Out of some strange, undefined impulse, Cedric's hands began to turn the reins west. Only when Adrian spoke up did Cedric consciously realize that it was happening.

"Are we taking a detour?" Adrian asked. There was no trace of belligerence or challenge in his voice, merely curiosity.

"Appears so," Cedric said. His head pounded like a drum and his eyes were desperate to droop, to perhaps never open again. He cleared his raw throat. "I'll know when I see it."

"Is this about what you and Oleanna discussed before we left?"

Cedric nodded but didn't elaborate; those previous words were all he cared to burden his tortured throat with. Adrian refrained from asking further questions, for which Cedric was grateful.

The wound at his side throbbed like another heartbeat, lighting up his entire torso with broad, pulsing pain. Tendrils of green and yellow had made their way up to his lower chest, a few inches shy of his rapidly thumping heart. Even breathing was more labored than before--heavy, yet somehow never able to fill his lungs to a satisfying capacity.

His most primal survival instincts had also reawakened, heedless as ever of his high-minded resolve to welcome death on his own terms. It was getting harder and harder to ignore them, but fortunately there was another voice he could devote his attention to.

Come. Come to me.

And he would. For whatever time he had left.

*

After another day of riding, when the sun had descended halfway below the horizon, Cedric saw them: a rough circle of ancient stones more than fifteen feet high, strikingly backlit by the deep, intense orange of the sunset, planted upon the top of a wide hill like an uneven crown.

It was the very same structure that Cedric had seen in his fevered delirium at Oleanna's cottage. The uncanny familiarity of something he'd never personally encountered struck him like a physical blow to the chest.

Come… come…

He and Adrian dismounted Nightwind to stretch their legs and grant their steed a reprieve. Cedric stumbled the most upon hitting the ground, both from the stiffness of his muscles and his sickened body. He coughed a phlegmy glob of blood into his fist, a small improvement from the deluge of the night before.

"Drink," Adrian said from behind him, holding out Cedric's waterskin. Cedric took a large gulp, and his throat and pounding head were soothed somewhat. He'd need another dose in less than an hour, but it was a blessing all the same.

Cedric attempted a grin. "I'll concede that you knew what you were doing."

Adrian didn't smile in return. His brows were now knitted in a permanent frown. He looked past Cedric's shoulder towards the circle of stone. "Is that what we took a detour for?"

The terrain had grown sparser as they'd ridden north. The dying grass now struggled out of cracks between rocks in short, weak tufts rather than endless fields. The harder ground was harsh on their feet and their tattered shoes, though Nightwind trotted beside them as contentedly as ever.

Just a third of the way up the hill was enough to send Cedric panting for breath. He felt Adrian hovering beside him, like a living cloud of wordless worry.

"I'm fine," he said shortly, and forced the remaining steps one at a time.

A labored eternity later, they came upon the crest of the hill, and the sight struck them speechless with wonder.

The round meadow within the boundaries of the stone formation was impossibly green, resplendent with tall, thriving grass and flowers. A few bees hovered about the blossoms, and even a few birds were present, perched atop the stones or bobbing their heads amongst the grass for insects and worms. It was a tiny patch of sanctuary, an oasis of vibrant life.

Cedric took the first step into the circle, and felt the air around him cool at once. He'd grown accustomed to the oppressive heat, as he'd had no other frame of reference, but the difference was stark. There was something terribly wrong with the world, just as Oleanna had said, and it'd taken this glimpse of true normalcy to prove it. He sank to his knees and touched the grass, to make certain that it was all real. He'd never seen grass so green in all his life.

Nightwind snorted happily and forged past him to enjoy the equine equivalent of a gourmet meal.

"I like to think the restraint I've shown so far has been admirable, if not extraordinary," Adrian said. He'd also entered the circle. "With that said, how did you find this place? What is this place? What is happening?"

Cedric considered Adrian's expression of wild, wide-eyed frustration. How long had he been bottling up this outburst?

But there was nothing stopping him from telling Adrian the truth. There never had been, and now was as good a time as any. Cedric braced himself and opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

I am the Divine Heir of Darkness. Those five simple words refused to leave him. Adrian's expectant look only made it worse. He floundered.

"I know that this place is old," Cedric said lamely. "Even older than the kingdom."

Annoyance flashed across Adrian's face. "And here it sits in the middle of nowhere, utterly forgotten," he said ruefully. He ran his hand along the rough, pitted surface of one of the stones, a looming behemoth twenty feet tall, five wide, and two thick. He shot a hard glance at Cedric. "Except by you."

The sun had set, and the expanded awareness of the night settled into Cedric's mind. He could now feel the meadow thrumming with energy and presence like a living entity. But the mysterious voice was nowhere to be heard.

Cedric rose clumsily to his feet--his limbs felt as heavy as stones themselves--and stepped over to where Adrian stood. He met those sharp gray eyes.

I am the Divine Heir of Darkness. The words still did not come. Perhaps he was destined to die before ever revealing it to him. Yet some part of Cedric rued that outcome as strongly as the part that didn't want to tell at all.

"Enough is enough," Adrian said. "Stop evading, dodging, ignoring."

