"Do you hear that?" Jira ne'Jiral asked.

Orlantha did not answer. She walked after Jira blindly, her eyes stuck on the blade in her hand, and her mind centered on the sensation of the viscous black ooze that had seeped into the flesh of her palm. It was a stinging feeling, like the bite of a hornet, but also warm and sticky, as if the blood was her own and was weeping from an infected wound. Yet, there was also a pleasure to it, something rising from her hand up her arm and onto her tongue. Sweet like the nectar of fresh honeycombs and as subtle as lavender tea.

Her heart pounded from it.

She could not say that it was an overall combination of senses that she would want to hold onto for an extended period of time, for it was a feeling she had not yet encountered with the blade. Not until the bear-maiden returned it. But she could also not say that it wasn't posing the chance to become one with each passing second, or so the root of her brain whispered to her increasingly since she and the silver knight departed the tavern in haste.

This blade. A grumble ran wet and hot through her throat as she turned a corner, trying so hard to understand this crystal thing that had granted her knowledge of past ages. Cravings rose up in her stomach then. Boiling hunger to comprehend what the blade had shown her and what it was doing to her now - and further to understand what was happening in the world with Crius and these so-called 'Aions.' Nothing made sense. From the bear-maiden and Veoris to this. She was suddenly starving for the wisdom of the visions that no mere mortal should have ever conceived of and experiences no mere mortal should have ever gone through.

Mortal. The word stuck to her tongue afterward like the honeycomb taste, for she was no longer sure that it applied to her or any of her companions, least of all Milligan Barat and herself. Was she still a mortal? She no longer looked like one. She no longer moved like one, lived like one, or survived like one. She was a giantess, nearly, yet moved like a person half her size and four times her agility. And Milligan was as much an enigma as Crius himself, born from some mystical origin he refused to speak of and possessed of inhuman qualities - a dire wolf in a suit of flesh.

Orlantha exhaled through her nose as she thought about this, sheathing the sword into its scabbard at her hip, and finally turned her gaze up to Jira. The knight stopped. It hit Orlantha then that she realized what Jira had meant when she asked, "did you hear that?"

Nothing. She had heard nothing, for there was nothing. No people in the streets. No carriages running to and fro with parcels and trade. No ruffians attempting to steal. No faithful of the church singing their psalms and dealing out their justice. Holmgan was entirely silent aside from the wind that coursed cooly around them.

Jira turned to Orlantha. "I think something's happening," she said with a rhetorical tone.

"You are probably right," Orlantha agreed. "I think we should keep moving. Where would be the best chance of finding Crius if he is back in Holmgan?"

Jira thought for a moment. "The castle grounds? Meetings are usually held there atop that old stage, and it seems that he has quite a number of followers already stationed there. No better place to reveal yourself and your plans than where the Queen herself and an army of metal monsters can descend the stairs like an army of Heaven."

Orlantha nodded slowly. "Indeed. But I must ask...will there be any place for us even to consider doing this? As in, is there any place for us to hide and then strike? If the streets now are empty, and he has called all of Holmgan - or most of it - to there, will we not find ourselves with limited ability to take him down?"

"Is that doubt I hear in the Raven's voice?" Jira asked with genuine shock.

"It is not doubt but caution," Orlantha countered.

"Caution," Jira repeated. "Caution is what got us into this mess."

Orlantha knew what she meant but avoided the topic, instead saying: "It is something to consider, at least."

Jira shrugged and hoisted her crossbow, the planned weapon to skewer the man's heart with a bolt of silver. Orlantha sighed, knowing that if that failed, she would be called upon to take down Crius with her blade.

They continued through the streets of Holmgan for nearly an hour, marveling at the utter absence of life aside from the stray animals that barked and meowed as they passed. Street signs swung in the breeze, creaking with a symphony of desolate emptiness and providing levity to the hush. Around them, the spires of habitation and mercantilism rose higher and higher, breaching the clouds that had begun to turn dusky. A sense of melancholia had filled the city streets, Orlantha noted. Perverted and widespread. Orlantha gripped the hilt of the sword, and she swore she could the melancholy's horrid, smoking tendrils snaking about in the darkest of alleys and through open windows of the countless buildings that formed this once prosperous locale of progress. Worms and serpents, multi-legged and multi-armed, with the heads of humans and inhuman faces. She heard them whisper as they walked in a language she knew was older than the world she inhabited. They cackled and snuffed out any semblance of light that she could notice. Something was coming. Something awful that she doubted the bear-maiden was knowledgable of. Part of her was hopeful, in a strange way, that Crius was unaware of it too. Part of her was hopeful that he truly sought to bring coexistence to this world.

