Alexia staggered as Maleon’s manipulations of Celegana’s divine energy throttled her balance. She dropped to one knee, straining as though holding the collapsing ceiling aloft with her arms. Stone shattered and scattered around her, crashing to the ground in a storm of debris. Pebbles, dust, and dirt settled at her feet, but she refused to let go of Celegana.

Unbidden, thoughts of Azi flashed through her mind. The princess was the most stubborn person she’d ever known. Drawing strength from the memory of her best friend’s resilience, Alexia gripped Aurora—remembering how Azi climbed their acacia tree years ago to find the perfect stick—and channeled Celegana until divine energy overflowed the staff and filtered into her body, feeling like Azi’s arms were around her, telling her not to let some rockhead kill her with thousands of pounds of rocks.

She held to Celegana, pushing the stone away from her, forcing it to shift to the side, adhering to the wall and back to the ceiling. Still, the stones piled up around her, trapping her between the tunnel’s crumbling walls. The weight of the earth closed in, forming the edges of a tomb designed by Maleon’s trickery. Alexia refused to let the lid close. The light of Norali’s hope dimmed, leaving her in a suffocating darkness. The space grew smaller and smaller, until she could feel the stone pressing into her sides and millions of pebbles trap her legs in place.

A voice—discordant, cruel, and persistent—scratched at her consciousness like steel on glass. GIVE IN! FIND PEACE IN DEATH!

“No!” she gasped, pushing back against the insidious whisper. But the pressure continued, the relentless force pressing the weight of the world onto her shoulders. The dark thoughts repeated, pounding in her mind. GIVE IN!

Alexia gritted her teeth, holding fast to Celegana and her memories of Azi. She would not yield to these treacherous whispers.

“I won’t,” she groaned, tears of exertion streaking down her cheeks. Her strength was failing. In desperation, her mind turned to Zander. Her free hand reached for his locket. As her fingers brushed it, a burst of blue light flared from the silver inverted heart, glowing like his moonlit eyes. Power surged through her. The Divines—each one of them—waited for her to call them forth and bring them together within the locket. She gathered Celegana’s energy, pulling it from Maleon’s grasping hold and letting it settle into the locket’s infinite embrace.

The weight pressing down on her lifted. Celegana’s power was hers and hers alone. The earth ceased its trembling, and the stone that had threatened to crush her stilled. Alexia willed the stones back into place, adhering them to the ceiling and the narrowed walls.

Panting, Alexia used the locket’s blue glow to assess her surroundings. She was trapped—stone covered her legs up to her knees, and walls of rock pressed in from all sides. The space was so tight she could only crouch. Each breath was a struggle, and soon, she knew, she would need to constantly channel Zafrir’s air just to survive. For now, she could still breathe—though barely.

Suddenly, Maleon pulled at Celegana’s divine energy again. Earth trembling, Alexia braced herself for another battle over the divine energy. She gripped the locket tightly, ready to retrieve Celegana. But instead of crushing her further, he opened small fissures in the rock that blocked her escape. Fresh air flowed through, bringing relief to her strained lungs. Yet with it came the sound of Maleon’s voice. To her surprise, it was laden with melancholy.

“Alexia?”

His sorrow ignited fury within her, her blood boiling at how he dared to be sad for killing her.

“Maleon Stonebreaker!”

Alexia assessed her options as she waited for Maleon’s response. If she tried to move the stone blocking her escape, it would trigger a collapse, bringing the entire ceiling down on her. Even if she could hold the ceiling, the displaced rock would have to go somewhere—and with the tunnel sloping downhill, it would crush her against the stone wall below. She knew she couldn’t free herself alone. It would take one person clearing the debris, pulling the stone uphill and away, while the other held the ceiling in place long enough for her to escape. Maleon had failed to kill her with his first attempt, but now all he needed to do was nothing, and she would be sealed in this tomb.

Hopelessness crept in, her hand slipping from the locket, extinguishing Leverith’s blue glow.

“Why?” she cried, her voice breaking. The pain of Maleon’s betrayal had never felt so sharp. The hatred and the anger that had surged through her as she killed and watched good people die was replaced by a stabbing sorrow and confusion. Her lips quivered as she forced out the painful question. “Why did you betray me?”

“Because this war won’t end until one side stands over the broken corpse of the other,” Maleon said, his voice echoing through the fissures.

