Reunifying Revelations

Darkness bounded through an endless void. Life was nonexistent, oxygen thinner than paper. There was no noise, no sound—not even the faint, rhythmic whisper of the wind. Something lurked deep, buried beneath a shroud of malevolence. Ruby-red eyes pierced the inky darkness as a creature of unimaginable terror rose from a deep slumber, low growls disturbing the muted atmosphere. The glow cast from its eyes transmuted thick, fog-like shadows into a sea of blood, irradiating the confines of the mysterious null-space.

It crawled towards row after row of towering wooden pillars lined from top to bottom with innumerable talismans and sacred prayers etched onto the paper. With an overwhelming ferocity, the creature rammed itself into the protective barrier, trying to brute-force its way through to no avail.

“It would seem you need my help. Our last few attempts at a Rezertia have only ended in failure. With you, that all changes.”

***

The roads had grown into disarray from lack of upkeep; potholes, uneven asphalt, and cracks filled with weeds made what should have been an otherwise smooth drive anything but. Licht white-knuckled the entirety of the drive from the summer camp back to Seria. He was surprised by how quickly nature had moved in to reclaim its territory from humanity’s destructive practices.

All the while, Lacia’s bracelet clattered on her wrist, the beads reminding her of the chaos she’d found herself swallowed in. Its purpose remained murky, and she couldn’t help but fault the inconsistency of being split up from the rest of her friends—again. If she just had some time to ask Aria or even Brendan about it, they might be able to offer up something more substantial than just accessorizing. Someone had to have an answer—there was no reason why a random bracelet would follow her out of a nightmare and into the real world. Moreover, the way it had cured her headaches back then was also still a mystery; it was truly a strange item that seemed to have no explanation.

“Unfortunately,” she sighed, “we are all scattered about again, but I’m also worried about Aria,” she said, catching Licht’s attention in the rearview mirror.

“Do you think there’s a chance she survived the Hihoyou, too?” he asked, glancing back at her.

“That’s the thing, though. Ahzef said he brought me back, but if he could really steal my magic, why didn’t he do it right then and there?” She grimaced as her foot began to throb. “It seems all I’m good for is broken feet,” she joked. “But seriously though— I died two years ago—there’s no getting around that. We failed to annihilate Ahzef that day, and we paid the price.”

“Or so you thought.”

“I mean, I guess. I just have this gut feeling Aria is still out there somewhere. The devils wouldn’t leave her dead even if she did die. They know she’s an asset to them. Like, they wouldn’t have found me without her.”

The car rolled to a stop as Licht parked outside a snow-covered house. Drifts several feet high were banked against the side, though they were oddly shaped, like someone had tried to shovel the snow away but gave up. Everything was blanketed in white—not even the trees were able to escape the trunk-high drifts. It was almost ethereal—there was no green anywhere, and it was supposed to be the middle of summer: hot and humid with a daily dose of complaining about the weather and wondering when it was going to rain again.

A blast of cold shook Lacia from her thoughts. Licht had opened her passenger door, offering to carry her. She took a moment to take in her surroundings, trying to refamiliarize herself with a city that was once a major economic and refugee hub. Now, it was empty: houses stood cold and lonely, roads were largely untraveled, and the only light came from the car’s headlights; the usual city lights and streetlamps were as dark as the night.

“Get on,” he said. “I’ll carry you inside so you don’t slip on the ice.” He gestured towards the sidewalk leading up to the front door. “I, uh, tried to shovel what I could in the time I had.”

She laughed. “I can walk, trust me.” She placed one foot on the ground, slowly lifting herself out of the vehicle and onto the snowpack. “See?”

“What I see is you not putting weight on your bad foot.” Licht folded his arms, a cloud of breath escaping into the frigid air. “Lacia, just let me carry you inside. It’s cold, and I don’t want to be out here any longer than you do.”

“Fine,” she said, climbing onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his body as he lifted her from the leather upholstery. “Hey.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for all of this. I know Brendan and Mana dragged you into my mess without warning, but we’d be lost without you. Really.”

“It’s not like I was doing much with my life, wasting away in an abandoned shanty town. I enjoyed not having to pay rent, though,” he joked. “But in all seriousness, it’s not a big deal. I’m more than happy to help.”

“You’re too modest,” she mumbled, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“I mean, I’m just glad I have something to offer, but if you want to repay my kindness, reach into my back pocket and grab the house key, would you? My hands are a little full, and I don’t want to drop you trying to reach back there myself.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. Just a sec.” Holding onto him with one arm, she used the other to procure a small key from the back pocket of his pants. “Turn me around to the door, I’ll unlock it.”

