Ivalié choked on the dust surrounding him only as it was finally cleared from his vision. His eyes soon opened upon a new scene entirely:

  A dark dungeon cell. A place bereft almost entirely of light, save for the dim flickering of an out-of-sight candle which flitted through the bars.

  His eyes darted left and right between the rusty manacles strapped to the walls on either side of the stone box.

  Then, I'm still alive.

  “Ha-ck!” wracked a loathsome cough from just beside him.

  He spun, felt manacles pull taut around his own wrists to his surprise. “Me too?”

  But his own perplexity grew to a new height when he saw the beaten and downtrodden man stuck to the wall beside him—a man with dirty, long dark hair, and big eyes like those of an insect.

  “Jirtu! It—it worked, then! I found a way to you, I'm here to help—!”

  “No, you fucking idiot…” wheezed the mage. “You're trapped, the same as me… For us who venture the planes, there is only one fate…”

  “One fate?”

  There came a glint of silvery light from beyond the chamber’s bars.

  Jirtu sneered through the blood and dirt smattered across his face. “They're to the Collective as arbiters are to our realm—if one of us steps too far out of line… it comes to a decision between which side of the mirror we're bound to.”

  “What in the hells are you rambling about?”

  A new voice, smooth and unerring, croaked through the air: “Ah… a friend has arrived.”

  Ivalié craned his neck painfully toward the bars, feeling the stiffness of his slumber suddenly throughout his body. “Who the—”

  “Don't speak to him!” warned Jirtu. “He collects information… when you…” The mage’s head sank low.

  Then appeared the figure at the bars: a man in silvery robes covered in celestial sigils and constellations… a man with a mirror in place of his head.

  “Who are you?” Ivalié asked, though wary.

  “I have gone by many names, Ivalié… You may call me…”

  A pause. A shift in the atmosphere.

  Is it the ley changing?

  “You may call me Ivalié, same as yourself.”

  Unfortunately for Jirtu’s warning, it's unlike a mage to relent in the face of danger. But I appreciate the sentiment.

  The mage began hesitantly, “But you're not Ivalié—you're not me. Do you even know my surname?”

  The mage seemed to think. The air shifted again. Ivalié moved his hands behind his back in an attempt to capture the trace of the ley but found nothing.

  “You don't know anything about me, do you? Where I grew up, the names of my parents? The name of…”

  “Liara—that girl we're so fond of?”

  I see. Is he just a simple mind reader? No great secret to that sort of magic.

  But when the mirror magus didn't seem to move in reaction to his thoughts, Ivalié almost second guessed himself.

  I'd best not speak, in case that's how he siphons the information he needs. Perhaps that was Jirtu’s folly?

  “You're not going to clam up on me now, are you?”

  Ivalié didn't answer.

  “I'd be careful of a strategy like that.”

  The mage lifted his eyes to meet the mirror—the figure had stepped beyond the bars somehow, was approaching at a leisurely pace.

  Ivalié slid up the wall as much as he could, pressed his back into it as though he could slip through the cracks.

  But the mirror drew nearer and nearer. “Take a look, Ivalié. Tell me what you see.”

  His eyes lit up as his whole face became wrapped in a mask of terror. “I see… I see everything that's wrong! I see the opposite of myself, I see the horrors that I caused by my meddling! Liara’s fate, it was my fault! And I see the blood of a dying world, I see Caloria weaponized as Kasian’s weapon, a vehicle which I aided in the construction of! I see… I see…!”

  His breath ran out. His head fell limp, though his eyes were still locked tightly on the eyes floating where once there was a mirror. Just as quickly, the mirror man had assumed Ivalié’s own visage. He grinned with that sickening grin which had been visible in the portal just moments ago, the horrible smile of a man who'd destroyed the world with only chaos his intent. “I'm glad we reached an understanding, Ivalié. For trespassing beyond the plane of your birth, this is to be your punishment: slavery beyond death, while a faux version of yourself dies in the plane. And to think of all the things you could have accomplished had you just stayed put.”

  When the new Ivalié walked to the cage, he had to open the cell door to escape, locked it tightly shut behind him.

  “So long, imposter.”

  Ivalié kept his head hung in shame. The mirror magus fled in his new form.

  Then Jirtu croaked again: “He takes our form… He wants to die… They all…”

  “Immortal creatures, deceivers…” wallowed Ivalié. “All they want is a passage to silent eternity.”

  “And we've both given it to them…”

  The silence befell them. Introspection crept in before the next words broke the stiff air.

  “This is how you've spent your days, Jirtu?”

  “More or less…” He hacked up something slimy and vile, spit it out into the moldy ground between them. “In between better and worse.”

  “But by the measure that you're still here, I take it you haven't found an easy way out.”

  He shook his head. “There is no way out. The ley is too quiet here, we're between the planes… All we can do is… wait. Forever.”

  Ivalié’s face became sardonically peaceful. “At least we have each other's company.”

  “Oh, joy…” Jirtu sneered, only half in jest.

