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"That's enough." Vexa moved between us, her violet eyes flashing. "This isn't helping anyone." She turned to me, her voice gentler. "What you saw today... it's a lot to take in."

Aether made a sound of disgust. "We don't have time for coddling?—"

"And we don't have time for threats," Vexa urged. She faced him fully now. "You want her to trust us? To believe in our cause? This isn't the way."

They stared each other down for a long moment before Aether finally stepped back, though the darkness still rolled off him in waves.

"Fine," he bit out. "Take all the time you need. But remember this—while you sit in that tower contemplating, children are starving. Families are losing everything." His voice dropped lower, deadly quiet. "Their blood is on your hands now too."

He turned and stalked away, leaving Vexa and me in tense silence. She sighed, running a hand through her hair.

"He's being an ass," she said finally. "But he's right about one thing—time isn't a luxury we have much of anymore."

I nodded, unable to find words as the weight of everything pressed down on me.

"Come on," she said softly. "Let's get you back to the tower.”

The walk back was silent, heavy with all that had been said and unsaid. But Aether's words echoed in my mind with each step, burning like brands against my conscience.

Their blood is on your hands now too.

I heard the dull thud of the closing door and lock behind me.

Alone, I crawled into the bed trying to find warmth in the sheets I pulled over my head. I relived the day over in my mind until sleep finally took me.

Darkness surrounded me,illuminated by bright, glittering stars. Reflective dust was scattered through the velvet abyss, creating shapes and twisting as it morphed from pale white to pearlescent pastels. The place, wherever I was, felt familiar, like I had been here before, perhaps more than once.

And then I recognized the orb, the one fluttering in the distance, making its way towards me with effortless grace. It looked like a mind, but different somehow—as if it radiated colors beyond the spectrum, yet in simple flashes, never encroaching fully on the silvery opalescent shape.

I goaded the web up my spine, tingling as it braided itself gently, caressing my skull in shifts of those same colors, and let it spill out of me, tendrils twisting through the air, thrumming towards the orb.

I had seen it before, but it was always out of reach… always just beyond what I could try and understand, often fleeing off into the darkness when I got too close. But this time, it pulsed brighter as my web surrounded it.

I was gentle, and slow. I didn’t want to scare it this time. I longed to know what it was—why it was always here, what this dream was, where this dream was.

A single fiber of the web reached out and neared the surface of the orb, the light pulsing from both just beginning to intertwine when?—

Decide, Fiandrial.

The words came out like a symphony of hisses from every direction just before I made contact, panic rushed through me, and everything went dark once more.

But not for long.

Suddenly, I felt myself drop into a chair, into a room I didn’t recognize. I tried to look around, tried to move, but I was trapped in place, my eyes locked on a desk and window ahead of me, the sun basking brightly through the glass. I felt fingers that were not my own thrum against the armrest of the chair, and a voice that was not my own clear its throat—his throat.

And footsteps behind me.

“There’s a reason they haven’t returned.” A velvety voice spoke from behind, something strained in the tone, and my heart felt as though it might shatter right there. The sensation of eyes misting caressed my mind, but no tears formed at the ones I saw through.

Laryk.

I wanted to whip my head around, I wanted to look at him, but I was frozen.

“I know it’s been hard for you. I don’t understand their sudden absence either, but I don’t think the two are connected. You have to move on, you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

I recognized the voice coming from my lips as Mercer’s.

“They attack nearly on a schedule. For the last two years, they have never rested for more than two weeks,” Laryk hissed, his voice growing closer as I heard footsteps round the desk, and suddenly, he was in front of me. I felt my heart stop in my chest, or what should have been my heart.