Yet again, D’Argen was stopped from completing his goal when a hard grip stilled his hand, the tip of his sword barely a hair from his stomach. He glared at the owner of the hand.

“Pick a side!” he spat out at Thar.

He was starting to get annoyed with the man’s presence. Was he there to stop D’Argen from leaving the realm or help him? His actions and inactions both were in such disorder that it made D’Argen’s head hurt.

Thar’s grip around his wrist tightened. The bones there started grinding together and D’Argen’s hand opened without his consent. The blade fell to the grass between them. It bounced off it like marble. Then D’Argen noticed the grass turning into tendrils of smoke, rising around his sword and—

The marble sound he recognized so well from the training hall where he and Vah’mor sparred sometimes. The ground was hard and it hurt every time he hit it, but it was solid and—

The air shimmered around him. The castle walls that had been visible just over Thar’s shoulders grew and advanced, moving so quickly toward him that he panicked. They stopped with a cloud of dust. The light from the sky above faded away and turned to candles as a roof appeared over their heads. Marble columns rose from the ground. They were etched with stories from thousands of years past. The doors at one end of the hall slammed closed and the dais at the other end moved toward him. It sank under the marble then rose again, bringing him and Thar a few steps above while the others remained in a loose circle around them.

His sword did not disappear.

“Why are you doing this?” D’Argen dared to ask even as more candles and scones appeared, lighting the area. The hall did not have any windows, deeper in the castle bowels and away from natural light.

Thar did not answer him. He did not even look at anything other than where his hand still gripped D’Argen’s wrist tight.

“This is not real,” D’Argen tried again. “You know that, right?”

“To you,” Thar answered slowly. His eyes were back to their pure white colour but they were unfocused. He looked like he was staring off into some far distance not right in front of him.

“And to you it is?” D’Argen dared to ask back.

Acela took the first step up on the dais. Zetha followed her, his sword resting at the notch of his shield to point at D’Argen.

“Is this real to you?” D’Argen asked again. “Us? Fighting one another? Killing one another?”

“We are not killing anyone,” Acela was the one to answer this time. “You are.”

“Clearly, I don’t belong here then,” D’Argen shot back with anger but refused to look away from Thar. “Thar, listen to me, this is not real.”

Thar opened his mouth to answer then took a short breath and closed it.

“Everything here is wrong,” D’Argen pleaded. “Since when can we even think about hurting one another. Thar. You are hurting me right now.”

Thar’s hand trembled slightly where he held D’Argen and his grip loosened a little. It no longer hurt, but it was still too tight to slip out of it.

“Just let me get out of here.” D’Argen’s eyes darted to his sword and quickly back to Thar.

Thar’s eyes shot up and locked on his. White. There was a thick black ring around his irises and a black pupil, but the iris was a pure white. Like ice and snow. Like the nothingness of that white space where Lilian did not want him to remain.

“I should not be here,” D’Argen pleaded again, quieter, keeping his words slow.

“You should be,” Acela answered him again instead of Thar. She was standing barely a few steps away from him. Zetha stood at her shoulder, his shield positioned protectively in front of her. Neither of them were advancing.

D’Argen dared to tear his eyes away from Thar only long enough to scan the crowd. Asa and Sa’ab were in the circle again. Vah’mor stood in front of them all, their glaive standing taller than the rest. Abbot. Yaling.

The platform under him seemed to sink back into the marble until he was level with them all.

“This is not a punishment,” Acela said again, bringing his focus back on her.

D’Argen wanted to snap at her. He wanted to scream. He wanted to throw something. He also wanted to understand the cacophony of feelings inside him. There were too many. Arehal had once hinted to him that they could have the thought, they could hurt one another. She had proven it by digging her nails so deep into his skin that he bled and had bruises for weeks. Bruises that did not heal as all other wounds he had ever received did.

“It sure feels like one,” D’Argen dared to grit out.

Acela frowned at him. Zetha took a step forward, but she raised her hand and he fell back.

“Is any of this real?” D’Argen asked.

“It is all real,” Acela answered.

