A chuckle rumbled in Cedric's mind.

He pounded a fist against his head, shuffling and shivering through the knee-high results of the blizzard.

The rush of the Relistar’s teleportation still rattled his skull.

IT WAS FUN, WAS IT NOT?

Cedric said nothing.

DON'T YOU MISS THE ECSTASY OF IT ALL?

"Shut up." he growled.

YOU CAN'T RESIST YOUR LUST FOR WARFARE. FEW SOLDIERS CAN OUTRUN IT...

"I'm a pacifist–"

Serkukan chuckled again, ONLY BECAUSE I PERMITTED YOU TO LIVE AS SUCH. FOR A TIME.

"Clearly you're through permitting me anything other than torment."

With a swift summoning of Serkukan's reality-weaving magic, his armor and satchel were right back upon him in a blink.

The rain had cleared again to make way for snow, and it had become impossible to tell that it had ever rained at all beneath the dense frost. His leather kit and the clothes underneath were useless against the frigidity. He reached for his amulet every few minutes, forgetting that it had shattered, either during the fight or from when the churning magic from his crimson gemstone cast him away into the forest.

He swallowed his guilt again. The same guilt that he had been swallowing for hours since waking, and would swallow for hours more until his death.

“Why do I see that vision every time I use the crystal?”

Serkukan did not respond.

"Nelreign." he glared at its highest stone tower, barely visible in the distance, while the rest of the castle hid behind snow-topped pine trees. Blue banners dangled down from the curved windows, with gold accents and sigils to signify the lord of the castle. "That damn place… if only I had let Rog take the crystal, I wouldn't be in this mess…"

YOU'D BE DEAD. AND THAT IS NOT HOW THE RELISTAR FUNCTIONS.

Cedric rolled his eyes and dropped down against the base of a tree. "Then why me?"

WE'VE BEEN THROUGH THIS BEFORE, BOY. I DO NOT KNOW. PERHAPS IT SHOULD BE YOUR FIRST QUESTION TO LLESTREN'VATIS ONCE WE MEET HIM.

"While I'm at it, maybe I should pluck his damn wings off…"

THEY'LL GROW BACK. BUT IF YOU SO BADLY WANT ALGIRAK TO WIN, I CAN KILL US BOTH RIGHT NOW.

The Relistar grew hotter in his pocket.

He kicked the snow at his feet. "It's just talk. Just empty, meaningless words. Of course I'm not going to let Algirak win… What's the point in that? Not like I can help it, anyway..."

The silence embraced them then, and he felt a strange unease against the hairs of his neck.

"Light me a fire," he commanded.

In a single instant, the snow ahead cleared to make way for a stone-ringed bonfire. He shuddered, startled by the stillness of the leylines around them. A magic with its own source of energy… the Lunars were right…

He stared off into the distance for a long time without moving. His eyes did not seem to interpret much, until they suddenly recognized the outline of a spiked figure of ice about the height of a man, which had been creeping up on him for as long as he had been drifting off. "Frost cacti, and we're hardly even north yet…"

The silence hit him again, giving him no choice but to think, as he had been trying so hard not to. Thoughts of home, new and old. Thoughts of sin, past and future. And thoughts of death. To come. To deliver. He lowered his head into his collar.

YOU HAD KILLED BEFORE ME. YOU WOULD KILL AFTER ME, HAD YOU A FUTURE, YET YOU ACT AS THOUGH YOUR PAST HAS NOT–

"My past is irrelevant. These now are your murders. Not mine. You possessed me, or I never would have touched any of them."

I FIND THAT HARD TO BELIEVE. THESE ARE ALL MANIFESTATIONS OF YOUR OWN DESIRES, KILLS MADE TO PRESERVE YOUR LIFE AND LUXURY. THOSE BANDITS YOU FACED OFF WITH IN THE WOOD, THEY'D STILL BE ALIVE IF NOT FOR ME?

"I wouldn't have been cocky enough to rest my head in that wretched place…"

Serkukan didn't say anything. He was content to let the guilt wear away at his pawn, anyway, until he was nothing more than an empty husk which he could control as a weapon. With one last glance at Nelreign’s towers, Cedric shut his eyes. Soon enough, he was asleep, and Serkukan was left alone to ruminate on his plan. Or whatever plan Llestren had already set into motion. Once the night reached its highest point, he pulsed in brilliant red light, hoping Llestren might appear to brief him on what to do next, so as not to leave them unarmed and alone in the finale of a great war.

