A carpet of white stars spread out beneath Amara’s feet once the shining brilliance of the portal finally dimmed, accompanied by the expected assault on her nose. Just like before, eery images of landscapes passed across the sky around and above her, shifting and transforming as she flicked her gaze across them. It was still disorienting, but slightly less so this time, perhaps only because she’d known what to expect.

Mattias seemed entirely unaffected by the panorama of sights and smells. For his part, Evander looked positively dumbstruck as he turned about to scan the landscapes in the sky.

“Well, I didn’t really get a good look before,” he eventually said. “But…destiny divide us. This’s definitely unsettling.”

Mattias’s cold gaze briefly passed over him before settling on Amara. “...We need to go, quickly. This is not a good place to linger.”

“Which way?” she asked. “Last time I was here I just picked a direction and walked.”

“Direction has no meaning in this place. So long as Sun remains focused on us we’ll arrive where he intends for us to be.”

Evander took a few steps over to stand beside Amara. “What happens if he loses focus?”

“We’ll be trapped here forever. Come along!”

Mattias turned on his heel and set off at a brisk pace. Amara and Evander shared a brief look of alarm before hurrying after him.

“What do you mean, forever? What is this place?” Amara called after him.

“Borderless space,” he said simply, as if that explained everything. He quickened his pace, leaving Amara and Evander in a near scramble to keep up.

The tunnel of landscapes that’d formed around her path last time gradually appeared once more, coalescing before Mattias as he strode forward. Deserts and mountains flashed through the images forming the tunnel, then scrublands and flat, empty fields of green grass with blue sky overhead. Sandy beaches appeared next, bordering an ocean that seemed to be changing colors randomly from deep blues to grotesque shades of green. Groves of palm trees appeared and disappeared along the beaches seemingly at random, and finally a new portal formed in the distance ahead of Mattias. He strode through it without hesitation, and the portal gave off the same bright shimmer Amara had seen before.

She was just about to step through it herself when Evander called out to her.

“Mara, I just had a thought. What if he’s orchestrated this entire thing just to get something he wants from Shabboleth? Something that isn’t the elixir we need?”

“...Um. Well, maybe. But he’s gone to a huge amount of trouble just for that.”

“Maybe it’s just that difficult to get whatever it is he wants. Maybe he needs some disposable Destined around to distract Shabboleth for long enough to get it.”

“Maybe,” Amara agreed. “Let’s talk about this later. I really don’t feel like getting stuck here forever.”

Evander gave her a hurried nod. “Yeah, this place is creepy.”

She returned his nod, and stepped forward into the portal. The same brilliant light overwhelmed her vision, and after a few moments of blindness she felt a slight change in the air pressure around her. Sounds of mild rain and throaty frog calls gradually rose into the air as though she were approaching from a vast distance, and when the light finally diminished enough she was startled to see there was a large pool of brackish water sitting mere inches away from her feet.

They were standing at the edge of a swampy pond, lined end to end with brown, sickly looking reeds, some nearly as tall as Evander. Vibrantly green lily pads coated the entire surface of the pond, practically motionless except for the rain causing minor disturbances in the water around them. Overhead the sky was completely overcast, its heavy gray clouds roiling and passing by quickly. The light rain looked ready to turn into a heavy downpour at any moment.

After scanning the pond Amara soon spotted a small green-shelled turtle resting atop a fallen log in the water nearby, which must’ve fallen in ages ago, and was surprised to see the turtle quietly slip into the water upon making eye contact with her. Beyond the pond in all directions a thick overgrown forest filled the landscape, making it impossible to get any real sense of where they were. Lucyra was nowhere to be seen.

The smell of rain and fresh mud filled her nose, heavy and foul, but after the disconcerting smells of the portal she welcomed the consistent earthy bitterness of it. There was so much water in the air now, even discounting the rain, and the intense humidity compared to the dryness of the desert came as a tremendous shock. The air was warm and soup-like, leaving Amara with a distinct feeling of discomfort. The thin, dry air of the desert had been pleasant in a way she hadn’t been consciously aware of.

After taking a moment to scan their new environment, Evander knelt down and quickly removed a coat from his rucksack. Amara hurried to do the same, eager to prevent her clothing from becoming too soaked by the rain. His raincoat was exactly similar in style and color to her own, though it seemed to suit him a bit better than it did her.

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“Where’d he go?” Evander asked while putting his rucksack back on.

“Dunno—”

A black bird then swooped in from the open sky above the pond, careening towards Amara. It’d been a while since she’d seen Mattias in his standard form, the normal sized raven she’d grown up with, and she was surprised when he smoothly landed on her shoulder. It was something he’d done with her a million times before, but now it felt strange, and she had to suppress a strong urge to brush him off.

“Not brave enough to go around here as a human, huh?” Evander said.

