The hall was, as always, filled to the brim, yet the mood seemed even brighter than it had been during the other farewells. In the faces of the others, Ray saw not only joy that Nobea had finally taken her step and come closer to herself, but also relief that she would no longer be able to vent her moods on them. Even if she had not been among them often during the last Hundreds.

  “And you’re heading back toward the sea now?” Ray had asked her while Nobea was in the process of creating a golden star at the top of the tower, its surface seeming to catch the light of the constellations and shimmer brilliantly.

  “Yes, I’m really looking forward to it. Who knows what I’ll find there. Along the coast and beyond. I hope I can find some way to explore all the shores of this Realm and inspire people with my Light. The way your words inspired me. Along with the nerves they’ve cost me, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Ray thought back to the wide, happy grin that had rested on Nobea’s lips. She finally seemed to have found what she had been searching for, and warmth spread through Ray’s chest as she truly realized for the first time how much she herself had contributed to that. Now Nobea stood up there with alert golden eyes that themselves looked like two glittering stars. Ray felt her standing there, her confidence and warmth, connected to her through their shared moments of realization.

  She could still hear conversations all around her, though they sounded like distant noise as she glanced at Demoa’s empty chair beside her. When she closed her eyes, Ray sensed her down by the river, the warmth slightly more distant than in the past few days, yet still interwoven with her thoughts.

  Ray felt ashamed that she had not yet managed to go down to the lake in the past two days and speak things through with her. She had behaved like absolute trash, even if Demoa herself had not exactly tried to ease the situation. Her problems with Rad had eaten too deeply into her, and Ray could not blame her for that. Despite the few moments she had shared with Dio, her connection to him was probably still the most important thing in her life. Longing for something like that was not something Ray could fault anyone for, least of all her best friend.

  Ray sighed and looked forward.

  She could at least have come up here to say goodbye to Nobea. The good mood up here might have lifted her spirits, Ray thought as she watched Stirleo step up to Nobea and begin his usual speech.

  “I am glad, Nobea, that you have now taken this great step toward yourself!”

  Deafening applause rose in the hall, and even a few whistles could be heard. Ray smiled as she clapped her hands, watching Nobea blush in an uncharacteristic shade of red and lower her gaze.

  How long has she been here? It’s so strange that any measure of time before the rising of the Sun did not truly exist. I wonder if she has been here thousands of days. Ten thousand? Have I already been here a thousand days? Possible…, Ray mused, tuning out Stirleo’s monologue, which she had now heard almost a dozen times.

  When would she set out? When would she be satisfied with her preparations? Maybe soon, very soon, though not yet. Demoa would certainly stay longer as well, so she would always have someone who felt constant. Besides the Abbot and the Scholars, of course, though they were not good conversational partners, as Ray had discovered after several attempts over many days.

  “In the end, when you have truly understood yourself, not only turned inward as here, but turned outward into the world…”

  Ray decided that as soon as she had said goodbye to Nobea, she would go to Demoa and bring her some food, dishes radiating the creativity with which they had been formed. Cakes and steaks and mackerel and pasta…

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  “…settle wherever it pleases you and bring the light there!”

  Yes, cakes. And help her with her sunflowers, perhaps...

  Without warning, and with the sharpness of billions of blades, agony pierced Ray’s thoughts. Tears sprang to her eyes as she collapsed with a scream.

  Back there, deep within herself, where Demoa’s warmth and refuge had always been, where she had withdrawn again and again in stressful moments to find her calm through Demoa’s presence, there was now… blazing pain.

  Barely able to keep her focus outside herself, Ray only dimly registered that silence fell at first, before Stirleo let out an inhumanly loud scream as well. In a haze, she saw the abbot collapse beside Nobea, his fingers digging so hard into his shoulder that it almost looked as though he were burrowing into his own flesh.

  Indifference and worry clouded her inner fortress, spreading across the radiant walls like a foul, sticky film of scum. Like fading echoes, words drifted through her world, underscored again and again by her own screams, words that had once come from Demoa.

  I am a little afraid of you, Ray… Ray, it was wonderf—

  “NO!” Ray screamed, unsure whether she had hurled the word into the world or only against the fog within her.

  Demoa is gone, woken… I did not get to reconcile with her. I will probably never see her again… All the things Demoa did to calm me, to protect me… From the Dream and from myself, when it had still been necessary…

  Now Ray’s own thoughts began to mix with the fog and thicken it. She did not know what would have happened if she had not still sensed Dio somewhere in the distance. What would he have said now? What would he have done? Taken her into his arms, whispered something into her ear?

  What did his voice sound like again?

  The light in the hall, given by countless candles, went out. Instead of red flames, only cold spread through the room. Through her blurred vision, Ray saw Stirleo’s shoulder being consumed by a black flame that had burst forth, licking outward. She knew that black. She knew what it was.

  A Nightmare.

  Suddenly she grew calm. The pain remained, yet the light within her flared up again, and the circle that had almost vanished in the fog shone once more through her Inner World. Through her fortress. This time, however, the Light was cold and merciless, laced with something that helped Ray forget her grief.

  There was only cold contempt and icy hatred.

  Her Inner World was bathed entirely in this new radiance. The fog and the doubts gave way to resolve. Demoa had been murdered, murdered by a Nightmare.

  HOW?

  Trembling, Ray felt her way up along the table and pulled herself to her feet. She had to suppress a surge of fury that threatened to burst out of her and likely level the entire hall to the ground. But she knew how to control herself. No one here would receive what she had reserved for the Nightmare that was probably still roaming out there.

  She spat onto the floor and looked around. Some of the Disciples had jumped up and fled the room, others remained standing or sitting as if turned to stone, staring aimlessly around them. A few had rushed to Stirleo, though they kept their distance as the black flame kept lashing outward, unpredictably burning holes into its surroundings. The Scholars glowed, clothed in their Lucidity, flinching in indecision when someone shouted at them to do something.

  “Nightmare… Down below, near… It’s burning, it hurts… How did it get in? I…,” Stirleo stammered, squeezing his eyes shut again and again.

  “Abbot, can you not… extinguish it?” Nobea asked in complete disbelief, raising her arms in a calming gesture. She too remained at a safe distance beside him, not daring to come closer.

  Stirleo somehow managed a joyless laugh. “It’s not here, it’s below. I am too deeply bound to this place. When it suffers damage… Well, I never thought it would ever bite me so hard in the—”

  He fell silent.

  Ray had climbed onto the table and started hurrying toward him, but when his face turned white and he lost every trace of the grin that had, despite the flames, kept finding its way back onto his features, she stopped.

  Stirleo’s eyes suddenly went empty, staring into nothing. His shoulder was still blazing dark, his clothing long since fused with his skin, though at least the fire did not seem to be spreading.

  “Abbot Stirleo, what is it?” Nobea demanded, moving in a half circle around him to reach the side not engulfed in dark fire so she could approach more safely.

  Stirleo did not hear her. His lips began to tremble, sweat forming on his forehead.

  “What… what if it passes? All of this? What if all our efforts, our creations, the things that make this place… my place… our place… what it is… what if one day they pass away? What if all of this burns and falls apart? If the Nightmares out there rage long enough and grow strong enough that I can no longer stop them? If the darkness lays siege to us and finally destroys us? Destroys me? All this knowledge?”

  He broke halfway into the floor, though he did not sink completely, so that his upper body struck the marble stone, burning darkly.