Licht did as instructed. Carefully, he made a one-eighty-degree turn, making sure Lacia didn’t hit her head on the porch roof lest she bury them beneath a mound of fresh snow. He listened as she struggled with the lock, a guttural growl of frustration rising from her throat. It sounded like the lock was only turning halfway.

“Ah! Finally! Lock was cold I guess… Honestly, I thought the key might break off in there,” she laughed.

“In we go, then,” he said, walking backwards into the house as Lacia opened the door. He set her down in the entryway before kicking the snow from his boots. “First order of business,” he said, walking into the kitchen, “is getting that foot set and keeping it secure. Our second order of business is this.” He procured a hardcover book from an upper cabinet.

“I’m not sure we have time to learn new recipes, Licht,” she said, hobbling onto a dark brown, linen couch.

“Contrary to seemingly popular belief, this book has some very interesting information in it. Take a look at the drawings on this page,” he said, pointing as he handed it off. “Describe it for me.”

“Odd request, but sure.” She examined the drawings. “There’s a blue sky and some clouds in the first one—looks like a generic day. The second one depicts a large, open field but there’s something in the sky. It’s like this one was drawn with emphasis on the perspective. It looks like—”

With a firm twist, Licht reset the position of her foot. “You got lucky,” he said, wrapping it in tight bandaging. “Ahzef almost snapped the bone clean in two but, lucky for you, it’s just a nasty fracture. Still, we needed to get that weird angle fixed.”

“So, next time,” she said through tears, “let’s just try our hand at healing magic. I never want to feel that again. I appreciate the help, but—” She smiled at him with tears in her eyes. “I’d rather swim with electric eels.”

“Sorry,” he apologized, “but you’d have an even bigger problem on your hands if the bone healed back like it was. Your foot would be lopsided, and it would have to rebroken and set again. If I’d warned you, you would have expected it which would have made this more difficult,” he said as he finished wrapping her foot. “Now, take steady breaths.”

“Easier said than done,” she winced, “but I think I can handle the pain for now, so let’s just continue with the book.” Her face was pale, but she remained focused. “The rest of these drawings have these weird cracks in the sky, like glass, but why? What are these?”

“Do they look like this?” Licht pulled his phone out, turning it around for Lacia to see. “I took these a couple years ago, after Mana and Brendan left to find you. We all saw something very similar to those drawings.”

She studied the photo as she compared it to the drawings in the book. “They look the exact same. The dark, spidering cracks, the way light seems to refract around them—every detail. Where did you take this?”

“Right outside, honestly,” he said. “Like, on the front porch.”

She placed the open book on her lap, locking eyes with him. “I’m trying to imagine you standing on the porch with your hands on your hips, looking at the sky. It’s giving major dad energy vibes!” She noticed the dissatisfied look on his face. “Ok, well, I thought it was funny,” she mumbled. “Anyways, that field isn’t just any random field.” She bunched her dress up at the side to reveal a faded red scar. “Someone, or something, attacked me while I was in Chiipha—at that very same field, but everything is a blank after that. When I came to, I was back on Ahzef’s ship.”

“If you don’t mind, can I touch that scar? If you and that field are connected, I have a theory.”

She eyed him warily but agreed to let him examine the scar more closely. “There were other people with me, but I’m not sure if they were part of a fever dream or something else. But as you can see, the scar is a pretty distinct shape, almost arrow-like. It sounds ridiculous, but I think someone was trying to snipe me with a bow and arrow.”

“Well, I certainly believe you. I mean, with everything else that has gone on, it wouldn’t be such a farfetched thing to say. Besides, we don’t know how Chiipha works, seeing as neither of us have been there before. Maybe they have a team of assassins equipped with state-of-the-art bows instead of sniper rifles.” He traced the outline of the scar with his finger. “Just the shape of the scar alone tells me what made it, but do you see the way the redness of the skin fades from different shades?”

“Odd question,” she thought. “I haven’t really given it that much attention. Been a little busy, you know.”

“Ok, well hear me out. The arrow that hit you was tipped with neriolite. Whoever cleaned you up did a pretty piss poor job.”

“Go tell that to the crazy people on Ahzef’s fancy little boat,” she muttered under her breath. “Still have no idea what the hell that stupid boat was even about to begin with…”

Licht moved a finger over a darker part of the scar as he imbued a small amount of mana into the tip. It let off a faint glow, exposed to the sudden new mana source. He moved his finger just above the scar, repeating the process, but there was no reaction. The different shades of scar tissue seemed odd, and the fact that the lighter areas reacted to his mana was especially strange.