D’Argen twisted his wrist slightly, feeling Thar’s grip tighten once more and then loosen when he stopped moving his hand.

“And that other realm?”

“What other realm?” Acela questioned. Her voice was soft, softer than he had heard it in millennia. She sounded like the queen he had pledged his allegiance to.

“The—the other memories.”

“Oh, D’Argen,” she breathed out and stepped forward. D’Argen flinched and she raised both hands, showing them bare of weapons. “You are sick.”

“What?”

“You have been sick for a long time. We have all been trying to—”

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“No!” he shouted over her.

“—help you, but you’ve used so much of your mahee that it has consumed you.”

“No!”

“You spoke of an avalanche, a cave, melding with Thar…”

Thar flinched in front of him and then let go of D’Argen’s wrist finally. He took a few quick steps back and his eyes fell to the ground.

“None of it was real,” Acela continued.

“What?”

“You imagined it all. Your white world when you run? You painted it with memories and images because—”

“You’re lying.”

“—it was what you wanted. You were broken, from the moment you fell to this realm. Something inside you broke.”

“You’re lying! No!”

Acela took a deep breath and then another step closer to him.

“Have we hurt you?” Acela questioned.

D’Argen felt the indignation burning through him. He reached for the most recent wound, the one in his chest from Zetha’s shield and—it was dry. His robes were whole. He was not even sore.

All Never Born could heal much faster than the mortals around them. Their bodies were just vessels for their mahee. The containers could be fixed easily. He thought for a moment of that cavern and the drop that had tempted him so. He would survive that. It would hurt, but he would survive. Nothing as simple as a fall could kill a god.

Except. Were they really gods?

“When we fell, you stumbled,” Acela continued.

Was it possible? Was everything a lie? Was Lilian?

“You were so different from the rest of us and yes, that is our fault, we shunned you.”

“No.”

“All you wanted was a friend. And I am so sad that none of us were able to meet your standards. We tried. All of us. Lilian most of all.”

At the mention of their name, D’Argen felt his entire body tremble. He scanned the crowd and saw them. Lilian. Standing there and hunched in on themselves. They were not looking at him. There was a comforting arm resting around their shoulders.

“You were just… too much, for us. Too fast, too loud, too talkative, too friendly.”

“Too annoying,” D’Argen added in with a sneer. He knew the words. He remembered the stares and the glares. It was one of the reasons he preferred to be alone, save for his close few friends and companions. He was always too something.

Acela let out a heavy sigh and though she did not nod to agree with him, it felt like an agreement all the same. “You wanted more than we knew how to give and…”

Acela’s words faded away into his mind as he thought back. He remembered badgering Lilian constantly to join him on his runs. He remembered how easily he ignored it when others got sick after running with him. He remembered Abbot waving him away when he asked the artist to join him for a drink because he had duties.

D’Argen did not have duties. Acela named him the Envoy of Evadia for his speed, yes, but it was mostly to keep him out of the castle.

Out of trouble.

Away from the rest of them.

“…and when that did not work, you came up with this magical connection you had with Thar.”

D’Argen heard Acela’s words once more and his eyes focused on Thar. Thar refused to look at him, staring at the floor under them.

No.

This was all some trick.

The hall had changed. A moment ago, they were all standing in the open space between the castle walls and the defensive wall around the castle. There was a dais under him. The hall—

The hall they were in had no windows.

Ehora stood in the crowd, a large window frame behind her with stained glass that would have had thousands of colours if D’Argen could see them. D’Argen focused all of his senses on her. Though the scent of cannabis was there, it was not so strong to reveal she was using her mahee. As the God of Illusions, she was able to reach into anyone’s mind and change what they saw. Santis stood not that far from her. D’Argen was not asleep for the God of Dreams to reach him even if the scent of sugarcane was in the air. As every other scent. The dew drops from Lilian, the almond oil from Abbot, the blood from Vah’mor—

Gods.

They were called that by the mortals and recognized by their scents. Many of them used those titles to stand above the rest. The ranking system Acela had introduced to them only created a stronger hierarchy among them. Even now, Yaling stood a step behind Abbot. Lilian a step before them both. If D’Argen was standing in that crowd, he would be all the way at the back. Alone.

