She was overwhelmed in an instant.

  Her eyes widened as a shifting tapestry of colours rushed to greet her.

  Her ears perked up as she heard everything beyond the abyss—

  Her nose inhaled the scent of home, a home known yet unknown to her.

  Her tongue tasted the imperceptible air—

  Her feet touched the cold, solid ground.

  Willa opened her eyes and breathed.

  The air was not the crisp mountain air of the Rockies or the myriad scents of the Albertan cities. No, it was as if the air she experienced before was a mere copy. If she let herself relax, Willa thought she would be able to perceive the particles in the air.

  She wasn’t here to relax though. This was no time for folly.

  Willa kept moving forward, possessed of a singular purpose. She heard the ground crumbling behind her as she marched forward. No noise permeated her empty surroundings. All there was the footsteps that came before, herself, and the empty black void beneath.

  The darkened sky looked like a quilt that was fraying at the edges. Bits and pieces broke off and fell into the expanse. She paid no mind to it. As long as she kept moving—

  Eventually, a large portcullis blocked her path. It towered over her, each square hole almost her size. The walls flanking the gate were just as impressive. The black weblike colour gave her pause. It smelled wrong. The brown portcullis didn’t smell as wrong, but it was still there.

  The path behind her had already disappeared. Willa spotted a light blue lever, looked for any suspicious wires or traps, and pulled.

  A deep rumbling came from within—until the portcullis rose haltingly. Once it finally stopped, Willa moved forward, ignoring the pointy spikes at the bottom.

  The interior of the wall was not well lit. Willa could make out the lightless sky behind her, but not much else. The wrong scent was faint here. She retrieved the amulet and slowly opened it. On the radar, no blinking dots appeared. It being the only source of light, she cautiously held it up. There were several arches and what looked like a small lift. Careful to avoid any bricks with the wrong scent, Willa transformed into a dog and made her way to the lift. She bit down on a black lever and pulled it towards her. Within seconds, the ramshackle lift slowly ascended to the top.

  Willa remembered this part from her infrequent visions. She couldn’t remember it being in this much disarray. Along her way to the top, she saw crumbled bricks, sections pulverized into pale powdery dust, and a wrong ball with too many eyes that looked her askance. Willa tried to not make eye contact.

  Eventually, she made it to the end. Willa leaped over the small doors and wandered into the rest of the fort.

  There was a massive gaping hole. Past it, she spotted blackened tendrils glowing against the starless sky. She made sure to avoid the black ooze that spread all over the floor. Everything here smelled wrong. Willa marched forward. Not a single living being greeted her.

  It reminded her of an old farmhouse abandoned during the Calamities that Liza made her visit on Halloween. Seeing all of those battered pots and pans, that teddy bear reduced to fabric and stuffing—chills had run down her spine. Where did everyone go, she asked while quivering in a corner.

  They just abandoned it, was Liza’s reply.

  That seemed to be the case here too.

  Most of the cannons on the walls were irreversibly damaged. Split in half, obliterated into metal—what worried her the most was the edge of the world. She merely glanced at it when she was investigating a ruined pillar—and gaped at the full extent of the damage. Her scattered recollections informed her that the edge was well maintained.

  That was not the case.

  The edge abruptly fractured, pieces slowly falling into the void. The sky was broken, exposing a wide—and growing—hole that slowly consumed the edges of the Gate. Staring into it—

  You can’t look away, Watcher. Resist me, bite me, tear me to pieces, you can’t escape me. All of those eons guarding the Wall—what a waste.

  Willa backed away. What—what was that? The hole rippled and she felt hate-filled eyes sneering at her.

  Why are you here? Deluding yourself with “righteousness”? Never a leader, always obeying whoever held your leash. First the Emperor, now the Unbound. You’re a blind slave at everyone’s mercy.

  Her hackles raised and her teeth bared, she let out a bark before turning away.

  Run, run while you still can! Look at this desolate Gate and despair!

  She growled at her pursuer—-before she bumped into some soft fur. Opening her amulet, she shone a sky blue light at the owner of the fur. A dog-headed man was unconscious and slumped on the floor. Alive, based on his scent. No movement. She quickly transformed into a human and tried to lift him to no avail.

  A small torch was right next to them. Willa grabbed it, managed to light a spark with the black goo on the walls, and advanced forwards.

  He wasn’t the only one unconscious. There were others scattered in the hallway and in between pillars. Some of them still had their armour on. Overlapping scale armour similar to her own reflected the light of her torch. Willa checked her amulet again. There were a lot of flickering terracotta dots, probably the dog-headed guards—and an intense flashing aquamarine dot. In her gut, she knew that they weren’t supposed to be sleeping. They were meant to be guarding the Gate.

