Tem slips into a chair and leans back, his head tilted until his neck elongates and the knobby bit of cartilage in his throat sticks up like a little shield boss. His eyes shut and the skin on his face tightens as he yawns, stretches his arms, and at last lets out a long, slow, shuddering breath.

“Everything all right, Tem?” I ask, shuffling closer to the [Expert Scout], but still keeping an eye on the wraith working at the main control desk. It’s still difficult for me to trust that it won’t sell us out at the first opportunity, and this is as good of a chance as any.

“It will be,” Tem rasps. His eyes don’t open, and drops of sweat bead on his forehead.

I scratch the back of my head. “Is this part of . . . the payment you mentioned?”

Tem’s eyes open with a snap. “Don’t ask any further right now, Nuri. And don’t even think about experimenting. Not before your first Threshold.”

“I’ll take that as a yes. I still expect to know more someday,” I say, hoping I’m not testing his patience too much.

Tem barely reacts this time. His eyes flutter and eventually close again. “We’ll talk later, I promise. Just let me rest a bit for now. We likely only have a few minutes of quiet before we’re on the run again. Try to make yourself useful—this place is full of valuables. Take what you can carry. If I have to drop some weapons to make room, then I’ll do it. But I need to recover before the Captain shows up if we want to get out of here alive.”

I squint at the wraith at the desk. Its movements are so non-threatening, so far removed from the monstrous creatures that we fought off a few days ago, that for once I’m wondering if I’m on the right side. Haven’t we invaded this creature’s home? I scowl at the still fresh memory of the wraith lord, however, and my wavering thoughts firm up. I grip my spear, fingers tightening as my conviction hardens into barely-restrained violence. “What’s so scary about this Captain, anyway? How can it be worse than the wraith lord?”

“A question for later. Quiet,” Tem mumbles.

I shuffle around the central control desk while Tem takes a cat nap, poking at objects and letting my eyes wander about the room. I don’t see much in the way of obvious treasure, and most of the control runes appear emblazoned directly on the desks themselves. I pause next to one, chipping at it with my thumbnail, but I’m not able to scratch them.

I try again with my spear, but as expected, digging at the desk does not destroy the rune. The elaborate script work is not etched or painted as far as I can tell. They’re not formed in ink or lacquer, but rather appear to be magically inscribed. The words of power have melded with the surface of the desk, like they’ve grown organically from the ground, through the floor, and directly into the top of the desk.

The wraith glances over and sees me fiddling with the runes. It warbles at me with an odd, bird-like screech, but I can’t understand anything it says. I look over at Tem to see if he’ll deign to wake up long enough to translate for me, knowing that he has some sort of language Skill that helps him with foreign infiltration missions, but he doesn’t appear to be paying any attention. In fact, faint snores reach my ears, and I chuckle at the oddity of Tem sleeping in the presence of his enemies.

“Sorry, I’ll stop messing around,” I say as I turn back to the wraith. I set my spear down against the desk and hold up my empty hands so I appear friendly and non-threatening, but the wraith has already resumed its work. I feel a little like a scolded child, and my petulance gives rise to a new plan. I sense no resonance between my own mana and the strange runes, but there’s only one way to know for sure. Against my better judgment, I feed a trickle of mana into the rune when the wraith’s back is turned, curious to see what it might do.

The wraith spins away from his work at the console, and its eyes dilate as it watches me with undisguised hunger. It rises from its chair and takes a step toward me before I clamp down on my mana, pulling it from within my channels back into my well, and avert my gaze. With an irritated chirp, it resumes pulling up the map features, but this time, it keeps glancing over in my direction with its strangely luminous silver eyes.

I pick up my spear again and saunter around the room like nothing ever happened, but a cold sweat breaks out on my back. It’s likely a good thing I wasn’t able to activate anything; I’m honestly relieved that I didn’t inadvertently set off an alarm, or cause the entire control room to explode with us still inside—assuming, of course, that the wraiths are paranoid enough to have a self-destruct feature in the middle of their own labyrinth.

A sudden glow in the air catches my eye, and I hasten back over to the central desk to watch the wraith at work. Swirls of silver and black strands grow out of the top of the workstation as the wraith carries out its half of the bargain, assuming I can trust what Tem says. With a soft hum, the ethereal lights take on a more solid shape. At first, the magic is as thin as threads, but as they weave together and form more intricate configurations, they grow thicker—first like yarn, then a slender rope. Finally, they create intricately-knotted cables as thick around as my wrist. The entire array twists in on itself, braiding the light into ever greater complexity. The dancing lights weave together into a tapestry that looks similar to the map Tem created for us with his Mana, but vast and more complete, on a far more detailed scale.