“Am I really all that surprised that my skin apparently glows now? Considering everything else, I might as well secretly be an alien, too, or something.” It took her a moment to realize he was talking about neriolite. “Wait. What did you say? Are you saying that a piece of the arrow is still lodged into my skin there? If that’s the case, my body should have some kind of negative reaction to it. I’m still not sure why it bothers me so much, though.”

“You’re half right. Neriolite is a stone, yes, but it’s a mineral first. It’s small, but abundant. However, it’s a mineral that doesn’t belong on Earth and can only be formed into a stone by means of divine-level magic and intense pressure.”

“Okay… So, from my understanding then, the arrow was tipped in neriolite and not made of it? That doesn’t explain why I react differently to it, though—stone versus mineral.” She rubbed the scar with a finger of her own. “You mentioned it’s not from Earth. Where is it from, then?”

Licht’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “I have a couple theories, but I think the most prominent is going to require a bit of a history lesson.”

Lacia turned a hand towards her newly bandaged foot. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. Just don’t put me to sleep.”

“Time for me to prove my usefulness then!”

***

“I don’t follow. There’s a who and a what now?”

Licht sighed. “The ancient Amalon empire was filled with thousands of deities, but there were two prominent ones that were thought to provide bountiful harvests. They would bless the people with mineral-rich soil.” He eyed Lacia, desperately trying to keep up. “You follow?”

“A little,” she said. “Are you saying one of those minerals was neriolite?”

“Yes, but it was a rare mineral. While it was used on Earth, it was not from Earth. If the gods were extremely pleased with an offering, they would grant neriolite as a gift to the people. Drought-stricken lands would turn green, and the soil would allow for bountiful harvests again. It was dubbed the ‘Miracle Mineral.’”

“I think I get it now. Because Amalon was basically in the middle of a desert, droughts were pretty frequent and, when water dried up, there was nothing left to use for crops and animals—that much I remember from my history classes.” She picked the book back up having dropped it after Licht reset her foot. “Actually, while I was shuffling through this thing, I think I found something interesting.”

She flipped to a page in the back of the book, pointing at an image of an old cave drawing; a brief explanation was embedded underneath, but there was no mistaking the contents of the composition. An indigo sky sat between verdant land. In the center of the composition, a golden, outstretched hand was offering something to a group of people while still more people in the background were hunched over, probably planting something in the ground.

“Do you think this could be the neriolite you were mentioning?” she wondered, showing Licht the picture. “If so, then we’ve just discovered something huge.”

“It backs up my theory, for sure.”

“Look closer,” she said, excitedly. “Where does it look like the hand’s coming from?”

“It looks like it’s coming out of the sky itself, but the cracks in the sky are different colors. This one is almost the same color as the sky itself. I wonder why they’re different and what it means…”

“I mean, think about it,” Lacia said, offering a different perspective. “The sky cracks, or whatever, in the photo you took were a lot darker and kind of resembled shattered glass. Like, if I threw a rock at a window and it cracked, that’s what it would look like. The ones in this book are less spidery. They look like tears in a shirt or something—not actual cracks.” She turned the page.

“This means there’s more than one record of this happening. This is wild. Amalon wasn’t exactly known for their artists, so pictures like in that book are hard to find. As someone who’s scoured every bookshop ever and trawled the internet, I’ve found maybe three or four pieces from the time, but nothing like in the book.” Licht seated himself next to Lacia. “Take a look at this.”

He pointed to a smaller picture on the same page, out of the way in the lower left corner, piquing Lacia’s curiosity. At first, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at but, as he studied the image further, he could feel a sudden rush of anxiety. He gripped the armrest until his knuckles turned white. He could even feel his ears turn red from embarrassment—he’d missed an important detail, and Lacia could see it in his face.

“Licht, you’re scaring me. What’s wrong?” she asked as he continued to point.

What was so important that his face had turned the color of the snow outside? She’d already studied the new image, but she was afraid to look again. Whatever she’d missed, it was apparently pretty serious, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for more surprises. He was the history buff, not her; if he was too startled to speak, she abhorred the idea of taking another look herself. In fact, she almost didn’t want to know.