  Ivalié took stock of his meager possessions, then: he still wore his robes, he still had his raggedy beard in place…

  And only then did he realize that the dimly glowing Godstone was still tightly squeezed into his palm.

  “Say, Jirtu… If I had a way to access the ley, would you be agreeable to a collaboration?”

  Jirtu’s stiff neck could barely crane to see Ivalié in the darkness. Then his lips just barely formed a smirk when he saw the glowing bulb. “A Godstone…?”

  “You know about these?”

  “They're from Kasian’s home plane… The ley died out from Azafel’s interference, but magic cannot be without vessel—these were the consequence. Azafel must surely be on trial now, for all the planes he's incinerated.”

  “I've always suspected you knew more than you revealed… Why the secrecy?”

  “There's nobody worth trusting in our world. Trust gets you here, forever, in every context.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Perhaps. But it's better to trust and be betrayed, in my view. It shows more character than you've ever portrayed.”

  “Are we bickering, even now? Ivalié—what is more terrifying than loving somebody more than they love you?”

  “Wh…?”

  Jirtu began to his feet, but something caught him, held him fast against the wall. “My skin, it's…”

  Ivalié could see the fat stretching from where Jirtu’s back had fused to the wall. They both grimaced, and Ivalié was immediate in his response. The white-robed mage hoisted himself forward and his shackles burst in a glint of blue light, sprinkled metal shrapnel down like dandruff from his wrists. The Godstone yet worked—all was not lost.

  Then a shuffling came from beyond the cage. Ivalié lunged for Jirtu’s side, ran the glowing crystal up against his back in a straight, surgical line. Just like that, the loose flesh was severed. Jirtu fell slack, held only by his cuffs which soon burst in a similar glinting.

  “Something stirring within?” came the voice at the bars.

  Ivalié’s horror-filled gaze fell upon his own face, a sinister glare of putrescent malice unfit for the skin it rested upon. An inhuman evil.

  “I hope you've got a plan beyond this far…” Jirtu gagged.

  Ivalié held the small bulb aloft. “Begone, demon! We're headed back to our plane, you can't stop us!”

  “Are you so sure?”

  The hiss of the demon’s voice made his hairs stand on end. It was all too reminiscent of that other one—too close to how Algirak had sounded, when his incorporeal voice would ride the crashing tides of the black ocean or the bellowing of dying animals in the woods around.

  Algirak. Are they one in the same, these creatures?

  The doppelganger was beyond the bars, closing in swiftly.

  Jirtu took his own turn to lunge, then, ripped the Godstone from Ivalié’s hand, and thrust it up over his head. “Planes… Planes take us!”

  And there went that sickening feeling, that feeling that was growing all-too-familiar.

  When Ivalié’s eyes opened again, he was gasping for air.

  Jirtu clasped his hand tight, yanked him back to a standing position. “Come on!”

  And then they were sprinting down a narrow corridor, walls made of collapsing sands—stones and rocks were falling all around.

  A tunnel? Or a collapsing dimension?

  Jirtu asked, “What about Okella? Where did she end up?”

  “Was she lost to the planes, too? Dammit!”

  They turned the corner and stopped fast—there was that Mirror Magus again, no longer masqueraded behind the visage of Ivalié’s own face.

  Jirtu brought the Godstone up in both of his hands, hoisted it right for the mirror itself. He howled out with desperate venom as the glow of the bulb ramped up to intensities Ivalié hadn't even considered possible.

  The mirror exploded, shattered into millions of pieces. The robe fell flat upon the ground, no body within to hold it up.

  “Come on,” spat Jirtu, “there'll be more.”

  “More?”

  They were sprinting again—but not before Ivalié fell low to scoop up one shard of the mirror, one thing he could study if ever they returned to Caloria.

  “They claim there's only one, but it's a falsehood. There's an infinite number of these creatures, all waiting to die!”

  Then Jirtu swept the crystal in a downward motion as the realm continued its collapse all around them, severed a bright gateway into the wall.

  “Where are we going?” Ivalié begged.

  “We're going after Okella!”

  Just like that, they were through. Just like that, Ivalié was falling through the sky, Jirtu plummeting just ahead of him, over the verdant green jungle below.

  “Where are we!?”

  Jirtu grit his teeth as he spun and thrust out his hands toward the distant ground, magically slowing their momentum. “The last plane her ley reached!”

  Ivalié wasn't sure whether to be thankful or horribly afraid of the campfire which sat between them when night fell—it hadn't been long since sunburn had wracked his skin and truly demonstrated a definition of suffering. “How long have we been in the planes?”

  Jirtu, with an oversized cricket being cooked upon a stick in his hands, didn't look up. “Our plane doesn't match our plane’s time.”

  “I know that.”

  “So it's a foolish question.”

  “But how long has it actually been?”

  Then, Jirtu scanned him. “Judging only by the length of your beard, it's been years.”

  “Years?”