A single, golden line snakes its way along the pathways of the map, originating from the circular interior, which I assume is the control room, and leading toward a more angular, boxy end of the maze. I trace the route with my eyes, trying to memorize it as quickly as I can, since it doesn’t take a labyrinth expert to surmise that this is the safe path we need. It leads out from the control room, presumably to the exit portal we’ll need to use if we want to make it back to the correct plane of existence.

Only moments have passed, but when I shake Tem awake and tell him that the way out is provided for us, he looks as refreshed as if he slept for a few hours. At my quizzical glance, he just winks and tells me the names of two more Skills I didn’t know he possesses: [Make It Count], and [You Can Rest When You’re Dead].

“Ready to go,” Tem drawls, stretching again before springing to his feet. “Find anything good to take with us?”

Heat burns in my cheeks as I remember that he asked me to loot the control room while he rested. I shake my head and fumble through an admission that I got distracted by the odd runes and by watching the wraith for signs of funny business.

“What a waste,” Tem sighs.

“Well, what is that?” I say, pointing to an elaborate contraption on a desk two rows over from the wraith. I hadn’t noticed it before, since I was wandering around the opposite side of the room, but now that I’ve seen it, the device is inescapably mesmerizing. Bathed in the silver glow that permeates the control room, the machine is dazzling as it refracts and amplifies the hidden colors within the monochromatic light. Three sets of interconnected cogs spin in ceaseless, silent motion, turning a face plate with a dense pattern of several dozen runes. The thing looks a little like an overly complicated timepiece—but if it tells time, then it’s a clock for more times and dimensions than I know of.

Tem’s face lights up as he follows my outstretched hand and sees whatever it is that I’m pointing toward. “Ah! Our excellent luck continues to hold, Nuri! I’ve never seen one of these in person before, but I’ve heard them described.”

“What is it?” I ask, bursting now with curiosity. If Tem is this excited over the prospect of the device, then it’s bound to be good, although I’m not sure I agree with his assessment that our luck has been “excellent.” We’ve nearly died a dozen times over.

Tem squints at the little machine, then shrugs. “I’m not precisely sure what the wraiths call them, but it’s essentially a portable portal, uhh, prognosticator.”

“A portable portal prognosticator,” I repeat dubiously, goggling at him for a long moment. “Did you really make up that name just to alliterate?”

“What can I say? I’m a man of exceptional wit and refinement,” Tem says with a spark of unabashed amusement in his eyes.

I’m about to answer when another warbling cry from the wraith catches Tem’s attention. An incandescent glimmer of argent light pulsates on one of the wraith’s dashboards, the [Expert Counterspell Scout] growls. He grabs the portable portal prognostication device—I vow to find its real name later, but for now I’ll refer to it as the PPP—and takes off at a dead run toward the opposite door from the one we entered.

“The Captain is coming! Run as fast as you can, and don’t stop, Nuri. No matter what, do not stop!” Tem shouts, and he takes off sprinting toward the exit.

My legs feel dead, and I whimper in fear and pain and exhaustion, but I have no choice but to follow his command. I run after Tem, determined to keep running. Anything else is risking too much danger, whether it’s capture, or outright death. My entire body rebels at the thought of more running, more dashes through terrifying darkness, but no matter how much my muscles burn, or my mind shuts down at the prospect of another deadly chase, I don’t stop. I can’t stop.I sprint past the shocked looking wraith and out of the control, out into the darkness

My body moves on its own accord, and I dig deep for extra energy, falling back on the training with Ember and Mikko. My breathing comes in ragged gasps after only a few minutes; I thought I knew what it meant to be pushed to my limits, but now I’m finding out that I’ve gone far past my supposed breaking point and I haven’t yielded yet. As the steps pile up, my stomach clenches and my bowels gurgle ominously. I clutch at my gut, my force of will the only thing keeping me from heaving up the last bar of rations onto the labyrinth floor.

Tem is abandoning all caution, hurtling forward on powerful strides. Despite his earlier injunction against mana use, wreaths of power now surround him like a faint, dark nimbus as he soaks his body in energy, willing himself to move faster. A distant part of my mind notes in a detached fashion that he isn’t using his regular movement Skill. Is he still recovering energy? I’m surprised not to see his signature void rush that allows him to skip across the surface of reality like a rock skipping across a pond, visible only when it touches down on the membrane of the deep. Strangely, his mana flutters like a candle in the wind, as though he’s having trouble replenishing his lost supply—always a difficulty without mana potions in a labyrinth and its odd paucity of mana. But when did he use it all up?