Alexia shook, fury reigniting. His reason wasn’t just against everything she believed—it was illogical. “So you betray and kill a powerful ally?” she spat, incredulous.

Maleon scoffed. “You’re no ally, Alexia. You’d only stall and smother true conquest, placing bandages over eternally bleeding wounds without ever cutting out the infection. You’d let the rot spread.”

“You’re wrong!” Alexia bellowed. “Peace cannot come as long as the cycle of vengeance spins!”

Maleon sighed, the sound filled with exasperation, as if speaking to a stubborn child. “Once upon a time, I knew a boy who believed that with all his heart. He was an idealist. He idolized Linus Peacemaker. He was in love with someone who made those ideals stronger than meladonite.” His voice softened, distant, drifting into memories covered in the dust of decades of neglect.

Alexia seized on his words, desperate. Despite everything, she believed there was still a part of him that remembered the values he once held—the boy who broke stone from mountains, not the man who trapped her in these mines. “That boy was right,” she said gently.

“No, Alexia,” Maleon replied, not harshly, but with quiet conviction. “That boy was as innocent as you. He didn’t see that the cycle of vengeance would never stop spinning because he’d never felt the call to vengeance. If you felt the same soul-crushing agony as most of the people who play pawn in this war, you’d know that truth.”

“I felt that call to vengeance tonight, Maleon. I felt it calling me to kill you. Yet, even though vengeance pulled at me, it was the desire to understand you and make peace with you that prevailed. You can still choose to do the same. You can be that beautiful boy who believed in love’s power to heal all wounds.”

“No,” Maleon said with a bitter exhale. “It’s that foolishness that brought you here, into this trap. You can’t make peace with everyone, Alexia.” His voice wavered, but he pressed on. “Tonight, I needed to remind myself of that. You made me doubt. You made me wonder about that boy, if he was right. When you touched me with Leverith’s spirit, you made me dream again. I imagined standing beside you, following Linus Peacemaker’s path. When you lower your mask, you are a force. You trick a man’s mind into seeing goodness. You make him believe the world can be better. And I still believe that if anyone could do the impossible, it would be you.”

“Then why?” Alexia asked. How could one person believe in her more than she believed in herself yet hurt her this way? She hugged her knees to her chest, as if that could shield her from this heartbreak.

“Because the cycle of vengeance spins too powerfully in me,” Maleon answered, his voice hollow. “When I saw you with that boy, I remembered why I became the man I am. His blade will claim the lives of hundreds of our countrymen and you let him go. How many Sapphires did you doom then? How many people who falsely believe that you are their savior?”

Alexia knew his words held truth. If Zander was unleashed on a battlefield, he could be devastating. But even so, she shook her head. She would never regret her choice.

“You refused to trap the miners tonight, again costing us untold Sapphire lives.” Maleon’s voice hardened. “You tried to quiet the vengeance inside of me. I haven’t cared about anyone like I care about you in decades. I loved you like a daughter, like the closest friend I’ve had in too many lonely years, but I can’t let you forge a false peace when this war needs to end forever. I couldn’t let you change me. I couldn’t let go of my hatred for the Blazelord. That’s why I left a message for the Peacewatch. I told them there’d be an attack on the mines tonight.”

Alexia screamed, her rage uncontrollable. Maleon’s voice thundered over her cries. “I’ve saved more lives tonight than all my other actions combined. Your death may finally bring the future you dream of—the future where this war ends!”

Her screams didn’t stop, overwhelmed by his twisted logic. How could he believe so intensely in vengeance that he’d kill someone he loved?

“Let it out, Alexia,” Maleon growled, his voice thick with passion. “That’s the scream of your innocence dying. I remember when I let out that same scream.” His laugh followed, bitter and broken, a lament for the boy he had once been, and for the girl Alexia still was. His laugh pulled at her anger and hatred, but Alexia fought to hold on to the hope that the boy inside him was still there.

“Elianor told me I was incapable of love. She was wrong!” Maleon slammed his fist into the rock between them. The air chilled as heat drained from the space. He panted, catching his breath, then laughed again—the mad laugh of a broken man who laughs at his own pain because that is the only course left to him besides weeping. The laughter faded into silence, leaving only melancholy behind. Sadness, Alexia realized, can never truly be burned away by the flames of wrath. It waits beneath the surface, always growing until it’s let out.