Reluctantly, she allowed her curiosity to dance across the page and onto the earlier-unseen picture. Moments passed like hours as she scoured every last morsel of the composition, coming to the realization that he was pointing at a caption beneath the image, though it looked more like scribbles than actual words:

Two kings standing before the primordial goddess after successful defeat of the lesser devils.

Moving her eyes up towards the picture, she made out two figures standing along the shoreline of what looked to be an ocean. They seemed to be staring up at a creature that filled the horizon, immense shadows blocking the orange sky of the setting sun. Hundreds of arms arced behind the creature like rays of light, but it looked ominously human; the use of heavy shading and dark colors emphasized a baleful display of power and evil. Red eyes glowed brighter than the sun itself. The whole thing jolted her heart with fear, even if it was just a watercolor recreation, but who would have painted something so terrifying, and how did they know about the ‘lesser devils’ and what was the ‘primordial goddess’?

The creature’s body was that of an adult human, yet it bore the long, scaly tail of a serpent. How the artist had managed to capture such detailed imagery was beyond her, much less why they would ever want to burn the image into someone else’s mind. However, it managed to answer one of the burning questions she’d been mulling over for the last two years: how Ahzef planned to achieve his new world. The devils were just the first phase; allying with Nertiia was the ultimate goal, and once they could harness the goddess’ power, they’d become nearly unstoppable.

Lacia dropped the book as she became violently ill, splattering the floor with vomit. A steady rush of fresh blood ran down the outside of her leg as her face grew whiter than the falling snow outside the windows; she knew this feeling: the gut-wrenching pain that felt like thousands of tiny needles, the vertigo-induced nausea, the mental break where her mind succumbed to her worst nightmares—it was just like two years ago. Memories of the nightmarish drowning, blood and sweat-soaked sheets, and poisonous anxiety that made her wonder if she was going to survive the night all came flooding back. She’d sandbagged her defenses, prepared for anything but, like sand, those defenses came crumbling down all at once. How was she supposed to rebuild her castle walls with mud?

She wanted to cry out for help, for someone that could rebuild her walls with stone, but her voice refused to work. Her eyes rolled around in her head like marbles as forced herself to focus on the snow, but it had slowed down, falling at just a fraction of the speed it normally did. For a moment, the serenity of the frozen flakes offered an overwhelming sense of calm: the pain faded away and she felt like she could think clearly again—but only for a small moment. Even Licht seemed to be moving slower—she could move faster with a broken foot. His rush to stop her bleeding, the click of the heater, even her own thoughts—it was as if someone had slowed the playback rate on a video. She vaguely understood what Licht was trying to say, something about wishing he had more warning, episodes of something, and needing towels.

She could feel him tap her cheeks, trying to keep her from fading into the nothingness she feared was waiting for her. She didn’t know if, when she closed her eyes, she was going to dissolve like salt in water or if, when she opened them again, she would still be someplace she recognized. Amidst the growing anxiety that sprouted from her veins, something else emerged from her stupor—something wet and sandy. Were her nightmares becoming reality, after all? Was she going to find herself drowning inside some inescapable, watery hell?

Licht scrambled around the house for a moment before settling in front of Lacia again. He grabbed her wrist, untying the bracelet before promptly slipping it off. He examined the mysterious beads fastened to the thin, leather strap that hugged her wrist.

“And here I thought it was an accessory,” he said, scolding himself. “These are elucidation stones!” He retied the bracelet around her wrist before charging them like batteries with aggregates of his own mana. Color began to return to Lacia’s face, but the bleeding had become a relentless torrent; he had minutes, at best, to either stem the flow or figure something else out.

“Forgive me, but I have to find the source of all this bleeding,” he said, tearing a hole in her dress to reveal the source of the blood. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, but his movements had grown swift and precise, quickly wiping away the excess from her skin. “I had a funny feeling that, when the Leyliner gave you a mostly clean bill of health, something wasn’t right. Just based upon what I’d been told and what I knew about you at the time, I knew there was more to this, and it looks like I was right.” He scoffed. “I for real don’t know how we missed this.”

A dark, heart-shaped sigil hid beneath her blood-soaked skin, deep lavender pulsing to the beat of her heart. It was small, hidden just above her hips and around the side of her abdomen, just out of sight. A serious of asymmetrical lines curled around the edges of the heart, twisting and climbing like vines—they seemed to be constricting the strange shape, but why?

Without warning, Lacia lunged forward, forcefully planting her palms against Licht’s chest as she loosed a quick, but potent, blast of magical energy, pushing him into the kitchen and a chair at the table. The chair rocked on two legs, a precarious teeter between upright and upside down; he slammed into the wooden seat before lurching forward again, trying to force it back onto the two currently-airborne legs.

