Before I could put together a defense for my decision to let Sparkles decide her own fate, the shallow stone basin beneath Relias and me rang out with another quake. Unlike the brief tremors before, this one lingered, its vibrations deepening and rippling outward from its heart. The runes scratched across the stone’s surface began to pulse with shimmering pastels as we scrambled toward the edge, concentric circles spinning beneath our feet. Each new ring turned opposite the last, the outermost whirring to life just seconds after we leapt clear of it.

  Stone screeched as it shattered, and the center of the basin shot upward, closely followed by torn fragments of the rings around it. Light shot from the runes as they spun, solidifying in translucent shards to form an immense, crystalline spire. Deep within its depths was a welter of rainbow hues, each color pushing and jostling the one it was next to as if eager to break free.

  Relias stepped forward. “We found ourselves standing at the forsaken outskirts of Paradise, its gate sealed in celestial crystal, forever barring our reentry,” he recited, stealing the words straight from his tome of teachings.

  Oliver scoffed. “It hasn’t even been half a millennium. Your Goddess underestimated you.”

  “Don’t you think it’s a little too early to gloat?” Nora asked archly. “Most wait until after they pick the lock to challenge karma.”

  “Oh, thieves and the like challenge it before they pick the lock too,” Oliver said, a small, knowing smile tugging at his lips.

  “Double or nothing, I suppose…” I muttered, drawing Will and Faith. The weapons shimmered to life as they caught the edges of my aura. “Care to join me?”

  Not to be outdone, Oliver shrugged, his fingers combing idly through his hair before he outstretched both arms. His ornate, overwrought scythe appeared in a burst of dark purple light. He twirled it twice for good measure, then cracked the blunt end against the ground with a resonant thud. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  Then we both stared at each other expectantly for a solid two seconds.

  “What are you waiting for?” Oliver finally asked.

  “Well… I mean…” I glanced hesitantly at his mark embedded in my sword. “How do I… I mean, we…”

  Oliver shook his head, motioning for me to remove the serpentine sigil. “We won’t be hitting it with a single shot. The amount of combined energy you would need to pull through that focus will destroy it. It would be best to match each other’s resonance instead.”

  It sounded almost poetic… until he explained what it meant. His technical discourse on bridging thought connections and oscillating waveforms between us killed any lingering chance of it being swoon-worthy.

  “You already do most of this instinctively when you’re probing for an opponent’s weaknesses,” he went on. “The difference is this time you’ll need to sustain the connection. Keep our bridge intact and let the oscillation balance between us. Don’t pull away to exploit it.”

  After pulling off his mark, I frowned for a moment, then tugged off my headband so it wouldn’t block our link. “Alright. It sounds like you’ll need to do those same things, too. But I’m warning you, I think about weird stuff all the time.”

  “I’m well aware of that fact,” he said dryly. “And try not to be too overwhelmed by my thoughts, either, no matter how awe-inspiring they are.”

  Such confidence… Sheesh.

  I caught a glimpse of Relias lingering a few paces behind us, his staff drawn close against his chest like a shield. His face was unreadable, but his eyes flickered with something complicated as he stared at the crystal.

  Devotion? Longing?

  Maybe even a touch of resentment.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  I guess I’d be upset too, being locked out of my home for so long.

  Still, Relias remained silent for a while. His posture remained composed, and his voice was steady when he finally tore his gaze away and spoke. “The light of creation favors those who act in good Faith and Will. Let us pray that it favors wisely.”

  I smiled, knowing I was being a bit literal. “You heard him,” I said, jostling my sword and shield. “You two help, too.”

  Will flared with gold light while Faith let out a low hum. It was a soft but reverent note that became louder as I aimed Will at the crystal barrier. I poured all the amity that I could through the sword, its sustained blast striking but causing no damage.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Oliver step forward, his dark aura unfurling like a cape caught in the wind. He charged his scythe before leveling it at the crystal, its dark ray running parallel to mine. In the narrow space between them, gold threads laced through violet smoke, pulsing in rhythm until they pulled each other into a swirl of iridescence.

