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“I’ve kept in better shape than most,” Zaylin admitted. “However, even I’m not at the prime that I once was—as evidenced by your victory.”

Knowing she hadn’t meant it as an insult, but merely a comparison between their two races—one mortal, one immortal—Alex said, “Prime or not, I only beat you because you expected me to be more surprised than I was.”

“And that’s a perfect example of what I meant by ‘sloppy’,” Zaylin returned. “There was once a time when I never would have made any presumptions, nor taken an opponent’s reaction for granted. Had the two of us been in a real fight, my overconfidence today would have resulted in my death.”

Alex winced, since Zaylin was right. As it was, Alex wasn’t the only one of them who was injured; the Tia Auran also had small cuts peppering her flesh from minor slices of A’enara that Alex had caused. Interestingly, Zaylin’s blood was gold— something that was hardly surprising given thateverythingabout the otherworldly race seemed to be inspired by the colour.

Banishing A’enara, Alex said, “So… now that we’ve established that I need to let go of the past and move forward, I guess this is the part where you return me to my room and I face my friends?”

While she was still raw from what had happened inside the Gate and was unsure how the others might respond to all they had seen—to the memory and the future vision, but also to how Alex had mentally depicted their judgement of her— something had settled within her enough that she felt ready for the confrontation. Much of that was because of Zaylin, even if Alex had yet to decide if she was blessed or cursed by the tenacious Tia Auran who considered violence the best means by which to cure emotional fallout. Regardless, her intervention had brought clarity to Alex, silencing her doubts and renewing her hope. It had also—perhaps unintentionally—remindedAlex of the one thing she knew for certain: that her friends loved her as much as she loved them, and because of that, they would get through whatever came next together, just as they always had.

Despite Alex’s restored determination, Zaylin didn’tparronher away. Instead, her eyes were focused on the spot where A’enara had disappeared as she asked, “How did the Weapon of the Ages come to be bound to you?”

Alex called A’enara back and held the ice-coloured blade carefully in her hands, the blue flames dancing over her skin. She quickly shared how Aven had used it to Claim her, but how she’d later broken free of his bond, then how he had thrown the blade at D.C. only for Alex to jump in its path. She then admitted that she didn’t know why the weapon had stayed in her possession afterwards—not that she was complaining.

“It found you worthy,” Zaylin said.

Alex’s brow furrowed. “It… what?”

“A’enara—it found you worthy when you sacrificed yourself for your friend. That’s why it chose to bind itself to you.”

“I don’t know about that. Everything about it is just… well,weird,” Alex said. That was especially true when the time paradox was taken into consideration—because she’d been bound to it in the past before the future, but she’d only experienced the pastafterthe future. “I mean, it’s aweapon. It’s not like it’s capable of rational thought or decision making.”

“You’re wrong,” Zaylin said, shaking her head. “A’enara is much more than a weapon.”

Alex felt goose bumps rise on her skin as she heard the memory of Aven once saying something similar: ‘A’enara isn’t a name, you foolish girl. It’s an identity.’

“I’m not surprised you don’t know more about the Bringer of Light,” Zaylin continued. “Even my people don’t fully understand it.”

Intrigued, Alex said, “I thought it was forged by the Tia Aurans?”

Zaylin loosed a startled laugh. “Hardly. That’s like saying we spoke the stars into being.”

Bewildered, Alex said, “If you didn’t make it, then who did?”

“Instead, let me ask you this,” Zaylin said, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. “Have you ever wondered why your weapon can cut anything but doesn’t slice straight through other blades during battle?”

Alex was dismayed to realise that she had never considered it, not even after having witnessed A’enara cut through Myrox, Moxyreel and the supposedly impenetrabletraesoslike melted butter.

“Have you ever wondered why or how it can increase and decrease in length, depending on if you wish to use it as a dagger or as a sword?” Zaylin continued. “Or how you can summon and banish it at will? How it knows to arrive and depart at your command?”

Those, at least, Alexhadwondered about, not that she’d received any answers.

Zaylin went on, “Have you ever wondered about the colour of the blade; what kind of substance could have created it? Why it flares with star fire at your touch—something I presume began only after you were bound to your draekon, a creature with origins beyond the stars?”

Alex ran her hand down the length of the blade as she looked at Zaylin and said, “Any chance you want to fill me in?”

The Tia Auran held her gaze for a moment as if considering, but then she opened her mouth and shared, “I can’t tell you where A’enara came from or by whose hands it was created, since not even the elders of my race know the answer to that. But Icantell you that legend claims it was breathed into being and is made of liquid starlight, and for those two reasons, it retains asense of sentience—an intelligence left by its creator that allows it to bond to another, to change length, to be summoned and dismissed at will. It’s also that intelligence that makes it, for lack of a better word,honourable. It knows when it’s in a battle against another weapon and it respects both the opponent and their blade enough to not, essentially,cheat.”

A sentient, honourable blade that was breathed into being. That was up there amongst some of the most ridiculous things Alex had ever heard. And yet, all of it fit—except for one thing.

She may have been home-schooled for most of her Freyan life as she travelled around the globe with her parents, moving with them from dig-site to dig-site, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t learned anything. She’d been a particularly keen science student, so she was confident enough to say, “There’s no such thing as liquid starlight.”

Ignoring Zaylin’s raised eyebrows, Alex continued, “Stars are made of gases—mostly hydrogen and helium—and their core temperature is too hot for them to be converted into a liquid. Maybe if cold fusion were a real thing, but that only exists in science fiction books and movies, and—” Alex broke off, realising she was tangenting. “Look, all I’m saying is, stars can’t be turned from a gas into a liquid. It’s a physical impossibility.”

Then again, A’enarawasenveloped with star fire, at least when held in Alex’s hands. Was itthathuge of a leap to consider whoever had created the blade—breathed intelligentlifeinto the blade—had been advanced enough to liquefy the light from a star and forge it into a weapon?

“Physical impossibility or not,” Zaylin said dryly, “there are two blades in all the worlds that prove your statement false.”