  She pressed forward. There was no turning back. The words of the yellow squares echoed in her mind. Overseer. That word meant something.

  She emerged into a section of the wall that had completely collapsed. Mistral streams emitted from a crystalline object in the centre tethered by organic black tendrils. The scent was…calming. Her eyelids were starting to droop. Her hand loosened her grip on the torch. No—it can’t end now, not when the snoozing dog-headed guards were still on her mind. Someone had to wake them. The state of the Gate was so deeply wrong that Willa found enough resistance against the mesmerizing pull. Grabbing her discus, she was prepared to throw it at the pulsating crystal—

  “Willa!”

  Hina!? How did she get here? She inhaled deeply and let the scents flow through her. Sifting past the varied wrong scents, she singled out Hina’s scent near a ruined tower. Giving one last glance back at the glowing crystal, Willa took off. Sprinting across the edge of the wall, she caught a foothold in the ruined tower and scaled it. Just like the mountains with Jenny. She wished she was here with her—

  Or not, she thought, glancing at the hungering chasm at the edge of the world. Her ears perked up, she heard Hina’s low whining. Once she surmounted the edge of the tower, she had to reel back from the strong wrong scent wafting into her nose. Was it because of her hyper-alertness, or is it environmental contamination? The Gate reeked of the wrong scent…but something was moving underneath that black mass. Had Hina somehow snuck into the Door with her and lost her way? It was plausible. The scent was like hers, but something was off. The wrong scent was everywhere…Still, Willa had to exercise caution. She approached slowly, diligently watching her surroundings. From her perspective, most of the wall was covered in a squelchy black biofilm. The sickly yellow sky was starting to disturb her. The gurgling mass was almost near—

  “Hina…Hina why are you here?” She reached out her hand while keeping her discus at her side.

  Hina turned around—and Willa’s eye widened in abject horror. It physically resembled Hina, but no human had eyes placed on the forehead and chin simultaneously. Not in any animal that she knew of either. The nose was too small, the eyes were too large, the hair looked more like a plastic doll than a human—and the mouth had a second row of teeth.

  With ravenous hunger, ‘Hina’ bit down onto Willa’s arm hard as even more dark mass climbed on the tower. Willa tried to wrench her arm away from ‘Hina’, but all it did was leave serrated cuts that dug into her skin. She attempted to claw her way out of the multiplying black gelatinous mass—as the tower collapsed and she and the black mass fell through several floors. Before she could blink, several toothed mouths burst out of the jelly-like body. They took hold of her right leg and dislocated it, one of her ears was torn off, and her left cheek was being gnawed.

  The last sight she saw before being swallowed into darkness was the eldritch sky with its pale sickly colour taunting her…

  She was alone in her mind now.

  Blind slave.

  Her parents taught her to ignore taunts and insults. Those words though—

  Why was she here? Truly. That chat with Jenny on the shores of Waterton, she never wanted to leave. She had always been content with her life, and it was a nice one. She had a steady job, family, a friend…she wouldn’t have jeopardized it for anything.

  She left. Not of her own volition. At the whims of a cold and distant woman, she was whisked away to the British Isles. Anyone would have been mad in her situation. Kidnapped, forced into a coma, fighting undead monsters and mysterious people, never able to talk to her family. She wasn’t obligated to comply—

  And yet…

  In her gut, it was the right choice. All of it. If she hadn’t fought the undead, who knew what could have happened? If she hadn’t been abducted by Ganymede, she wouldn’t have met Hina or Róisín or Mihira or Fia. She wouldn't have been able to help them—

  The Eleventh Gate. It should not be like this. Every brick screamed that it was wrong, and every stone was twisted and mutated into something otherworldly and deeply wrong. The guards were asleep. She remembered Centurion Servius’ words and that of the yellow squares. Her oath…

  “Do you swear to bear a connection to your respective Gate and House and to guard the worlds from that which lies beyond?”

  “We swear.”

  “Do you swear that you both shall discharge the duties you have been given?”

  “We swear.”

  “Do you swear to not interfere with the affairs of the Lower World?”

  “We swear.”

  “Do you swear to be content with your domain and never harbour any covetous desires?”

  “We swear.”

  “Do you swear that you will uphold your respective House and Gate and your attendant domains?”

  “We swear.”

  She was keenly aware of this moment. Submitting at their feet with her bonded partner…feeling the heavy weight of that oath.

  She once lived it.

  She knew everything.