A bolt of pitch-black lightning seared the spot where he had been moments earlier—a burnt smell wrinkled his nose, but it was a different kind of burnt: there was no heat—just extreme cold. The air sizzled with frost and static electricity, exciting the hair on his arms.

“Unng… Not now, dammit,” Lacia groaned.

Licht’s chair slammed onto the floor with a loud crack as he lunged forward, using the momentum to reposition himself back in front of Lacia. The bracelet on her wrist was now fully illuminated and charged with several times the amount of mana he had initially allocated inside the beads themselves, realizing they were the key to her misery. Unfortunately, a further explanation would have to wait as he grabbed Lacia’s arm with one hand, tucking the book under the other.

A series of coordinates floated before him as he swiped at the transparent numbers. “This needs to be enough to get us there.” He continued swiping at the air, searching for a more precise set of coordinates. A mid-air punch secured the first set; he punched the air again, fixing the second set. “Done. Now to get us out of here,” he said, turning around, “but you’re not going to make this easy on me, are you?”

Lucifero stood in the center of the room. He wore a dark overcoat and top hat that obscured much of his face in shadow, complete with a noir-like aesthetic. Dark slacks revealed a pair of dark, cotton socks, hidden within the devil’s rather expensive-looking dress shoes that gleamed in the light. Shadowy tendrils fanned out across the wall behind him.

Licht’s eyes traced every muscle twitch, every movement, anticipating an attack. “The coordinates are set. I just need Lacia slightly more conscious for this. If we go now, she might black out, and I’m not certain I can fight Lucifero and protect her all at the same time. His attacks are too wide.”

“I don’t see the Miruna girl around. What a disappointment. I thought for sure I’d find her with you, Miss Amana,” Lucifero whined.

She grinned, teeth stained with traces of blood. “It seems you don’t know which means we’re still one step ahead.” Gripping the arm rest of the couch, she lifted herself to her feet as she freed her other arm. “Don’t worry,” she said, addressing Licht. “The cast you made works tremendously.”

“I’m a little more worried about the huge tear in your stomach and the amount of blood you just lost,” he replied, sarcasm bleeding through the leyliner’s telepathy. “He’s stronger than when you and Aria first fought him, and you’re in no shape to fight. We’re leaving, Lacia.”

“Enough of this secret conversation,” the devil growled, wrapping a cloaked tendril around Lacia’s neck. “I was humiliated two years ago, reduced to nothing. I was this close to stealing that damn ‘gift’ from you, but little Miss Aria just had to come to her senses and rescue you.” Lacia struggled as Lucifero tightened his grip. “My comeback starts now.”

She stared Licht in the eyes as she mouthed out the word “Now.” Her hands fell to her sides. Her face began to turn a pale shade of blue as Lucifero squeezed her neck tighter and tighter, oxygen a commodity she wasn’t afforded, and she was too weak to fight back. If she had to die here, she was actually kind of ok with that. After all, if she was able to buy enough time for Licht to escape and warn everyone of their discoveries, at least her death would have meant something.

Hushed chanting enveloped the room, hardly noticeable. “Bring forth the light that cleanses the soul. Banish those who stand before the grace of your blessing, all of whom are shrouded in darkness.” The chanting paused before resuming. “I am the light that binds my soul, an illimitable, luminescent luster… purge.”

Lucifero loosened his grip enough for Lacia to croak out something resembling the word. “Go”—the only word she had time for. A thermobaric wave of temperatures scorched the air as photonic phosphorescence shrouded the room with blinding brilliance. Furniture combusted immediately; glass melted into pools of molten goo, searing holes into everything it dripped onto.

Lucifero screamed in agony before vanishing into a shroud of darkness, unwilling to meet yet another fiery fate. Lacia fell to the ground, coughing, chest heaving. The heat had seared her skin, various blisters and burns erupting across her body. She felt like she was in a steam-filled room; everywhere she looked she was met with a blast of heat and white.

Somewhere amidst the blank background, Licht called out. His figure was like a ripple on the surface of a pool, disfigured and unsteady as he trudged forward. He broke through a cloud of dust and smoke, burns arrayed across his face—all for her, but of course he didn’t listen to her when she told him to leave.

She rolled her eyes. “To be fair, neither of us had expected a thermobaric bomb of magic and heat either, though,” she thought. “This was more than my magic. What just happened?”

