My legs bring me to another room. I am so very tired. I have not rested since the Das’en’uei. There is a large crystal hanging in the air, suspended either by some esoteric means or by something I can’t see in the dark. There’s a heartbeat in the room. One that isn’t my own. I can feel it in the walls. It feels… tortured. I put my hand up to bring Light into the room, but all I receive is the briefest of sparks. Still, I see something.

In the centre of the room, a large wooden pole is planted in the ground. A small figure is attached to it with a thick rope that is tied around several times. It’s so thin it looks corpse-like, with a large head and short and thin arms and legs. Spines line the sunken chest, tiny little ridged bones. It lifts its head and I can almost feel the bones creak. I walk over, removing myself of the safety and stability of the wall in order to get a closer look. Large eye sockets that once held eyes now hold dried orbs of weak flesh. It opens its mouth and feel air blow onto my face. It is… screaming. Wordlessly. Silently. Its hand moves, gnarled fingers moving for the first time in ages — point to the crystal that hovers above it. It manages to utter one word.

“Destroy.” It begs. A single wold gives way to aeons of torment. I feel it lap around my mind, something probing for weakness. But it is not I who is weak. These tendrils of mind poke at me, but they do little. They are too weak. I look up at the crystal. I do not know if I should… but I do. I Conjure the very last of my Light into the smallest spike I have ever created, and then I throw it up, the Hardlight burying itself into the base of the crystal. Instantly, the creature lets out the smallest of sighs. “Relief.” It utters. “Thank you.”

“Who are you?” I ask, then look at the strange skin. “What are you?”

“Punishment. Enemy. Voidorne… traveller.” It chokes out, then seems to enter into a silent coughing fit. I pull out my canteen, lifting it up to the creature’s mouth. A curiosity burns in me. It takes, drinking the water as though it is the first it has had in centuries. I’m not sure that isn’t the case.

“Thank… you.” It says. “I have not drank in… many years.”

“You are Voidorne? Why are you here? Voidor is on the opposite side of the world.” I say, recalling the small bits of knowledge Mother had taught me.

“I found something for the human champion. Something he needed. It was… special. The Voidorne are best for that. I found it. I was rewarded. The Academia of Voidora was boring. I sought more. He offered me… an exotic magic. Something that would use my intellect. My mind could be a weapon. You must have felt it.”

“You were the one? The things that touched my mind?”

“Weak. So very weak. So very stupid. Psionism. Powerful. I loved it… then I hated it. I realised that I could not sever my connection with the Atacchnai. I shared senses with them. I was used. The Sorcerer-King did something. He made my mind fill with pain. He made the connection stronger. It sent the Atacchnai mad. It was punishment. For them, for his defeat. For me, because I had knowledge of the things he had me find. I do not even know how long it has been.”

I look him up and down. “You are… barely skin and bones. How are you alive?”

He lets out a strange noise; something inbetween a growl and a laugh. “The marking… on my chest.” He says, and I look at it. Faint red lines weaved together, carved deep into his flesh. “A Pact. The Magic of the Skorodae. Most Magic requires Power, your ’Lightblading’ has Power as a base source. You use Power to trap Light inside you. Haemomancy… uses pure essence that is released when something dies. Death. A Pact of Immortality was carved into my chest. The Sorcerer-King’s work. You humans kill each other every year. It sustains my life, as does those that starve outside. I still feel the knife carving through my flesh when I fall into tormented sleep. Even now it is not over. That was not the only source of my pain.”

His eyeless sockets look at me. “I need you to kill me.”

I shake my head. “I am not sure that I should. Whatever reason the Sorcerer-King had, I will not undermine his actions.”

He almost seems to giggle. “You do not have a choice.”

My arm seizes upwards, out of my control. My feet stagger towards the Voidorne. “What is-“ I say, but then my jaw slams shut, catching my tongue and making me grunt in pain.

“I am sorry, but I cannot take this any further. I disgrace the Voidorne love of peace by taking your body — but be thankful that I do not annihilate your Inherent Will entirely. I know that you have no Light remaining. Then this will be a long process for me. You should protect your body as you did your mind.” He says, and then seems to sigh. “Should you ever meet my son, tell him Ckori loves him. I wonder if he finished that book…” I swing my fist, connecting with his chest and feeling the bones underneath practically turn to dust as he screams. Another blow and another blow and yet another blow come to end his existence, with his pain-filled torment-packed howling in the background. His face caves in, his arms snap, his bones break and turn to powder — his rib-cage cracks, his spine breaks into individual vertebrae… and then my fists stop and I recoil backwards. There is no breath coming from the corpse. He is dead. My head feels light, I feel dizzy - and then I do not feel at all.

