My own death was... not what I expected.

  Waking up to the black void of the cosmos, Cedric wasn't cold. He wasn't even warm. He was... still. Unalive, but not yet dead. A perfect observer in a world he'd since left behind.

  And there it was, after all: Caloria. Down beneath him, amidst the sea of clustered stars, it sat in silence. And those stars, all, he could feel the lives of. He could feel the countless universes beyond his own, spanning on forever, into eternity. Stories all told in other mediums, canvases painted by other artists... Worlds designed by other quills.

  But Caloria was Evra's. Azafel had influenced it, but it belonged to Evra. And she was as good as God.

  "Is that what you truly believe?" asked a solemn voice, an unrecognizable, unidentifiable growl through all of space.

  Cedric couldn't answer. He wasn't sure if he didn't want to, or if he wasn't capable of it at all. But he made no answer to that question besides the one within his own mind:

  Yes. Evra is our God.

  Then came the platinum glow around the planet, a comfort. The world felt suddenly at ease. Cedric snapped out of his trance just barely enough to speak; "...Evra is awake."

  The growl had vanished.

  "...Faunia did it."

  The cosmos began to darken. Half of the stars began to blot out.

  "...Just like that."

  The balance had been restored to the plane. The overabundance of stars slowly subsided until there were only Evra's pristine constellations left, each perfect, unerring. Each was immediately recognizable. He thought he could see a white knight, Llestren'vatis. A venomous snake, Algirak. A great demon, Serkukan. A skeletal goddess, Rykaedi.

  And there was a boy. The name didn't come to him immediately. Kasian, perhaps? Or...?

  "Can I borrow you once more, Cedric?" asked a voice so much unlike the previous. True calm. Serenity washed over him.

  He looked to where the stars were still fading, revealing their hidden images. Then he realized that he was disembodied; it wasn't just a feeling. He no longer had a body. He had become complete energy, as Azafel, as Evra.

  He tried his voice again. Every word felt as though it rattled the very cosmos. "You can use me again. Of course."

  "I'm glad; we have unfinished business."

  And there he was; standing over Vekzul's body while it leaked into his armor. This had seemingly been the red one's plan all along: to bide time, feign subservience to Kasian, to Kogar... and then to die, to let himself be absorbed into the God of Fire.

  But then Cedric's red armor began to fluctuate, began to shift into prismatic hues, took on a white sheen covered in iridescent reflections. Platinum armor. The armor of an angel.

  Cedric lowered his hand out to his side, and an elegant bastard sword slid easily into his palm. He tested the weight of it. Perfect. No flaws, no discomfort. It fit just as easily into his hand as the blade he'd once been so fond of summoning—that perfect black blade, his gift from the Sylvet.

  Kasian was laying supine just a few feet away, his hands up to protect his exposed face.

  Cedric began, "I don't desire to be a slave to an element. I don't know how many Etherians I've taken by now, or how many I've killed, how many I've watched die... But their remnants are all the same. They all share the same ley."

  "But..." Kasian stuttered. "But they manipulate it differently! Their wavelengths are different!"

  Cedric's glare traveled up the bloody stones, landed on the fearful man. The whole world seemed to blot out around them.

  Even Kasian turned desperately in every direction as all of Calamon was quickly enveloped in complete darkness.

  "Correct," Cedric answered. "But now that I've ascended... I can see exactly how those wavelengths work."

  Kasian hastily grasped something from his belt.

  Cedric swept the sword only in the man's general direction. A wave of light flew from the blade as it swung.

  BWOOSH!

  It was like a gust of wind, whatever Kasian had done to interrupt the beam. He held something there, between his hands, laying flat on the ground. His breathing was heavy.

  "You're such a sad god..." Cedric murmured, beginning to approach. "You hide behind all of these pretty toys... Etherians, Dyosius, Talek, Kogar... You'll take anything you can get your hands on, just to get another inch of life."

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  "You're no different!" hissed the pitiful man.

  "Aren't I? I never took these powers for my own gain..." He thought of how he'd used Serkukan when they first met. He thought of those bandits he'd once killed in Siln. "Maybe I was misguided, at first. But seeing the damage I'd caused... I was ready to rectify it. I no longer desired selfishness. And soon, I began to desire only peace. I want to create a utopia. A world with no plight, with no chaos... I want to rid this world of bandits like the Sylvet, diseases like what plagued Throkos... I want to seal forever the way to the Pit, and make our lives as good as the Deadworld. I want everyone to be happy..."

  "You don't even know happiness!"

  Cedric thought about that for a moment. "No. Maybe I don't. Maybe I've never really felt it. All my life, I've been chasing these abstract goals... I've had people I'd have called friends, sure, but not to any personal effect. It's not like I ever just invited someone out for their company, you know? I've never had anybody close. I've had lovers, but they were temporary. During my time as a bandit, I mean. When I was part of the Sylvet. I'd suppose the closest thing I've ever had to joy was... Maybe some of the time I spent with Rithi. Or maybe all of the time I'd ever spent with Faunia..."

