Night fell on the island in the sky. Zoe and her friends settled around the bonfire from the collapsed shack and passed around bottles of spirits. Matthias showed them how to catch and cook ghost fish before he left with Maria and the others, and the sizzling of seared spirits wafted out from the coals. Zoe, Bella, Anton, and Skidmark were alone on the island. Animals called from the jungle, birds and monkeys and other things indescribable, but the din was a welcome relief after the wintry silence of their last home.

Zoe leaned back in the sand, the alcohol finally giving her a pleasant buzz after downing several bottles, and she let the tropical warmth wash over her skin as a ghostly tide lapped at the shore. An ocean expanded out from the shoreline like liquid moonlight. Fish swam inside, and spectral waves rolled beneath the shifting skies.

Anton and Skidmark were comparing the spirits while they waited for more fish to cook, and Bella walked up the shore toward where Zoe sat. For once, the Australian woman didn’t have her runesword with her. As the light faded, she stabbed the blade into the sand. It glowered and whined before it settled into sleep.

Sand crunched under Bella’s bare feet as she stood beside Zoe.

“Mind if I sit?”

“Please.”

They sat together and watched the spectral waves rolling in and out.

“I feel like all waves are ghosts,” Bella said. “The same pattern repeating endlessly. An echo in water.”

“You think there are any oceans left?”

“I’m sure there are.”

“Islands of water floating in the sky?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it? I feel sorry for the bastards stuck on one of those.”

“They probably drowned.”

“Or learned to swim.”

Zoe chuckled. The air cooled by a fraction, but it was still as warm as skin, or breath, and she ran her fingers through the sand with a comfortable sigh. Even the hounds inside her blood felt at ease.

“Have you given any thought to my question?” Zoe asked.

Bella nodded.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh?”

“Those survivors we rescued…”

“Yeah?”

“Someone needs to help them.”

“There’s other people on these islands. They’ll help each other.”

“That’s true,” Bella said. “But low levels helping low levels?”

“That’s how we started.”

“You got lucky, and we got lucky being with you.”

“I wouldn’t call it luck.”

“Huh, what would you call it then?”

Zoe grimaced.

“I interrupted,” she said. “Please, go on.”

Bella’s grin beamed in the ghostly light.

“You asked our plans, and I’m saying I’ll stay. I want to whip those people into shape. Not just the survivors we rescued, but everyone. You can do some kind of authority posturing to make them listen.”

“I told Maria I don’t want to rule.”

“Too bloody right you don’t. Someone as powerful as you has better things to do than watch over a bunch of grommets.”

“You’re pretty powerful yourself.”

Bella laughed.

“I’m not made for it like you are,” she said, and her voice softened as she continued. “I feel it in my build. Facing the Mantis Queen? The anger took me through the fight, but the whole time it was terrifying. The fight with Oriz, with you, in that dream… I was so angry, so jealous, so vengeful, it was all a tangle. I don’t want to feel like that. I don’t want lives to be depending on me like that…”

“That wasn’t you,” Zoe said. “Those were Oriz’s feelings, and she’s… well…”

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“She’s gone, I know, but though she twisted at the end, it didn’t start like that. At least, I don't think we started like that. It was actual love, at some point, I know it was.”

“It’s alright,” Zoe said.

“No, it really —”

“I meant you can stay. You don’t need my permission, but if you wanted it, you’ve got it. I think it’s noble.”

A silence stretched out, almost awkward, before Bella kicked at the sand.

“Cheers, mate.”

“No worries, mate.”

“Oi, what’re you two blathering about?” Skidmark said as she wandered over.

“Plans,” Zoe said. “What’s up?”

“Anton’s burning fish.”

“Charring!” Anton called out from by the coals where he squatted attentively over some fish. “You’ll thank me soon.”

Skidmark snorted.

“Either of you girls fancy a swim?”

###

Indigo swirled through garnet as the night sky moved and spiraled. The water beneath glowed like pallid uranium glass and opened beneath the warm bodies that dove beneath. Zoe swam, looping in circles, floated, and laughed. It smelled of salt and fish and rain and was neither cold nor warm nor really there. She felt herself falling as she swam, but falling in all directions, as though the ghostly water drained her of her.

Skidmark walked along the bottom inspecting shells. A crab came too close, and she kicked it away. Zoe swam to the depths and kicked along as the Scottish woman continued walking and beach combing.

“You don’t have to hold your breath,” Skidmark said.

Zoe raised an eyebrow and exhaled. With her Vitality, she could hold her breath effortlessly. She wasn’t sure how long exactly, but longer than an hour. It was a shocking thought and something she wanted to test at some point.

“What do you think of the beach?” Zoe said.