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“You aren’t Chosen.” The voice says. I am somewhere else. The darkness has given way to the smallest of lights. Tiny, tiny dots a thousand million strong beam down on me. I feel the smallest fraction of the sun’s light on my skin. I twist in the air, feeling infinitely free.

Someone sits, hovering in the air, a fresh white dress of the smoothest silks spiralling and spiralling infinitely into the void. I watch the flow of it as they move, watch their movements are reflected into an endless void.

“Hello, Kyallan.” They say. They are neither a man nor a women. They are both, or none. Their face shifts ever so slightly; practically imperceptibly — only so much that I cannot notice unless I blink and their face is suddenly different from what I remember. I don’t know how to speak. I don’t even need to breathe. How do I speak without the air in my lungs?

“You do not need to. You are my creation, Kyallan — as are all humans. I am who you refer to when you pray, for all the times you have begged for a happy ending to your story. For all the times you have wished for strength and all the times you have cried out.”

They glide through the air, and as they do so, long hair grows outwards, as white as the sun but with flowers of kaleidoscopic colour laced into braids that coil around her like snakes. It spreads outwards, glowing brighter. Their face grows more feminine, the white dress cuts lower on their chest and tightening around their waist. “Dearest Kyallan, we have watched you for a long time.”

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My eyes are locked to hers — for it is absolutely a women that speaks now, the voice soft and flowing. Green eyes stare into me, unravel me. “Why?” I ask. The question hangs heavy in the void. I feel the emotion disconnect from me, and feel it splay out. Every reason I had asked it is laid bare to me. I do not feel worthy. Why would they watch me? What have I done to deserve that?

“Kyallan of House Daai. Of the Bluefeather Ravens. Of the Slaughtered Family. Never has a family been so loyal only to be betrayed so deeply. The vision you saw was real. Your keep of ages old, of memories bright — is gone. Your Mother is dead. She sensed the passing of your Father and took her own life before she could even be burnt. I am sorry, Kyallan.”

Sorrow passes over me. Memories flood my mind, of the stories she would read. Of all the times she would clean me after I had sparred with Father. I feel I can barely muster words in front of her. As I struggle to speak, she watches. Her eyes are like oceans. “Take your time, Kyallan Bluefeather. There is no rush here. You are in my embrace; there is nothing that may harm you.”

My words come, but they stammer. I am taken in by the full beauty of her. “Are you… are you a god?”

She nods a deep and massive nod, the sheer presence threatening to destroy my very being. A thousand dots line her face like freckles, only they glow with the heat of a thousand suns. “I am your God. Your Mother of Mothers, your Father of Fathers — the progenitor of all humankind and the creator of your Lightblades.”

“Why am I here? Am I chosen? Was it true…? Am I to be the next Champion?”

She is suddenly besides me, running a hand down my chest, hot breath on my neck, her words in my ear. “Oh, Darling. You should have been.”

A snap of fingers hurtles me through an unending existence, but it stops as my feet land on stone. I am in the Tomb, my unconscious body laying on the stone. Ahead of me, now completely illuminated, is a large stone bowl that feels as though it should be full to the brim with fire. It radiates heat and power.

“This is where the Soul of the Champion should reside. Half of my Power, stored here for my next Champion to claim.” She says, hovering behind me. She pulls me back, the obvious strength of her giving me little wish to resist. My head lies on her stomach, Motherly warmth taking my heart. “But what has been borrowed must return, and this has yet to come. The previous Champion still lives.”

My eyes snap open, pulled from the sweet caress as she pulls away into the air before coiling up. Her eyes switch from the blue of oceans to the fury of a volcano before changed back to a peaceful sky. Then comes a simple nod. My heart races, and my stomach feels as though it will hurl any second. “I don’t understand. He is alive? Why are you angry?”

She’s next to me again, walking on the stone, their hand trailing across my back. “My son, my child — there must be an end to everything. Each Champion advances the steps of the Cycle further, until each race has had theirs and the last Champion dies. The cycle begins anew. So it has been for sixteen cycles. If it is left to stagnate, the world suffers. Those who are good become evil. The weather becomes harsh; flora refuses to feed on Death and produce Power. What should be renewal becomes stagnation. Eudaimon has betrayed not only humanity — but the Gods as well.”

