He was going to die.

The Shadowstalker was close, of that he was certain, although where it was exactly he had no idea. It could be behind, in front, to his left, to his right, above—he just didn’t know. Should he run? He’d never outrun it, but perhaps it was better to die trying rather than waiting for that terrible maw to envelop him. Maybe it would be better to let it take him that way. Perhaps it would be over so fast he wouldn’t even know he had died. But he didn’t want to die. He had dreamed of one day fighting back the corruption, helping cleanse Kwinelyn of the Dawn-Shatterer and being hailed as a hero. That wasn’t going to happen now.

Something snarled wickedly, and he nocked an arrow, rolling out from the cover of the tree he was standing under and letting loose. The Nightleaper whined as it fell to the ground, pawing before going limp. He cursed, beginning to run. Now, its gaze coiled around him, like a snake that had begun to constrict, squeezing ever tighter. He prayed to the Crystal Grove, to Jisaiyer, to any god that would hear. Even the Sly One. He only wanted to live. He wanted to experience love, to know glory and to defend his people. He wanted to die a hero, not a coward running for his life. He screamed, knowing it would attack soon, knowing it was useless. The air shifted behind him, and he knew it had taken flight. Any moment consciousness would be snapped and his body would be devoured, shredded by those terrible fangs.

Please, he begged.

I don’t want to die.

Pain flashed on his cheek, a gale howling as a glimmer in the forest appeared ahead, then shot past him. The Shadowstalker rent the air with a cry of pain and rage before he felt the ground shake as it crashed to the earth, and he willed his body to move faster than it ever had, his eyes blinded by tears as he dashed forward. He nearly bowled over someone in his panic, but they caught him by his shoulders in a firm grip, and he looked up, recognizing them with shock.

“Lord Elarome!” he said, moving to bow before remembering where he was. The elven lord let the flicker of a smile play on his lips before his eyes went hard, his face focused intently upon the Shadowstalker.

“Make your way back to the city. The defenses have already been set. We’ve a long day ahead of us, but we will not fail. I will not cede one more inch to the fiends of the Abyss.”

Jalyndar was shocked, looking up at the lord. Elarome was famed for his wisdom, his caution, his deliberation and foresight. Yet now, he seemed ready to ride out on the Dawn-Shatterer himself. “Yes, my lord. Crystal Grove watch over you,” he said, turning back to look at the Shadowstalker finally, seeing it rise shakily, snarling low, though its eyes focused warily on Elarome.

“And on you, my son,” said the Lord of Morning, unsheathing a long, gleaming sword and walking forward.

The hall around him was cold, and he wished he had his sweater. He stuck his hands in his pockets, and he was surprised to realize he even had pockets. He had begun to miss some of his earthly effects. His phone, his wallet, his keys. He used to like killing time and boredom by fiddling with them. He wasn’t a mobile gamer. That was...distasteful. Almost like playing consoles, although with the prominence of exclusive titles, he was relaxing his viewpoint upon that. Still, PC gaming was the superior medium. Any that argued otherwise was simply wrong. Pevarin stood opposite him, his normal attire of a stereotypical woodland elf gone, wearing loose cloth clothing and brown trousers. The hall was large, empty, ending in the chamber they stood in now, a large circular room meant for exactly what they were doing now.

“Now that you have magic, you must be taught. You have managed well, thus far, but you have only tapped the surface of what you are capable of.” Pevarin said, arms folded.

“That’s what you wanted to talk about?” said Zach, irritated. He could figure out how best to use his magic on his own. He already had a good idea of the playstyle he wanted to commit to. “Not about, I don’t know, how about you tried to deliver me straight to Lucinder? Wanna elaborate on that at all? Or how you’ve treated me like shit for the entire last month?” he continued, trying not to let his voice rise, unsuccessfully. He was a chill guy. He enjoyed banter, laughing with the boys, talking shit, all of that.

However, there was one thing that not many people understood. Something that, when people looked at him, they laughed off, saying, “No way.”

He had a very fucking short temper.

“You could have been teaching me this whole time. Telling me useful information. Helping. Instead you sat there every day, brooding, as you walked me towards my death,” he yelled. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The elf lord simply stood there, staring back at him as Zach panted angrily. “I will tell you, but first-”

“Nah. Nah, none of that shit. ‘Cause I don’t know if any second the sky might fall in, the ground might open up and swallow us whole—some kind of random event. Now. You tell me now.”

The elf was obviously displeased by his retort, but Zach didn’t care. It was becoming easier and easier for him to not care, he realized. He had faked caring and feigning politeness for the sake of it for so long, because he had felt that he needed to. Now that he was coming to terms with actually respecting himself, he just...man, fuck everyone else. “Alright. You wish to know why I conspired with Gloomfire, then?”

