Wyn could only stare, frozen, as the life left Sadirah’s eyes. He didn’t understand, that wasn’t how it was supposed to go. Why did it keep happening?

  Again. And again. And again.

  In the air above her corpse, a bronze lantern shimmered into existence. Besides the masterful construction, it seemed mundane, an ornate traveler’s lantern complete with a handle at the top. Within it, an ethereal green flame flickered, burning despite its seeming lack of fuel. The flame shrank, growing dimmer until finally it was snuffed out. Without ceremony, the lantern dropped to the ground, clattering against the dirt path.

  Elza bent down and plucked it up before he could do a thing, inspecting it with a careful eye before shrugging and hooking it onto her belt.

  Wyn took a step towards her, dazed. “Why?” The question escaped his lips as a whisper.

  “Does it matter?” she asked, turning to leave without ceremony.

  “Wait!” He yelled hoarsely. Spirit fire sputtered to life inside him, stemming the tide of pain. “You can’t just—”

  “I’m going to kill you!” Zavi tore out of the darkness like a wild beast, ripping at Elza’s throat.

  She leaned out of the way, and another blade flashed up, catching him in the chest. When he turned and kept attacking anyway, her eyes widened, and she jumped back.

  “Now, what has happened to you?”

  As she held out a hand, the blade piercing Sadirah’s neck slid free and leapt back into her waiting grasp, just in time to catch the next of Zavi’s strikes.

  Move damn it! Wyn stumbled, trying to catch up. He had to help Zavi now! But something snared his ankle, dragging him to the ground.

  “The boss likes you for some reason,” she said, glancing his way. “So stay put.”

  Amidst a barrage of attacks using his claws, Zavi suddenly kicked out, his foot morphing into the shape of a blade. Even with the element of surprise though, Elza slipped away, watching with interest as his leg changed back, and the hole in his chest closed.

  “Interesting. Very interesting.” She grinned.

  Screaming, Zavi attacked even more ferociously, but the woman moved like water, weaving between every strike as though it were a casual dance.

  Something snagged Zavi’s arm, and he lurched to a stop. Almost immediately, he severed the limb, howling in pain but pressing onwards as it began to regenerate. Elza let out a satisfied laugh.

  From the ground, Wyn considered his options. He couldn’t see whatever had grabbed his leg, so it was certainly a technique. He could try to break it, but in his current state, he wasn’t sure that would even do any good. No, the one thing he could do was support Zavi’s attack.

  From the ground, he reached out a hand, grasping at the roots beneath Elza’s feet. The connection to Haoma had grown tenuous thanks to the effects of the poison, but he focused his mind to a single point and pulled.

  A small root burst out of the ground and caught her leg as she backed up, tripping her. Zavi’s claws arced downwards, unavoidable.

  In one motion, Elza coiled, springing backwards off her hands and kicking Zavi’s attack off its line. She flipped once, and landed gracefully, undisturbed.

  Wyn’s heart sank—how had she even done that? Her blades hadn’t even left her hands. Even if he was at full strength, that level of skill… She was just playing with them.

  ` Without warning, she tossed something out from her belt, and threads burst outwards, instantly enveloping Zavi. He crashed to the ground, entangled, thrashing to try and break free. With a twist of her wrist, the strands tightened and held him firm.

  “You’re just a kid,” she said, with a tinge of pity. “Let’s see what the boss can make of you.”

  Elza stabbed a finger into the back of Zavi’s neck, not even an inch deep, and he went limp. As she withdrew the finger, the wound closed almost immediately, but he stayed down.

  Wyn swung his sword, severing whatever technique was binding him. But before he could even stand, he was dragged back to the ground, lashed by what felt like thread. He growled, clawing forward through the dirt, trying to drag himself closer.

  Elza threw Zavi’s unconscious body over her shoulders and walked away.

  “Murderer!” Wyn spat at her retreating form, his vision red. “Come back here! I won’t let you take him!” He strained harder against the technique, and it dug into his skin like sharpened wire. “I’ll find you, I swear that I will! Give him back damn it!”

  She stopped and looked back, her eyes placid. “From where I’m standing, it seems he’ll be better off with me than he was with you.”

  Those words cut deeper than a blade, and the small strength he’d mustered bled out of him in an instant. He could only watch as Elza simply left, turning a corner onto a side street and disappearing, as though she’d never been there at all.

