Sara spent the next day and a half leaving the dungeon. With Raul and Emma gaining Divine Eyes and practicing, it was easy to bypass all traps and obstacles. “No wonder you’ve been so bored,” Raul had noted. She nodded, and they continued on.

They reached the opening of the crypt on the second day, walking out to the sound of people laughing and yelling and singing songs. It was faint and distant, like the far-off sound of Higurashi cicadas, but it was vibrant. And the fact that they were up high was self-evident. Even with the moon waxing on the horizon—peeping through the iris opening like some celestial pupil—all they could see were clouds instead of Trollin’s city skyline.

“Tah-dah….” Sara said dryly, presenting the trial like it was a Christmas surprise.

Emma’s eyes trembled. “How high up are we?”

“Four, five hundred feet,” Sara said. “It’s a literal skyscraper.”

“Why?” Raul asked.

“Mana walking practice. Sink or swim.”

“That’s cold.”

“Yeah. Alright, up you go.” Emma panicked and screamed when Sara swooped her into a princess carry.

“Let me down!” she cried.

“Would you rather die?” Sara asked.

“No!”

“Do you want to go with Raul instead?”

“Hey!” Raul complained. He already knew the answer.

“Sorry…” Emma whispered.

“Then just close your eyes,” Sara said. “We got this.”

We referred to Sara and Emma. It only took a few minutes for them to descend, landing in a crowd of screaming fans and people trying to ask them questions. Sara released tyrannical mana pressure and then created a barrier that pushed people back; Emma retained it.

As for Raul, he kept screaming, “Help!” He could make the descent—but, as he later justified it, Why the fuck would I risk my life for something I didn’t have to? If I would’ve fallen, that would’ve been cruel as fuck. So, as punishment, Sara carried Raul princess-carry down from the statue to a crowd of laughing, cheering people, something Raul would later sum up as Worth it, considering I was alive! and then huffing, blushing, and hating his life.

Sara didn’t find any of it funny. Emma was hugging her knees on the grass, surrounded on all sides of the barrier by people who were yelling and screaming like a pack of wild animals. Sara’s patience for it ran out, and she activated an amplification circle to address the sea of people. “Get the fuck away from her!” she yelled.

A penetrating silence swept through the crowd, leaving people stunned as they tried backing away from the barrier, only to find a wall of unmovable people behind them.

“You want to know who we are, so I will tell you,” Sara said. “We are the Vena! The group that will lead the fight against Agronus!”

That changed the mood. The silence charged with static electricity, creating waves of hums and gasps and nervous chuckles, moving through the crowd like a burning fuse until it hit people who weren’t afraid—and exploded like dynamite, sending the crowd into a frenzy.

Sara wanted to scream, Shut the fuck up! twice as loud, but she knew it would only cause problems. So she explained instead. “We come from the Escaran Kingdom. And under the orders of King Alecov the First and the military leadership of Lady Sara Reece, we will seize victory. Tell your kings and queens what you saw here today; let them know their kingdom can make history by joining us and putting an end to the Thousand Year War!”

Raucous cheering.

“Now we must go!” Sara yelled. “Stay back, or we will use force.”

Emma released the barrier as Sara jumped up with her in her arms, running on dead air as Raul yelled for them to wait up. Emma heard him and saw the crowds of people rushing over to him, like people praying he would fall 20 feet so they could touch him, and started giggling. He didn’t find it funny and he told her as much in the city as they pushed through crowds, answered questions, denied audience requests, and paid for three silver gliders.

Once boarded, they flew away, tailed by a dozen people. In response, Sara promptly created walls and wind and rain barriers to thwart them as she flew around in circles, ensuring that no one would find out where they were going. It took half the day, but Sara didn’t care. She was finally on her way to Telsenlore to see her family. That joy would soon turn into fear when she read her letters.

2

Sara had barely shaken off their tails and dropped into a forest clearing when she opened up her spatial ring, expecting a lot of mail—

—and found twice as much as she thought.

