“I’m…not human…?” Trenton muttered to himself, breathless, eyes desperately scanning Era’s stagnant placid expression. “Then…what am I?”

“I’m unsure, honestly. Your outward appearance is that of a human, and to be certain you function as one for most all parts, but you are not you alone. As a choir with no conductor, discord sows the seams of your soul, a song all together grating, discordant to the clever ear. You’ve felt it, haven't you? The constant struggle between forces within yourself, the many choices and ires not quite your own? I imagine it conflated to a psychic worming their way into your mind, infecting your base instincts, but on a much grander scale. And that’s only the exterior. There’s something else within you, nestled deep within your soul, like the brilliant core around which all of your being swirls. But again, I’m uncertain to what it could mean.”

Trenton sat quietly for a moment, allowing silence to overcome them. It wasn’t an easy pill to swallow, the idea that one’s humanity was, at least in part, a farce. But neither did it make sense. If he weren’t human, then what was he? He breathed like man, felt like man, behaved like man, and yet he wasn’t one? What of his blood, the blood Walibeld told him was similar to his own? Was Walibeld a man? It simply couldn’t be true…but then came the smaller voice at the back of Trenton’s mind, the one he’d be so diligent to keep abide all this time.

“You killed them. Their blood is on your hands. The form does not matter. The body was yours and thus the crime,” it told him, dredging from the depths his most disquieting thought. “You don’t even know your own name, scarab, couldn’t begin to explain how you exist. But I can, I know exactly what you are. Step into the shadows, boy. Let me teach you truth,” the voice continued, sounding less and less familiar the longer it spoke.

“...Era. I met a man in Korak,...he…spoke as if he knew me, and…before he killed me…he called me…” Trenton hesitated, recalling the man’s words, the way it made him feel.

Era leaned forward, “Go on. He gave you a name, did he not? Tell me.”

“...Atlas. He called me Atlas…”

Era’s eyes widened, “Atlas? But that would be…one moment,” Era’s head tilted down, and he began to gaze intently into the floor, focus shifting back and forth as if looking for something, which apparently he found without too much issue.

Without even lifting so much as a finger, a dozen or so separate richly bound leather tomes floated through the air, placing themselves gently on Era’s desk. He opened each of them, spreading them out, some hovering before him, flipping independently to the page he needed.

“Atlas, very good. But do you know what that name even means, the history of what you’ve done? No, I imagine you don’t. Let me teach you. Step. Into. The. Shadows.”

This time, Trenton realized something wasn’t quite right. The voice sounded a little too sickly, too real, to be one of his own. It felt more akin to outside influence than a product of his mind. But as he looked around, slight panic making him restless, he didn’t see anything of note. The room was dark, hard to parse fine details in such dim lighting.

It was probably nothing, a result of the stress that had been building up overtime. Maybe he’d take a couple days to rest before they left, relax a bit before they continued on. It would really do him some good. He hadn’t had a real break in…oh gods it really had been a while, hadn't it? He hadn’t had a single break since Aria collapsed.

Any time they were traveling, he was too concerned with keeping everybody alive and staying on constant vigilance to take a real break. And anytime they got into a city, things would start to fall apart within a day or two minimum.

Back in Rema’s tower, the bored cloaked man disrupted their first peaceful night; in Wyrm’s Perch they fought the blood crazed man the moment they entered the city, went shopping the next day, got captured, broke out of prison, and escaped an all out war taking place in the city that same day; in Zerital they spent the first day finding Millie and that night fighting for her; in Avar the cloaked man reappeared, the Conqueror’s generals decided to spar with Trenton, Wheel forced them to the mines, and even when they got out, they had to fight against one of the Collector’s strongest puppets; then again in Korak, they didn’t even last the night before calamity broke loose.

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Was it fate that so damned him, ensured that he found no peace at every end? At this point, he could no longer be certain it wasn’t. Even now, their stay at the Academy was already a turbulent one. Getting much rest there, with so much hostility hovering in the air, would be difficult. Trenton sighed. Just a little further, that’s all he needed to do. Just make it to the cloud isles and they would be free, for a time, at least.

“Ah, here it is,” Era spoke up after a minute, the largest of the times by far floating over to Trenton. It could be no less than several thousand pages, the font small and delicate.

Trenton took the book, inspecting the title neatly printed on the book's spine, “A Coalition of History…what is this?”

“What you hold is the culmination of a millennia of research, a tome detailing every excerpt and piece of evidence I’ve ever found about our world’s past. That, of course, is merely a copy. The original is much better secured, but it is priceless nonetheless. Read that first passage you see and tell me what you think.”

Trenton looked down at the book again, finding the section that Era wanted him to read.

“[The top of the page is ripped off]...the blue city mustn’t fall, no matter the cost, and neither must its king. This world, this war–should ever we live to fight it again–cannot exist without his vision, his strength, his benevolence. I see the declining trend, losses at every end, scattered troops, waning morale. I don’t foresee a world we win today, nor tomorrow, no matter what avenue we take. But the day after, and then again thereafter, perchance it’s not so absurd. Yet if I wish for such a day to pass, to keep abide the forces which so cow us, then I can no longer sit aside. Should that day come to pass, should I see the city begin to wilt or falter, I will stow it away, safe within the bosom of Atlas’s creation. Beneath the tower where it all began, in locus where Atlas first rose from his great slumber, I shall place a sealed entrance, a door grander than all constructs palatial, one which will open upon one condition only–at moribund of each of the kings of old–mislaying the king of sorrow. Should such a time come to pass, I will know the world is ready once again, and I will allow the warriors of such a time to march forth to the blue city to learn for all the truth of man. [the rest of the page is ripped off]”

Trenton’s eyes glazed across the fine paper, reading it over and over again, segment by segment, “...if you can define Atlas’s creation and what tower it’s referring to, then you can find the city. Is this the one you’ve been looking for?”

“Very astute, and yes, it is. There’s only one problem. Atlas, as an entity in history, is practically non-existent. Records of his life, what he did, who he was, have all but been wiped off the face of Everil. In all my time, I’ve never come across even a hint of what it could be referring to, so to hear now that you, in some sense, are this being–Atlas–is difficult to believe. But I’m not one to pass good opportunity. What did you make, Atlas, and where did you rest?”

Trenton opened his mouth, then paused. He couldn’t speak on anything he’d learned from the book, of that much he was already certain. Whatever binding it held over him was not one he could break, meaning all he could say was all that he could intuit, the gut feelings he couldn’t quite place.

“...the earth. The earth is Atlas’s domain, and…within it did he…rest,” Trenton squinted, trying to push back the growing wave of pain threatening to overwhelm him. It was if something didn’t want him to continue, to say another word.

“Very good, but you could do better. I know you’d remember, if only you knew how to. A shame, but I could teach you. I was there when it happened, afterall. Don’t be a stranger, Trenton. Let me help. I want to help you. But if you truly mean to be so stubborn, then I suppose I’ll have to be more persuasive,” the voice spoke again, slowly receding from Trenton’s mind and out into the open.

In an instant, the books disappeared, and Era stood behind Trenton, hand pressed tight against his chest. His head swiveled this way and that, searching for the origin of the voice, but to no avail. The shadows began to approach, spilling like water over areas of light they shouldn’t have been able to reach, quenching the flames they shouldn’t have been able to touch.

“Oh Era, Era, Era. You poor, poor fool. You take for granted your sight, your beautiful, beautiful eyes, but when you can see everything, you skim right over nothing.”

The shadows closed in.