Zoe sliced away at the strings surrounding Bella. Though she could see the blades of [Mind’s Eye Incision] protruding from her fingertips like ghostly cat claws, Oriz’s threads were little more than suggestions. She neither felt, nor saw, how Oriz puppeteered Bella, but she knew the strings were there.

The grassy world trembled around her. Ripples passed through the long grass, and the sky collapsed. Gashes split the weave overhead as the jeweled ceiling looked down at her with impassive eyes of treasure. She could hear the howling sky above the roaring flames, but she focused all her attention on Bella. The woman lay limp in her arms. Her strength, her character, concentrated down into such a light body. Her path was that of an anchor, but in sleep, she seemed as frail and pale as a fairy born of sea-foam.

Zoe couldn’t let her shatter. If Oriz led to Bella’s destruction… Zoe forced her pulse down. Now wasn’t the time for emotion, now was the time for focus and precision. She ran her blades around Bella’s body. It was as though she cut nothing, but Bella twitched, ever so slightly. Her tense body relaxed further, and as Zoe passed her blades, Bella slackened further.

Her eyelids fluttered.

Bella gazed up.

“Zoe?”

Zoe smiled.

“Yeah,” she said as he checked and double-checked [Our Hearts Toll as One]. “How are you feeling?”

“I had a terrible dream.” Bella sat up and surveyed the swaying grass. “Looks like the dream isn’t completely over.”

“No.”

“Oriz did this?”

“She wanted to —”

“I know what she wanted,” Bella shuddered. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“I know you didn’t. This isn’t your fault.”

“I don’t know why she thought I would want this, or why this would work.”

“It could be her Skein?” Zoe said as she helped Bella stand. “Grass clings and grows and tangles. Maybe her build wouldn’t allow her to let you go. I’m just guessing though, who knows how she thinks?”

“I thought I did… there was something beautiful between us, you know? We found something in Hell, in all the blood and fighting, but I can’t remember what it felt like…”

Zoe waited for Bella to gather herself. She let her friend lean on the runeblade as the flames in the distance grew taller and closer, and the grassy world burned. A hot wind blew like bellows through their hair.

“We should escape this dream before it collapses,” Zoe said.

“Any ideas, mate?”

Zoe clenched and unclenched her fist. She was tired, but she wasn’t weak.

“Break it.”

“Looks like it’s breaking itself.”

“And I don’t want to be inside. I’m sure that fire will still burn us.”

“Oriz is still in here.”

“I know,” Zoe looked at the scars across her knuckles. They itched as they healed, but she would replace them soon enough. “I never felt the chill of her death.”

Bella sighed.

“It will come to that, won’t it?”

Zoe gazed at her friend. Was there more to that question? She shook her head at such thoughts.

“If I get the opportunity, I will kill her… what about you?”

“I won’t stop you,” Bella whispered.

Silence stretched as flames crackled, and Zoe looked around.

“How do we get out of here?”

“I have an idea.”

Bella raised her sword high above her head. The runes flared like sunrise, and she sliced down. A black portal appeared in the air between them.

“Think you can use this?” Bella asked.

The portal was already shrinking, but Zoe stepped forward and grasped the edges. Vibrations ran up her arms as she felt the shuddering power of torn reality.

“Where does it lead?” Zoe asked through gritted teeth.

“Nowhere, at the moment, but if it was wide enough?”

Zoe grinned and planted her feet on the ground. This was her body path’s purpose, and she refused to fail her friend. She focused on the vibrations and felt for the resonance. The portal wriggled like a fish in her grip. She felt something like musculature, something like teeth as the ragged edges bit at her flesh, but she yanked it wide with all she had. She only needed a moment.

[Bell at the Center of the World]

Reality rippled and curved in that most familiar manner. The flat ground swept upward into a bowl and the black tear lengthened. Zoe stepped back as she gazed at the bell forming around her.

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“Your body path sure is beautiful sometimes,” Bella said beside her.

Zoe nodded. She once resented Oriz and Trinch for making her choose this ability, but bringing people inside the zone created by her body path was helpful. She didn’t have long, but she had a moment of breathing room.

Forget the Grasping Vine, all she needed now was direct impact. She wound up her fist, concentrated her Might, and struck the black tear with everything she had.

The bell rang, and the tear expanded. Streaks of colored light devoured the darkness as the portal grew. Pink, blue, and yellow flashed out in lurid detail onto Bella and Zoe. Their eyes widened at the beauty as the bell-like formation dissolved. The portal remained, stabilized, a crack in space leading outside the cocoon that trapped them. Before they could step through a sinister voice curled like smoke through their minds.

[To flee is to forfeit victory]

Bella shuddered and glanced at Zoe.

“Did you hear that?”

“It’s the Witch,” Zoe said with displeasure. “She wants a replacement for the Gambler.”

[Is that what I want?]

The Witch sounded amused, and both women turned, as though the speaker stood behind them. There was nothing there the grass and advancing flames. A fire should devour a grassland in seconds, and the slow march only proved this place’s dreamlike reality.

Zoe clenched her fists.

Chase down a wounded Oriz? Or rejoin her friends?

She could feel the portal nearing the point of collapse. They didn’t have long before it collapsed, and she was too tired to stabilize another one.

She didn’t want to hesitate. Slaying Oriz was her goal, but her primary goal was to save Bella. Besides, if the Witch was taunting her like this, there had to be a trick.

“You’re manipulating us,” Zoe said. “I don’t know what you want, but it’s not what I want.”

Bella hefted her runeblade.

“Your call, Zoe.”