I’m falling farther and farther behind, so I ditch the speculation. I’m barely able to see the pinprick of Tem’s mana signature far ahead. I unseal my mana channels, pumping power from my well to push my body into overdrive. The mana is sluggish at first, as though annoyed at being so long neglected, but as I lower my head and drive my knees, my arms pumping as hard as I can, the mana responds. I don’t have a Skill for this, but I almost swear that I can hear the mana singing gleefully in my veins and pathways. I soak my muscles and tendons, joints and ligaments, in the invigorating power of mana. My speed picks up, and I pray that it’s worth the trade off. If the Captain gets close enough, he’ll boil me alive from the inside out.

Ahead, Tem’s mana signature grows fainter in my mind. I try to focus on the wisps, but like a fading fire, they spark, gutter, and die out. The [Expert Counterspell Scout]’s distinctive mana signature finally disappears altogether. In a panic, I screech to a halt, gasping for breath. What do I do without him? Which way do I go?

I growl and mentally berate myself for my stupidity. The only way out is forward. I don’t have time to waste like this. Thinking my way through the situation is a luxury I can’t spare the time to indulge. Muscles screaming in protest, I keep running, hoping that I’ll figure out which way to turn. To my surprise, when I reach the next intersection, a faint, ghostly arrow points to my right. Its signature is so dull and faded that I almost miss it, but it’s unmistakably from Tem. Relief floods me at the sight.

Without hesitation, I turn and sprint to the right, following the clues he’s left. My arms and legs are churning in the dark, with no idea of what’s ahead. I pray that I won’t smack face-first into an unseen wall and split open my lips and nose, or knock myself out and damage my brain. I have no time to think, no time for fear, only the desperate need to survive. Desire for home burns within like hunger: I want to see the stars above again, feel the wind on my face, curl my bare toes in sandy loam, smell a field of wildflowers in Spring, see the look of annoyance on the Linas’ faces.

I blink back tears as I run. I miss the satisfied pride Mikko has in me for getting back up and trying again, even when he beats me into the ground for the third time in a row during our sparring matches. I miss the grudging admiration Ember shows for my glassmaking talents. I miss the light hearted teasing from the reliable Lio at the shop; he’s always willing to jump head first into whatever project I have in mind, no matter how crazy. The rush of emotion fuels my mad, headlong run into the unknown. I miss my friends, and I’m not about to die here, leaving them to wonder where I am and what’s become of me.

Three turns later, as my strides grow shorter and choppier, and the stitch in my side is as sharp as a serrated dirk jammed in between my ribs, Tem’s meticulous mana signature pops back into my senses. He’s not moving, which means he’s waiting for me despite claiming that he will leave me behind if I’m too slow. I let out a sob of relief as I stagger around the final bend and collapse on my knees in front of the [Expert Counterspell Scout], finally able to see again in the soft, amber glow of his improvised mana torch.

Tem glances up and gives me a curt nod. All the lines of his face are creased in deep concentration. Without a word, he turns his attention back to the wall in front of us. The way forward is blocked.

No, it’s not a wall; it’s a door, I realize belatedly, made of the same blue steel threaded through with enchantments that we encountered in the armory. The same type of door barred our way into the control room. “Is this the way out?” I ask in between gulps of air.

“Not yet,” Tem grunts he summons his map construct again, this time far more elaborate thanks to the information he copied from the wraith’s labyrinth model in the control room.

I squint, trying to make out the scale of the map. “So, through that archway, turn to the right, and we find our goal?”

“Seems right, but we have to get through the door first. Can you freeze it?” Tem asks. “I would prefer more recovery time before I access, well, the tricks up my sleeve.”

I lean both hands against the door, breathing heavily, and decide I simply don’t have the energy to pry into his void related secrets right now. My chest heaves, rising and falling like a pair of overworked bellows, and I’m worried for a moment that I might blow out my lung like a pressured gasket without a release valve.

“Yes. Give me . . . ten . . . fifteen . . . seconds.”

“Make it fast, Nuri. And thank you,” Tem says, his voice weirdly calm. He settles into a slow, steady rhythm, practicing his own training as he breathes in his regimented pattern to ward off panic.

I peek inward, gauging my mana reserves. Trying to focus the energy into my muscles drained me almost two thirds of the way. The constant fIlling and emptying, filling and emptying, is starting to rub my insides raw, but that’s a concern for another time. I place my palm on the door handle, getting a sense for the area I’ll have to destroy. I don’t dare try to weaken the entire door like last time. Something tells me I just don’t have the strength for it. With a deep breath, I sink my consciousness into the locking mechanism until I have a sense of its inner workings. I target the weakest spot, pushing my mana into the door. Power floods out of me, and the steel creaks and groans as it freezes over.