  The courtyard was silent. Only Wyn remained.

  It was too much. All of it—the children, Sadirah, now Zavi. He hadn’t been able to protect anyone. He hadn’t saved even a single thing. A wail broke from his chest, and he collapsed, face-first into the dirt.

  All he could do was scream and cry, until he was too weak to do even that.

  ***

  Luscien ran on aching legs, two tails burning behind him, because that was all he could manage without seeing spots. The rush of achieving the fourth tail after so long hadn’t yet faded, but the fight with Kieran had left him drained. Even maintaining two was taxing, and in any other situation, he would be resting. But it seemed he still had a role left to play.

  Soon after the massive mana source had appeared and disappeared, Wyn’s bonded spirit had begun to panic. Since Corrin couldn’t move, Luscien had been dispatched with Kita to go find him, and though Corrin had insisted that Wyn was alive, Luscien still noticed his hands trembling before he left.

  The spirit shouted down to him, tears streaming from her face. “He’s awake now, but something is still wrong! He won’t respond to anything, but I can feel his anguish… It’s horrible. Unlike anything I’ve ever felt.”

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  Those words, combined with their heading, only sharpened Luscien’s worries. Though he couldn’t feel it anymore, they were racing right towards where the mana phenomenon had originated. He could only hope it wasn’t a dragon's den. As he finally caught Wyn’s scent, he could only smell monsters and death along with it—not a good sign.

  Further beyond that, he could sense the tremors of Eryndor’s battle influencing the ambient mana, and sparse embers of fire aura had drifted even this far.

  “Wyn!” The spirit above him dove down, having spotted her bond. At the same time, Luscien slowed, his breath stolen by the sight in front of him.

  What he’d found wasn’t a dragon’s den, but rather the wreckage of a terrible battle.

  A massive chasm, vaguely circular, stretched before them, wide and deep enough to swallow a manor into the branching dungeon below. Stretching off from one side was a rift in the earth, its sides streaked with scars of what looked like manacite. All throughout, countless spirits had gathered, a whole host of them, etching strange patterns onto the stone. Rarely had Luscien ever seen so many gathered in one place.

  Some kind of spell gone wrong?

  Circling around the hole led him into a ruined courtyard, in the middle of which he could see Wyn slumped over next to a limp body. His nose told him immediately—it was a corpse.

  “Wyn, are you alright?” He winced as the words left his mouth, feeling foolish. “Can you move?”

  The boy’s head tilted upwards, though he didn’t truly look at Luscien. His eyes were hollow, and tinged in red. No fire flickered in their depths, drowned by a dull gray, like rainclouds.

  Lusicen slowed, unsure. “What… happened here?”

  “I failed.”

  Dropping to a knee, Luscien reached out and grabbed Wyn’s hand, slick with blood. Wyn flinched at the contact, looking back at the girl’s body beside him, but Luscien didn’t budge.

  “We have to go.”

  “Go?” Wyn repeated quietly. “It’s already over.”

  “It’s not over.” Luscien shook his head. “This city, the people—they need you.”

  That word. Need. It seemed to stir something in Wyn, bringing him back from the dead. Life, a tiny ember, rekindled in his eyes, which swirled with something like a child’s desperation.

  “Can you move?” Luscien asked again.

  “I can. Corrin, is he—?” Wyn seemed afraid to ask, his eyes darting aside.

  Luscien pulled him up. “His leg is broken, but he’s fine. We managed to reach the Sanctum.”

  Wyn’s grip tightened around Luscien’s hand, and he let out a long, shuddering sigh. His body felt somehow weaker then, and Luscien steadied him, reaching an arm around his back and guiding him away.

  He is even younger than me. The thought sprang, unexpected, to the fore of Luscien’s mind. And he felt something settle onto him—a sense of responsibility he hadn’t shouldered before, and also, a sense of resolve. If he had only achieved the fourth tail sooner—no, it wasn’t the time for such thoughts. His father would tell him to save his regrets for later. There was still something he needed to do here.

  “Let me carry you,” Luscien suggested. “I still have power to burn, and time is of the essence. You need to conserve your strength.”

  Wyn’s lips parted, and it seemed like he might protest, but the energy seemed to leave him, and he just nodded, letting Luscien pull him onto his back.

  Just then, Luscien thought he caught a strange scent nearby. It was familiar somehow, but he couldn’t quite place it. A part of him thought to turn and investigate, but he had more important things to do. So as he summoned two tails again, he took one last glance back, saw nothing, and took off towards the tree.