“Let’s go.”

She stepped through the portal, and Bella followed. Radiant light flared as the portal collapsed. The flames chewed the grass and spat out black belching smoke. A voice slipped through the last chink of the portal and brushed against two fleeing minds as they spread across dimensions.

[Please continue guessing my goals, it makes it even more interesting when you fight against fate]

Neither Zoe nor Bella could respond in that void between worlds, and the voice curled around them like a serpent around eggs, before it flowed away.

[You barely pass this trial, but more will follow. Trial after trial until you win or fall, for there are only two ways off the mountain]

Stretched as she was, Zoe wasn’t sure if the pleasure she felt was her’s or the Witch’s, but it spread through her until she laughed and spat out of a portal grinning. Laughter spilled from her, a mad cackle, as she knelt on the hard rocky floor.

“Zoe?” Anton’s voice came from a silver eye as it floated around her head. “Are you alright?”

She wiped tears from her eyes, the Witch’s voice still echoing in her brain as Bella staggered out of thin air beside her.

“Yeah, I got Bella.”

“I can see that.”

“Damned, Witch,” Bella said as she spat onto the ground. “What did she mean by trials and tests?”

“Good to have you back, Bella,” Anton said as his eye rolled through the air. “We almost went a whole day without blasphemy.”

Bella lazily swiped at the silver eye with her sword.

“Where are you, anyway?”

“Follow me, we’ve got a bit of a sticky situation.”

###

Anton’s silver light led them down a winding rocky tunnel that grew narrow and wide as the surrounding earth hardened and softened. Black rivulets ran down the walls and ate away at the island. At one point they stepped around a shaft three feet wide that extended straight up to the surface almost a mile above them. It seemed the storm was dying, for light pulsed between patchwork clouds.

Bella ran her fingers through the black water trickling down. She leaned over the hole in the ground that extended down to the clouds.

“When I see things like this,” she said. “It’s hard to believe it’s all happening.”

“You shouldn’t touch that water,” Zoe said.

“Is that your opinion as a doctor?” Bella smirked.

Two of Anton’s silver eyes floated around them. They’d found the second as they advanced through the tunnel.

“The rain already soaked us,” Anton said. “If it’s going to do anything bad, it’ll still happen.”

Zoe shrugged.

“Suit yourself, but it’s liquified Cassy.”

Bella scowled and wiped her hand on her pants.

“Gross,” she said. “You had to ruin the splendor.”

Zoe smiled as she continued down the tunnel. Anton’s lights darted ahead to guide the way, and Bella grudgingly followed though she didn’t stop grumbling until they met up in person.

###

They found the others in a small cave lit by the fire child’s orange glow. Despite the flames, the air held a deep and aching cold. The survivors huddled around the sleeping toddler, their breath coming in clouds, while Skidmark and Anton inspected a square cut shaft leading straight down. The wall beside the shaft was smooth, glassy stone, and it reflected the light like a black mirror.

When Skidmark noticed their arrival, she hurried over and hugged both Bella and Zoe tightly.

“I know it’s only been hours, but, well…”

Zoe extracted herself from the hug.

“Did you have so little faith?”

“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t die,” Skidmark said quickly.

Anton leaned against the wall

“Nope,” Anton retorted. “We made bets on who would come back alive.”

“I would never!” Skidmark said as she crossed her heart. “But I’m glad you’re both alive because of course I would bet on Zoe bringing back Bella alive after she cut Oriz down.”

Bella scowled.

“Easy, mate,” she said.

Skidmark’s eyes widened.

“I mean, that’s what we want, right? You’re back, and that’s great! But Oriz tried to kill me and uh…”

“It’s complicated,” Zoe said as he ran her Mirrored fingers through her hair. For a moment, all she wanted was a salon.

Zoe took a few minutes to bring her friends up to speed on what transpired in the cocoon. Bella chimed in with her own story and they all stared incredulously.

“I was a giant spider?” Zoe said.

“I can see it,” Anton said.

“Yeah, I bet you’d rock that look,” Skidmark added encouragingly.

Zoe shook her head.

“None of us received any death energy, so we know Oriz is still alive. I think that escape is more important than revenge.”

“You don’t think she’ll come after us?” Anton asked.

“I’m sure she will. I need you to focus on keeping up surveillance, the second you spot anything, you tell me. She slipped away twice, but she won’t get a third chance.”

“Can do, boss.”

“You said you had a sticky situation?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah.”

Anton led them over to the shaft. The hole led down into darkness, and as he sent his eye down it illuminated a rocky chute. However, one wall was sleek black stone. Frigid air billowed up from beneath, and now that Zoe was closer, she noticed delicate frost crystals forming along the sleek wall.

“On the other side of this wall is the chamber containing the ship,” Anton said. “We’re above the entrance chamber now. This hole leads down, but only a crack shows where the demon guards the door. It’s not big enough right now, but we have the firepower to open a passage.”

“Do we need to worry about the ship?” Bella asked. “With my sword I can open a portal.”

Zoe nodded.

“I can stabilize one long enough for us all to escape — survivors included — so long as I can rest up first, but what about the mantis?”

The thought of revenge still thundered in her heart, but she let Oriz go, so how much did she care about the Mantis Queen?

Anton and Skidmark exchanged a glance.

“We debated whether to tell you…” Skidmark said.

“She debated,” Anton retorted. “I was always going to tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“The Mantis Queen is in the chamber below us.”

Zoe clenched her fist. The thunder roared in her heart as the cold air played upon her skin. Now that she knew, she couldn’t let this go.