I slump back, lightheaded with exhaustion, and Tem takes my place. He unsheathes his sword and strikes the frozen lock with the hilt, hissing in pain as the weapon shivers on impact and bounces back at him. He shakes out his hands, grips the sword again, and pounds on the frozen lock. Small chips of frozen steel fly off, and he redoubles his effort. With a sharp, final crack, the door handle finally gives way. The lock shatters and clangs against the labyrinth floor, spreading tiny metal shards across the tunnel.

Tem throws his shoulder into the door, and it shakes but doesn't budge. He rebounds, staggers, and jerks a thumb at the door with a growl. “Gonna help? Put your back into it!”

I push myself to my feet, fighting off a wave of nausea, and slam into the door, grunting as it knocks the wind out of me. I’m already struggling for breath, my pulse pounding loudly in my temples, and the sudden pain is too much for me to handle. My knees go soft, and I collapse on the ground in convulsions. What little food remains in my stomach splatters across the tunnel floor as I throw up. It’s mostly water and stomach acids, and the acerbic smell wakes me back up to the moment.

Tem rams his shoulder into the door again, crashing into it like a bull on a rampage until the cold, brittle metal of the latching mechanism shatters. Tem kicks the rest of the door open. Now unlocked and freed from its frame, the door creaks with an ominous sound, like a crypt opening at the skeletal hands of the undead buried within.

Panting from the sudden violence, Tem grabs me by the shoulders and drags me bodily through the doorway before he kicks the broken door shut. He sways on his feet, but gathers his energy and steadies himself. A wave of his hand, and the door handle appears fully restored, although I’m certain it’s an illusion. He doesn’t have the power to reshape reality like that.

“Why not use your charge?” I ask once I can speak again. I slowly pull myself to my feet. My steps are slow and shaky, but at least I’m moving under my own power. I know we need to make haste, but I can’t move any faster, completely out of mana, endurance, and willpower.

“I did,” Tem replies. “Back in the control room, just like we planned.”

“But you struck a deal!” I protest. “Are you gonna kill that wraith after it helped us? You said they’re creatures of order.”

Tem snorts. “You have funny notions of warfare, Nuri. It’s not all honor and civility. “But, if it sets your mind at ease, I told the wraith to flee.”

As usual, my mind spins toward the worst case scenario. “What if it disarms the weapon instead? What if we came all this way for nothing?”

“Getting out alive is always the first part of the mission,” Tem says, slowing his brisk pace momentarily to match my limp. “The other goals are secondary—no, tertiary—getting loot is the secondary goal.” He winks at me, and I chuckle weakly. “Striking back at the abyssal monarchs is, unfortunately, further down the list by necessity.”

“And are we going to make our first goal?” I ask. “Are we really going to make it out?”

“Maybe not,” Tem says slowly, his face deeply shadowed in the dim light of his mana torch. His scowl deepens as he squinst ahead.

“Why are we stopping? Don’t tell me that you want more loot,” I tease,

“The path is wrong,” Tem says.

“But don’t we have the way out? Based on what we saw in the control room, it looks like we’re almost there.”

“Should be,” Tem grunts. “But we aren’t.”

Fear starts to squeeze my heart in its icy grip. “I thought you struck an [Accord] with the wraith. Isn’t that some sort of Skill to guarantee that you’ll each uphold your end of the bargain?”

“Yes, but the reality is never that simple,” Tem says. “It’s possible that I wasn’t completely clear with my wording. I may have given the wraith a loophole. Or, perhaps any creature trusted enough to have access to the control room has a greater [Accord] at work that demands fealty to the monarchs. That would supersede my Skill.”

“But I saw the map. It led to an exit! Are you sure we’re not just paranoid? Why don’t we keep going and find a way out.”

Tem shakes his head. “The exit should be right here, unless I forgot everything I once knew about mapcraft. No, my entire Class is built around finding paths. Exploring the unknown is who I am. I know something is wrong.”

“We’ve been betrayed,” I say. Somehow, it’s a relief to give voice to my doubts. The fear of betrayal is more terrifying than the actuality. Whatever we face up ahead, not knowing was far worse to me. I keep anticipating how terribly wrong things might go. Heading down the wrong path for a bit ? That, I can handle.