Mattias ignored him, bobbing his head towards the forest on Amara’s right.

Go that way. The trees will clear out after some walking. And tell him that I’m in this form because Shabboleth’s men know my face, so unless he wants us to fail immediately he should keep his comments to himself.

Amara stopped herself from rolling her eyes before turning to Evander. “He says the guards will recognize him in human form.”

“Why can’t he tell me that himself?” Evander said. A look of surprise then crossed his face, and his gaze locked onto Mattias as though he were listening to him. After only a few moments the surprise on his face turned to anger.

“Didn’t your mother ever tell you that if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it?”

Get going, Mattias told Amara brusquely.

She didn’t stop herself from rolling her eyes at him this time before setting off in the direction he’d indicated. Evander followed along after her, and after some steps she heard him muttering something below his breath.

The fresh mud made moving through the trees more slippery and difficult then it might’ve been otherwise, but Mattias had been correct about the forest’s size. It ended after only a few minutes of careful navigating, opening up into a hilly plain coated as far as the eye could see in waist-high grass. There was a particularly large hill sitting directly ahead of them once they’d passed out of the forest, and Amara took the pronounced head bob Mattias made towards it as a signal he wanted them to walk up it.

The grass was slick with water as they marched up the hill, causing the bottom half of her coat to become soaked and heavy, but she forgot all about the discomfort of it upon reaching the top. The ocean stretched all across the horizon and off into the far distance before them, and in the near distance, perhaps only a handful of miles away, sat the high walls of a tremendous city, circling around what looked to be a massive rock-castle. The city sat right up against the ocean, which looked to be washing up to its walls at several places. The enormous almond-shaped rock-castle rising upward from within the walls was adorned with a variety of towers and turrets, carved straight from the rock and sharing its dull gray-green colors.

Crowning the rock was a singular stone-brick tower, evenly lined from top to bottom with columns of slit windows, and nearly as wide as the rock itself. The tower was almost tall enough to scrape the bottom of the heavy gray clouds passing above, and for a moment Amara imagined herself standing there with her arms extended upwards, feeling their chilly wetness against the tips of her fingers.

If it weren’t for a slender strip of sand connecting the city to the shore, Lucyra might’ve just been a walled island sitting right off the coast. A frail looking road ran along the spit towards the city, exiting from the grassy hills off to the south in the direction of the city’s ponderous main gate. A long caravan of covered wagons looked to be trundling along the road, and its hurried speed seemed to indicate it would reach Lucyra within the next hour or so.

Amara stood at the top of the hill for what felt like a long time, absorbing the sight of the city and the ocean before her in amazed silence, and was startled when Evander spoke up beside her.

“How tall are those walls? Twice as tall as our temple is back home?”

Try four times, Mattias answered mentally to Amara. Lucyra was the first city founded after the Cataclysm, back when we didn’t know what lay ahead of us. We chose this place for its defensibility, along with its easy access to the ocean.

“What do you mean we?” Amara asked, and Evander turned a surprised look to her, which she ignored.

Who do you think? For a time, the Seraphim all resided here, along with all the mortals the Cataclysm arbitrarily spared. But as things soured between us, the Seraphim gradually left Lucyra to build their own cities, rule over their own empires. Shabboleth held onto Lucyra because none of the other Seraphim were interested in contesting him for it. Why bother when there was so much free space to take over elsewhere?

“So he’s been here this whole time?”

Yes. Welcome to the world’s oldest city, Amara. Not the oldest human city to ever exist, mind you, but the oldest you will find in this world.

“What’s he saying?” Evander asked impatiently.

“Lucyra is the world’s oldest city, apparently.”

“Really? Well, I guess I don’t doubt it. But how does he expect us to abduct anyone from that place, let alone a princess? It’s a fortress. How in the hell are we supposed to get out, afterwards?”

One problem at a time, Mattias told Amara. Head for the road. The gate guards will let us in easily enough.

She gave Evander a shrug. “One problem at a time, he says.”

He opened his mouth to respond, then abruptly closed it, shaking his head.

“...Oh, whatever. I’m glad he’s only talking to you, actually. I’d rather not hear him speak.”

Mattias then let out an abrupt, earsplittingly loud squawk. Evander gave him a baleful look, and Amara instantly cringed at the deafening noise in her ear, angrily pushing him off her shoulder. He flew off towards Lucyra, leaving them behind on the hilltop.

I needed to do some scouting, anyway. I’ll find you in the city.

“Good, go bother someone else for a while,” Amara said under her breath.

I heard that!

“I don’t suppose him flying off means he’s leaving for good?” Evander asked.

“You know better than that. C’mon.”

He gave her a casual shrug, and they set off down the hill together. It looked to be at least an hour’s walk to the road.

“I’m filled with hope,” Evander said once they’d reached the bottom of the hill. “Everlastingly.”