Bella and I stood still as Ianite extracted the pieces of her soul from us. I felt the surge of energy I had gotten drain from me, but the wounds I had before didn't come back. I was as good as new, and so was Bella. We looked at each other properly, for the first time. We were free. We could say anything to each other now, and do anything, without the fear of being punished by the Shadows.

Did Bella remember how it felt to be free?

"What do we do now?" I asked, my voice almost a whisper. Nobody responded. I guessed that everyone was unsure of the next step.

"Farewell, Redbeard," Bella said quietly. She stood over his body, sorrow painted on her newly healed face. "I wish I could have known you better. You and Capsize were the best friends I ever had."

"He's with his sister now," Ianite added.

After a moment of grieving for our fallen friend, everyone got to their feet to decide what to do next. "We're trapped," Mianite told us. "We need to get out of here while the Shadows are regenerating. If we don't, he'll come back and take us out all over again. It's an endless cycle."

"Where can we possibly go to?" I asked. "I'm assuming that none of you know anything about making portals to other realms." Suddenly, everyone's eyes flew wide, and they exchanged terrified glances. "Wait... did I miss something?"

Ianite's face went deathly pale. "Please... please don't hate me, Alyssa."

"What do you mean? Hate you?" I was incredibly confused, and becoming more and more fearful. Had something happened while the Shadows had me captured?

"Two years ago," she said, taking a deep breath, "I helped your father leave this realm. There was one unused portal sitting around in Ruxomar, so I hooked up a portal here to the one there."

"But all of us can't just go through that one now?" This was shocking to me, but for some reason the news wasn't as terrible to me as the others seemed to think it would be.

Ianite shook her head. "No, we can't just..." Her voice trailed off. We stared at her in confusion, and then she let out a scream.

We all spun around, but there was nothing behind us. "Ianite?" Spark asked hesitantly. "What's wrong?"

The goddess started to wobble. "I... I... we're leaving!" She suddenly pushed us out of the way and ran, as fast as she could, through Aethoria. "WE'RE LEAVING!"

"What's going on?" I cried, looking to Mianite. The god looked just as confused as I felt.

When we finally caught up with Ianite, she was inside of a house in the back of Aethoria. She was sobbing, but it seemed to be tears of joy. She was digging through one of the chests, tossing things behind her.

"Ianite!" Mianite yelled sharply. "Cut it out! What's going on?"

She leaned up, and we saw that she was carrying a handful of white blocks. "Just as I said we couldn't go back to Ruxomar, Mot activated the portal from his end. We can leave!"

There was a moment in which everything was silent, and then everyone started screaming. Spark and Jeriah were freaking out, and the priest and Champwan were cheering. Mianite looked delighted. But one person wasn't joining in in the celebration.

"Wait," Bella said, her voice somehow carrying over everyone else's. The cheering died down, and we turned to see her looking defeated, maybe even scared.

"Bella, you can come with us!" I said, joy filling me. "We can leave this place! You'll never have to see the Shadows again!"

"I don't want to." Before any of us could protest, she continued. "I'm grateful for the opportunity, but there's no way I could be happy anywhere else. All of my friends and family are gone. Please let me be with them. Alyssa, you know that this is what I want."

My face fell. "But you have the chance to make something more out of your life. You can be happy now!" I wanted to plead for her to stay.

"I can't be happy anymore." She looked down at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. "Something snapped in me after about a year of being under the Shadows' control. I'm broken. Something was drained from me. I just want to be with my friends and family. Please. We both need to leave this awful place, but going to Ruxomar is not the way I need to leave."

"Are you sure about this, Bella?" Ianite asked quietly.

"I've never been more sure about anything in my life," she said, confidence filling her voice.

The goddess stepped forward and placed her hands on Bella's shoulders. "Then I shall give you a quick death. May this grant you eternal happiness." My friend, whom I known for a very short period of time, bowed her head. She began to glow purple, and then vanished before all of our eyes.

Just like that, she was gone.

I wasn't sure how to feel.

"We shouldn't keep Mot waiting for too long," Ianite said, taking out the white blocks and beginning to construct the portal. "Time for you guys to go home. It's been ten years too long."

I stood, quietly, as the frame was completed. Then, the goddess opened up the portal control block and began to press buttons. After a minute, she stepped back, and it began to light up. We were faced with a beautiful, shimmering, dark blue portal.

Ianite gestured for me to come forward, smiling slightly. "After you, Alyssa."

Feeling like I was in a trance, I walked forward and took one step into the portal.

This was the moment I had been waiting for ever since I arrived in this place. I had been wishing for this moment since I had woken up in the prison cell with the priest glaring at me. I had been wishing for this moment since Dianite had started threatening to kill the people I loved. I had been wishing for this moment since Mot had vanished two years ago. I had been wishing for this moment since the second I realized I would be the Shadows' prisoner for the rest of my life.

And here it was.

I vanished from the Realm of Mianite, my home for almost my entire life. And then I appeared in Ruxomar, where my heart had always been.

Except that everything was different.

I didn't know where I was, but I knew that everything around me was dead. The ground surrounding me was dried up and decayed, and there was a musty smell that hung in the air. Right in front of me stood a terrifying man made of metal. And next to him, my father.

"Alyssa!" both of them cried. Temporarily, I forgot about everything else around me. I forgot about the fact that Mot had abandoned me, and the rest of us back in the Realm of Mianite. I ignored the fact that everything was dead, and that there was a metal man staring at me.

I ran up to Mot and threw my arms around him. He hugged me back, and I decided that I didn't want to ever let go.