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  The Watcher on the Wall. Oathkeeper, overseer, hunter, scout. All of them—when she took that copper telescope, she was accepting it and the responsibilities it entailed.

  She swore an oath. She had a duty—not just to herself, but to her loved ones and even the world. This was a greater matter than her own desires. Justice needed to be served.

  When the telescope appeared in front of her, she clasped it with a willing smile.

  Amidst a writhing mass, none of the mouths noticed a glowing discus—until the discus started slashing through the “necks” of the mouths.

  It was a slaughter. Throwing the discus across the area, she managed to cut a large swath through the baying mouths. One of the mouths tried to attack her shoulder, but she deflected its bite and decapitated it with the discus. Standing her ground, her ear pricked at the approaching swarm of hungry mouths. Her other ear wasn’t healing, but she ignored it. She had to focus on what’s important.

  A few minutes later, blood splattered but still alive, Willa ascended the top of the tower and searched the wall. The aquamarine crystal—that wretched wrong thing—was gone. It must be the vital core of the creature, its one weakness.

  Unfortunately for it, this was the wrong place to hide something in.

  “Where are you…” Running on pure adrenaline, Willa leapt across the wall and walked along the edge. “You can’t hide from me.”

  Terracotta squares sizzled at her command. She’ll find the being’s core, one way or another. Its body encompassed almost the length of the Wall, but it was only an appendage. At once, she sensed movement on the far left of the walls. Willa pulled out her telescope with whatever fingers she had left and balanced on the nub of her hand.

  “Show me the core of the monster that infests the Eleventh Gate.”

  She was transported to a particularly weakened section of the Wall. The aquamarine crystal was encased behind a large maw. Relative to her position, it was fairly close. She placed her hand on the aquamarine core, creating a pulsing pale yellow mark on the aquamarine crystal.

  Putting away her telescope, she retrieved out her amulet. The mini radar showed a blinking pale yellow dot northwest of her current location. Willa stashed it away before taking off.

  Her legs are starting to work now, and soon she found herself racing along the edge of the wall. The scent was growing stronger now. She tracked its winding trail through a collapsed barrack, underneath a ruined storage area, and past a cracked bronze drum.

  “Found you,” Willa whispered under her breath.

  She transformed into a dog and sniffed the area. The foul stench blanketed the area, but she could not detect anything especially wrong. The core’s power was tempting her to sleep, but she shook it off. Willa could not afford to be lazy, not when the Eleventh Gate relied on her. She quietly sneaked up on the core beneath the jagged teeth of the creature’s mouth—just in time for the maw to shut close.

  She was prepared for it. Willa took out her discus and threw it against the fleshy tendons of the maw. The screams nearly deafened her, but she focused on the task at hand. Transforming back into her human form, she burst out of the maw. The drum smelled familiar…

  They’re at the gates! Signal for help, we’re being overrun!

  If it still worked, she might be able to wake the soldiers. There were mallets on the ground. Tossing the discus at the reconstituted mouth, Willa picked up the mallets and started pounding on the drums.

  “The walls have been breached! Assume your positions! The enemy is in our walls!” she cried out.

  A small mouth protruding from the greater mass bit into her kneecap. Willa gritted her teeth as she kicked the mouth with her free leg before collapsing in pain.

  Banging on the drums with all of her strength, she summoned what residual energy was left in this area. Terracotta energy surged through her veins as she continued to pound, tears flowing from her one undamaged eye.

  “Awake, awake! Heed the call! Light the fires! The Eleventh Gate of Fidelity calls upon the others—” She yelped from the pain in her knees.

  Her voice resonated across the wall, rippling what was left of the sky. Unable to stand up, Willa knew what she had to do. Calling her discus back, she lunged forth at the aquamarine crystal. She squeezed it between her palms, the discus and crystal pulsing wildly. The maw let out a shriek of anguish as the crystal started showing cracks—and then finally fragmented.

  Willa collapsed from the strain—just before she saw an arrow pierce the creature’s mouth and a nearby signal tower being set aflame. The adrenaline was fading fast, she thought. She was struggling to keep her eyes open…her last memory…someone was scooping her up into their arms—

  “Did you wipe off the saliva?”

  “Yes I did.”

  “Good. She should be able to heal now. Status of the Eleventh Gate’s forces?”

  “A hundred scouts have been recovered as cadavers. It appears that the Perils have breached our defenses for an extended period of time.”

  Willa shifted her arm. “Who’s…talking?”

  Her eyelids fluttered. Were her eyes deceiving her, or were there a bunch of dog-headed men surrounding her?

  “She’s awake!”

  “Thank the Emperor!”