  “Our bodies continue to grow in alternate planes. We're still subject to the nature of our design. Of God's design.”

  Ivalié didn't have an answer to that. He wasn't sure he even believed in the Reincarnation theory, the Hierarchy of Fates, or the Outer God. Azafel and Evra were real, that was true. As far as everything else? A mystery. If it wasn't possible to know, why bother?

  But then, a mage has to wonder. Doesn't he?

  “Your hairs are greying too, Ivalié.” said Jirtu, looking down at the flames. “Mine have been greyed for a while.”

  Though the hood covering Jirtu’s head concealed any trace of hair, Ivalié believed him with fervent confidence. The once black-robed magi had been a playful, devious spirit, one who appeared always bereft of fear or anxiety… but that facade only carries one so far.

  “We live in stressful times. All hangs in the balance.”

  “Yes, so much so that you could be accused of understating it.”

  “...Are we on Kogar's side? Or Rykaedi’s side?”

  Jirtu glared up from the fire. “We're on our own side, each and every one of us. This is a game of survival, attainment. This isn't for the faint of heart, nor is it for cattle who make plans without true will. Tell me, Ivalié, what ever did you want?”

  “I wanted…” Liara.

  But you couldn't have her. The fool of unrequited love.

  Something moved in the wilderness beyond their campsite.

  I joined the Hunters in pursuit of her. I wanted her to see me as a man—I wanted her to see that Rykaedi was only a nightmare. I wanted her to believe that I was stronger—that we were stronger, together. After all of that…

  Staring at the dark of the jungle around them, Ivalié felt calm. He didn't fear what approached from the wilderness, it felt more like a distant dream than a reality. He felt like he was already asleep, moving in slow motion as he rose to his feet.

  And as he rose, he remembered when he donned the Hunters’ mantle. He remembered meeting Akvum in Calamon for the first time, meeting the Twelve before Rykaedi discarded half of them. He remembered donning his white robes for the first time, donning the silver crown of Freiya’kara’s leader for his crowning ceremony. But the one thought that really stuck to his mind like wet glue in that hazy moment was the day when he set off from Calamon toward the west—the day he vowed to find Liara, wherever she'd been carried off to in the Kylinstrom region.

  Akvum had told him about Rykaedi, though Ivalié had already known. He'd put in years of research since Liara’s abduction, learning all that he possibly could about the Witch Queen. When Akvum granted Ivalié the power of Ithlo’vatis, his knowledge of her expanded beyond reason.

  And then he found her.

  And now, in the jungle of a foreign plane, he swore it was her approaching from the darkness ahead. Like a nightmare, like he couldn't move, like his body was made of lead. “Jirtu…” he mumbled as he twisted his aching neck. His chest panged with discomfort, like gas had built up… or like a heart attack.

  “Jirtu—” he repeated. His eyes found that where once there had been a brown robe, now there was one in silver. Where once Jirtu’s sneering, sardonic gaze had been… he was looking at himself.

  “Jirtu!”

  He tried to crane his head back toward the siren in the woods, but he was stiff, unable to do anything but stare at the Mirror Magus as he rose slowly from his spot beside the fire.

  He saw his own reflection smile.

  “Caught you.”

  Elos took deep, heavy breaths at the edge of a collapsing moon. The ground was sandy gray, crumbling into dust with every step. “That's impossible…”

  His sweat-slick body was thinned down, his skin stuck tightly to his bones. His face was gaunt, though still beardless. He'd been traveling for weeks, maybe even months—he'd already lost count. He'd just kept walking, ever since he'd found Okella, the girl who he still hugged by the throat within the inside of his elbow. She gagged and choked as his grip tightened. “That's…”

  “What?”

  “That's the way out…” she barely managed to say, pointing a shaking finger over the precipice.

  Where he stood on the cratered terrain… he was above a massive, swirling void. The edge of the world. And now Okella was telling him that jumping was the only way back to Calamon.

  “Are you daft?” he asked her.

  She shook her head, her hair brushed uncomfortably against his chest. “The Deadworld…” she drooled, unable to swallow. “It's between… All realms.”

  “We're not allowed the Deadworld. Neither of us are.”

  She shook get head again. Elos dropped her to the ground, where she lay sputtering and choking for minutes. When she finally recouped some strength, wiped her own saliva away, she said, “We'll bounce off. You'll have to trust me.”

  “And if you're lying to me?”

  She grinned up at him, the expression lifeless and unkind, so far from the Okella she once had been. “Then we both die.”

  His eyes narrowed.

  “Unless you'd rather trek bath through this dying realm?”

  That wasn't an option. They both knew that. He wouldn't survive for even another day—his legs were shaking beneath him. His arms were losing even the strength to hold the girl. He looked up at the glowing cosmos above in search of answers.

  “Very well,” he scoffed beneath his breath. “You first.”

  And he kicked Okella in the face as hard as he could manage, knocked her spinning off the edge of the world.

  A few seconds after, when he couldn't see her falling anymore… He threw himself in right after her.