Some were explicitly marked as urgent. Sara skipped those letters and opened the four from Kyritus and Tiber, not reading, just checking—scouring—for news of a strange man. Nothing. Then she opened up to the others.

“What do they say?” Raul asked.

Sara took a deep breath and leaned against a tree. “It says that Daniel’s up and torturing people to find Kyritus and Tiber.”

Raul’s eyes widened, and Emma cupped her mouth.

“Sadistic fuck’s been soul-linking children to his victims and then hurting them to demonstrate what it feels like to get your soul ripped apart, so… yeah. They’ve pretty much spilled everything. The heroes are standing watch outside Rokus’s house ‘cause he’s the only person who knows where they are. They haven’t wrote… in God knows how long. So it’s unclear where he is.”

3

Daniel had just dropped Halkon’s executioner on Raul’s bed and was preparing to leave when he noticed a stack of letters on his desk. He felt like a creep looking, but the sight was so strange that his curiosity took root. He picked one up and saw each of them addressed to members of Raul’s family. Against the protests of the little humanity he had left, he opened one and read it. Then he read another—and another. By the time he finished, he sat on Raul’s bed.

“I hate being the villain…” he whispered.

The letters didn’t mention Daniel—or anyone of importance. They just detailed his journeys and daily life, the people he met, and his goals and dreams. They were simple letters from someone who cared about life and its people. In all ways, Raul was the opposite of him. And while he wasn’t opposed to killing, he was the closest thing to a hero Reemada would ever have.

Daniel took a deep breath. “But I gotta be….”

It was far too late to back out now. He restarted his invisibility spell and jumped out the window. He had to get everything ready before reaching Rokus’s house, which looked like a military fortress surrounded by the “heroes.”

3

Raul bit his lip and held Emma as she cried. Sara stood there, trying to work through her thoughts before she ran around, punching trees and screaming instead of doing something that would help. Ten minutes later, she penned a reply to Edico that said: “I’m in Tesenlore. Tell Daniel I’ll be waiting there for him.” With any luck, Daniel would hear and then think twice about showing up—or at least take another few days to prepare. Right now, it was just a race against time, and while it would still take a week for him to get there, it would take four days for her to—

—assuming that he didn’t boost his speed. She figured he would, so she took that into account.

“Let’s go,” Sara said. “I gotta teach you how to boost your flight speed.”

“Sara….” Emma whispered worriedly.

“It’s gonna be difficult,” Sara said, “but it sounds like he was in Lemora last night. That means that if we leave now, we’ll beat him by a couple of days. But not if he’s using some sketchy shit.”

“Sara,” Raul said. “We should talk about this. If you hold back your resentment, it’ll just cause problems. So come on… yell at us.”

Sara looked him in the eyes. “Listen. I knew, okay? I knew that Daniel was using forbidden magic. I knew it. And when I came back through that summoning gate and saw Daniel realizing that a big ass clue was stuck to the floor, I pretty much assumed it was him. Then, I had a full year to kill him, and I didn’t. Like you, I thought he meant well. And I still think… he really did. So I focused on the fact that you and Emma were alive, and Edico was around, Mary was dead… the whole nine. Then he burned me… but I still didn’t know, and that bothered me. I knew… but I didn’t know. Not for certain. Not the way. Not the how. Nothing. Okay? He saved Edico’s life and…. I couldn’t kill him. Not with him in a coma. Not without knowing. And probably just because I didn’t want to murder someone. Jason fought. I killed him. Mary tried to kill you; I locked her up. I didn’t even execute King Escar. I’m a hypocrite….” She looked away. “I’m just so fucking…. Stupid. But I think more than anything…. I’m kinda glad. ‘Cause right now, you and Emma and Edico and Kye and Tiber… and fucking everyone but Rokus…. trusts me. And I don’t think any of you would if I murdered someone in a coma. And since Kye and TIber are fine, and they wrote this morning, I think it’ll be fine as long as we get there in time. But if we don’t—it’s gonna be seriously fucked up, okay? So get… the fuck… on… your silver gliders… and move.”