Sounds reached both of them at an intersection in the road. A chattering of voices thousands upon thousands strong. More than that, Orlantha knew, but it was just a hum past a certain point. Voices directing them to the monumental facet of lies and deceit and strength that was the castle of Aslofidor. Orlantha swallowed hard while Jira spat on the cobble.

"I do not know why she thinks this is the best way," Jira said. "Even if the Aions can coexist with us, how can we live in peace knowing that these things so callously erased countless generations of people before for not meeting their criteria for life when they are the ones that made them? I cannot live in a world under the boot of leaders like that."

"Even though we have met the criteria now?" Orlantha asked, momentarily shifting her gaze to a swarm of those tendrils across the road, sneaking their way into a cobbler's shop. They peered out at her from the window, faces stretched horribly in a rictus grin with many rows of many eyes made of solid ice.

"Yes. I cannot abide those monsters as our rulers or allies," Jira answered.

"What if we don't have a choice?" Orlantha asked. "What if this part of destiny cannot be beaten? Milligan has suffered dreams leading his every step thus far, despite his refusal to adhere to destiny. I am apparently the chosen of this Halkos. You have gained Crius' eye directly."

"Do not tell me that you believe her," Jira groaned.

"Not entirely," Orlantha said. "But from everything I have seen, between my own adventures and with Milligan and now with you and Gíla...it is hard, not at least, to consider things. I have seen Crius do things no mere mortal ever could. Gíla has experienced things no mortal ever should."

Jira sighed. "She cannot be right about it. Crius cannot be right about it."

"Neither can we," Orlantha said, drawing a look of pure ire from Jira. "We have been wrong about everything, Jira. Whether or not Gíla is right is beside the point. She holds the power, and Crius holds the power. We hold nothing but losses and falsehoods we thought were truths. We thought Crius and the King were corrupting the earth and were wrong. We thought Milligan was supposed to save his father, and we were wrong. We thought this sword was meant for us, and we were wrong. We thought that...we thought that if Crius awoke these things, we would all die, and apparently, we are wrong. I believe it is time that we should consider things."

Jira shook her head. "The only thing I am considering right now is that Gíla was only right about one single thing."

Orlantha's shoulders stiffened. She crooked a brow, deciding to press the subject momentarily. "What do you mean?"

Jira sniffed, wiping away a single tear that had formed in her eye. In Orlantha's sight, it was like a mote of starlight clutching at the woman's steel-colored flesh. Radiant. "That we are hypocrites," Jira answered. "The lot of us. We stood in judgment of her, yet she at least risked her own life to see her goals accomplished while we have done nothing but stall until the very edge of the pit rests under our feet and the maw of Hell opens up to our souls. She has risked life and limb to ensure that Crius survives this, while we gave him the weapon to kill God instead of at least trying to kill him. We let him live in Veoris, and I said that he was too powerful for us even to attempt to kill. And we judged her for doing what she thought was right. We dared to call her insane."

Orlantha sagged and nodded. "Yes. I said as much in the tavern. Or...I think I did."

Jira breathed hard. "We called her insane and thought her mad for believing she could decide the world's fate, but that is what we are doing now."

Orlantha grunted. "Do you find us selfish for this? Evil? Vainglorious to think that our say is more important than hers?"

"Of the highest order. Had I realized this earlier...maybe I could have stopped."

"Why can you not stop now?" Orlantha asked. "I am providing you reasons for us to stop."

Jira's breath hitched in her throat. Orlantha wished later on that she had not asked Jira that question. "Maybe because I'm not allowed to. Because one of us...one of us to be that final seal."

The students all stared at Gíla expectantly, though she gazed longingly into the campfire, her eyes stinging from the flame's brilliance. A rumble burbled from her chest as factual memory became corrupted with emotion. This was the end. The day it all changed.

The day Jira ne'Jiral was killed.

And the Aions rose.

"Look at them all," Jira gasped. Orlantha peered past her and gawked at the assembly of hundreds of thousands gathered in the streets, atop the buildings, and hanging out of windows. Only the castle itself and the top of its stairs could be seen, nothing else. "All clustered together to see the beginning of a new era."

"Lest you blind them to it," Orlantha added.

"Will you abandon me now for your sudden development of logic?" Jira asked.