“Never went to the ocean back home,” Skidmark said with a shrug. “So I imagine this is much the same.”

“You’re joking.”

“Nah, Scotland is way too cold for swimming.”

Zoe snorted with laughter as she slowly spun in the water. Giddiness rose in her, but like anything that rose, it promised a fall. This moment couldn’t last. This night would end. Something would come. It was the nature of the world, and her power was a flame that would either burn her or attract moths or —

Skidmark poked her.

“You’ve got a look,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

Skidmark picked up a conical shell and added it to the collection in her arms.

“You remember Hell?”

A skinless wind screamed through the caged sky.

“Of course,” Zoe said with a shiver. “How could I forget?”

“Yeah, right?”

Skidmark walked down an avenue of coral shelves. The bright colors contrasted her drab expression. Zoe swam and followed. She dove to grab an empty snail shell the size of an apple.

“Like this one?” she said.

“Sure,” Skidmark added it to her pile. “In Hell, you touched my Skein.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“It took me a while to really understand what happened then, but I felt you, I felt your emotional state, how damned ragged you were. You seem like that now.”

“Really?”

“Not in a bad way, like you’re recovering, but don’t want to let yourself recover.”

Zoe nodded and pulled herself along the reef. The living limestone glowed beneath her hands as the spectral water flowed around her.

“I guess that’s true,” she said.

“Is it or isn’t it?”

“It’s true,” Zoe said with a sigh. “But I am getting better.”

“I know you are, but the others aren’t. Bella told me she wants to stay and help the survivors.”

“Yeah, she said.”

“She’s tired, Zoe. She wants to go with you, but she can’t keep up. Anton’s the same, but that man is less likely to admit his flaws than a damned poker machine.”

Zoe recalled that one frosty morning outside the gas station when he exposed his vulnerability. Had she ever seen another moment where the drily unamused facade slipped away?

“You saying he doesn’t want to come with me?”

“He’d jump off this island if you asked him to. You know that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Skidmark stopped and faced Zoe.

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t ask him to do that.”

Zoe let herself float down to the base of the sand.

“I won’t,” she said as a note of metal entered her voice. “You know I won’t.”

“Action speaks louder than words,” Skidmark said. “And when you act like a leader, people will follow.”

“What are you saying?”

Skidmark cocked her head and grinned.

“Don’t jump off an island you bloody wanker.”

Zoe blinked.

“I wasn’t planning on it…”

Skidmark shrugged and continued walking.

“I never got the impression you planned much of anything.”

“What about you? Are you tired?”

Skidmark leaped up and somersaulted. Her shells slipped to the shore where they hit the sand and settled as though they’d sat there a thousand years.

“I’m unstoppable,” Skidmark said. “But you knew that already.”

Zoe laughed.

“So what’s your plan?’

“Bella is emotionally mature enough to ask for rest, even if she can’t admit to you or herself why she wants it. Anton won’t, so I’m asking for him. Give him a break. Let him nerd out over the system and build something. I’ll stay and help.”

“Are you two…?”

“Nah,” Skidmaark waved her hand. “But did you see some of those archer boys? Pretty cute even if they are weak, and I don’t mind them subservient.”

Zoe looked around the reef.

“Should we head back?”

“Sure,” Skidmark said as she dumped her shells onto the sand. “But one last thing?”

“What?”

“Do that Skein touch thing again.”

“Why?”

Skidmark shrugged.

“It helped you last time, didn’t it?”

Zoe grinned, and when Skidmark went in for a hug, she let herself fall into the embrace. Beneath the spectral ocean, they touched, and she stepped down her Body Path and felt the vibration of two stretch out into one.

###

Anton and Zoe stood on the edge of the island. A spit of sand and rock extended out like a pier into a sea of crimson air. Sand drifted down like a fringed curtain. Zoe stood with her hands behind her back, the clenched mirror reflecting the bloody sky as dawn’s light returned. Anton kept his hands in his pockets as he rocked on his feet. The only eyes he used were the two in his head as he teetered on the ledge.

“You ever think about jumping off one of these?” he asked Zoe.

“No… sort of,” Zoe said as she gazed out. “Once or twice, but just intrusive thoughts. Not suicidal. You?”

“I don’t have intrusive thoughts,” he tapped his head. “It’s all clear as crystal up here.”

“That can’t be true.”

“I believe what I choose to believe, boss.”

A wind blew, warm, cool, still.

“What are your plans, Anton?”

“You’re asking like you won’t be a part of them.”

“I’m returning to the Mountain of Faith. I want the power and… I felt something there. It’s not just power, it’s understanding. I need it.”

Anton nodded but kept his silence.

“I have to go alone,” Zoe continued.

“Do you?” he said. “You’re the Queen of Portals, I’m sure you could figure something out.”