“Tem, you had a plan to get out, right? Before we even talked about the control room, you weren’t planning on staying in the labyrinth forever. So can’t you just find the way to the exit yourself, like you originally planned?”

Tem nods. “Certainly, I can. It will take longer this way, however. I wish I knew more about what’s going on.”

“That makes two of us,” I reply with a wry chuckle. “But what about the [Accord]? You really think it’s as simple as the wraith having a pre-existing agreement? Is it bound by a [Geas] of some sort?”

“I don’t know,” Tem says honestly, his frown so intense that his entire face creases. “This is troubling, indeed.”

I let the matter lie, since Tem appears deeply shaken.

“All right, how do we find a way to the exit? Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No, but I appreciate the offer. You’re starting to see yourself as part of the team instead of just a tag along. That’s good. We’ll need that before the end, I suspect.”

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not just talking about the end of this adventure?” I say. “Something big is going on, isn’t it?”

Tem doesn’t deny the declaration. He mutters under his breath, turns, and starts down a side tunnel. His face smooths out as the worry fades. “Come. This way ought to get us to an exit, eventually. Let’s get out of here first. I’ll tell you more afterward. You’ve earned that much.”

Five minutes later, Tem brightens. “Well, it seems that half-truths may have been enough for the wraith to make our [Accord] binding. I’ll have to remember that trick for next time. We’re on the right track. It led us to a closed-off tunnel that probably used to connect to the path we’re on now. The directions it gave us are true, in a straight line—or, well, as straight of a line that you’ll ever get in a place like this. We simply had to find our way around the dead end. The exit to our realm is just up ahead.”

“So that’s it,” I say with a grin. “We made it! We're finally going home.”

“We’re finally going home,” Tem confirms, returning my grin.

Just then a magnificent presence, all heat and rage in my perception, crashes over us like a mighty beast trampling lesser creatures in its path. No! We were so close. This isn’t fair! I rage, rebelling against the sudden shattering of my illusions of safety.

In an instant, I vent the last few remaining motes of my mana that I’ve recovered after forcing open the door. Searing pain rips through my channels anyway, and I cry out at the sheer potency of the technique.

The sharpness of the pain goads me into action. I take off running, my fatigue and the fog of confusion disappearing like clouds driven away by strong wind. The surge of adrenaline won’t last; I know it’s only a brief rush of fresh energy, but I ride the crest to the wave anyway and sprint for all I’m worth, following Tem as the ground shakes again. If I’d had a tiny bit more mana—I shudder at the thought and refuse to follow that line of logic. Escape first; brag about how dangerous it was later.

A massive rumble shakes the labyrinth. It echoes in my soul, knocking me off my feet.

“Run!” Tem screams.

The ground beneath us lists dangerously, bucking like a ship on open seas in the middle of a monsoon. I scramble forward on hands and knees, unable to stand upright with the assault on reality. I can’t trust my sense of direction, falling sideways and bouncing off the walls instead of falling toward the ground. With a frisson of fear, I recall Tem’s earlier words about how the labyrinths function like anchors between liminal dimensions. What if Tem’s timed charge of destruction resonates throughout the labyrinth, tearing it apart before we can escape? What if we’re ejected into the void, doomed to utter oblivion?

Another rumble hits us, this one of pure rage and hate rather than kinetic force. It shakes the already unstable labyrinth tunnel even more—the walls ripple and buckle like gelatin, and the formerly solid rock comes apart at the seams. Behind the walls swirls a strange fuzz of grey nothingness. It leaks between the cracks like early morning fog on a cool day.

“Don’t stop, Nuri!” Tem screams, as though I have any plan of staying down here even a second longer than required. “We’ve almost reached the exit!”

Sure enough, the shimmering portal comes into view as we round the final bend. I blink back tears of gratitude and relief, lurching forward toward salvation.

An entire section of wall explodes into razor sharp shards of stone that slice through my vest and pants, leaving stinging trails of fire across my cheeks and flinging me to the ground. I’m getting tired of tasting dirt. Blood trickles down my face, mixing with my sweat.

I push at the floor, forcing myself to my feet despite the pain, and turn to look at the hole in reality. It’s almost beautiful, I think, and the words seem far away and obscure as reality falls apart, disintegrating into a swirl of all the colors of a chaotic rainbow. The labyrinth unravels under the assault of forces beyond my comprehension. The world is expanding and contracting like a living thing around. The brilliant, multihued coruscations refract and glisten before the light simply vanishes, sucked away into the hungry abyss that we’ve come to call the void.