“We tried to find you a place and now—”

“Shut up!” D’Argen interrupted Acela without looking at her. He felt the anger coursing through him like ice shards in his veins. Like Thar’s mahee.

Acela was wrong. She was lying.

He could not have imagined all that.

“Do you really think it is possible for your mahee to merge with another?” Acela asked, her voice firm. “Something that has never happened before? Something we have tried many times and failed? And yet you, you, were able to do it somehow by accident?”

D’Argen felt the frost at his fingertips. He was right. Acela was lying. She had to be.

“A lowly god with nothing to your name?” she was starting to sound angry. She was starting to get mean. “One with no powers other than your speed?” she was also starting to sound right. “What can speed do for us? The rest of us, our magic is to help the mortals and one another. We aid where we can. Yet you? You do nothing.”

It hurt. It was not true and yet it hurt so much. Because, maybe, it was slightly true. Maybe, more than slightly. Maybe he was just…

“A waste of the mahee,” Acela pulled the words from his mind and spat them out.

D’Argen let the silence that followed cover him like a balm from her acidic words. A waste of the mahee? It was possible. She was right. He had never done much to help the mortals around him, preferring to run and explore and avoid any duties that Acela or the others gave him. Not that they gave him much because, as Acela said, his speed was the only thing he was good for. And his speed was not always needed.

Acela may have been right about that, but she was wrong about something else.

“I’m not broken,” D’Argen whispered the words out. Maybe he was, but not in the way she meant it. The slight breeze dancing between his frost-covered fingers proved it. At least to himself.

He may not be what Acela wanted him to be – what any of the others wanted him to be – but he was not broken. He had the mahee. He was one of the gods. There were hundreds of them and none of them possessed the same gifts. His, just so happened, to be speed.

Just because Acela saw no benefit in that for her means, did not mean he was useless. He was still one of the Never Born. He still had magic that no other beings in all of Trace possessed—

Except there were other beings.

D’Argen thought to the mushrooms on Sky Mountain. He thought of the cheetah in the plains of Oltria. He thought of the birds Thar had mentioned. Then he went farther. The demons that Upates had created – the ones that used magic to create more. The Life Crops Darania had turned into the Rainbow Fields, Rainbow Forest, and Rainbow Reef – the fruits those places bore that allowed mortals to heal from grievous wounds and live longer.

He thought of the gold that Acela adorned herself with because it reflected the mahee back into her. He thought of the cursed stone that made him feel sick and like he could not touch his mahee at all.

He thought of Varuba’s staff.

It was impossible to fight Acela – fight everyone – and win using their shared mahee. That was the mahee fighting the mahee. It was not meant to be. It was a thought that should never be formed. He would never hurt a part of himself. He would never hurt himself. It was how the mahee worked. It erased those thoughts before they could even form.

Yet, in this place, they not only formed, but they also became a reality. He still saw Vah’mor’s form spit out blood. He saw Asa and Sa’ab dying under his blade. He remembered the pain of being cut apart and thrown down by the others.

No.

His mahee could not beat the mahee as a whole.

D’Argen firmed his resolve and stared at Acela. His blood was coursing so fast that he felt lightheaded and even lighter on his feet. But no. He needed to be grounded.

“You say this is real and I’m imagining things?” he questioned and then held a hand out toward her. “Then tell me, am I also imagining this?” He grasped the air in front of him and suddenly a heavy weight settled on his shoulders. He felt like he was sinking and his feet were stuck in mud. His breath came heavy and even his own hair weighed him down. His vision blurred and doubled, but his resolve was firm.

In his outstretched hand, running parallel to the ground, was Varuba’s staff. It was whole, as Varuba had it before he broke it, and carved in detailed markings that he could not understand, but could still recall the shape of.

And it worked. The entire hall cleared of all scents so suddenly that D’Argen thought for a moment he was transported back to that empty white space. Then he decided to be the first this time and he charged Acela, staff swinging.