. Eris put the circlet on atop her head along with the jade ward. Each took a sword. Robur tried to put on the armor, but it proved too big for him, and it would never have fit her.

“Now we may go,” she said.

“What if it’s waiting for us?”

“Then we move quickly.”

She peered through the portal. On the other side she saw nothing. She was dizzy, light-headed, so she took a moment to center herself. Then she stepped through.

No sign of the serpent. “Come,” she said.

Together they jogged back toward the second elevator. It felt fast when she hadn’t expected it to move; now it seemed impossibly slow. Soon they were at the library again, the main atrium. They ran toward the first elevator—

Eris looked up.

The serpent lingered by the chandeliers. Waiting for them, regaining its Essence. It roared, and it swooped down.

They ran. Down the steps, onto the lower floor…

The beast ignored Robur. It only wanted Eris. It threw its weight after her; she jumped away, evading it, dodging clumsily around one of the display cases. It came for her again: she tried to tap the energy from it, but the crystal in the staff was at maximum capacity—she hadn’t expended its energy. She was forced to roll to get out of the serpent’s way as it came toward her, dropping the sword in the process, the circlet falling off her head, nearly losing her staff, before scrambling her way into the elevator.

Robur drew his enchanted sword. He thrust it directly upward into the serpent’s belly.

This time, the blade found flesh. It lodged within. The demon roared and levitated upward, pulling itself away—and the sword with it, still stuck in its scales.

He jumped onto the elevator and pressed its crystal.

Eris ducked out just as it began its ascent. She grabbed the circlet with an outstretched arm and drew it back inside the disk’s confines just in time.

They both breathed heavily.

The Orb. Eris forgot the Orb at the pedestal. It was still there. She clutched her throbbing head in her hands. How could she have forgotten it?

As the elevator came to its stop at the top of the tower, she nearly hit the button again to go back down. But she felt prickling up and down her back. Saw double in her vision. Her stomach churned.

She did not regret the price paid so far for what they found. But returning would be suicide. They had to leave.

She climbed the stairs like a lame old woman. By the time she made it to the top Robur was already at the stone, waiting for her. She stumbled his way—

The serpent appeared over the tower’s side. It roared. The intensity of its golden luminescence grew—it was preparing to cast a spell.

Eris’ stumbling picked up the pace. She sprinted. Running. She felt a flare of heat behind her; tendrils of fire lashed out against her legs, burning the flesh of her heels. She jumped, reaching for the stone...

Her hand felt coldness.

She landed belly-first on hard ground in a dark rotunda, surrounded by golden mana wires.

“Sweet Stonemother’s beard, you’re alive! Where the blast-damn-shit-hell did you go!?” Kauom said.

“Have you been waiting here the whole time?” Robur said, panting.

Eris rolled onto her back. She gasped. Her brain felt like mulch. Her staff clattered to the ground. The fabric was seared from her right sock; the flesh behind burned by magical fire.

“I…went outside toward the stairs, but that damn monster watched me—I came back to wait, in case anything happened.”

She sat upright.

“So? What did you find?!”

“It’s a portal,” Robur said. “It’s all very complicated. I’m sure Eris can explain it…”

But Eris was in no condition to explain anything. Instead she pulled her cloak beneath her head, bunched it into a ball, and closed her eyes for rest. She wasn’t spellsick, but her Essence had never been so drained before. All she wanted was to sleep, even as the pain in her heels kept her awake.