In some ways, she was relieved; her burns would likely kill her as she was in no condition to flee, laying there, burning. The devils definitely wouldn’t be able to use her charred remains either, but a voice in the back of her mind screamed at her, telling her that she deserved to suffer, that the searing pain from the burns would kill her even if she did manage to escape. It was affirming, her unconscious desire to be rid of her life as a plaything, but it was just as unsettling that she felt so ready to give up.

“I don’t care!” she screamed. “I don’t want to die, not here, not like this. Just get me out of here!” Her tears evaporated as quickly as they formed. She tried to crawl towards Licht, to tell him she was right here, but her hands were lined with angry, red blisters as she roiled in pain; she was helpless where she lay.

She curled up into a ball as holes burned into the back of her dress, smoldering away, threatening to transform her into the same smoke-filled vapors that filled the air. She gasped, filling her lungs with smoke instead of oxygen; she felt like she was swallowing fire. Her ears rang and eyes burned, tear-secretion unable to keep up with the intense rate of evaporation. With one final breath, she screamed at the top of her lungs—and it worked. Licht made a full one-eighty-degree turn, breaking into a full-on Olympic sprint. She was unable to make out his face until he was on top of her, draping her with a wet towel from God knows where simultaneously grabbing her by the arm.

***

Lacia felt herself being peeled off the floor and placed into something cold and wet. Whatever it was, she didn’t have enough time to figure it out—her body promptly went into shock. One moment, she was burning alive, the next she felt like a ragdoll. The prompt switch from extreme heat to extreme cold was uncomfortable, sending her mind into an uncontrolled spiral of pent-up thoughts: did she prefer death by extreme cold or extreme heat? If she died, who would tell her parents about her life? What if she didn’t want to die? Or was it that she did, and she was just refusing to accept her own feelings?

Distant and incomprehensible voices drifted through the icy plunge. Several shapes loomed over her, more overbearing lights blinding what remained of her already watery vision. Her senses were dulled, but the heat and pain were gone. Now, she had to deal with an onslaught of glacial cold—even the tile floors she’d found herself pinned against were no match for the rush of numbness that now turned her blood to slush and brain to mush.

Suddenly, someone grabbed her wrist—she was vaguely aware they were removing her bracelet. Her mind screamed in terror as she tried to wriggle herself free of the hands that seemed to hold her down. Icy shock took over as she was plunged back into the icy pool—but when did they even bring her up for air? She thrashed about, not sure if her mind was finally breaking or if she was trapped in the same hellish reality she’d been in for the last two years; an anesthesia-like stupor bound her at the midway point between wake and sleep, some kind of strange, unconscious realm of her mind where reality didn’t exist.

“What am I even doing? Is this really how I want to die, without even saying goodbye?” The word reverberated through her head like a ripple in a pond. “Goodbye… What a funny word. Why would leaving my friends ever be good?”

The voices grew closer. She could feel someone tapping her cheeks, or was it something else? Something was being plastered all over her body—cold and creamy, but it seemed to ease the lingering pricks that danced on the top of her skin like embers. A rush of cold air caressed her cheeks, but when did she come up for air again? What was going on? Fire? Ice? Water?

Were her watery nightmares finally becoming reality? The very thought of water itself prettified her these days—too many close-calls. She took a breath… and a mouthful of ice water. A series of wet cloths were arranged across her face, frequently doused with round after round of numbingly cold water. Panicked, she pulled the cloths from her face, knocking them to the floor with an unsettling plop. The overhead lights dimmed as the resurgence of fresh chatter pulled her from her daze: she’d been given frequent applications of burn ointment and, in her daze, the cloths on her face had slipped, accidentally covering her mouth and nose.

“Wha…” She put a hand to her throat. “Whe—”

“Don’t try to speak.” It was Licht. “Your throat was burned from the phosphorus, and your vocal cords were severely damaged. Modern Earth medicine and all,” he said, “the doctors said you’ll need surgery to repair them. The burns you suffered are equally as bad so, please, just lay back down. Everyone is doing everything they can, given the circumstances.”

She made a drawing motion with her hand. “Give me something to write with,” she pleaded inside her mind.

He leaned into her ear. “The Leyliner still works. Communicate with me through thought,” he whispered. “I’ll figure everything else out later.”

“What do you mean ‘later’? What happened back at the house? Where am I now? How long will I be here?” She bombarded him with question after question.

