123. Breaking Point

The subway car rumbled beneath him, jerking up and down, but Isaac barely paid it any attention. He stood, hands pressed against the cool windows, his eyes fixed on the dark tunnel walls rushing past.

After realizing Lilith wasn’t in the Golden Lands, he’d immediately headed back to the station and boarded the first train that pulled up, nerves twisting all the while. In all his years in the Underside, he had never once seen Lilith leave the Golden Lands. And indeed, he’d learned that she couldn’t.

Isaac shifted his position. Maybe, perhaps as a side effect of the system error, that restriction was now gone? He didn’t know, but he was going to keep searching until he found her.

He kept repeating that to himself, because if he didn’t, then the small voice in the back of his mind would become impossible to ignore.

The one that suggested that he wouldn’t find Lilith anywhere. The one that said she had completely vanished from the world.

The train lurched to a stop, and Isaac spun around, racing out the doors and through the concrete station without pause. His feet pounded up the stairs, the sound loud in his ears. When he stepped outside, he blinked at the sight of eight arcing moons curving over a familiar lush forest. The Woodlands.

Isaac turned, scanning the surroundings and hurrying down the path towards the forest proper. It had been a while since he’d last come here, but usually there were a few fey wandering around the woods.

He didn’t have to search long, it turned out. Isaac skidded to a stop.

On the path ahead, an unfamiliar fey stood at the edge of the tree line facing the subway station. She had bright yellow eyes that glowed slightly in the darkness, and her skin bloomed into violet flowers at her joints. She stood completely still, gaze fixed ahead on the station.

“Excuse me,” Isaac began. “I’m looking for someone.”

The fey didn’t respond, those uncanny eyes continuing to stare distantly past him. It was an oddly silent night, and Isaac belatedly realized that there was no wind. The tree branches were unmoving, the leaves limp and loose. Despite the lack of a breeze, a subtle chill still permeated the air, and Isaac shivered a little. He shifted his position, frowning.

“I’m searching for Lilith,” he tried again. “Have you seen her?”

Above them, the sky darkened further, the realm crossing deeper into night. Thousands of gleaming stars littered the sky, and a faint violet glow outlined the tree tops, all of it framed by those arcing moons.

The fey’s eyes snapped to him—a sharp, flat yellow. Isaac took an instinctive step back.

“No,” she said simply. “I haven’t.”

Those eyes continued to stare at him, and the Traveler edged further away, growing unease climbing up his skin.

“Okay, thanks anyway,” he said before turning and hurrying back to the station. The whole time, he felt those eyes on him, burning into his back.

—

A group of demons stood whispering in the train car, and an Abyss Aberration floated a few feet away, weaving around the air in spiraling, snaking patterns. The creature left a trail of inky smoke wherever it went, and those clouds slowly dissipated into a thin haze that blurred the edges of everything within the subway car.

Eyes snapped in Isaac’s direction the second he stepped inside. He swallowed, but forced his mouth to move.

“Have any of you seen Lilith?”

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No one answered. The demons continued murmuring in low, guttural voices, but remained turned in his direction. The Aberration drifted past, amorphous body pulsing like a heartbeat. Its single round eye traced his every movement.

Isaac stayed by the door. When the train finally reached the next station, he stumbled out the car and onto the platform. His heart pounded in his chest, but he kept going, running up the steps and out of the exit.

The whipping winds of the Old Lands greeted him.

The undulating, twisting sky and its layers of forest and sea churned above, dwarfing everything below. The last time he’d come here had been during the tournament, Isaac realized. Without the red tinted barrier, the place only seemed even more massive.

Swallowing, Isaac looked up. Clustered near the station, towering titans stood together, heads disappearing into the clouds and obscuring their expressions. A violent gust nearly knocked Isaac over, and he grabbed the station corner to steady himself.

Scaled wings beat past, and Isaac could see several dragons soaring around the titans. Their wings formed dark, sharp silhouettes as they wove in and out of sight.

Never had Isaac seen so many of the residents of the Old Lands gathered together in such a dense cluster before. He was tempted to turn around and run back, but he forced himself to stay. He had to ask. He couldn’t leave any stone unturned.

And so, raising his voice, the Traveler called out into the whipping wind.

Isaac waited a second, but there was no response. The titans and dragons simply remained there, gathered together as though in waiting.

—

Solonell City’s streets were the most crowded that Isaac had ever seen. The moment he stepped out of the station, he nearly collided into a human with a quiver of arrows strapped to their back.

He turned his head, taking in the crowds of figures lining the winding streets, standing outside the buildings. Never before had the realm looked so similar to Chrowall City in its density, and yet, it still felt distinctly wrong.

The low murmurs that rippled through the residents. The way none of them moved and simply stayed in place. The glinting metal weapons. All of it made Isaac’s skin crawl.

Taking a deep breath, Isaac hurried down the street, resolving himself to find Mortimer as soon as possible. It was difficult to navigate around the crowds, and he kept bumping into people. All of them would stare at him silently, eyes seeming to gleam under the red sky.

“Do you know where Lilith is?” he finally tried asking someone, but before he could see if he’d get an answer this time, a hand yanked him backwards.

Isaac stumbled, barely managing to keep upright as he was pulled to the edge of the street beside a worn, abandoned modern style building. The hand’s grip didn’t loosen, and only the sight of a flapping red scarf gave indication of who the person was.

Isaac struggled to turn around. Perhaps it was the presence of someone familiar, but the bottled panic and anxiety was rising rapidly. Words tumbled out like a broken dam.

“Fable, I can’t find Lilith anywhere. I’ve been checking all the realms and—“

The other Traveler held a gloved hand up to shush him. Their face was expressionless, once again donning that oddly serious look, and Isaac’s jaw snapped shut.

“You’re making it worse,” they muttered in a quieter voice than Isaac had ever heard from them, volume so low that he had to strain to hear. “You’re just confirming everyone’s suspicions.”

Isaac’s head jerked to the crowd gathered on the streets, all of them facing the subway station.

“You mean they know?” He forced himself to speak in a whisper. Now that he looked at the realm’s humans more closely, he realized that quite a few had their hands out. His eyes widened. They were holding up their system tattoos.

Isaac shoved a hand into his pocket, yanking out the tablet and turning on the screen, eyes darting between it and the dark, inky marks visible on every single resident of Solonell City.

The screen flicked on as usual, not a glitch or error in sight. Isaac inhaled.

“Fable.” His voice shook a little. “What the hell is happening.”

The other Traveler didn’t answer immediately, their own gaze focused on the growing crowd. More and more people exited their homes, joining the others on the streets.

Finally, Fable opened their mouth and spoke two words that sent a chill down Isaac’s spine.

“It’s time.”

Bright light flared in the corner of Isaac’s eye. He spun around.

Across the street, one of the tattoos vanished in a flash of gold. Another followed a block down. Then another. And another.

One by one, inky marks exploded into golden lights, leaving nothing but bare, unmarked skin behind. The murmuring of the crowd crescendoed into a frenzy as more and more tattoos burst. Isaac heard the unsheathing of metal. Running footsteps. A soft crack. Glass breaking.

Bright light flooded his vision, and in his hands, the tablet burst into tiny shards just as the streets erupted into chaos.