The unfeeling prompt appeared in her vision as she opened her eyes and took in the void within the place of her soul for the first time in a long time. She hung there for a moment, listening to the distant claps of thunder and watching the clouds boil this way and that. It was still dark, a red-violet realm of chaos and rage that sizzled with power. Tevya took a breath, feeling air enter her lungs. She wondered if the sensation was a simulation to make herself more comfortable in this transitory body. She was neither alive nor dead in this place. She’d come to understand that very clearly. The body she occupied now was the truest expression of herself. Her soul made manifest.

  “Rani!” Teyva shouted, her voice carrying out across the vastness. “It’s time!’

  A sudden pull against her ankle drew her attention and before she could react she felt herself get tugged down, deeper into the empty space. She couldn’t tell if she fell for seconds or for hours, only that after a heartbeat she felt herself crash against something hard, forcing the air from her lungs. She gasped as light seared against her corneas, blinding her. She reached out to her sides, grasping at her surroundings and felt her fingers wrap around something cold and hard. She coughed, sitting up straight and felt her heart sink into her stomach. It was Rani’s tomb. Had she respawned? No, this wasn’t one of her respawn points. She hadn’t requested a respawn from the system either.

  Teyva looked down at the sarcophagus beneath her, black marble with veins of gold. Whole, unbroken, just as it had been when she’d awakened in Orum. She glanced toward the center of the room, past the lines of columns capped with everburning braziers. No sign of the Tomb Guardian. Her gaze panned past that point, taking in the far door which had been left ajar. Teyva rolled her jaw and slipped out of the sarcophagus, her feet landing on the ground.

  “Hate what you’ve done with the place, Rani,” Teyva said. She made her way to the door and stopped, frowning as something caught her eye. The tomb had been recreated in such detail that even the writing on the walls remained, she hadn’t stopped to read it the first time. “You left your epitaph? Really?” She called out. Still no response. Teyva glanced over her shoulder and then back at the words. As she read she followed the words around the room, reading them slowly. It was more like a poem than anything, each line nine syllables long. As she read, she felt a chill wash over her skin. If only she’d read even half of this damn thing when she was still there in the first place.

  I am Teyva Rani, Queen of Queens

  I am the last of the third-peoples

  In my final moments, I see truth

  I have seen the face of the first-kind

  I know them now, their names and nature

  Orum, the first, silent in vigil

  Cycle, unbending, keeper of laws

  Journey, untouched, artist of ages

  Fate, unloved, destination of souls

  Crucible, unquenched, creator of life

  Pastor, unbound, traveler of realms

  Orum created his five children

  Crucible birthed Titans, second-kind

  The Titans created five races

  Each born in honor of Great Orum

  These new races were called the third-kind

  Labyrinthians within winding halls

  Agapi in the heavens above

  Daemons in the hills and great mountains

  Colossi in the wide open fields

  Monsters to check their prideful kin

  The Agapi became aloof, proud

  The Daemons mastered magic and land

  The Colossi toiled on grand creations

  The Monsters found peace within nature

  The Labyrinthians hid in the depths

  With time, the above was forgotten

  We did not see the Agapi fall

  We did not see the Daemons flee

  We did not see the Colossi die

  We did not know the Monsters at all

  We rediscovered the surface world

  We took it for our own, paradise

  Arrogant, we did as our makers

  We created races to serve us

  The foul Azar who betrayed me first

  The many Humans who never turned

  The elves who chose the hated Azar

  The dwarves who cast us off and hid

  The orcs who were the last race to turn

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  I lay in my tomb and bore witness

  Cycle came to me, offered vengeance

  An endless curse upon the Azar!

  May the humans never give them peace

  There was so much to unpack she didn’t even know where to begin. Yet it wasn’t until she reached the end of the poem that her eyes narrowed. “Cycle came to you,” She murmured, “Cycle is a person, not a function,” She rolled her jaw and looked up to the ceiling. “It was you! You kicked off the Cycle! This is all your fault!” She bellowed. She spun in place and looked into the center of the tomb, “Show yourself damn it! I know you’re here!”

  “After you bound me, I was unable to see through your eyes, experience your life as you lived it,” Rani’s voice came from all directions. “You’ve become uglier, foul, look what you’ve done to my bones. You’ve defiled me. I hate you, Akura.”

  “Feelings mutual! How many generations of people have to die for this grudge of yours? You brought this on yourself! I’ve heard your story from Paraklytus, I know what you did!” Teyva shouted, she tried to use her aspect powers on instinct to have her darkeyes search the place but found that they didn’t work.

  “Paraklytus was a traitor and a fool, I was the future of the Labyrinthians,” The haughty woman laughed.

  “Wrong, I am their future,” Teyva said, “I’ve brought them back as a new race, the Akurai. My children.”

  “You would take that from me too?” The voice snarled, the building shook and chunks of dark marble fell from the ceiling.

  Teyva stepped out of the way, “You’re pathetic! The races your people made were loyal up until you started eating their souls! You can’t blame the Azar for wanting to defend themselves!”

  “The Azar are traitors! All of them are Traitors! The humans don’t even revere me anymore! They are traitors too! I’ll see to their punishment as well once I have taken my body back!” The mad queen howled. An itch tingled on the back of Teyva’s neck and she spun, throwing her arms up in time to block the white-robed Teyva Rani’s attack. The ancient queen shrieked in rage, her face sunken and twisted. She bore her teeth and lunged again, swiping her long nails at Teyva. Teyva took another step back, ducking as she pressed her back against a column. Rani’s unarmed attack took a full chunk of stone out of the structure.