  The Emperor? She shifted herself awake and tried to rub her eyes—owwww! She howled from the pain. Did her hand not fully heal?

  “Watcher, your injuries from the Peril have not fully healed. Jiàn, hand me the elixir, and the needles!”

  She felt a small prick and…a warm sensation like springtime had come. She felt her fingers and ear growing back and her eyes started to clear up. When she fully opened her eyes, Willa was shocked to see the terracotta bricks.

  “Xū Gǒu, do you understand what I’m saying?” A golden furred dog headed man knelt in front of her.

  “Yes?” She paused. “Why am I not healing?”

  “The Peril you faced had saliva that significantly retarded your natural healing. There was an exorbitant amount outside and inside your body, so we had to unfortunately remove your armour.”

  Her tail swished. The man’s scent was…comforting, like the walls of a well treasured home. “How bad is it?”

  He held a bronze mirror in front of her—it was getting better. Her face was starting to look like herself again and not—what the mouths ate.

  “Thank you.” Willa frowned. There were three people crowded in this room. Strangers. Nice ones, but still strangers. “...who are you?”

  The man rapidly inhaled through his snout and his tail drooped. “My name is Zhēn, chief secretariat of the Eleventh Gate. On my left is Shí, chief architect of the Wall, and Jiàn, overseer of the Scouts of the Eleventh Gate.” His ears laid low. “You’re not Xū Gǒu. You both have similar scents, but not the same.”

  “I don’t know who that is, but you can call me Willa,” she replied, earning frowns from the three dog-headed men. “What I do remember…are these visions. In one of them, I was at the Border fighting against a bone serpent and then there was an angel with scales?” Jenny was better at explaining things than her.

  “That ‘bone serpent’ was a Peril and the angel was the Lady of the Seventh House. It must have been one of our routine patrols.” Zhēn absentmindedly touched a massive scar over his right eye.

  “Is the Wall supposed to protect us from the…Perils?” She shouldn’t be surprised that they had a collective name.

  “Yes, the Wall Between Worlds is meant to protect the Lower World from Perils like what you’ve faced. We have been charged with the sacred duty of maintaining and patrolling the Border.” Zhēn sighed. “We have never failed in our duty…until now. On behalf of all of us, I deeply apologize for our conduct.”

  “It’s fine. I think that Peril put you all to sleep.” It explained the sleeping guards. She scratched the back of her head. “Is the Eleventh Gate the only Gate or House guarding the Border or—”

  At that moment, a young looking boy with black and white fur burst into the room. “Master Jiàn, I’ve managed to locate the communications room—the Watcher is back!?” He immediately prostrated himself in front of Willa. “I’m sorry I shirked my duty to you and the Eleventh Gate. You may punish me as you see fit—”

  “It’s not your fault.” She was getting overwhelmed over everything. “Just…calm down. Speak slowly.”

  “Understood!” For someone who she assumed to be a teenager, he seemed high strung. “None of the other Gates and Houses responded to the signal, most parts of the Wall have been severely damaged, and this timepiece says that we’ve been asleep for a long time.” He passed the clock to Zhēn.

  Jiàn examined the clock and the air grew more tense. “Thirty three years have passed in the Lower World. This is worse than I had initially thought.”

  “Thirty three years? That’s when the Calamities started.”

  Everyone turned to look at her. The air grew more tense.

  “The…Calamities?” Zhēn started.

  “Massive natural disasters that devastated the world and shattered the natural terrain.”

  The dog men muttered amongst themselves. Finally Shí spoke up.

  “We need to fortify the Eleventh Gate,” he stated.

  Do as you must, not as you will. “I’m coming with you. You’ll need reinforcement from the yellow energy reservoirs, and I can locate them.” She caught the scent of at least eleven of them scattered around the gate.

  “Excellent. I will direct you to your quarters.” Shí opened a bronze door with his russet coloured paw and a torch in the other hand. “This way, if you will.”

  Willa followed him up a series of winding stairs. There were a few steps missing, but she pressed on. Eventually, she found herself in a square room. A threadbare copper coloured blanket marked someone’s sleeping quarters. An armour stand stood next to the blanket. The other object in the room was a massive table with a giant circle surrounding a sphere. Notably, the area marked as VII was glowing pink. The rest were dormant except the place marked 十一 with a brownish glow. In the middle of the sphere was a small space, perfect for her amulet. Willa took it out and inserted it perfectly into the small crevice. The sphere descended and was covered by the pale wood of the table.

  Much to Willa’s surprise, a terracotta terrain overlay was created over the table with a glowing geometric cube. She touched the cube, which bounced.