  ***

  Reaching the Sanctum didn’t lift Wyn’s spirits. If anything, entering into the once-beautiful realm to see if spoiled only worsened how he felt. If he could have just been stronger, or more resolved, or smarter, if he had been anyone else, then things might have turned out better. The fact that Corrin and Luscien had succeeded was good news, and yet it just hammered his own failure in even deeper.

  Eia was quiet in his mind, though he saw her floating nearby, her face etched with worry. He’d made it clear he couldn’t talk about it, and he was grateful she wasn’t pressing.

  The air within the Sanctum was familiar, and filled with a deep well of mana. His chest constricted as he realized that here, mixed within the gold-green mana that flowed through Haoma’s roots, was the same pearlescent mana that Sadirah had unleashed.

  Corrin was waiting for them at the bottom, propped up against the tree in the center—the Heart of the Sanctum.

  “You made it!” He smiled, trying to rise for a moment before remembering his injuries. His face fell right after though as he really looked at Wyn. “Are you—”

  “Let go,” Wyn interrupted, pushing his thoughts away before they could surface again. He slid out of Luscien’s grasp and limped up onto the shore where the hollowed tree withered. The once steady light beaming upwards had reduced to a mere glimmer in the air, and the bark had turned gray and ashy.

  ‘Wyn.’ A deep, thrumming voice filled his mind. ‘You made it.’

  Haoma. You can speak to me now?

  ‘In essence, we are now touching each other directly.’ A hint of pride came through the connection. ‘Something like this is trivial.’

  I see. Wyn reached inside, stoking the flames. His body and soul had rested a while, and so at the very least, he could maintain that. He held up a hand, and it trembled. Fear gripped him, the fear of failing again. And yet, it was matched by desperation, a need to reach out his hand, not for the sake of saving anyone, but for the sake of protecting himself. If he couldn’t save even a single person—if all there was was loss—he felt as though he would break entirely. He pressed his palm against the bark.

  ‘Wait.’ He felt something like a hand grabbing his shoulder. ‘I’m afraid it’s pointless. The poison has already spread throughout my furthest roots. In your current state, and mine, we will not have the strength to purge it.’

  “What?” Wyn accidentally spoke aloud. His fist clenched. “I don’t accept that…”

  ‘It is inevitable. This battle is lost. Take heart, the fault for this does not lay with you.’

  “No!” Wyn pressed both hands against the bark. There was a soul there, he could feel the boundary. “I won’t—I can’t do nothing again… I refuse to lose anything else!” Spirit fire drained from his body into the tree, and the strain of purification hit him.

  Immediately, he knew it was hopeless. The weight was unfathomable, like trying to hold all the sky on his back, and it crushed his soul like a twig underfoot. Wyn crumpled to his knees, and a loud, keening cry escaped his chest as he thrashed on the ground. Soon after, he lost all sense of his body.He couldn’t see or hear anything. The only thing he could feel, the only thing that was real in the entire world, was his hand, which had grabbed one of the roots as he’d fallen.

  He clung to it now like a lifeline, refusing to let go.

  ‘Release it Wyn!’ Haoma bellowed. ‘This is too much for you, this burden is too great. If you don’t let go, the strain will crush your soul entirely.’

  I don’t care!

  ‘If you don’t let go, you will die!’

  Spirit fire poured out even faster.

  It drained out of him, taking with it all of his feelings and thoughts, leaving him empty on the inside. He felt himself getting lighter, and his vision brightened, lit by the endless violet flames.

  He could hear Eia screaming somewhere far away, but he couldn’t focus on her words.

  Haoma’s voice was distant too, fading rapidly from his mind.

  ‘If this is how it must be… Then may you not be alone.’

  Everything went white, and Wyn burned away.

  ***

  The hills around Liresil were filled with all the colors of the world. Green trees, yellow fruits, and pink flowers, brilliant blue rivers and birds with brightly patterned wings. Now those colors drained away, hiding, as a piece of the night sky slid in front of the sun, snapping shut like a lid, and leaving only a sliver of white around its edge. From the west, a great shadow swept over the world, and those hills were plunged into darkness, drowned in a deep, colorless night.

  And then, there was fire.

  filled with energy as we come to the end of the arc. Been waiting so long to get to this stuff!

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