  Teyva blinked, “Woah there, didn’t it take a while for you to build this?” She goaded, “Seems a bit wasteful to tear it up now.”

  “This is your resting place! Not mine!” Rani shrieked her eyes glowing as a mental blast ripped across the space between them. Teyva leaped backward as far as she could, letting the blow carry her away. She slid to a stop, finally gaining some distance on the crazy old woman and checked her arms. No damage. Between her natural willpower score and her resistances, Rani’s attack had been useless. Confused, Rani threw out her hand and snarled. Teyva felt the icy needles of Rani’s presence start to work their way into her skull and body, poking, searching for purchase. With a grunt, Teyva shook it off, forcing Rani back. Rani staggered and Teyva mimicked her gesture, throwing her own hand out and willing her mind in Rani’s direction.

  To her surprise, Rani let out a squeak and grabbed her head, struggling a few steps to the left and shaking her body. Frowning, Teyva marched forward and gripped her hand a little tighter. She could feel Rani’s presence shudder beneath her grip, the ancient queen’s power buckling. Teyva sighed and closed the distance, finally getting her hands around Teyva Rani’s throat. The moment was something sublime, feeling that evil woman’s neck under her fingers. She squeezed and lifted Rani into the air, pressing her back against one of the columns. She shook Rani, “Look at me!” She barked.

  Rani peered down at her, choking beneath Teyva’s will, “Did you think this was going to be some epic final confrontation? That we were going to have a duel for the ages here? That you were going to crush me at my strongest or something? You had a vision in mind for today, you even set it up so that my last moments would be in the same sarcophagus I woke up in, isn’t that right?” Teyva hissed, “Did you think I wouldn’t be ready for you? That I wouldn’t prepare for you? That I wouldn’t look for a cure? Do you think I’m stupid or something?”

  Rani squawked, unable to speak under Tevya’s grip, “No, I don’t care. I really, really don’t,” Teyva sighed, “See the thing is, one, I’m in a hurry, and two…” She paused, “You have been the one thing as far as my own self is concerned, that I have been afraid of. The only thing in this world that scares me is losing to you. Do you not get that? You are my obstacle, my wall, my personal terror, and now not only are you trying to take my body but you are between me and protecting the people that I love. You are so self-absorbed you think that just by putting on a little show and psyching me out you can win? Are you really that arrogant?”

  Rani thrashed and Teyva squeezed harder, pouring her will in Rani’s direction. She used everything she knew about mana manipulation and applied it to her willpower, to her influence on this world-her world. “Honestly? Before I read your epitaph I would have been okay with just letting you bow out. Move on. Die in peace or something, I really didn’t care what happened to your soul after this. But you want immortality that badly, don’t you?”

  Rani’s movements slowed a little, her eyes widening, fear registering, “Rani, I’m going to take it from you. I am going to pulverize your soul until nothing is left but dust. I won’t consume you, no, you’ll get to live on in me that way. I won’t let you move on to the afterlife. I am going to erase you, permanently.”

  Rani squawked beneath Teyva’s grip and she began to thrash even more wildly. Teyva reared back and pulled Rani away from the wall before smashing her into the ground. She kicked the ancient queen in the ribs before driving her elbow down into her chest. She pulled herself up and straddled the woman, drawing her fists back and bringing them down onto the ancient being's face over and over. Each blow caused a little of Rani’s flesh to glitter and tear. A little bit of it flaking away and dissolving. Teyva rained blows down on the woman who had haunted her waking moments and sleepless nights. The being who had been her endless phobia.

  “When you’re gone, I’ll have nothing holding me back!” Teyva roared, “Nothing stopping me! Nothing to restrain my mind and cloud my judgment! You’ve been playing little games in my head long enough! I had to struggle to get control back! To stop panicking to stop fearing to stop throwing myself recklessly at danger! You planned it all! I know it! I was never that stupid, never that reckless, never that out of control! You took my mind from me and I am going to take everything from you!”

  Rani’s voice broke through the rain of blows, small, weak, pathetic compared to when she’d first spoke down to Teyva so long ago, “Please! I don’t want it! Let me at least move on! Be reborn someday!” She begged.

  Teyva raised her fist and grabbed Rani by the throat, “No.’

  With every ounce of will and hatred she had, she shoved her fist straight through Teyva Rani’s skull. There was a shriek of pain, fear, and regret followed only by crushing silence. Teyva let her arms fall limp to her sides, even in this false place where her own body’s endurance shouldn’t mean a thing she felt heavy and tired. The moment of triumph not quite sinking in. As she panted on the floor of Rani’s tomb, a faint tone sounded through the world followed by a voice she wasn’t familiar with. She’d heard voices come from the prompts before when she was in the place of the soul. Two of them, if she recalled correctly. One was angry and masculine and the other was demure and feminine. She wondered why she hadn’t remembered that information until now. Either way, this new voice was feminine but far more stern.

  Teyva scoffed, “Not that one and you know it!”

  “Not your call,” Teyva snapped, “She started something that has caused endless suffering in Orum, no amount of punishment was enough.”

  “I made my decision.”

  “What are you going to do about it?” Teyva demanded, “Who do you think you are?”

  Teyva hopped to her feet, “What the hell are you saying?” She spun, trying to find the source of the voice, “No! Don’t you dare leave!” She bellowed, “I’m supposed to respawn at the Underfield! Respawn me there, damn you! You don’t have the right to-”