Sara mounted her silver glider. “Now.”

Raul and Emma did share responsibility for the current outcome. Sara warned them about Daniel, and they didn’t take it seriously until it was too late. Still, the issue was never whether they wanted Daniel to live because they all prayed he would die. The problem was about trust. Neither wanted Sara to prove willing to preemptively murder her way through problems—especially coma patients and vegetables. They wanted to trust that she wouldn’t harm them if she thought they were liabilities in the future. They wanted to trust that when Sara said that she wouldn’t kill someone—she wouldn’t. Trust. Sara understood that—

—and valued it.

Sara had cared from the beginning—cared about her friends, family, citizens, heroes, and world. Yet she fucked up one too many times trying to create a perfectly safe world for the people she cared about instead of actually thinking about them. Yet she had changed. She put down the bottle, trusted the heroes, and started writing Kye and Tiber. Now, she felt hopeful about the future. So no, Sara didn’t blame herself, Raul, or Emma. The only person Sara would blame was Daniel Winters, who was a depraved animal that needed to be put down. Only him, no one else.

5

Darius leaned his back against the wall of a house in the foliage-rich Noble District. Andy, Helen, Elizabeth, Killian, Denise, Taylor, and Kayley were standing guard—collectively being the most insanely overpowered pair of bodyguards in existence. Many had sent meteors crashing down on Quell’s forces during the Three-Front Siege, vaporizing a hundred soldiers a piece; the rest survived a trap with thousands of soldiers shooting at them. Now, they were all standing around a house as simple bodyguards.

“Daniel….” Darius chuckled. “That’s some shit.”

“Right?” Denise of the strike force asked. She was slightly overweight in Palo Alto, but now she was a pretty exercise junkie that was carved out of stone. “He just didn’t seem….”

“Interesting?” Helen asked.

“Yeah. Interesting.”

“That’s how evil geniuses are born,” Darius said. “They’re smart as fuck, but no one sees their genius. Then they get pissed and start killing people. Classic.” He looked out at the beautiful front yard, spawning beautiful plants and trees. “Also… this was a pretty stupid idea.”

“What?” Andy asked.

“Puttin’ a soldier in the Noble District,” Darius said. “That’s pretty sketch. If I were lookin’ for dirt, I’d come up here.”

“Sycounts are nobles,” Helen said.

“Yeah. More importantly….” Tara (Sara’s past enemy and Darius’s booty call that he called twelve too many times and was now an unofficial girlfriend) looked at the six permanent guards at the house. “If someone in the common district had this many guards, they’d know.”

“Still think it’s stupid,” Darius said.

Elizabeth suddenly materialized from her invisibility spell and threw up a barrier. “Watch out!” A thin red projectile streaked across the courtyard like a laser pointer. Once it hit the barrier, it exploded in an inferno that spread out on the grass around them. It was eerie to watch the flames curl in a circle.

Darius’s heart sucked in steam and started chugging as he moved his hands away from his eyes. Then he heard a strange voice that was so different yet had the same tempo and inflection as Daniel’s.

“I’m impressed. Your skills have improved… all of you.” The flames died down, exposing a man around thirty with sandy brown hair and a well-built body. He looked relaxed, hands tucked into his trouser’s pockets. “Now, let me through, and I’ll be on my way.”

Darius would’ve been lying if he said he wasn’t scared, but he still snorted. “Do you think so little of us?” There were eight heroes present.

“Oh, no,” Daniel cackled, loud at first, then trailing off like a turned sound knob. “You’re all twice as strong as you used to be. In fact, you look like Jason did.” He turned to Darius, who froze. “You’re all strong, and that’s good ‘cause I need you to kill the demons.” Then his smile faded as he approached, dying flames reflecting off his irises. “That’s why it’d be a loss to kill you. So fuck… off.”