"No," Orlantha stated firmly. "I will not. We either decide jointly to stop or move forward together until the end. It is too late for anything else."

"It is at the end of everything that you finally decide to trust me," Jira laughed ruefully. "You are a funny woman, Orlantha Quills."

"I never said I trusted you, Jira," Orlantha laughed back. "But I have very limited choices. Now...time to find a place for us from where to strike."

She looked around the vicinity, searching for any location that could work for the two of them to strike at Crius. Orlantha frowned when nothing could be seen and, with a heavy sigh, pulled out her blade. It sang with energy and vibrated in her grasp, the black ooze resuming that sensation. Jira shared a look with her. She was concerned but voiced nothing as Orlantha darted from the area, ascending the buildings with a spider's quickness, jumping from roof to roof.

Sweat coated her body in a glistening sheen, matting her hair to the scalp. Her muscles strained as her joints bent and flexed in ways that should have been impossible for a woman of her stature. Hundreds of people topped the buildings surrounding the grounds outside the castle walls, which were filled with innumerable souls. The stage in the center was being outfitted for something, a group of black-orange armored soldiers behind it with a cart. Crius was among them, conversing with one of them - the largest that had growled at her in the cathedral. Finally, she found a small nook of a building between buildings, likely the roof of a tavern or an inn that the rest had been unable to see. With a heave of effort, she returned to Jira and grabbed her wrist.

A jump of astronomical proportions and a rebound from the walls of the buildings placed both atop this roof. Orlantha dropped her blade and slumped against the wall, her lungs crackling as her veins pressed against the surface of her flesh. Her eyes rolled back in her head, teeth clenched and molars chipping as her body seized. Bile filled her throat and burned it. She spat some out onto her chest as she regained some body function.

Jira visibly suppressed vomit and gulped it down before attending to the Raven. "Are you okay?" she asked.

Orlantha nodded. "I am fine. Focus on the mission. And do not touch the sword," she warned, pointing feebly at it as it jolted where it fell. "Crius is here. He will be speaking soon, I think."

Jira breathed shakily and took a position at the edge of the building. Readying her crossbow and reaching for the bolt of silver that would skewer the man's heart, Jira was set to end this nightmare. Orlantha closed her eyes and felt the cold rush of air run past her. It would all be over soon. Maybe she was not meant to be this champion of Halkos. Maybe this New Age was not meant to occur. Maybe Crius was just a madman, a mortal man. Hopefully, she thought, they had all just been washed up in the terror of war and the vestiges of old forgotten days.

She felt the tremors of the rooftop and a thundering of footsteps near her. It had to be Jira steadying herself, fueled by adrenaline. It had to be, she thought. She opened her eyes for a moment, a smile on her face.

"Gíla," Jira muttered as the bear-maiden stood before her, the remnants of Mille's blade clutched in her hand like a dagger. Her body was covered in wounds from incisions to gashes so open that bone was visible. "Are you here to kill me?"

Gíla's breaths were shuddering as her expression adopted the worst despair imaginable. "I don't want to, Jira."

"Yet you stand here with weapon hand."

"Please, for the love of all the gods that have died for this...for everyone that has died for this, do not attempt it. Do not try to kill Crius."

Jira smiled sadly and cast a solemn look at Orlantha, who struggled even to hold her eyes open. She looked back at the bear-maiden. "Gíla...my friend...I wish I could stop. But like you said, this is how it must be. I cannot live under the yoke of those who could so carelessly eradicate all life, all love, and all hope in a single moment without remorse. You know I cannot abide by that."

Gíla held up an open palm. "Jira, please don't. Please just put down the bow and walk away with me. Walk away with me and help me carry Orlantha safely back to Milligan and the Wolf."

Another sad smile. "Oh, Gíla. I'm sorry."

Jira spun around and reached for the bolt. She barely gasped before Gíla reflexively sunk the shattered remnants of Mille's blade into her neck. Orlantha barely managed to voice the beginning of the word 'no' before Gíla sunk the blade into Jira's neck. The dark worming things barely began their cackling anew before Gíla sunk the blade into Jira's neck. The world barely completed its rotation around the sun before Gíla sunk the blade into Jira's neck. Her gorget, once so protective, had been pierced as if it was not even there. Every necessary vein and tendon within that thick stretch of flesh and muscle was severed. Orlantha's brain zapped at the moment. Her ears had attuned so perfectly to the sound of the flesh ripping apart from the metal piercing through its layers. Jira and Gíla met eyes for but a second, tears welling in both sets. Orlantha struggled to her feet but fell forward to her knees, putrid bile erupting from her mouth.