  "See?" Kasian's voice took on the inflection of a madman. "You don't even know it! You think happiness can be caused by other people, that all of your problems can be solved by eradicating that which doesn't belong! But every Yin has its Yang! Life without death will be just as meaningless as a stillborn! Without death, time will cease to have any meaning, it'll practically cease to exist! All you'll do if you kill me is bar yourselves from finding true purpose! You shun me, you call me evil, but I've done no harm save for what I did to Kylinstrom! And that had a greater purpose than the lives which were lost!"

  Cedric stomped forward.

  Kasian flinched. "You know it to be true! This is the effect Azafel had when he brought us here! He gave us purpose, much as he gave us fear! He gave us ambition, much as he gave us despair! He gave us pleasure, as much as he gave us torture! A world with only Evra is a world where nothing goes wrong, nothing goes right, all is the same forever, with no highs! No lows!"

  "I don't understand exactly what you're saying is so wrong about that."

  Kasian's expression grew grim. "I see. I understand now. You're... You're like me. Aren't you? You grew up in a world which didn't love you, in a place which was starkly unfair to you. You've known only lows. But the solutions we've come to are polar opposites. Where I seek Azafel as a way to bring purpose and meaning to the lives of men, you'd rather eradicate suffering altogether. I'd free myself, while you'd free the world. Is that selfish of me?"

  "No. I did the same once. When Serkukan first found me, when I first put my hands upon the Relistar. The world was so much different. It felt smaller, more insignificant. I suppose it was, considering Kylinstrom was all invented by you for an experiment. Did you ever get your answer from that?"

  It felt, then, as though Kasian himself vanished. It felt so similar to how it did when he'd convened with Evra so many decades ago. "I did. It was the landmass of Kylinstrom, something about it. I moved it, but the Etherian ley came with it. Kylinstrom was the first place where I stepped foot, as well. Perhaps it was Azafel opening the gateway there, the first Pit hole, which caused Kylinstrom to be forever plagued by such phenomenon."

  "Perhaps." Cedric stood as massive to Kasian's perspective. A true god, in the flesh. No longer did he trust his toys to protect him as they had for so long.

  But neither had he given up.

  Cedric's eyes began to widen beneath his helm. "What is this?"

  Kasian felt the grin stretch across his absent face, that familiar flexion of tight muscles. "What exact vessel do you inhabit, Cedric? Are you a man? Are you capable of superceding this boundary?"

  A rift opened upon their illusory cosmos. Kasian was through the wormhole, sent to the other side before Cedric could even react.

  And that new god did try to chase. But he was unallowed that passage; Kasian had fled his grasp.

  Calamon began to return around him. He reached out desperately. "Evra... Evra!"

  He's escaped my flesh...! I can't planeshift anymore, not like this! Not as an Etherian! But to become a man again is impossible...! Evra, what do I do!?

  Calamon, at least, was safe from his grasp. For a time, for only a moment, Calamon would be impossible to wound by Kasian's hands. But as for how to finish the job...?

  Cedric fell to his knees, watched as the last of the Ordinators cleaned up the mess of Sylvet around him. Hunters had returned en masse, had begun to scrape up the dead and clean the walls of blood. The battle was over. The battle had ended in their favor, even, and yet Cedric felt such an overwhelming dread of loss. For everything he'd attained, Kasian had beaten him in the one place he couldn't reach. And it was only a matter of time before Kasian would return. If he was given the chance, he would come back doubly strong, impossibly fast, greater than any man or god before. Especially considering the abstraction between their timelines, the dissimilarities and contradictions... Cedric knew it was as good as over.

  They'd lost. The most important battle, and they'd failed.

  "I'll go," said that voice from behind him, the one who always had his back. It shook him.

  He hung his head. "No..."

  "Cedric," she said, she demanded, "it's the only way. I'll pass the rift."

  "Without Tirolith?" he hissed through his despair.

  "She won't be able to limit me there."

  "But then..."

  "Evra told me this, Cedric."

  He looked up at her. The sun shone around her, illuminated her beautifully. Faunia Vleren, the Silver Sword. Ally. Friend. Lover.

  "Evra told me to chase him. To kill him. It's my turn to carry out our god's will."

  His eyebrows quivered. But he could not argue with the word of Evra. That was no longer his place. Perhaps it never had been.

  Cedric averted his gaze. He said, "Go." He couldn't even look at her for that final command. An order he was certain she would never return from. "Go, Faunia. End him. Whatever the cost."

  He held up his hand, let her clasp it. He just wanted to feel her touch one last time; he didn't know what object he held within his palm, passed on to her in a move which defied his own will.

  And she stepped forward, past Cedric's lowly knelt position. The air ahead of him looked as natural, as plain as any other air. But as she approached it, it took on a swirling hue. Faunia walked closer, and she vanished into thin air. Just like that, she was through. She'd chased Kasian into the void. Into a foreign realm.

  "FUCK!" Cedric hollered through a shuddering voice, beat his knuckles into the ground as his frenzied tears began to swell and run. "Gods, gods damn it all...!"