An enormous creature covered in spikes barrels through the warped, rotting detritus of the labyrinth, howling in primal rage. The wraith Captain rears up to its full height, easily twice the size of the wraith lord, and roars. The sound hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest, smashing me onto my back. The Captain is encased in glowing gold and black armor, and it wields a wicked flanged mace as tall as I am, and as thick as my torso.

“Thieves!” it bellows, wrath rolling off it in waves so potent I can practically taste it. My soul quivers, and I cower in terror in its presence.

Tem drags me to my feet and pushes me forward ahead of him. He picks a path across the rubble, leaping from one precarious perch to another, and somehow keeps us from falling. Stone slabs as large as a wagon crash down around us, but he drags me out of harm’s way.

We halt in front of a sudden cliff formed out of broken boulders. Tem clambers up ahead. He reaches down, grasps the end of my spear, and pulls me up after him, over the obstacles of sharp, fallen rock. I hiss at the gashes of rock, twist my body, and push off the surface with my feet. I’m clinging to the spear for dear life with fully extended arms, barely able to move on my own. Nonetheless, I squeeze as he heaves me along the pile, my death-grip never wavering.

Tem yanks me up and over a final, jagged ridge of spikes. “Go!” he shouts, shoving me down the rockslide of broken boulders and toward the pulsing edges of the portal.

My gaze flickers toward the Captain, hot on our tail, swinging his massive mace with a whistling sound as it obliterates stone and pulverizes the hard walls of the labyrinth.

“Go, Nuri. Warn Silaraon what is to come.” Tem tosses me my spear. He hesitates for a moment, then withdraws the PPP—the portable portal prognosticator—and throws it down to me as well. Then he turns to face down the massive wraith Captain, a true city-devouring threat, all alone.

I want to say that I level my spear at the void beast and join the [Expert Counterspell Scout] for a glorious last stand. I want to say that my training kicks in, and I fight like a fiend as I transcend my limits and grasp for immortality.

The truth is far uglier. Like a coward, I turn and flee through the gossamer shimmer of the rapidly fluctuating portal, flinging myself back into the realm in which I belong. Instantly, the path through the void, the opening to the Rift, closes behind me. The sounds of desperate battle are cut off as though they never existed. I pick myself up gingerly from the dew-drenched grass, turn around with a wince, and stare at a tranquil dawn. The portal is gone.

And, just as I feared, so is Tem.

=+=

I must have passed out from pain and emotional overload. When I finally wake, wool-headed and my eyes burning, the sun is halfway through its course across the sky.

Adrenaline has seen me through, kept my body and soul moving forward, but now as I glance around the field of tall grass trampled in places by my wild thrashing after I dove through the portal, I realize that I don’t know where I am or how I’m going to survive the night. I can’t move very quickly in this state, which means it will probably take me three days to get back to the city, assuming that I can figure out which direction to go.

“Assuming I’m even in the same country. I could be on the other side of the Capital, for all I know. Does the labyrinth play fair? It hasn’t so far. Why would this be any different? I’ll bet the exit is on the other side of the world,” I mutter.

I squint in the powerful sunlight, overwhelming after the darkness of the last several days, and look around for landmarks. The light is both glorious and oppressive, and I’m having a hard time adjusting to its ever present intensity. I try to get my bearings and figure out what to do without Tem. I’ve relied on him so heavily down in the Rift, both to give me a sense of direction, and to keep me even-keeled, that now I feel like a ship adrift at sea. I’m rudderless, becalmed, at the mercy of the waves with no idea where my home port might be.

“None of that,” I chide myself. “Survive. Coming out alive is the first priority,” I say almost on reflex, quoting Tem. My purpose now firmly back in mind, I stagger forward. I’m hungry, my head hurts, and I’m limping from a deep cut across my calf that I barely even noticed until just now, but I’m alive.

My fingers close around the halt of my spear, and I lean on it heavily for balance, grateful that Tem tossed it to me before we were cut off from each other. If I had to face the wilderness with nothing more than the small knife in my belt . . .

I shake my head. I don’t think I have the confidence to even try, although a small part of me hopes that I’ll encounter Shadow Jaguars on the way home so I can show them how much I’ve grown. It’s stupid, maybe even suicidal, but I want something to vent my frustration on now that I’m out of the Rift. No longer do I think of the big cats as a mortal threat. Now, they’re just fodder for me to try out new weapons techniques. I want to see how much devastation my new spear can dish out.

“Food first,” I tell myself, speaking aloud to keep myself focused.

