The woman in lion fur conjured a thousand ghostly mouths on worm-like bodies of black smoke. They dove for Suriel, and each one felt like a plague that could decimate planets. They carried ancient hatred that soaked Pariana’s soul, and only her Presence’s protection kept their energy from sending her into madness.

The armored man’s rifle cracked, and this time the sound echoed through the entire world. Air exploded away from him at the sound, and the bullet flashed forward with a thousand times the power he had used to kill Pariana the first time. That one shot alone carried enough energy to obliterate everything in this Iteration.

Finally, the red-visored man triggered the three golden formations. They fired pillars of superheated destructive energy. The columns of light blasted down.

Obliterating him instantly.

The attacks happened instantly and simultaneously, so Pariana had to piece the entire scene together afterwards. Without being empowered as an Abidan, and without the Presence’s effect on her mind, she wouldn’t have been able to follow what happened at all.

The formations fired, not at Suriel, but at the one who had taken them over. As she arrived, Suriel had taken control back, and neither Pariana—their designer—nor the red-visored Vroshir had noticed a thing.

Suriel flew through the air in an erratic pattern, a bright streak that dodged the thousand mouths of smoke effortlessly. The X-crossed slashes from the sickle had grown in size and power, destroying everything in their path from ground to sky, and they would not be avoided.

The Judge crashed through them.

The violet light burst, sending shards of power and malicious intent spinning chaotically through the world, carving serpentine scars into the earth. Suriel’s armor had cracked as well, pieces flying from it, and blood flew from her exposed skin, but she was safe.

When the bullet reached her, she met it with her Razor.

The sapphire steel hit the missile and sliced through it. Pariana had never seen anything like it. The Vroshir had obviously put their entire will behind the bullet, but Suriel cut it as though it were nothing more than physical metal.

Her weapon split the bullet, which broke into two halves that flew to either side of her, landing with the force of missiles.

In the same motion, Suriel struck back.

The Razor swept through the air again, though there was no one in front of her. Kilometers away, the armor-clad gunman’s head flew off, streaming blood.

As though by coincidence, Suriel’s chaotic flight path took her close to the fish-woman. Pariana didn’t see what happened, but the Vroshir pitched over. With no visible wounds, she went from alive to dead in an instant. Purple sickles fell from lifeless hands.

The black-haired woman in furs screamed, pouring all her power into her legion of spirits until the entire Iteration screamed with her fury and hatred. An ocean hundreds of kilometers away was whipped into a frenzy, and dead fish began to bob to the surface. The luminous creatures inhabiting the night sky died one by one, falling to the ground like distant, shining meteorites. Even Pariana’s consciousness began to fuzz.

Then her formation-circles, under Suriel’s control, fired again.

The Vroshir woman was swallowed up by another sun-bright detonation, and her army of ghosts dissipated. But when the light faded, she strode out, protected by the power of her ironclad will. She raised her hands and her power together, enough black smoke boiling behind her to depopulate worlds.

Still flying through the air, Suriel faced the Vroshir, and her voice echoed with transcendent authority. “Begone,” the Judge said.

Pariana felt like she were submerged under endless pressure, like all of reality had been squeezed like a damp rag.

Then the one remaining Vroshir simply disappeared.

All of her ghostly smoke was erased from existence, and her barrier sealing the world lifted. The Way shone through once again, a comforting warmth to Pariana’s senses.

A working like that took extreme concentration, even from a Judge. Suriel couldn’t have done that while fighting the others—Pariana couldn’t believe she had managed it even now. Wiping someone as significant as a full Vroshir from reality was all but impossible.

[The Way does not make a Judge strong,] her Presence said.

Suriel slipped her Razor back onto her waist, where it stuck. Her armor re-formed, her mantle reignited, and the wounds on her skin vanished. The devastation left by the battle was wiped away in seconds.

Leaving the Phoenix drifting in the air, in all her glory, pristine and unharmed.

“Glory and honor to the Judge,” Pariana said, once again bending her tall, golden body in supplication.

Suriel spoke softly, the formation in her purple eyes spinning. “There is still much to be fixed. Yours was not the only world under attack.”

Chapter 1

Akura Charity, Sage of the Silver Heart, stood looking at the broken doorway into Ghostwater.

The jade doorframe, set into a cave in the side of the island, had been sliced apart from the outside. The smooth, fist-sized hole in the rock behind it told her what the technique had been: black dragon's breath.

She had other tasks on this island besides watching Harmony, but she had still kept her eye on him until the end. The interference from the collapsing space had grown too much, and the picture had grown less and less clear.

However, she had sensed it when the Blackflame artist and his contracted turtle had emerged from the pocket world. She had been surprised that her grand-nephew hadn't been the first out, but she hadn't worried much about it. She could still sense him, distantly, inside a Monarch's private space. She still had time before the world collapsed, and she didn't need a portal to enter.

But when she had tried to cross space, she had been denied.

A will greater than her own had locked Ghostwater down. She felt him arrive like a great ship passing by her in the ocean, stirring up the water with the weight of its presence.

With Northstrider there, she'd had no chance of breaking in. She had been forced to wait, hoping that the Monarch would bring her young grand-nephew home.

She had started carving a memorial for Akura Harmony in that moment. From everything she'd heard, Northstrider's mercy was a thin thread from which to hang her hopes.

When Northstrider's presence vanished, she tried once again to enter, but he had closed off the space. She slapped her power against his like a child trying to batter down a brick wall with her fists.

She felt the moment when Ghostwater crumbled to pieces. By that time, the spatial distortion had grown so great that she could no longer sense Harmony within.

Now, she placed a bust of her grand-nephew at the base of the jade doorway. Carved with her own hands, the sculpture captured his delicate features, the arrogant tilt of his chin, the distant look of determination in his eyes. Hair cascaded down his shoulders, and a dark halo hung behind his head.

A brief wave of sadness passed over her. His branch of the family had not produced someone so skilled in generations. He had hoped to become one of the legendary Akura clan pillars one day, like his great-grandfather Akura Fury or like Charity herself.

He would have had a long road to travel before he reached that goal, if he ever did, but he had been practically guaranteed a good life. She regretted the loss.

But she had buried younger relatives before. It was one reason she had never had children of her own. She stood in silence for many minutes, remembering Harmony.