“You’re in the hospital, and the doctors are prepping the Operating Room now. With time, you’ll have a full range of motion again, but your throat and vocal cords endured a lot of damage, too. Unless someone with extraordinary healing powers drops in, you’re looking at several months of recovery and several more of rehab.” He folded his arms. “We don’t have many options here, not without actual magical healing, per-se.”

She jolted up in bed. “I don’t—” An enraged coughing fit told her speaking really wasn’t an option.

“Lacia, just relax. There’s nothing else we can do right now, but I promise we’re going to figure this out. Trust me.” He leaned against the wall, aware of their current limitations. “I know we don’t have months to wait for you to recover, but even if Aria were here, your burns and the internal damage done to your body is serious. I’m not sure if her healing abilities are that profound.”

She shook her head. “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but what in the world happened? And what about you? You’re all burned up too!”

“We were hit by some kind of thermobaric blast of magical energy, phosphorous. By whom or what, I have no idea, but before the blast went off, I could swear I heard chanting—like someone invoking a powerful spell.” He pointed to a pile of singed clothes sitting in one of the chairs. “I was wearing multiple layers of clothing which is why my burns aren’t as severe. Once the initial blast was over, I wrapped that scarf around my face,” he said, pointing to a discolored red and white flannel scarf, singed on the ends.

“I’m so sorry Licht!” She took a deep breath, trying to hold back tears. “If only I hadn’t had another episode when I did, I—”

“Don’t blame yourself for what happened. If anything, I should be the one to blame for letting my guard down. I should have used the Leyliner to find you, but in the heat of the moment…” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I know this isn’t worth much now, but I did a little digging while you were gone.”

She perked up at the sudden news. “On?”

“Omnis.”

She tried to sit up in bed, her burns rubbing against the cottony sheets. She winced. “Tell me everything you know, then. This could be what pushes us over the edge and gives us the advantage.”

“I’m not sure how to describe something that isn’t exactly there but think of it like this.” He adjusted the head of her bedside lamp, turning it upward so the light beamed onto the back wall. “This lamp can only produce light because of the lightbulb that’s in it, correct? What do you think produces that light?”

“The filaments inside the bulb?”

“Correct. The lightbulb itself is useless if the filament is broken in any way. It won’t produce any light regardless of how much you want it to. In essence, that is what Omnis is.”

“The filament inside a lightbulb…?”

Licht smiled. He moved his hand over the lamp, casting a shadow. “When I move my hand over the lamp, it blocks the light. Omnis is like the lamp light, but just as a lightbulb will eventually start to dim, so too will Omnis’ influence.”

A sharp voice cut in, causing Lacia to jolt as Licht flourished a dark, almost metallic-looking blade; it was beautifully reflective, mirroring the room in sharp images. It was as sleek as ice but something about it seemed… different. The edges of the blade flickered like static television, disrupting the mirrored reflections. Peering into the unorthodox mirror, he realized no one had entered the room. Plus, the TV mount on the wall was off, and they were on the top floor of the burn ward, ensuring the voice wasn’t coming from outside the window.

The voice came again, distorted and inhuman. “Miss Amana, please stop trying to fight back.” A shadow slithered across the floor like an eel before pinning Lacia to the bed. “See, that traitor Aria isn’t here to save you this time.”

“Lucifero,” Licht said with building rage, “if you don’t leave in the next five seconds, I will use this blade to make sure you leave.”

“Ahh. It seems my big reveal has been spoiled. You knew it was me before I even manifested myself, but that’s big talk from someone with so little magical prowess, though,” the devil said. “Did you really expect that I wouldn’t return to finish what I was trying to start earlier?”

Licht swung wide. His movements were steady and precise despite the blade’s assumed weight. The first swing connected with a shadowy appendage, dissolving it into thin air like dust in a stark breeze. The second swing was more forceful and astoundingly fast as it slashed at the shadowy bindings that held Lacia. A metallic clang filled the room as the blade collided with Lucifero’s shadows, parrying Licht’s attack. The two remained locked, pitted against each other, vying for control of the skirmish and, ultimately, Lacia. With a brief spark as the energies between Licht and Lucifero converged, the devil managed to knock Licht’s weapon from his hands as it silently skittered to the floor where it vanished in a static-like flurry.

“That was a mistake,” Licht smiled. “I purposefully let you knock my weapon away like you did so that it would have just enough momentum to free Lacia the rest of the way. See,” he said, taunting, “this blade will only cut what I want it to and seeing as I would like for it to cut you, I can manipulate its properties however I want, making it far easier to hit you. Each new weapon can have different attributes depending upon what I imbue into them.”