  “Show me the Wall,” she commanded.

  The overlay changed so that she could see the entire Wall. She winced at the amount of sections rendered critically damaged. Detecting the eleven reservoirs with her nose, she selected their locations on the overlay, each one lighting up sky blue. Willa placed her hand on a small tray that immediately lit up.

  “Transfer of Earth energy: Complete.” A surge coursed through her gut.

  Willa closed her eyes. Shí gave her a knowing look. What was she supposed to do—

  “Take up my oath.”

  The more torn version of herself appeared before her. Willa checked on Shí, who didn’t seem to notice another Willa.

  Turning to the other Willa, she asked. “Why are you helping me?”

  “Because you’ve demonstrated that you’re able to take up the duties of the Eleventh Gate.” A small smile crept onto her face. “Take up my oath. Repeat after me.”

  A revitalizing force filled Willa. “I, Willa Divata, take on the mantle of the Eleventh Gate of Fidelity. I promise that I will stay true to the oath and that I will hunt down any who dare to intrude into the Upper World. I will watch over all, both in the Upper World and the Lower World, without any pretense. My senses will never dull nor wane. I swear on my honour.”

  She slammed her palm against the monitor—and the world came into sharp focus. Willa knew every distinct scent, every sound, every particle of air—and she transferred all of that energy. The walls glimmered with terracotta energy and the sky brightened, revealing a beautiful bright star. The Eveningstar, thought Willa. Strangely, she felt a weird sensation grow from her gut—

  It passed as quickly as it came. She blinked once, twice. Nothing. She couldn’t hear anything in particular.

  The Seven Sisters are the women who raised me from when I was born to who I am now.

  Willa had more than an oath to uphold. She kept her promises.

  “Show me the location of the Pleiades.”

  The map flashed one, two, three times. For a brief moment, Willa spotted six blinking dots, one in Australia, one in Asia, one in the Middle East, two in Europe, another in the United States—before it abruptly cut out.

  “Connection severed.” The map returned to yellow squares.

  Willa tapped it again. Huh? Why didn’t it work? Was the charm that strong? Róisín had mentioned seven sisters—right?

  “Look!” The kid from earlier knocked on the door. “The Border is repairing itself!”

  Willa rushed out of the chamber as quickly as she could. The slim edge of the border was resealing itself as the sky became whole again and a better shade of yellow. She stared in amazement. If her family could see this now—

  “Your uniform changed!”

  Huh? She looked down. Her boots were no longer black, but light brown and—furred. The laces were pale yellow. There were some sky blue cords hanging off of her midsection with tufts of copper coloured fur attached. Out of curiosity, Willa retrieved her helmet—now adorned with a pale yellow plume. This all seemed a bit too elaborate for her…come to think of it, her forearms had a fur lining too.

  “Willa Divata.” Zhēn lightly coughed. “We need to talk about these ‘Calamities’ you mentioned. The timing of them is suspect. Have there been any concerning events in the Lower World?”

  “My family was attacked by undead animals at a local national park. Their eye sockets were empty, but they could glow and seemed to move in unison…” She trailed off once she noticed the look in his eyes.

  “There was a Peril in the Lower World!?”

  “Hina also mentioned that her friend had to face down a storm creature with the wings of a bat and the face of a boar—”

  “There was a second Peril in the Lower World!?”

  Willa remembered Ganymede being incredibly worried over footage from Rome, but decided not to mention it. “If that is what they are called, then yes.”

  Zhēn looked like his remaining eye was about to pop out. “This is concerning. By the directive that Xū Gǒu handed down to us, we are to prevent any Perils from breaching the boundary between the Upper and Lower Worlds. Are you thirty three years old?”

  “No, I’m twenty seven.” The older version of herself had assumed she was thirty three.

  “The Eleventh Gate has been fully fortified thanks to your efforts, but to fully stop the Perils from intruding into the Lower World, we need to find the eldest. They should be thirty three. If we can locate them, we should discover how to stop this incursion.”

  Willa nodded. Everyone she’s met so far were teenagers. She still didn’t know how old Ganymede was, nor did she ever see what Ganymede looked like. Maybe she was hiding her age—

  A pink portal opened up beside Willa, making her jump in the air.

  “The Seventh House must have been reclaimed…” Zhēn put his paw on his chin. “If the Lady beckons for you, she must have found something important.”

  Willa looked at him and at the pink portal. Her partner was on the other side, the girl she healed. An inexorable feeling beckoned to her. She felt someone’s soft lips on her cheek—before the portal immediately began drawing her in.

  For the second time in a month, she was sucked into a portal unwillingly.