Reunifying Revelations

Darkness bounded through an endless void. Life was nonexistent, oxygen thinner than paper, but something lurked—buried deep under a shroud of malevolence. Ruby-red eyes pierced the inky atmosphere as a creature of unimaginable terror rose from a deep slumber. The glow cast from its eyes transmuted thick, fog-like shadows into a sea of blood, irradiating the confines of the mysterious null-space with loathing and despair.

A fierce growl pierced the deafening silence as shockwaves rippled through the atmosphere. The growl rumbled through the expanse of nothingness until it became an eardrum-shattering shriek, rivaling even that of banshees.

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,” a voice rang out. “Our last few attempts at a Rezertia have only ended in failure. With you, that all changes.”

                                                                                   ***

Lacia’s bracelet clattered from the road vibrations. Its purpose remained murky, and she couldn’t help but fault the inconsistency of being split up—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.

“Unfortunately,” she sighed, “we are all scattered about again, but I’m also worried about Aria,” she said, addressing Licht.

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

“That’s the thing, though. Ahzef said he brought me back, but if he could really take away my powers, 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.”

Licht parked the car 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.

A blast of cold shook Lacia from her thoughts. Licht had opened her passenger door, offering to carry her. “Get on,” he said.

“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.”

“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. “In all seriousness though, it’s not a big deal. I’m more than happy to help.”

“You’re too modest,” she mumbled.

“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?”

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.” She inserted the key into the lock, eventually succeeding in opening the warm embrace to the house. “Lock was cold… I thought the key might break off in there,” she humored.

Licht pushed the door open with his foot, tapping the toes of his shoes on the porch to remove any excess snow. “First order of business,” he said, gently placing Lacia on the couch, “is getting that foot set and keeping it secure. Our second order of business is this.” He procured a hardcover book from the kitchen.

“I’m not sure we have time to learn new recipes, Licht.”

“Contrary to popular belief, this book has some very interesting information in it. Take a look at the drawings on this page,” he said, pointing. “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 Lacia’s foot. “You got lucky,” he said, wrapping it in tight gauze-like bandages. “Ahzef almost snapped the bone clean in two.”

“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’m sorry,” he apologized. “You’d have an even bigger problem on your hands if the bone healed back like it was, though. Your foot would be lopsided. 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. “Take steady breaths.”

“Easier said than done,” she said, “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 depict what look like cracks in the sky, 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.”

She studied the photo Licht had taken 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.

She placed the open book on her lap, locking eyes with Licht. “That field isn’t just any random field.” She bunched her torn 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 it? 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.”

“Well, I certainly believe you. I mean, with everything else that has gone on, it wouldn’t be such a farfetched thing to say.” He traced the outline of the scar with his finger. “For instance, this scar was made by an arrow, just the shape alone is obvious, 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.

Licht moved a finger over a darker part of the scar as he imbued a small amount of mana into the tip. The scar let off a faint glow upon exposure to the new mana source. He moved his finger just above the scar, repeating the process, but there was no reaction.

Lacia was bewildered. She wasn’t sure how she felt about her skin glowing—as if she didn’t have enough on her plate already. “Am I really all that surprised, though? Considering everything else, I might as well secretly be an alien, too, or something.” The extraordinary effort it took to keep her thoughts from sounding as dumb as she felt was enormous.

“Wait. You said neriolite, right? Are you saying that a piece of the arrow is still lodged into my skin there? If that’s the case, why doesn’t it bother me like every other time with the stone?”

“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.”

“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 a mineral not from Earth. Where, then?”

Licht’s face contorted 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,” he smirked.

                                                                                ***

“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. “Was one of those minerals 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. It was dubbed the “Miracle Mineral”.

“I think I get it now. Because Amalon was in such a harsh location, drought was 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 on her lap back up. “As a matter of fact, while I was shuffling through some of these pages earlier, I came across 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.

“Do you think that could be the neriolite you were mentioning? If so, then we’ve just discovered something huge.”

“It backs up my theory, for sure.’

“Look closer,” she said, excitedly. “What is that hand emerging from?”

“A giant crack in the sky, but this one is nearly the same color as the sky itself—the exact opposite of what’s in the picture I showed you. I wonder what makes them different from each other…”

“The ones you showed me were a lot darker and kind of resembled shattered glass. The ones depicted in this book are more like singular cracks. In fact, it might be better to say they’re tears in the sky itself—not actual cracks.” Lacia flipped the page in the book.