Lucifero’s shadows sulked back, targeting Lacia once more. “I think it’s time for you to sleep, Miss Amana—permanently.” Ignoring Licht entirely, a new icy tendril wrapped itself around her neck, suffocating her. “Your ridiculous weapons couldn’t hope to harm me, not while I control this space.”

“Licht,” Lacia croaked, “if we have any chance of fighting Lucifero, it’s in a dream world. That’s the only way Aria and I—”

The devil coiled another icy tendril around her neck, tightening its grip as shadowy stakes drove through both her legs and into the frame of the bed, effectively pinning her down. She tried to scream in pain, but her lungs screamed at her first; Lucifero’s grip was like iron and oxygen suddenly became as scarce as diamonds. Blood gushed from the entry points, soaking the sheets as it coalesced into large, wet pools, dripping onto the floor.

Her eyes rolled back for a moment as she lost all sense of the world around her: every nerve ending in her body was being filled with an overabundance of pain signals that her brain couldn’t process, much less even attempt to comprehend—an indecipherable biological algorithm that made no sense. She forced her back into the bed with such force, the wheels on the legs scraped against the white and beige linoleum floor. The sound bore into her ears with the force of a sonic boom, exacerbating the mixture of confused signals her brain was already struggling to decode. At any moment, she felt like her body could just shut down and refuse to entertain Lucifero’s twisted goals—even her own subconscious desire to live.

“How does that feel, Lacia? This is only a fraction of what I felt when Aria forced me into that anomalous, white hole. She was tough, and hit a little too hard for my taste, but none of that matters now. Ahzef will take you dead or alive, but I hope you’ll hold out long enough to experience even half of what I did.”

She forced her hands between the shadows around her neck, mustering a subconscious desire to retake her life, but the blood-loss was making her head spin; spots had already formed in her eyes, occluding more of her vision with every passing second. Still, if she didn’t fight when it mattered most, how could she claim to protect the people who mattered most to her? Freeing herself from Lucifero’s grip, she loosed a supernova-like ball of energy, blasting the devil with enough force to power a city for a week. Though its radius was small, it was enough to buy Licht a few seconds.

With a swift thrust and powerful forward-lunge, his sword lacerated Lucifero. The tip of the blade came within inches of Lacia’s nose as its reflective composition offered a brief reflection of herself she didn’t recognize. Awe-struck, her eyes followed the blade’s movement as it tore through the devil’s shadows, all the while still reflecting an image of a girl she couldn’t place. It wasn’t that the burns had rendered her image unrecognizable, that much she was sure of. Something else had changed, something that couldn’t be reflected through outward appearance alone.

As she dissolved the shadowy stakes in her legs, she came to the conclusion that the girl she saw reflected in the face of Licht’s blade wasn’t the version of herself she used to know; she was seeing a new version of herself; she had grown into a young woman, brimming with compassion and a newfound sense of belonging. Today, she was the woman she admired in young adult novels: confident, powerful, and certain of her path in life. Today was the day she took charge of her own future—she was sick and tired of being the girl everyone ran to when she was in trouble. No—today was the true beginning of her life and, for the first time, she felt like she could smile. Through all of the pain and suffering, even now, in those fleeting seconds of her reflection, she knew that everyone was relying on her. Through the fires of hell and flames of overwhelming frustration, she knew the tide of battle had just turned—feelings of doubt and inadequacy faded away like dandelions against a summer sky.

She could feel the rush of blood in her ears, sloshing around to the pounding throbs of her heart as it lulled her into a trance. Time stopped, and space seemed to bend as the lights in the room refracted, giving way to a small red door amidst a backdrop of white. She spun around on her heels, searching for any sight of Licht or Lucifero until she realized she was standing. Similarly, her skin was no longer blemished by patches of angry, burned splotches and she could speak without the gritty sensation of sand in her throat. With a sharp inhale, she filled her lungs with oxygen so rich and pure she wondered if she was breathing straight sugar.

She smoothed her hand across her face, skin softer than the finest cotton, but it was her reflection in the door that took her by surprise. Bathed in pure light, all she could see was the curvature of her body outlined by the eminence.

Somewhere behind her, a soft yawn grew into a full-body stretch, complete with the groans of what sounded like someone who had just woken up from a comatose-like nap. The soft fwip of crossing legs and a small, but encouraging, “Hmph” made her smile.

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Lacia?”

“I can’t believe it’s been two years, you know?” Tears welled in her eyes and, this time, she let them flow without hesitation as she whirled around to face her best friend. “Ready?”