"Something changed this time," Eithan said. "We'll have to consult experts in the subject, but I think it's best to assume you have less time than you thought."

Lindon's heart sunk further.

"...perhaps much less."

They sat in silence for a while. Mercy looked like she was still piecing stories together in her head, Yerin was brooding, Eithan cleaned his nails, and Orthos munched on fragments of pottery.

Lindon was wondering how much he could trust Eithan's guesses. Suriel had descended from the heavens to show him the future. Surely, she was the most reliable source.

But she had emphasized how fate could always be changed...

"Now it's my turn," Eithan said, evidently having grown bored with waiting. "But first, I have to ask. Lindon, has your resolve been shaken?"

Had it? Lindon thought about it for a moment.

If he didn’t really have thirty years, then he should go back to Sacred Valley as soon as possible. Borrowing help from Eithan and Yerin, he could warn everyone to leave. They should do what most people did before a Dreadgod attack and run. He was powerful enough now that even the elders and clan leaders should listen to him.

But...

Assuming he did clear everyone out, would he give up and go home? Would he pack it in, once his goal was achieved?

No. He'd seen too much. There were sacred artists whose steps covered miles, who traded blows with Dreadgods and blotted out the sky.

If he settled for less than that, he was giving up. Suriel had transcended this world entirely; he couldn't forgive himself if he didn't at least try.

He shook his head, and Eithan accepted it, turning to Yerin. "How about you, Yerin?"

Yerin seemed surprised that he addressed her at all. "Is Redmoon Hall still around?"

"Like their master, they remain awake and aware," Eithan said. "They are here, now, in the Empire. Longhook, the gentleman we met before, has been sighted more than once. I fear we will see them again even before the Phoenix returns."

"Then I'll be there too."

Eithan cocked his head curiously. "For that reason alone? What if you were to defeat Redmoon Hall completely? What if they did retreat? Would your spirit fade away, and your resolve crumble to nothing?"

Yerin sat and thought, rather than delivering a snap answer, as Lindon had somewhat expected. Slowly, a light grew in her eyes, until a smile slid onto her scarred lips. "I've got a lot of road left to travel, but...even my master couldn't keep up with a Dreadgod. Sure would be fun to go sword-to-sword with one."

"It is my intention," Eithan said, "to do exactly that."

Mercy frowned up at him. “But you’re so weak,” she said.

Yerin snorted a laugh, and Orthos gave a deep chuckle.

Eithan winked at her. “I have a secret weapon. A great expert has peered into my future and determined that I have at least a chance of success. I traveled all the way to your home, where Akura Malice gave me her blessing. She told me she was counting on me.”

Mercy scooted back a few feet and looked up at the ceiling.

A few breaths passed.

“I swear on my—”

“You’re telling the truth!” Mercy said in a mixture of disbelief and awe.

“How do you know?” Lindon asked. If there was a way to catch Eithan in a lie or an evasion, he wanted to know.

“Because he’s still alive,” she said simply.

Lindon shivered. Monarchs could do that?

Eithan seemed a little shaken himself, from the glance he shot upward, but he continued on. “No matter where you are, the strong write the rules. But even if you’re the most powerful in the world, there are limits to what you can do alone.” He clenched his fist. “They say the sacred arts are lonely. The higher you climb, the more alone you become. That is the first rule I’d like to rewrite.”

Mercy tapped her staff against her shoulder, eyes narrowed. “Let’s say you do make it to my mother’s level,” she said, and Eithan didn’t so much as twitch at the word ‘mother.’ So he had been pretending not to recognize Mercy. “There are a lot of things you could do with all that power.”

“I think of myself as a fairly shrewd judge of character,” Eithan said. “I have chosen very carefully who I want to take with me on this journey. They are people who, I believe, have the potential to make the world a better place.” He gave a wry smile. “You’ll notice I’ve only found two. And they have years to grow. Their choices will determine whether I was right or wrong.”

Mercy looked sheepish, but she didn’t give in. “Everyone thinks they’re making the world a better place,” she said quietly.

“Then we have come full circle,” Eithan said, flipping out his marble again. The void pulsed in the center, a hole of endless darkness. “Now I will fulfill my promise.”

He tossed the glass ball to Lindon, who clapped his hands around it.

The world vanished as a vision consumed him.

***

A man stood against a background of endless, textured blue. He wore black armor of rounded, eggshell-smooth plates that looked almost like a liquid. His skin was pale, his face long and angular…but his features were perfect, without a blemish or wrinkle anywhere. His eyes were pure blue, and his hair a long, streaming white.

He seemed familiar for a moment before Lindon, with a shock, recognized him. He looked like Eithan.

Not exactly alike. His chin was a little sharper than Eithan’s, his hairline a little further back, his nose a little thinner. But if someone had told him this was Eithan’s brother, or perhaps a younger version of Eithan’s father, Lindon would have believed them.

It was somewhat disconcerting going straight from sitting in a cellar to floating in a sapphire void, but Lindon’s experience with Suriel had somewhat prepared him. It was comforting, in a way: this was independent confirmation, if he’d needed any, that Suriel’s visit was more than just a hallucination.

“I am called Ozriel,” the man said, turning to fix Lindon with his stare. “If you have found this, that means you are one of the descendants I’ve left behind. Lucky you.” His voice was far more animated than Lindon would have expected—in his black armor, with his pale hair, he looked like he should speak in grave whispers.

“I left behind this message in case one of you, any of you, inherits some spark of my desire. I determined that there must be more beyond the world I could see. And I was not content to stay trapped, like a fish in a pond.”

He waved his hand, and the blue fabric tore. He stepped out into the sky over a city Lindon had never seen before: a landscape of towering spires in all the colors of the rainbow, as though each had been hewn from gemstone. Amethyst and sapphire and emerald shone in the sun, with glittering crystal bridges crossing from one to the other.

Sacred artists traveled through the sky, standing on Thousand-Mile Clouds, riding sacred birds, or pulled by Remnants.

Ozriel looked out over the city, and his voice turned sad. “Everything you know, everything you have ever known, is but one world. One island in a vast ocean.”

He made no gesture, but he began to rise, and Lindon felt once again that sickening lurch that came when his eyes told him he was moving, but his body told him he was standing still. They rose into the sky, until the city was but a dot beneath them…and they kept rising.