"I'm sorry."

"Bollocks to your apologies, too! Exactly who and what have I joined fates with, Cedric? Tell me that!" His voice was louder, more frantic.

Cedric's own temper flared in response, but he fought against it. Adrian was right to be angry. "I never meant--"

"Are you afraid? Is that why?"

"I don't--"

"Out with it, blast you!"

Cedric pounded a fist on the stone with a surprisingly loud, reverberating thump. "For Eris' sake, give me a--!"

Chaos ensued.

*

An unseen force blew Adrian off his feet. He landed heavily on his back, stunned.

Before he could collect his senses, a deafening roar of shattering glass and screeching metal from everywhere and nowhere began to tear at his ears and shake the earth beneath him.

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Nightwind reared and whinnied in terror before fleeing the circle. The birds scattered, twittering in panic. Adrian struggled upright and clapped his hands hard over his ears as a fierce wind whipped his hair from his face and even pulled at the muscles of his cheeks.

"Cedric!" he cried. His shout was stolen away by the maelstrom's force.

The creature before him was not the Cedric he knew. He was standing in the same position as before, his right hand flat against the stone, but his eyes, including the whites, had gone pure black. Dark energy swarmed his shuddering body in a cocoon of whirling shadows.

And as quickly as it had all begun, it ended. The terrible, inhuman roar receded, the wind dissipated, and the shadows dissolved seamlessly into the darkening canvas of the early night. Cedric stood upright for perhaps a heartbeat more, and then collapsed onto the grass.

"Cedric!" Adrian cried as he crawled over to him.

His skin was cold, icy to the touch. His open eyes were restored to their original appearance, but the spark behind them was gone. The irises were as flat as ink spots on parchment.

Adrian shook his shoulders, then struck him across the face. No response.

"Wake up!" Adrian half-sobbed, half-screamed. "Wake up, Eris curse you…"

But aside from the shallow rise and fall of his chest, Cedric was as dead to the world as a corpse. Adrian ran a trembling hand through his own wild, wind-blown hair.

Nightwind hesitantly returned to the circle, his midnight eyes cautious and alert. Adrian wrapped his arms around the stallion's broad neck and breathed in the musty, earthy scent of his dark velvet pelt.

"Master Cedric will have some explaining to do when he wakes up, won't he?"

Nightwind snorted in emphatic agreement.

*

A terrible, corrosive sickness infused Cedric's spirit so deeply that he should have already died of it a thousand times over. There was nothing to see, hear, or touch, only the bottomless chasm of suffering that engulfed him. He was but a floating wisp, helpless and alone.

For what felt like years in the darkness, Cedric knew nothing but crushing, heartrending despair. But the despair, he eventually realized, was not his own. And with that knowledge, the unbearable, penetrating sickness of his spirit faded.

Who are you? he projected out into the void. With no voice available to him, he could only wield his thoughts.

At first, there was no answer. Then…

I am all.

It was the same voice that'd haunted his dreams, that'd once called for him to submit to the black diamond.

What do you want? Who are you?

You must… see…

An unspeakably vast entity enveloped him in its folds. What remained of Cedric's individual consciousness was swept away by an inexorable current of foreign sensations and thoughts. He and the entity were one.

She was here. Not born, not brought forth into existence by a greater being or power. She simply… was. She explored the bounds of Her form, every aspect of Herself in leisurely curiosity. She had all of time to do so.

The more she knew of Herself, the more Her purpose became clear. She was a Creator. Every part of Her thrummed with yearning, and with potential itching to be realized.

She began weaving together the darkness first, one thread at a time. A vast, beautiful fabric came to being in Her hands. Then, inspiration struck, and she turned the fabric over to weave its complement on the other side, a bright canvas of warmth and light. She laid it across Her body.

With Her right hand, She drew flowing waters across Her skin. With Her left, she dug tiny wells of fire that bubbled and brewed.

Something was blossoming in the depths of Her belly. It would grow and branch into a million unique, magnificent forms. They would draw sustenance and warmth from Her flesh, and create endless little worlds of their own within the contours of Her body.

She was content.

Cedric returned to himself, now painfully conscious of the limits of his own awareness. He yearned to return to the bottomless omniscience of the entity's mind.

Now, there was a single image before him: a glittering white city bordered by high walls, set on an island at the center of an immense river. A marble tower rose triumphantly from the heart of the city, like a pillar of solid light under the midday sun. The Citadel was the home of kings and queens, almost too magnificent to have been built by human hands.

So far away… the voice whispered plaintively, and Cedric was overcome with a wave of profound, aching loss. His initial awe of the Citadel dissipated. The tower now seemed cold, distant, and unnatural.

The vision changed.

Near the banks of a wide, frothing stream, stooped figures bent and scooped handfuls of dirt into shallow woven baskets that they carried to the water. Others swung picks at the harder soil and rock, their muscles glistening with sweat beneath an overcast sky.

One figure at the stream's edge straightened up with a wordless cry of triumph, a translucent white stone clutched in his hand.