“There’s more than one record of this happening, too. This is wild because there’s less than a handful of records from this period and these images fall well within the reign of the Amalon empire.” He carefully seated himself next to Lacia, hands trembling. “Look at this.”

She was startled. His face had gone from that of fascination to something indescribable. It wasn’t exactly panic, but it wasn’t fear, either; it was something in between. Something had raised alarm bells in his head. She could see it in his face and posture—eerily calm and collected. He pointed to a singular, smaller image.

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

The urge to look was strong, but at the same time, she didn’t want to know what he was pointing at. He was the history buff, not her. If he saw something that terrified him beyond words, she abhorred the idea of trying to figure out what it was.

She gritted her teeth, fully expecting the regret that would likely come with her curiosity. She came to a realization that made her blood run cold. Instant fear gripped her mind, holding her like shackles.

Two figures stood along the shoreline of a large ocean, staring up at a creature she’d only ever read about in fantastical plays or novels. Hundreds of arms arced behind the creature like rays, but the creature looked ominously human; the use of heavy shading and dark colors emphasized a baleful display of power and evil. Red eyes glowed through the twilight, instilling fear into her heart despite it being a watercolor recreation.

The creature’s body was that of an adult woman, yet it bore the long, scaly tail of a serpent. How the artist had managed to capture such a terrifying image was beyond her, much less why they would ever want to burn the image into someone else’s mind.

A set of razor-sharp fangs folded back into the creature’s gaping jaws as poison dripped from the elongated sabers.

Lacia dropped the book as she became violently ill. A steady trickle of crimson crept down her leg, her face suddenly as white as the falling snow outside; she knew this feeling. Her mind devolved, remembering the night she nearly bled to death and the breathless nightmares of drowning. She tried calling out for help, but her voice refused to work. Everything moved in slow motion: Licht rushing to stop the bleeding, the falling snow, even her own thoughts—they all felt sluggish.

She vaguely understood what Licht was trying to say, pressing cloth after cloth against her abdomen, soaked with blood.

“Breathe, Lacia! I need you to stay with me. Hey!” he said lightly tapping her cheeks.

The tiny trickle had grown into a steady stream as the color in her face continued to fade. Her eyes began to roll back into her head. She reached a hand out, desperately hoping to grasp the last tiny bit of light before it vanished, but something else emerged from the stupor—something wet and sandy.

Licht scrambled around the house before settling in front of Lacia again. He grabbed her wrist, untying the bracelet before promptly slipping it off. “And here I thought it was an accessory,” he said, scolding himself. “These are inertia 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 a minute at best to stem the flow.

“Forgive me, but I have to find the source of all this bleeding,” he said, ripping a hole in her dress from the waist to the upper thigh. Adrenaline rushed through his veins, but his movements had grown swift and precise. “I knew when the Leyliner gave you a mostly clean bill of health something wasn’t right. Dammit! How did we miss this?!”

A dark heart-shaped sigil hid beneath Lacia’s blood-soaked abdomen, contained within a larger circle, as it etched itself into her skin. In its center was a triangle about half the size of the outer circle. A single diagonal line traversed the body of the sigil as they emerged from each of the three vertices. Licht watched as the lines continued to grow, embarking upon linear paths until they reached the perimeter. On each line were two smaller lines that branched off like vines as they curled around like fingers. The sigil pulsed a deep purple, finishing its marvelous work.

Without warning, Lacia lunged forward, forcefully pushing Licht into the kitchen and a chair at the table. It rocked on two legs as he slammed into the wooden seat before lurching forward again, trying to force it back onto the two airborne legs.

A bolt of pitch-black lightning seared the spot where he had been moments earlier—a burnt smell caught his nose, but it was a different kind of burnt. There was no heat—just extreme cold.

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

Licht’s chair slammed onto the floor with a loud thud as he lunged forward back towards 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. Reaching out, he grabbed the book in one hand and Lacia’s arm in 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 furiously. A mid-air punch secured the first set of coordinates; 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 vibe. Shadowy tendrils fanned out across the wall behind the devil.

Licht’s eyes bore holes into him, anticipating a strike at any moment. “The coordinates are set. I just need Lacia slightly more conscious for this,” he thought to himself.

“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 blood. “It seems you don’t know which means we’re still one step ahead.” Gripping the arm rest, she lifted herself to her feet as she freed her other arm from Licht’s grasp.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “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 via the Leyliner. “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 your powers 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. Too weak to fight back, she closed her eyes. She was okay with dying here, for the second time. If she was able to buy enough time for Licht to escape and warn everyone of their discoveries, 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 continuing. “I am the light that binds my soul, an illimitable luminescent luster… purge.”