The dark shadow that soon manifested reminded him again how grim it had become.

The breeze whispered, “Serkukan.”

The crystal fell out of Cedric’s jacket, glowing brighter in burning red than any torch could.

“Serkukan, it’s me…” rustled the bushes ahead. Black robes stood nearly invisible between them.

He limped toward Cedric like a wounded animal, the thin cloths around his arms dragging through the top of the snow. “Fear me not tonight; things have happened sooner than expected, and I worry that we’ll not have time to reconvene once Llestren’vatis reveals himself. Hate and fury, blood and darkness; the shadows, the paranoid sounds that no man should hear, and the splattered blood from your own hands. We’re meant to be, and I’m sure you’ve seen it at last.”

The trees rustled as he spoke, though Serkukan still said naught.

“I want to say I understand your hesitation, Serkukan, but look at what he’s done to us! We’re mere fragments of what we were in Etheria, but our joint power can surely restore—”

A spark of light glistened from the crystal and the moon shifted to match its bloody hue. A sharp and fiery figure soon manifested beside the crystal, cast into the frozen haze by a flurry of lights from the Relistar; the murky image of a tall man, coated in glistening crimson plate. A cracked white star was embedded atop his helmet, shimmering in the moonlight.

“Even still, Llestren’s mark binds you. The binding of a betrayer, of a—”

“My beckon was not for you, Kinslayer.” his voice was powerful and consuming.

“Serkukan, I—”

“No more lies, Algirak.” he commanded. “You destroyed the Omnestatum. You threw us into the thousand-year chaos, not him. You stole life away from domains that weren’t yours to rule, and collapsed Etheria beneath your heavy ego. Like Azafel picking from Evra’s Caloria.”

Algirak flinched.

“Did you think it was some sort of secret? I’ve been alive since the dawn of all dawns, and you thought you could obscure our most basic realities? Your ego—no—your hubris has taken its toll tremendously. You and Rykaedi both, even if you’ve grown this far apart… You’re both pitiful.”

“Serkukan, please!” Algirak pleaded.

“You’re going to use it to rend our reality. To face Azafel, in his pit of pits. You want to become the sole arbiter of this realm. Am I wrong?”

Algirak shuddered and stammered.

“Too damned stupid to realize that you will die. Painfully. Without dignity. And with it, you bring not only our kin, but Evra’s universe, everything she painstakingly bore from her own flesh. Even if you do reach him. If you do win against Llestren and I… it would be the end—”

“I know what I—” he gasped, halting his rage. He focused, forcing the rasps out of his breath and voice. “I know what you think I’m planning. But Serkukan, you must understand; Llestren is… powerful! Much more than I! He manipulated me into destroying the Omnestatum, threatened me! But now, after all this damage is done, we need it, you must admit, to revive our race, to resuscitate our power! Without the Omnestatum, what are we?”

Serkukan glared.

“And surely, surely it was… satisfying, no? All that destruction, all that rage built up in Etheria? Wasn’t it thrilling?” a smirk crawled across his lips.

“Satisfaction? You destroy my race, strip us all of our power, and you want me to be… satisfied?

But oh, yes, Algirak. Of course that primal satisfaction was there. Watching you raze and pillage, kill the worlds that my brothers and sisters created, and then kill them made me feel… elated.

Tainted only by your stupidity.

All of this effort. This genocide, this war, this destruction… just to rid us all from existence. Even the genocidal kings of this world are not as mindlessly destructive. Not even Tovas…”

Algirak’s raspy breath shook, rattling the bushes and leaves around them. “Llestren’s binding has made you weak! He’s twisted your mind as well, I can hear it in your inflection! The true Serkukan would have killed me if he didn’t agree! The real Serkukan would have… would have joined me! He was never one to hesitate, never one to mourn—”

“Llestren’vatis is near.” he cocked his head upward. “I feel the tremble of his shimmering moonlight in the star he’s laid upon my head.”

“You expect me to fear Llestren? Or you, for that matter? Serkukan, for thousands of millenium, our kin have bred weaker and weaker… our power is finite. We stretch ourselves thinner the more we prosper; is that not enough evidence that this is not our natural way of life? Not the way Azafel created us. With the Omnestatum, we were content never to reach for that same ecstatic, euphoric power that once shook our species. But if we had a pure artefact, something designed by Evra herself…”

“Auctdos Munor is not an equalizer. And neither is Dyosius. Your crystal is a damned gateway to Hell, for everything that exists.”