I mark the positioning of the sun, trying to remember where it was in the early morning before I succumbed to my exhaustion, and start walking in the general direction of the city. We’d headed west, away from the borderlands, so now I set my course toward the east. I don't know exactly where I am, but assuming that I’ve come out in the general vicinity of where we entered the Rift seems like a safe bet. If I get lost in a wild nightmare of possibilities, then I’ll never make it back home. Fear will kill me more surely than wild beasts.

I nod to myself, certainty forming inside me like a glass sculpture annealing and locking in its shape. I need to retrace our steps, I repeat to myself, continuing to keep the sun at my back as I trudge onward. Idly, I wonder what my friends are up to right now. Our expedition was only supposed to last a few days, but with the way that time works in the Rift, I have no idea if I’ve been gone for a week, a month, or perhaps a year. Everything is all topsy-turvy, and I’ve lost my reference point. The season seems the same, but what if I’ve jumped forward a lifetime? What if all my friends are dead and gone, and I’ll return to nothing more than the burnt-out husk of the quaint town once known as Silaraon?

Tiny bugs float up in clouds from the grass at my every footfall, stinging at my face and breaking me out of my useless and morose wonderings. I swat them away, although I can’t help but think that I’m disturbing their homes—just like I disturbed the wraiths and helped Tem blow up their control room. The insects swarm until I can’t keep my eyes open to watch where I’m going, and despite their diminutive size, their bites hurt. Whenever they land on my skin, I start itching furiously.

With a growl, I release a brief burst of the mana I’ve recovered since returning to our realm. The flex of will I send into [Heat Manipulation] scorches the surrounding area and fries the entire swarm of bugs to a crisp. I don’t feel in the slightest bit bad about it. I’m simply not in the mood to deal with the elements today.

I know at some point that I’ll have to acknowledge the loss of my tutor. My friend. But for now. I keep the thought at bay. For now, I have to focus on survival, not mourning. I work my jaw, wrestling with the guilt of leaving him behind. If his autobiography is anything to go on, then Tem has been in rough spots before and come out on the other side.

A smile cracks my dry lips. For all I know, not only will Tem survive, but he’ll defeat the Captain, blow up the rest of the labyrinth, and somehow still beat me back home. I’ll probably stagger in on my last legs while he’s being feted and toasted by the nobility. I chuckle softly, clinging to hope. He’s well known for that kind of resourcefulness.

After an hour of limping along, my calf is more cramped up than ever before. I’ve bound up the wound, and the bleeding has stopped, but it’s too tender to keep walking on any longer. I lean on my spear, pressing my palms into my closed eyes, and try to keep calm.

My stomach twists and rumbles, letting me know in no uncertain terms that it’s suffering from the undeniable urge to eat. I haven’t had a proper meal in days, not since we entered the Rift, and I don’t think I have anything left in my travel sack. Perhaps I can find some small game around and practice throwing my new spear. It’s a long, heavy weapon, however, ill-suited for throwing. I pat my fingers on the spear. “Don’t feel bad,” I whisper. “You’re still my favorite.”

I drag myself onward. I don't have the luxury of finding a javelin, and I discard the idea of hurling the spear at a passing squirrel. If I do manage to score a one in a thousand shot, I’m liable to make the poor critter explode from the force of the enchantments. If I get a chance, I’ll try to take down a rabbit, or maybe a large bird. I wish I could get a deer, but if I’m honest, it’s impossible. I can’t track down game that large when I’m in tip-top shape. Now? Unthinkable.

I screw up my face into a scowl. Not to mention that draining the blood and dressing the deer will take more time than I want to spend out here. I want to get home, alert the guards, and try to put together a squad to save Tem. I can’t dally.

Tem. The wraiths. Rifts and armies and the unmaking of reality. I gulp, suddenly losing my appetite. Beyond the immediate needs of food, water, and shelter lurks the looming terror of an incursion. What if the wraiths are looking for revenge? Or, worse, what if they were already amassing forces, preparing to plunge the Realms into endless war and chaos, even before we raided their armory and sabotaged their control room? What if, contrary to what Tem indicates, they are not creatures of order, but are instead harbingers of our destruction?

The oppressive, intrusive thoughts cut off as my stomach rumbles again with hunger, this time too urgently for me to be put off by my fears. I settle into a small patch of flat ground where the tall grass is worn away, likely due to a game trail in the area. I don’t have time to wait and hunt the beasts that have trampled down this path, but it will serve just fine as a resting spot while I get my bearings and recover my energy.