Lucifero loosened his grip enough for Lacia to speak. “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.

Lucifero screamed in agony before fleeing, unwilling to meet yet another fiery fate. Lacia fell to the ground, coughing and heaving. The heat seared her skin. Various blisters and burns had begun to erupt 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.

Of course he didn’t listen to her despite telling him to run. She rolled her eyes. “To be fair, neither of us had expected a thermobaric bomb of magic and heat either, though,” she thought.

In some ways she was relieved; her burns would likely kill her as she was in no condition to flee. At least the devils wouldn’t be able to use her charred remains, 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.

“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 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 take her with it. The air broiled as she gasped for what little oxygen remained; she felt like was swallowing fire. Her ears rang and eyes burned. With one final breath, she screamed at the top of her lungs—and it worked. Licht made a full one-eighty-degree turn, breaking out into a full-on Olympic sprint. She could barely make out his face until he was right next to her, grabbing her by the arm.

                                                                                ***

She felt herself being lifted 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.

Voices were distant and incomprehensible. Several shapes loomed over her, bright lights blinding what remained of her sight once more. Her senses were dulled, but the heat was gone. Now, she was faced with an onslaught of glacial cold.

Someone grabbed her wrist—she was vaguely aware of the removal of her bracelet. Her mind screamed in terror as she tried to wriggle herself free of the hands that held her down. Icy shock took over as she was plunged back into the body of icy liquid. She thrashed about, not sure if she was schizophrenic or if this was reality; her mind was foggy—an anesthesia-like numbness bound her at the midway point between wake and sleep.

“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.”

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 eased the pain. Cold air rushed across her face like a fresh breeze—just as reality hit her like a truck.

Her watery nightmares were becoming reality and it scared her. 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, tossing them away. Bright lights bore into her eyes before abruptly dimming alongside the resurgence of fresh chatter.

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

“Lacia, don’t try to speak.” It was Licht. “Your throat was burned from the heat, and your vocal cords were severely damaged—you’ll need surgery. The burns you suffered are equally as bad so, please, just lay back down.”

She made a drawing motion with her hand like she was writing something. “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 fired question after question at him.

“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.”

Lacia jolted up in bed. “I don’t—” An enraged coughing fit stopped her mid-sentence.

“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 folded his arms across his chest. “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. 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 my scarf around my face.”

“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 shone on the ceiling. “This lamp can only produce light because of the lightbulb 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 in 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. Licht flourished a dark, metallic blade made of a material she’d never seen before. It was as sleek as ice and as reflective as a mirror. The light in the room refracted with every twist of the weapon.

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. That’s big talk from someone with so little magical prowess, though,” the devil said.

Licht swung wide. His movements were steady and precise despite the blade’s weight. The first swing connected with a shadowy appendage, dissolving it into thin air. The second swing was more forceful and astoundingly fast as it slashed the shadowy bindings that held Lacia. A metallic clang filled the room as the blade collided with Lucifero’s shadows. The blade passed through Lacia’s body like butter, fully freeing her from the devil’s clutches, but she remained unharmed.

“This blade will only cut what I want it to. It won’t take much to cut you to pieces, Lucifero,” he said as he watched the devil’s shadows creep back towards Lacia.

“I think it’s time for you to sleep, Miss Amana,” the devil cooed, ignoring Licht entirely.

“Licht,” she croaked, “if I 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—oxygen was scarce.

Blood gushed from the stakes in her legs, soaking the sheets as it coalesced into large, wet, pools—dripping onto the floor.

“How does that feel, Lacia? This is only a fraction of what I felt when Aria blasted me away the first time. 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, gasping for air. The blood-loss was making her head spin; spots had already formed in her eyes, occluding more and more of her vision with each passing second. Mustering up enough strength, she snapped her fingers, blasting the devil with a miniature supernova. Though its radius was small, it was enough to buy her a few seconds.

With a swift thrust and powerful forward-lunge, Licht’s 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 herself she couldn’t place.

The rush of blood in her ears 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 pockmarked by red and black patches of burnt skin and she could speak without discomfort and pain. With a sharp inhale, she consumed the purest oxygen her lungs ever had the luxury of ushering into her body.

Lucifero’s stakes had also disappeared without a trace as she smoothed her hand around her legs. Her skin was 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 curve of her body.

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 Lacia smile.

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

Tears welled in her eyes and this time, she let them flow without hesitation as she whirled around to face her best friend.