She looked up at the pair when it was done.

"No..." the bear-maiden wept. Then, Jira ne'Jiral died. Just as quickly as those words had been spoken, the blade was wrenched out, and a fountain of blood erupted from her wound like silky frosting from a piping bag. She tumbled forward, gasping one airless breath that rattled instrumentally. She turned her head once to gaze at Orlantha before falling forward and onto her face, crushing her nose against the paneling of the rooftop. She coughed once more before remaining still. Her neck poured the last bits of what her heart could pump, the crimson liquid a stark coloring to her silver pallor. Gíla fell to her knees and cradled the dead woman, and whimpered. "No...no. Jira...I'm sorry. Please, please."

"You killed Jira!?" the collective students roared in outrage. Lu'Rorca and Or'Demp rose from their seats to leave the area in immediate protest, stopped only by Pinnacle stepping in front of them and holding them back.

"How the hell could you do that?" Nina and Thilas asked in tandem.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" asked Conalath and Dracraes.

"I can't believe you'd do that," Kuragis and Mordo said in stupefaction.

Alden remained silent. What outrage could that man give her, Gíla thought.

Gíla sighed, the tears of this part of the tale so dried out that she could no longer shed them. She was numb to the pain. She had to be for her own sanity. "Please, calm yourselves. I understand that this is not how you wanted it to be revealed, but it is true. I did it."

"Why the hell would you do that?" Or'Demp seethed. "She was your friend! Your best friend!"

"I did what I did because I thought I was right," Gíla answered. "Because I..."

She fell silent as the words were throttled into submission by her own logic and the resurfacing memories of the demon that ascended because of her actions. No reasoning could she give that would justify it now. At the time, many reasons were viable in the excuse for her actions. But now, after so many years, so many eons of life facing the forces of that monster...there was no reason to justify it. It could not be justified. Not now.

Orlantha roared. "Gíla!" She charged the bear-maiden as she rose from gently laying Jira's body back down, tackling her across the rooftop and into the wall of the building behind them. Into the building they fell, tumbling through crowds of people and down wooden stairs. Both jumped to their feet, Gíla goring her shoulder into Orlantha and slamming her through the wall and down into the empty street below. She felt her skull crack against the stone, and her right arm popped out of its socket. That damned blade. Orlantha's vision darkened and doubled from the impact as she felt her head grow sticky and hot with blood. She breathed ragged and swayed back up to her feet as screaming from the gathered people began ringing out.

Gíla was on her in a second, grabbed her by the throat, and lifted her off her feet. The pain of this simple hold was indescribable. It felt as if every nerve in her neck was screaming to die. It dawned on her that this was because Gíla's hands were burning to the touch. "You didn't listen to me," she growled with tears rushing like ocean waves from her eyes, her face no longer bearing the recognizable innocence Orlantha had seen so much during the rebellion. "None of you listened to me. No one listened to me. No one trusted me except him."

"You...killed...her!" Orlantha spat, throwing a hard uppercut into the Drayheller's chin that loosened the grip on her throat, dropping her down onto her feet. She darted forward in spite of her wounds, launching an assault on the bear-maiden with strike after strike. Her arms shook from the impact of each strike, and she relished the feeling of each bruise and swollen muscle she left along the bear-maiden's body. Her hands came away battered and bloody, permanently fixed into fists. Gíla was visibly shocked by the onslaught of power from the Raven, so beaten back with blows to her chest, stomach, and head that her hide had split open and blood sprayed from welts and knuckle-wide cuts.

"You killed her. She was your friend!" Orlantha seethed before leading with an overhead punch for Gíla's snout.

Gíla countered the strike, grabbing Orlantha's arm and flipping her up and over onto her back. Orlantha gulped cold air after the shock of the impact fell through. "You wanted the same!" Gíla screamed banshee-like, exploding with grief untold. The ground shook beneath her feet, cracking with each booming step. "Ever since the Rebellion, you sought her death!"

"Yes!" Orlantha declared, dodging a stomp aimed at her head and rolling to her feet. The cobble where Gíla had stomped had bent inward and splashed outward, deformed like putty. "But I pushed that aside for more pressing concerns. Stopping Crius was more important than our petty feud of lies and deceit!"