I pull out my travel sack and rummage around again, although I’m sure I already ate the last of my rations. To my surprise, however, I find a small bag of dried apples and salted nuts. that I keep on hand for quick energy. I force myself to chew slowly, as much as I want to shove the entire thing in my mouth all at once. I savor the slight sweetness of the apple and the crunch of the tree nuts. My mouth is bone dry, and my lips have split open, but I know for sure that I don’t have any more water in my treated leather waterskin. One miracle is already pushing my luck as it is.

With a groan, I leverage myself to my feet using my spear, and set out walking again, continuing to head back toward Silaraon. If I remember correctly, we passed a creek on the way in, so I’ll be able to replenish my water supplies once I find the little stream. It’s hard to keep walking with all the distractions vying for my attention—the cramping in my legs, the soreness of my poor feet, my fear of the sounds around me, my worry for Tem, and my guilt for leaving him all alone in the labyrinth.

Even so, I press on.

The minutes slowly melt into hours. I find the stream at last, and I turn to follow it upriver after quenching my thirst. I can’t even feel my body anymore. The pain has disappeared entirely, replaced by cold numbness. I try not to think about what kind of damage I’m doing to myself. I just keep walking.

As evening falls and I start to lose the light, I trudge up one last hill and see the telltale shimmer of the Silaraon city barrier in the distance. I shake my head sadly at the thought of an incursion of wraiths rampage across the countryside. If Silaraon couldn’t even keep out a few mangy cats when the city guard was away and the barrier unattended, then how exactly are we supposed to stop an otherworldly invasion?

I don't fancy traveling at night, not my current state. I don’t feel confident that I can take out a single Shadow Jaguar right now, and they usually hunt in packs. I slow down, leaning on a tree trunk for support, my head hanging low. It’s not only my wounded body or my lack of energy that’s failing me, however. My will is giving out for the day. I’ve been under constant assault, and after all the terrors we’ve experienced, I can’t muster up the determination to push on any farther for the night.

With a heavy sigh, I push away my injuries, my exhaustion, and start to make camp. I find a spot in a nearby tree to sleep through the night, dragging myself up into the branches with great difficulty. I hang my traveling blanket like a hammock, curl up inside, and close my eyes. With any luck, the cats will leave me alone up this high. The effort is simply too great. For extra peace of mind, I lash myself to the trunk so that I won’t fall out of the hammock while I sleep

Before I succumb to the pull of sleep, I find myself going through my pack, looking for my heat-resistant glass globes by force of habit. Then I remember how the first one broke, and the other one became a sacrifice for the cause, and their loss hits me afresh. I stifle a sniff, unwilling to risk that predators might hear me.

Objectively, I know that I can probably make far superior training tools now. My mana sensitivities have vastly improved, thanks to studying with Ezio, and I’ve actually gained a new Skill in [Lesser Manasight]. Plus, I’ve applied myself in the hot shop, and my skill with glass continues to move forward. I haven’t neglected mundane studies just because I’m enamored with the pursuit of magic.

Even so. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. The loss stings.

I suspect I’ll be saying that phrase a lot in the months and years to come. For now, I let out a quiet sigh, close my eyes, and finally embrace the sweet oblivion of sleep as I sway gently in my hammock. The soft sounds of birdsong and cicadas serenade me as twilight falls.

By the end of the next day, I drag my tired, beaten body back to the city, collapsing at the gates as I run out of the will to move. The guards barely spare me a look, regarding me with the practiced, semi-detached interest of professionals used to Seeing Weird Things.

They drag me inside so that they can close the gates for night time, however, and by the time the captain of the guard hears my story and confirms that I left under the care of Tem Cytekin, their idle mixture of curiosity and disgust has transmuted into full-blown fear. If such an iconic member of the royal army—former member of the royal army, now discharged, the [Vigilant Captain] of the Silaraon guard stresses to the guards under his command—can disappear in the wilds, and if a horrifying Rift can open this close to our city, then what chance do the rest of us have of surviving what is to come?

As if to underscore the mood, a rumble of thunder echoes across the heavy, leaden sky. Overhead, ghastly lights flicker across the dark underbelly of swirling clouds in the night sky. Lighting snakes across the sky as I look up, and if I squint just right, it looks like it’s shining with the ominously, chaotic grayscale of the void.

See? I can almost hear the guards saying to each other. It’s inescapable! Surely the end is nigh!

I snort in derision, and I find at that moment that all I want, after a long, hot bath and a mountain of good food, is to get back to the studio and practice my glass making. I need a vacation from my vacation, and that means getting back to work.

“Or something like that,” I laugh to myself, amused by the weird ways my mind works. I stretch out in a spare room in the guard tower after promising to give a full accounting of what we encountered, and fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. I’m tired. Let someone else save the world.