“Hell? You know about…” he paused. A cold shiver ran through him. He spun frantically, looking for spying eyes, but quickly turned back to glare into the star upon Serkukan’s head. “Serkukan, I can recollect their scattered energies if that would please you. I’m more than willing to restore our kin to what they were, amplified by Dyosius. Allow me this chance, allow me your trust to complete this artefact. You’ll see.”

Serkukan shook his head.

Algirak pulsed red for a moment with a frenzied scream, then returned quietly to his natural black hue. “Fine. But when Llestren reveals his true intentions, my offer still stands. Until either of us is dead, my offer stands.”

“Worry not; he proved his intentions to be pure last time we faced off in your shattered palace.”

Algirak cast one last glare at Serkukan before a strong, snowy gust of wind cast them both away. Cedric stirred uneasily as the echoes from their argument bounced through his head, and Serkukan’s growls ran rampant.

They could only pray, though they knew few higher powers that would answer either of their cries.

A frozen morning came and went. The hours before noon blurred away into his continued, uneventful march. Though, to call it uneventful might discredit the strangling stress hanging in the air.

When the sun finally reached its zenith, he pulled through the edge of the forest, and nearly plummeted down a sharp incline through jagged rocks and icy shards. The snow-covered plains seemed to stretch on forever beneath him, speckled with hundreds of glowing frost cacti, and scattered, towering pyramids of ice that seemed to glow and pulsate a burning blue amongst the horizon, filling the sky with a shifting aurora of purple and blue dancing lights.

“The frozen desert of Abadhar… I wonder how many layers of snow cover the sand?” he muttered in awe. "A few hours more, through the tundra beyond, and we'll end up at the glaciers of Kylinstrom's peak. That far out, there's no coming back."

The distant echo of a powerful roar shook the world. He quickly recognized, amidst the clutter of colors and lights, the two towns of Nesamus and Jiza, completely engulfed in ice and covered in snow. The clustered colonies and tribes around this end of the continent have likely shared the same fate. These towns… they must have been thousands strong each. All that progress after what Tovas did…

He turned away. What does it matter? They're slaves to the wilderness, slaves to a government of Hunters… to Kasian. And now they send the scraps of their dead culture to us, to Dreslon. We're all dead men here.

He lowered himself over the precipice and began a careful descent, firmly planting his boots on each sharpened edge to ensure that he wouldn’t slip, or he might have met a cold fate at the hands of the spiked ice clawing up toward him.

The ground trembled when he finally stuck himself into the knee-deep snow at the base of the cliff. A heavy roar stole the wind’s voice. He could hear the great wings of dragons beating the air into submission from above the violet clouds, like the gentle beat of a war drum from this far off. Not only have those northern dragons passed by, some may yet remain.

DRAGONS?

“You’re not thinking this is Llestren?” he continued to plod through the heavy mounds of ice covering the ground.

The voice was quiet.

Cedric groaned, but continued onward.

A second, more furious roar shook the world as a massive, ice-white dragon, coated in a layer of azure frost, plunged through the foreboding clouds ahead, followed closely by powerful rays of glorious sunlight. Cedric gasped in awe and hope. The crystal in his pocket reverberated with much of the same at the deistic sight.

And then a spark of discomfort. A twinge of fear.

Algirak is here. But… how do I know that?

He turned and shuffled toward the western village without hesitation; Nesamus. I'll hide there for now. If I can get there before they spot us…

A red glow came from within his jacket. The Relistar began to hum.

“What are you doing?” he cried out, trying his best to sprint through the thick snow.

BECKONING TO LLESTREN'VATIS.

A black, swirling entity suddenly slammed itself into Llestren’vatis’ spine, tugging him out of the sky. Rain poured around them as the acidic body of Algirak revealed himself through the clouds. His black wings bore horrible rips all throughout, and his body had enough loose skin to drape down around his unhinged jaw. His eyes burned in mesmerizing amethyst. His arms danced like vicious tendrils.

Cedric slammed his eyes shut and swallowed burning saliva. This is it. This is where we die and Caloria is destroyed, every ounce of our damned, blasted, and tainted history is stripped away in an instant. All of it to waste. Every second we’ve ever spent, all for… for nothing!

Algirak swept down. His spiked teeth immediately barred down onto Llestren’vatis’ throat. A spray of frost shot into the air as the two dragons tumbled into the frozen forest beyond the tundra, uprooting a mile of land as their bodies violently wrestled through it.