  The brush of his awareness was softer than I expected. No thoughts of thrones. No celestial rebellion. Instead of the grandiose imagery I’d imagined, I saw… books. Dusty stacks of them, reaching the ceiling of his glowing library that smelled faintly of ink and sage.

  And there I was, in short flickers.

  Talking. Ranting, really. About terrible first dates, inadequate cafeteria food, and failing public transit infrastructure. About the endless mortal spiral of trying to persevere against the odds while wasting borrowed time on the unimportant.

  He’d engaged with all of it. Every dumb tangent, every collegiate crackpot theory. Not as a king or a demon, but just as a lonely someone who could be just as silly and cynical as I was.

  And in those small fractions of time when I wasn’t there, he’d set his book down and laugh at my remembered antics. Gleeful cackles filled the air, then faded, leaving him to sigh and pick up another volume to pass the time.

  The energy between us surged, and thin shards of crystal began to shear away.

  “Rachel,” Oliver said, his voice barely audible over the vibrating resonance between us. “Focus.”

  Wasn’t it his thoughts that were the cause of my distraction?

  “You and I are going to have words, Mister. Many, many words.”

  I could hear the smirk in his voice. “Looking forward to it.”

  The crystal’s core began to pulse in response to our onslaught. A sharp crack echoed through the valley as hairline fractures webbed across its surface, each one glowing bright white before bursting outward in slivers of refracted light.

  “We’re doing it!” I shouted. “Just a little more!”

  The crystal’s colorful interior flared, then started to shrink. A surge of pressure rippled through the basin, distorting the air into visible waves.

  “What’s happening?” Nora cried as Oliver and I ceased our combined attack, the crystal continuing to crack.

  “The portal is collapsing in on itself!” Relias roared. “The passage is torn open, but the structure can’t sustain it! We must hurry!”

  As we rushed forward toward the breach, a large shadow streaked over us.

  Sparkles?

  She came back?

  We came to a collective halt. Sparkles turned and shot like an arrow, her opalescent form cutting across the horizon as she screamed. The night sky caught fire as she blasted at void-like shadows that bloomed from sources unseen.

  “Demonic portals!” Nora gasped.

  “Zizi must have outmaneuvered Rags…” Oliver muttered. “Or he gave up on getting back his eye.” He twitched, then shrugged, as if it were a minor inconvenience. “I’ll let you know which it was once you three return.”

  I froze. “You’re not… coming with us?”

  “Of course not. I’m sure that place is riddled with demon deathtraps.” He deliberately turned his back and plunged his scythe into the ground, setting up a defensive stance. “This is as far as I ever intended to go.”

  “You…!”

  Rotten liar!

  Nora tugged at my sleeve. “Rae…”

  “But he can’t hold them all off by himself! If I stay too, I can—”

  “I will abide here as well,” Relias said firmly as he pointed his staff. “I will hold the portal stable for you and ensure that none unworthy crosses its threshold.”

  Even Relias…?!

  “No! No! Splitting the party is a dealbreaker!” I shouted. “Who’s going to show us the way through Paradise?! How are we supposed to—”

  Sparkles screamed again and blasted at several more blooms, zipping around to suppress a second line of them.

  Relias gave me an apologetic glance. “When you find Raela’s tree… I would humbly ask you to pay my respects. Please tell her that I continue my journey, and that even if my path is not always straightforward, I continue to grow from the experience.”

  “I can’t just leave you here to…”

  Distracted by the chaos, I fell silent. Fire had fallen from the sky in several places, the heat setting off multiple avalanches. Subsequent demonic screeches from the lower altitudes suggested that Sparkles was being quite intentional. It was the larger swirls of darkness that began blotting out the stars that were the most disconcerting.

  Nora pulled harder. “We have to go, Rae! All of Speranza is counting on us!”

  “Promise me you’ll survive—both of you!” I shrieked over my shoulder as Nora and I ran toward the breach. “I’ll never, ever forgive either of you if you die!”

  If they replied, I never heard it. Light and shadow clashed and crackled around us as we leapt through the portal’s pastel glow. For a split second, I looked back, just long enough to see the world dissolve into white.

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