“I had bonded my life’s mate,” Maleon said softly, his tenderness surprising. “Like you, she was the most beautiful woman at the Arcanium, both in spirit and in body.”

Alexia listened closely, focusing on the faint blue glow of Leverith’s light. The only way she was getting out of this tomb was with Maleon’s help. Was he reaching out to her? Was his light trying to shine through at last? A warning voice inside told her not to be so innocent.

“We were as inseparable as only two young lovers full of dreams could be,” Maleon continued, his voice distant. “We schemed of ways to end the war. We’d never possess the political power of the Love Queen or Philladon Godseer. We needed to become well-known heroes, like Linus Peacemaker. Linus, oh how he gave us hope. The Peacemaker was a model to strive for. We got our big chance when Archwizard Theos Stormkin was recruiting cognitive-affectomancers for a battle against the unstoppable Kai Blazelord along the southern Eagle.”

Maleon sighed. “You know of the battle. It was a disaster. Poor leadership, poor planning. We fell into a trap. The Blazelord scattered us with fire. In the chaos, I lost sight of my life’s mate...”

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He choked on the words, unable to speak her name. Alexia wondered how long it had been since he’d said it and how much it tore at his heart almost forty years later. That, Alexia knew, would be her best chance to reach him, to remind him of who he used to be.

“Still alive, Alexia?” Maleon asked.

“For now.”

“Good,” he said, his sorrow seeping through the cracks in the stone between them. “I want you to know this. You deserve that much. I wasn’t ready in Mirrevar, but I’ll try to tell you now.”

I’m flattered, she thought with a sharp edge of sarcasm. But she quickly pushed the spite aside, drawing on Leverith’s loving energy to center herself.

“I broke the stone off the mountain,” Maleon continued, his voice fading to a pained whisper. “I thought she would see it, that she’d run to safety. I waited and waited, fought the Ruby while the Sapphires fled across the Eagle. I waited until there was no one left to save.” Alexia pressed her ear against the fissure, straining to hear. “She died along the bank of the Eagle River. Everything we dreamed of died with her.”

Maleon sniffed, his voice shaking. Against all expectations, she felt empathy for him, her murderer. She could speak now, try to console him, nurture whatever heroic light remained inside the dark monster—but all things have their moment. Her instinct told her that he wasn’t finished.

“That day, I learned why this war will never end. When they took her from me, I swore that I would dedicate my life to killing the Rubies. I wouldn’t rest until I stood over Kai Blazelord’s divinedamned corpse.”

Alexia grasped her locket. His pain made sense now, the way it had consumed him, replacing his hope with a relentless thirst for retribution. She understood his grief, even if she didn’t agree with what it had made him.

“There are a thousand stories like mine,” Maleon continued somberly. “More are written each year. Vengeance compels the Ruby and the Sapphire to fight. As beautiful as your dream is, as beautiful as you are, Alexia, peace is impossible. There is nothing that can undo the hatred that has grown between the Ruby and the Sapphire. The only way this war ends is if one side is destroyed.”

“You are a coward,” Alexia cut in, her tone sharp and deliberate.

Maleon scoffed. “I’m not ashamed to admit that you’re stronger than me. If I had your power, the Blazelord would’ve been dead years ago. So, I hid behind a stone wall of my own design, blended with the cavern to look like it had always been a part of the earth. I’d rather be an alive coward than a dead fool.”

“That’s not why you’re a coward,” Alexia pressed, biting off renewed anger at his trickery. “What was your wife’s name?”

The silence that followed was so long she nearly gave up hope. But then, finally, Maleon’s voice came, low and full of pain.

“Laelynn.”

“Laelynn,” she repeated softly, letting the name echo in the narrow space between them. “You’re a coward because you’ve spent most of your life dishonoring Laelynn.”

“How dare you!” Maleon’s voice exploded with fury, and the earth quaked, shaking the walls of her little tomb. Alexia had to channel Celegana to keep the rocks from collapsing. “Everything I do,” he roared, “I do for her!”

“Laelynn spent her life dreaming of peace!” Alexia shouted back. “Do you think Laelynn would have wanted you to devote yourself to the very war she wanted to end? You’ve killed more Rubies than any other Sapphire alive, Maleon Stonebreaker!”

“Because they took her from me!”

