“You have been bathed in celestial energy. It is no wonder that you feel different,” said the gruff Sister Alharrow as she sniffed at the air a little before busying herself with her potions and ointments.

  Finn and Esther Callahan sat in the Lycan’s small hut on the edge of Blackwood. The shapeshifter had a proper house in the central district, of course, but she also preferred to have this wooden hut for when she ‘needed to get away and clear her head a bit.’

  It was to this place that she had brought Finn and Esther as soon as they had arrived back in Blackwood, stumbling through the portal along with the others to collapse in a heap in the town square.

  Sister Alharrow had apparently been looking out for them and snatched them up before Goreth’s guards could.

  “How many days has it been?” Finn asked wearily, his body feeling new and strange. He looked the same as he had, but he was aware of a burning inner power now. When he checked his celestial inventory, there were some very interesting new arrivals.

  His experience had shot up, and he now had several new Fire Path abilities, but it wasn’t just that. It was the sense of power that ran through his system, underneath his skin, that felt the strangest.

  “How it didn’t kill you, I have no idea,” Finn murmured to Esther, seated quietly beside the fire and gazing pensively into the flames.

  “I think you took the brunt of the explosion,” she said a moment later.

  Sister Alharrow murmured in agreement.

  “I think because you were already on the Fire Path, the shards of the Asai’s power recognized you and bonded with you. That’s my theory. That is why the energy did nothing to Tobias and Rosa,” she said, nodding to the open door that looked out over the small garden where the other Defenders were resting.

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  “Nothing that we know of yet,” Finn said darkly.

  He didn’t know what had happened, but he knew that it happened to Sesuuk as well. His old patron had also been bathed in the celestial energy, and when Finn had woken, his patron was gone.

  I have no listed patron now, he thought. He knew that the Lamakai of Blackwood would probably also leave, unless he could make a convincing case why they should elect a new prophet and stay.

  Things were changing for Blackwood, and Finn felt like he barely understood the games of celestial ascension at all.

  “But the Asai of Fire himself… Does this mean he is…destroyed?” Finn murmured.

  Sister Alharrow turned from the fire with two steaming cups of broth, which she handed to each of them. “Perhaps, but he is probably only weakened. He was certainly infected by the Qlippothi, being influenced by it, perhaps through his prism.”

  “As was Time?” Finn wondered out loud.

  Right now, however, they had to face what might happen to them, to Blackwood. Mayor Laurie Marr had promised justice for the murder of the two guards, and Esther said that she would face it.

  As if sensing her inward conflict, Finn reached out to gently touch her on the shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault. You were attacked by the blue assassin. Laurie will understand that,” he said firmly.

  “Will she understand that I can control my powers now?” Esther said, raising her hand for a single green flame of qlippothic energy to appear over it and vanish when she closed her hand a moment later.

  Yes, Esther had changed too.

  Finn didn’t know the answer to that question, just like he didn’t know the answer to what was going on. He had declared a rebellion against the Celestial Engines themselves, and there were people flocking to Blackwood and Malvas from all over the New Zone.

  Sister Alharrow looked at them both seated by the fire and chuckled. “Well, all I know is this, Finn of Blackwood, Beast-Slayer, Troll-Slayer, Realm Founder, Patron of Malvas… You are both stronger than you ever were before. You have started something, and the Asai will fear you.”

  He had started something. He had started a revolution.