The stone remained suspended in place even as its holder, along with its surroundings, melted away to nothingness. It grew brighter, clearer, and larger, like an irregularly-shaped moon.

And then it fell into a chasmic underground pit filled near to the brim with its brethren. It joined the collection like a drop of water into a lake.

The vision changed.

Cedric was no longer observing a scene from a distance. He'd become someone else, his mind placed behind the eyes of a stranger.

His arms lifted--they were much paler and slighter than those of his own body, and couldn't have belonged to a boy older than six. They scrabbled in the loose dirt, pawing through clods and small rocks with torn, filthy fingers.

The child whose eyes Cedric shared looked up at a towering, cruel-faced man. He held a quivering whip, and raised it threateningly. The thin arms snapped up to shield from the strike, and the man cackled.

"That's right, little worm," he crooned. "Keep at it, if you like skin on your back."

Behind him knelt scores of other young children, hunched miserably over their bare-handed digging. A few additional men twirling whips patrolled amongst them. Those who submitted to fatigue were rewarded with a stinging retort.

The child returned to his work. Not long after, his small hands enclosed around something hard, harder than rock. He brushed away remnants of dirt and held the object up to his eyes.

It was small, pitch-black in color, and throbbed in his hand like a tiny heart. Cool, dark power spread down his arms and through his chest. He looked at the cruel whip-holder, who was now making a similar show of intimidation to an older girl.

He felt true strength, for perhaps the first time in his life, along with a cold surge of anticipation. The power thrummed comfortably in his veins, and he happily submitted to it.

The girl's eyes widened in shock as she saw him. The whip-holder turned around to follow her horrified gaze, and his sneer melted away like hot candle wax.

"What the blazes--" was all he could choke out before dark talons pierced the man's chest and tore him apart in a storm of blood and innards.

The screams of slave and slaver alike echoed long after the vision dissipated.

Cedric was once again swept into the immense depths of the entity's consciousness.

She was growing ill. The guardians of Her power plundered Her flesh and cared for naught else. Her dearest children had forsaken Her. She wept with anguished grief.

But a flicker of hope lingered. She would soon Awaken again, as was Her nature, and gift Her children with great power for one turn of the cosmic fabric.

Come back to me, She begged of her most beloved. Walk again amongst my forests, my mountains, my deserts. Eat of my fruit, swim in my rivers and seas. Be one with me. Mold my flesh as you will, reclaim the home where you belong.

But on the fated day, Her last hope crumbled to ash. She knew only pain, deeper and crueler than any She'd suffered in all Her existence. Torn apart, corrupted, ravaged; agony bore down upon Her like an inexorable wave. Something intrinsic to Her had been broken. She faced an oblivion from which She could never return.

All was lost.

Cedric returned to himself, stricken with heartbreak. The entity wrapped him in a comforting embrace as he sobbed with helpless anguish.

I'm sorry. We failed you…

You're forgiven, She said gently. Now, and always.

*

Cedric returned to the earthly realm with tears in his eyes. His breath hitched with quiet sobs.

"You're awake!" Adrian exclaimed from a few paces away. Rapid footsteps approached him amidst the darkness of the night.

Cedric fixed his eyes on the barely discernible face hovering above him.

"I'm the Heir of Darkness," he blurted out. The words left him in a single, forceful burst.

There was a ringing silence that followed, during which Cedric prepared for the worst, but then Adrian laughed. "Aye, I worked that out for myself once shadows swarmed you and your eyes turned black."

"They did?" Cedric frowned. "How long have I been lying here?"

"A few hours. You scared the blazes out of Nightwind, by the way. But that beast is unnaturally loyal. It's unsettling, really."

Cedric struggled up onto his elbows. "You're not… angry?"

The silhouette of Adrian's shoulders lifted and lowered in a noncommittal shrug. "Only at myself that I didn't put it together sooner. All my questions about you are answered. What else could I ask for?"

That sent an unexpectedly strong surge of relief through his chest. "I'm sorry for not telling you," Cedric said quickly. "I was… afraid."

"Of what?" Adrian snorted. "Aren't you second only to the Goddess?"

"Of you. Your reaction, I suppose."

Adrian sat unmoving for an uncomfortably long time. He handed Cedric his waterskin. "Drink, then rest. We'll talk in the morning."

Only then did Cedric remember that he was ill. His head still pounded, his heart still thumped furiously, and his torso still blazed with pain, but the Goddess' revelations and Adrian's discovery of his identity had briefly overshadowed it all.

He drank gratefully, reluctantly took a few bites of the bread that Adrian thrust at him, then settled back down. And despite his intentions to think long and hard about all that Eris had shown him, he tumbled into oblivion as soon as his head hit the soft, lush grass.

*

Once he was sure that Cedric was asleep, Adrian let out the breath he'd been holding and allowed his body to tremble and his breath to quicken into nervous gasps. It'd been nigh impossible to feign nonchalance, but he'd managed regardless. Hadn't he proven his mettle as a liar back in Laetera?

Thanks to the extra ingredient that Adrian had added to the waterskin, Cedric would slumber for at least a day. Plenty of time for the Bloodclaw to catch up to them.