"You do not get to judge me!" Gíla bellowed, raking at Orlantha's chest with her claws, parting the layers of her armor with ease and digging into the flesh underneath. Blood welled from the wounds before they were seared from the cauterizing heat of Gíla's hands.

"I judge you least of all!" Orlantha countered, sending a hard fist into Gíla's kidney that dropped the bear-maiden to a knee. She sent her own into the bear-maiden's face, cracking teeth and cartilage with the reverb of a window breaking apart. Gíla fell onto her back and groaned, spitting blood and tooth fragments from her mouth. Orlantha's words became slurred as the blood from her head poured. "I understand your anger at us. As did Jira. You actually tried to succeed in your goals. We pushed ours to the brink and were too late as a result. We didn't try. We were scared. And we were wrong to judge you for doing what we could not. I am sorry, Gíla. I should have said something in the tavern. Something to bring us together and figure out a compromise. But I didn't."

"I don't need your sympathy!" she roared, rolling to her feet and rushing Orlantha like a boar. A hard punch to the head knocked her down, bringing swollen flesh to envelope her left eye completely in the same second. A second upward punch swelled the other eye and cracked her jaw out of place, splitting her chin, followed by a fist across her back. This itself was followed by a kick to the stomach that sent her down the street with force. She felt something inside her rupture from the impact. Orlantha tumbled and groaned, only to find herself lifted up by her throat again, nails digging into her thick flesh as easily as any edge. "I needed your understanding! Your simple fucking comprehension! This is the only way for us to survive beyond the cycle's end! Without this way, we will all die. Every single one of us! We wouldn't have a damned chance!"

"We don't have...the gift of your knowledge, Gíla!" Orlantha wheezed and gurgled through bubbles of blood and spittle that streamed from her mouth. Her nose was bent awkwardly from the hit, the cartilage crunched and partially sticking out of a nostril. "None of us...have been to God's Heaven. None of us knew the extent of it all."

Gíla breathed gutturally - each inhale a snort, and each exhale a growl. "No, but you were chosen. You died. In Veoris. You were infected, and you died. But they revived you. Halkos! You saw something then. And with that blade, you saw something else. Don't tell me you have no knowledge. You could have trusted me. Jira knew as well! She knew what those things in the Star Bastion told her, she knew that what I said had merit, and she still...she still opposed me."

Orlantha choked under Gíla's hold on her neck, her blood staining the Drayheller's black fur maroon. "I had enough...to know that there were others...besides Aedol. But nothing else. Jira was running on fear. She learned nothing substantial until it was too late. Milligan learned nothing until it was too late. Mille knew nothing at all. You are the only one...with enough knowledge...to have done anything in this. And you did. We had nothing to go on, Gíla. Our world...was gone...and you were trying...to take it away even more..."

Gíla sobbed and tightened her grip on Orlantha's neck so hard her tendons and bones began to creak. "You...you..."

"We did what we did...with what information we had..." Orlantha gurgled. "We could have done more...like you...but it was all we had...until it was too late."

Gíla dropped Orlantha to the ground and fell to her backside, burying her face in her hands as the Raven struggled to regain her breath. "I just wanted to save people," she croaked through snot-laden weeping. "I just wanted to end the suffering."

"I know," Orlantha coughed as the screaming of the masses continued. "I know, Gíla. Too late again, but I know." Orlantha rose to rest on her haunches, bloody drool caking her lips. Her eyes were completely bloodshot and swollen, her jaw slightly askew, and a number of vessels had popped across her face, giving her a blotchy and bruised complexion. "For all our sake...for the sake of Jira's soul...and ours...I hope we have a chance now..."

Gíla choked back another well of sobs and stood up. For the first time in the hours that she had encountered the woman, Orlantha saw doubt in the face of the Drayheller. "I hope we do too. Will you try to kill me if I help you up?"

Orlantha coughed and formed what she could of a smile. "I would lose...horribly...and have already lost...you won, Gíla. Crius won. I only regret that you...had to kill your friend to do it."

Gíla stifled a noise and helped the Raven up to her feet. The screaming abruptly stopped. They turned together toward the castle, moving the road's entrance leading into the grounds. They found it jammed with people living and dead and mangled, Crius atop the stage with the head of Aedol in a cart and his Lambent Knights attending him dutifully. Orlantha felt nothing but disgust seeing the head of the divine God so profaned. She had already seen the man in visions of days past and had learned enough of him to know that he deserved a worse fate than this. He deserved to be drawn and quartered. Burned at the stake. Tarred. Drowned. Whipped.