Llestren’vatis quickly rose from the crumpled trees around him. His pristine white figure shimmered as the rain danced upon his glossy scales. A dark spot marred the shimmer of his front, a reflection of the approaching darkness through the clouds of dirt and snow floating lifelessly through the air.

“Algirak.” he began with a hiss, watching the torn black dragon raise his own figure up and flex his wings. “It’s been a while. Your sudden attack must mean that you’ve found it?”

“Hmm?” he cocked his head as if to feign ignorance.

“Even a handful of mortal men have heard the news, and have watched with eager eyes. Forgive me for asking; you’re not playing the fool again, are you?”

Algirak twitched. “I’ve come to forgive you, Llestren—”

“I’ve never met a creature who stabs another in the spine before forgiving them. Nor have I known a being of Etheria who so desperately clings to a naive, desperate façade during the final throes of their master plan.”

Algirak didn’t hesitate past that. In an instant, their bodies clashed. Llestren’vatis easily swept away from each of Algirak’s hastened slashes, their eyes each pulsating with magic.

“A predictable move, Algirak.”

“That hubris will be my advantage.”

“It’s laughable that you think I’m the one playing to hubris here,” he stretched his glistening wings as he leapt back into the rain. He took a deep inhale.

“Llestren, with my creation we could tear fate itself away from Azafel—”

“That is not your power to wield.” he declared, blasting a missile of ice toward him.

Algirak shattered the ground as he launched back, leaving the missile to violently quake the earth.

“You could barely find the Relistar on your own, yet you believe yourself to be capable of destroying Azafel? And then taking his place?”

Algirak blasted a wave of deafening sound at Llestren’vatis, who easily outmaneuvered it.

“I mapped it out. I watched his every move, from that first taste of blood at Nelreign.” Llestren’vatis muttered, firing a series of frozen bolts at the grounded black demon. Algirak finally launched up to meet him, twirling away from the projectiles.

“And yet you didn’t know well enough to run.” Algirak swept in close, with his sharp claws at the ready. His descent slowed to a crawl, to his surprise, and soon came to a peaceful halt before the white dragon. Llestren’vatis smirked at the familiar layer of ethereal frost that had coated every surface around them. The strange, unerring silence of frozen time fell around them.

He stretched as if uncomfortable, “It’s been a while since I’ve used this ability. It’s been a while since we’ve fought. I’m sure you’d like to know what’s going on back in Etheria, no?”

The rumble from his throat was overwhelming in the silence. Algirak’s fury was inaudible, perfectly captured in his frozen snarl. His purple eyes had shifted red, burning with trapped rage.

“Everybody’s gone, now. Only Tirolith and I have attempted any reformation of the planes. And without Albion to help…

Well, needless to say: this strike shall suffice as his vengeance.”

Llestren’vatis bolted forward.

“Dyosius will fall—”

A sudden, sickening snap stole Llestren’s voice. He choked, gagged, and whined out at the awful sensation that had filled his throat.

“I'd be disappointed, were I in his position…” Algirak whispered upon Llestren’vatis’ voice.

Llestren closed his shattered glass eyes in agony as the world grew dim, and Algirak crawled out of his throat, tearing his jaw apart.

“Sound, Llestren’vatis. You may have had time on your side, but time is nothing without its twin brother of space…” he cackled as white mist sprayed out from Llestren's body. “And now, Lles—”

Llestren’vatis forced out one last gasp of energy, suddenly engulfing the forest around them in a gust of blinding light. A mere second later, the field of ice swarmed in around them and surrounded them, tearing away until they were absent from the sky.

Cedric had collapsed into the snow beside Nesamus’ spiked wooden fence. He panted and huffed for air, shuddering and hugging himself against the cold and panic.

A red glow stretched out of his jacket as the Relistar appeared to work its magic.

“Where'd they go? What are you doing?” he frantically gasped.

ALGIRAK IS NOT YET DEAD.

“Then where is he? Where’s Llestren?” he twisted his head back and forth across the sky.

HE BORROWED MY POWER… JUST FOR A MOMENT, HE'S LOCKED THEM BOTH AWAY IN AN ALTERNATE TIMELINE. BUT THERE IS NO WAY TO TELL WHEN THEY WILL RECONVERGE. NOT WITHOUT...

A soft female voice chimed in suddenly, “A sole survivor? You wouldn't happen to be Cedric Castelbre, would you?”

He turned in surprise. His green eyes quickly turned red as Serkukan took over to ask, “Tirolith? I’m shocked that you survived, of all creatures.”