Zach nodded his head impatiently.

“Fine. There was an idea,” said Pevarin, pausing. He resisted the urge to call him Nick Fury, even in the heat of the moment, “a gamble that only I could make.”

“And...you couldn’t explain this to any of us? Over four weeks?” he asked. Now that he had a bit more background on everything, he thought he understood where this was going.

“I was not sure if I was going to go through with it. I had many doubts as to whether I could negotiate safe passage for us. It was only by making contact with the dragon that I was able to do so.”

“And your gamble?” he asked, quite sure that he knew what it was, the details tying themselves together in his mind.

“I know Lucinder, personally. I know all of the Emperor’s generals, his inner circle. They fear him, as much as they respect him.”

“You wanted to turn the entire United Empire against the Emperor,” he said, thankful they weren’t any place where wind could reach them, though he felt a distinct sense of unease, “starting with, and only possible with the generals. It’s...not the worst plan, but yeah, that’s giga risky.”

Pevarin nodded, “Lucinder is...more amenable than the others. Naturally, due to his distance and lack of communication with his master, and for other reasons.”

“Like what?”

“Do we truly need to speak of this?” the elf said impatiently, “That was my plan. It failed. I was wrong to gamble on our lives so recklessly, this is I admit freely. I did not know the extent of your powers, nor did I trust you.”

“And do you trust me now?” he asked, “You can’t honestly think that I could or would end up like your Emperor. Have you seen me? I mean, really, have you not seen me?”

“I don’t know you,” he said, shrugging his shoulders, “and I knew the Emperor far, far longer than I did you. We were close, and I could not foresee his betrayal. Can you truly hold it against me to be suspicious of you?”

When he put it like that, it did make sense, but it still felt unfair. Especially given that elves did not perceive time in the same way. He could live his entire life here in Peratha, die, and still not be believed innocent. “Fine. Whatever. For now, I’ll take it. We’ll have a longer discussion about this with everyone later, however. What do you have to show me?”

“You speak as if elven magic is some cheap trick.” Pevarin held up four fingers, “I can count on one hand how little of your kind can wield magic on the level of elven magi.”

Well, there was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-[redacted] and Selara. Last time he checked, one plus one was two. “So, who are the other two?”

“The difference between your kind and mine is simple,” said Pevarin, lowering all of his fingers except one. Long fuckin’ ears? “An understanding that the world is not yours.”

“Ouch, that really stings. Or, you know, it would if this was my world. I’m an Etelendi,” he said, placing the elven husk into the words, “remember?”

Pevarin shook his head. “You jest, but tell me, Zachary—do you believe that the arcane power you wield is truly your own? I watched the way you fought. You used it as an extension of yourself.”

Zach frowned. Wasn’t that the optimal way to do it? “What do you mean?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Even the greatest magi of your kind could not comprehend what I now tell you. Only those we taught originally were able to grasp this, though they failed to pass on our teachings properly.”

An unskippable cutscene. Great. He let Pevarin’s dramatic silence linger.

“Open your eyes to the arcane plane.”

Blinking, he pulled on whatever abstraction that gave him access to the unseen realm, the white flames of arcane nodules like coordinates upon the ley-lines stretching into the distance.

“What you see before you, Zachary, is the fabric of space and time. Beneath, overlaid, and around. Consider the full weight of my meaning. Where you stand now has suffered millennia of weathering, shifting—change. It is unrecognizable from what it once was. Yet, with the arcane within you, the picture before you is that of creation itself. From the instant this world sprang into existence until now, it has remained so. And this is the power from which you draw on. Not from the world around you, but of the world around you. Magic is a poor word indeed to describe this, no? Arcane is closer, yet still missing the core of what that power is.”

“A stream of the quintessence,” he said quietly, his earlier frustration slipping away. His hand stretched out unconsciously towards the ethereal aeons. It was true. Inherently, he knew it to be so. This time, he tried to access the fire differently. He sought not to create fire, but to draw directly from that sliver of eternity. This time, he would not create. There was no need. Zach could see it, and though the fathom of its making was incomprehensible, there was a comfort about it. In knowing that he need not understand it. Centillions upon centillions of atoms smashing upon each other, oscillating with such speed that the function of their movement shattered stars and formed galaxies. From without, he peered through the tesseract. A dimension unknown, he did not let it flow through him.

For it had always been. He merely opened his eyes to behold its being.

Heat. For an instant, he wondered if in his arrogance he had doomed them all, but his worry was ill-placed. The flames roared for a moment before sputtering in his hand weakly. Zach realized he was no longer looking into the dimension of creation, and his eyes rose to meet Pevarin’s.

For the first time since Zach had known him, the elf’s eyes bore wonder.