But those fantasies of killing the man were eradicated as quickly as the reality she had come to know. It was quick, the ascension of the Aion near Holmgan. For that, she was grateful, as she was worried it would be a long, drawn-out affair. Of course, the same could not be said for all of them across Khirn. In fact, for many, it was a long, drawn-out affair filled with ceremony and pomp-and-circumstance.

It began at the moment of realizing Crius had raised his arms high. He had said some final words in the common tongue of humanity, calming the world around him for the changing of the guard. The cold air swelled past her, as did those dark worming things that coagulated above him into a singular orb of smoking energy, not unlike what she had seen in Veoris during the fight with the dragon and her own resurrection. Crius' face was somber as he began to mouth words in a language Orlantha did not know and would never know.

"Nã̄ rārao upkafnak nao!"

His voice was age itself if such a concept could have a sound. There were things that sounded old. People that sounded their age. But with those words, Crius adopted the very meaning of the term "age." Old, young, ancient, newborn. All of it, all at once, in a single moment of time that would forever change the course of history.

The coagulated orb of darkness dissipated throughout the air. A moment of silence passed. Something sparked above him like a crackle of lightning too quick to register. Light flashed from where he stood and then bombarded the area like a shower of white-orange fire. The head of Aedol rose out of the cart and floated into the air, its mouth dropping into a silent scream as the head shuddered and sloughed its flesh away until it was nothing but red bone. Every single mortal within the vicinity screamed and clawed at their faces. Gíla grabbed Orlantha's arm and pulled her away from the stream of blinding radiance that had replaced the orb of darkness. They both fell to the floor, face down in the stone, as horns sounded from all around and something burst in the sky. Orlantha assumed it was the skull of Aedol, but she could have been wrong. The ground convulsed, and all of the screaming people fell silent across the world entire. From Khirn to E'aura, across the Jade Ocean into lost lands such as Stageos, Kares, Eubephyrian, Cheqofai, and Yegun, the world screamed and then went mute.

Orlantha looked up from the ground for a mere moment. At that moment, she saw lights of blue, green, black, white, yellow, red, and purple - lights that had filled the heavens as the stars - fall from the void to pierce the ground in synchronous order, filling the hearts of things long asleep or dead.

And then, she saw nothing but a shroud of darkness coat her and Gíla as fire began to consume Holmgan.

"How did you survive?" Pinnacle asked once the other students had calmed their tempers.

"Intervention," Gíla answered. "Orlantha and I were not meant to die there, at least not according to the thing that saved us."

"What saved you?" Nina asked in turn.

"The same thing that had saved Orlantha time and time again during her journeys," Gíla answered. "Something that had decided to elect her has its champion."

"Halkos," Thilas said, astonished. "He really was the first one to be awoken?"

"Yes. Some say he never really was asleep, but we cannot say for certain, only that he intervened when absolutely necessary."

"So what happened after?" Kuragis asked. "After the Aions woke up, what happened to you, Orlantha, Milligan? Where do you all go? I mean, we all know the legends, but-"

"That is another story entirely," Alden answered for her. "Needless to say, it involves little of Khirn for most of the parties involved."

"Where will this story take, Lady Arsinoe?" Mordo asked.

"All over the world, dear Mordo," Gíla stated. "The first order of business that I faced following the rise of the Aions was ensuring that my people were unified for the troubles to come."

"What troubles?" Lu'Rorca asked, her previous anger at Gíla temporarily subsided.

"With the rise of the Aions came the good...and the bad," Gíla answered. "And there was plenty of bad."

"Blackstone," Alden grumbled.

"Blackstone?" Dracraes repeated in question. "The Tyrant? You encountered him that early?"

"He is why I joined the fight against the very beings I woke up," Gíla answered. "Most of them, at least. The wicked ones."

Alden scratched his beard. "The ones like Xiphabo, Lob, Frugir, Alaxos."

Nina shook her head in confusion. "What did Blackstone do? You gave up everything to raise the Aions. You killed Jira. Now you fight them. I understand the rest of the world fighting against Aions like him and Xiphabo, but what could he have possibly done to make you turn around like that? You helped raise them up."

Gíla breathed sharply and thought of what to say to this. Ultimately, she could only recall every misdeed the cretin had committed against her, Orlantha, Milligan, Alden, Goscelin, and everyone else. And from that recollection, she could only look to her students and sternly say: "Everything."