A young girl, snuggly packed into shimmering turquoise scales with a winged helmet, approached from where they had just come from. She scanned Cedric with her azure eyes as she circled him, her voice breathing delicately from soft, blue-painted lips with a strangely elven inflection, as though common words were hard to pronounce, “So this is the pawn…"

His eyes shifted back and forth between colors, “Cedric is not a pawn.”

Tirolith chuckled as she plucked her helmet away to reveal the long, bluish-silver hair that drooped down one side of her picturesque face and over her shoulder, ending at her waist.

“You're not just here to waste my time, are you?” Cedric stepped toward her at Serkukan’s whim.

“I’m here on Llestren's orders.” she cocked her head to look up at Cedric, who stood a few inches taller than her. "He’s young!”

“You look younger than me…” Cedric muttered, turning away before Serkukan took power again. “How long has it been since that day? Have you been in Caloria since it happened?”

“Uhh…” she scratched the side of her head with a pout. “I’ve got no clue. Llestren remembers. But... I can hardly remember all of the things that happened in the past week.”

“You useless damn wyrm, nothing’s changed with you.” he waved her away and turned to leave towards the north.

“Hey, get back here!” she charged after him. He turned suddenly and she stopped before ramming into him.

“What possible aid could your short, clueless lifespan provide? Stay out of my way.”

She crossed her arms. “My age is of your concern? You don’t even know how much time has passed since the Collapse, yet—”

“Time?” he glared. “Enough time hasn’t even passed for your scales to whiten. And do you know how long that takes?”

“I…”

“You haven’t the slightest idea of how much time has passed, yet you’re the most pertinent, breathing example of time in all of the realms."

"And you're rude." she slipped her hand under the armor at her neck and revealed a small round locket. "And speaking of time… ta-da!"

Cedric blinked. She held a golden pocket-watch with a spiraling white pattern across the surface, though with no particular indication of its significance.

"I hope you're not expecting me to ask you to explain."

She rolled her eyes and popped it open. The inside was filled with miniature crystalline gears and complex carvings that could be inferred to represent decades of Etherian lore, not that Cedric nor Serkukan cared to interpret. "This shows us how long we have until Llestren'vatis reappears."

"So he has planned this." Cedric stepped forward and reached for the watch. Tirolith leapt back suddenly and kicked him hard in the shin.

He collapsed into the wet snow. "Ow, you–you bitch!"

"Llestren'vatis entrusted it to me." she smiled smugly to say, "And I'm one to keep my promises!"

His twin personalities growled together as he stood. "Explain this, then, because I'm far from understanding: why aren't we fighting Algirak now? Why is Llestren'vatis delaying our inevitable fight with this mockery? I could kill Algirak in an instant. And he was right there."

"Maybe Algirak, but Dyosius? There's someone else who'll help with that..."

"Spit it out."

She grinned. "Grivonym."

Cedric's eyes widened. "I didn't know he still existed."

She nodded excitedly. "Yup, and I know exactly where to find him."

"Very well, wurm, but do not expect me to fuse with you."

"Oh, come on! That's half the fun!"

He turned away with impatience, continuing toward the north. "Yes, for you, I'm sure. But for me to fuse with a lesser being is comparable to a set of manacles around my wrists."

"How do you know it’s that way?" she bounced alongside him.

Cedric shrugged as Serkukan began to subside again. "We've been going this way for hours. It seems stupid to lead us all the way out here just to send us back south."

She stared at him blankly. "Well, I guess Llestren'vatis must be stupid after all."

He stopped. "Which way is it?"

"South."

"How far south? Where?"

She lowered her head. "There's a town in the desert–"

"Oh, you–" he nearly threw himself at her.

She cowered and squealed, "I'm joking, I'm joking! Serky, learn to take a joke!"

"Do not call me that." he became serious again as he turned to walk away. "And, to be clear, that was the boy. Not me."

She chuckled and blushed. "You two really are made for each other…"

Cedric reached up to hold his frostbitten ears as the snowstorm grew around them. Soon enough, it would engulf them.

We'll be lucky to even face Algirak, at this rate...

His eyes trailed his new companion with disdain. So carefree. So... so ignorant...

SHOULD YOU SPEND ENOUGH TIME WITH THIS ONE, YOU'D FIND YOUR RAGE EQUAL TO MINE.

He grit his teeth against the ceaseless chatter, the carefree humming, and the blowing, growing winds...