I stare off into the stone, my mind reeling. “I don’t understand.”

Her hands grip my shoulders, squeezing tight. “You were born with the Mark of the Gods on your forehead. You would have been the next Champion… if the Sorcerer-King had died when he should have. But he refuses to relinquish my Power, refuses to die — and obscures himself from us all. I require aid. You will never be my Champion, Kyallan…” she says, my heart sinking. She zips in front of me, pressing her chest into my stomach and she wraps her arms around me in a deep hug. “But the Gods have need of something more. We created this world and all of its inhabitants, but our design is incomplete,” she says, then falls onto me, forcing me to grab her to make sure she doesn’t fall. “The Champions are what we use to keep the world moving. We do not control them, nor do we control anything else. We are not Omnipotent, not all-powerful. As such, we need help. We need you… I need you to help us. I want to make you the first Arbiter of the Gods.”

She pushes off me, twirling and setting the dress spinning outwards until it wraps back around their legs and she lands on a large cushioned chair. “You would be our Will on the world. You would be our Sword.”

That word hits me. “What does being the Arbiter entail? What would you have me do?”

She smiles, then frowns the deepest of frowns. “The rest of the Champion Souls, those of the other Gods. The Sorcerer-King attempts to collect them — for what purpose, we do not know. Each Soul is half of the respective god’s Power. Half of their divinity, you might even say, but it is not simply… limp. It’s locked away, with a key that only we have access to. That said, once our Champion has access to it, only their death can split their Souls from ours. In this case… that would be your pursuit. How does it sound… Arbiter?” She says, putting out a mark-less, blemish-less hand.

I don’t even know what to do. There is so much I do not understand and yet my entire existence seems to scream at me to take their hand. I speak jumbled thoughts. “Then my goal… as Arbiter… would be to track down the Sorcerer-King? To destroy him?” I ask, my voice sounding so unsure.

She nods. “Yes. That would be the eventual goal. But you are not yet strong enough to do so. You may never be. We cannot offer you a Champion’s Soul from another race. It would taint it irrevocably. Break it. We can see certain things, in destiny. We know what it must be a Human we make arbiter, and we can see what the Sorcerer-King, or perhaps his minions, have found a way to steal these ’key’s from us. We cannot bound them to our souls, an unfortunate and unavoidable flaw — and as such, they can be stolen, given enough Power and the right tool. Ripped from their rightful owners. You will be the one to stop this. We will give you the ability to bond these Keys to yourself; you would only need physically touch the soul itself. Our premonitions will guide you to which Soul is in danger; but we cannot tell you why it is in danger or what endangers it. That will have to be something you discover on your own. You will be responsible for saving the Souls.”

She smiles, her teeth like pearls, her lips full and red. “Do you think you could do that…” she says, and then she is behind me, leaning over me. “For me?”

I ask the burning question. “What about my family? What about my House?”

“What family? What House?” she asks, floating in front of me. “They are gone, Kyallan.”

I grit my teeth. “I know. But I do not want the name to die. One day, I want to revive it. I need to be able to do that.”

She smiles, putting a hand on my chest. “Okay. If that should be your reward, then I will give you this blessing. If you should protect us; defend us from the Sorcerer-King, and save the world from falling into destruction…” she says, floating backwards, pulling the dress away and revealing her stomach and rubbing it. “Then I will birth you a child with part of divinity already inside him. You will not be our Champion, but I can guarantee your son will. He may even be the strongest Champion of all. Would that be reward enough?”

I stare at her stomach. I would be fulfilling the same role as my Father; to be the shield so that my son could be the sword…

So be it.

“I accept. If this is my Destiny, then I shall achieve it. Make me your Arbiter, my Divine, and I shall do anything you require of me.”

My words are greeted by a chuckle, a melodious thing that seems to fill the void — and my heart — with joy. “Oh, I think you may be a little mistaken. You will not be my Arbiter…” she says, then turns around. Fifteen faces appear in the sky above her, looking down at me, massive in magnitude and awesome in presence. My mind barely has enough time to register their presence before they speak again. “You will be our Arbiter. Our Judge, our Jury — and our Executioner.”

She puts out her hand and taps my forehead, and then I am pulled from the void.