“You’ve strayed so far from Laelynn’s path that you’re here now, killing me. The woman you claim reminds you of her! Would you kill Laelynn too, if she stood in the way of your vengeance?”

“I would never!” Maleon boomed, but the cracks in his voice betrayed the fissures in his confidence.

Her voice steadied, growing quiet but firm just like he’d taught her to be. “You’ve spent the last thirty-eight years in defiance of Laelynn’s dreams. You’ve become the very thing she despised. You’ve killed her memory over and over again, every day since the moment she died. You’re killing me, not because I’m your enemy, but because I remind you of who you once were—of the man Laelynn loved.”

Maleon’s voice came in sputters, his denials weak and faltering. He begged her to stop using Laelynn’s name, but Alexia pressed on, relentless.

“This is where your vengeance has led you, Maleon. You’re not just fighting the Rubies—you’re fighting Laelynn’s memory. Do you think Laelynn would be proud of what you’ve become?”

“What was I supposed to do?” he cried. “Let the people who killed her live happily? No! I can’t stop until Kai Blazelord is dead! He took the best part of me! She would,” he sobbed, his conviction breaking, “understand.”

“She would understand,” Alexia said softly now, using her own gentle voice. “She would understand the pain you’ve endured. She would understand hatred’s hold on your heart. She would understand your vengeance against her killer. She would understand that you loved her so much that you couldn’t let her go. She would understand you and she would love you still.”

Tears streamed down Alexia’s face, as they would have Laelynn’s, knowing that she would understand how that boy who dreamt of peace became this man enslaved to vengeance. Despite the hell he put her through, empathy was forever the antidote of anger.

She pressed on. “And she wouldn’t approve of how you’ve lived all those years. If there is a Paradise, Laelynn isn’t smiling down at you. She would be heartbroken to see your existence continues to darken this world. She wouldn’t be proud of you, Maleon. You’ve broken her heart every single day for the last thirty-eight years.”

The silence stretched on for what felt like angles. Alexia wondered if he had fled, but then Maleon’s voice came from the other side of the cave-in, stripped of emotion.

“For what it is worth, I’m sorry it had to end this way. If there is a Paradise, I know you’ll go there.” Maleon choked on his next words. “Tell Laelynn I’m sorry.”

Alexia’s chest tightened as the worries flooded in, making it feel like the walls were closing in again. Desperation clawed at her, and she shouted out, “Wait! Maleon, you don’t have to end it like this! You can still change! You can live the rest of your days making amends, and at the end of the road, meet her in peace. You can apologize to Laelynn yourself.”

Maleon’s cry was raw, broken. “I am lost, Alexia. Divines be damned, you’re right! I might as well have pissed on her grave for all I’ve dishonored her! The boy I was is dead and this,” his voice shattered into a grief deeper than anything she’d ever heard, “is all that’s left.”

“No, Maleon. It’s not too late! The good that Laelynn saw in you is still there. I’ve seen it! Together, we can bring the peace she dreamed of. You can still make her proud. If I can forgive you, she can too.”

The silence on the other side of the barrier was suffocating, but Alexia could sense him there, at the crossroads of love and hate. She trembled, not just from the fear of death but from the truth in her own words. Despite everything, despite the betrayal and the pain, she knew she could still forgive him. If Maleon could become the man she glimpsed in Mirrevar—the man Laelynn loved—he could still be her ally against the Gemstone War and the Chimaera. Her heart ached for that possibility.

“You would forgive me?” he asked skeptically.

“Yes!”

Maleon sighed. “You truly are just like her,” he said, croaking out the words through his sorrow. “Still, I can’t forgive myself. I have become the very monster we swore to destroy. How did it come to this?”

Alexia’s breath hitched, her tears flowing freely now. “We can still return to the path of Leverith. When peace is restored, you can join Laelynn in Paradise, knowing you changed and did everything you could to honor her dreams of peace. Your yesterday doesn’t have to be your tomorrow. Believe in me, like I believe in you.”

“Alexia,” he said, his throat catching on her name, “I do believe in you. I don’t know if I can believe in myself.”

“Then believe in my belief in you,” she pleaded. “Let me lead you. I’ll carry your dreams until you’re ready to believe in them yourself.”

“Alexia…” His voice wavered, teetering on the edge of decision.

There was another pause that seemed to stretch on endlessly but only lasted a few fateful turns. Her life hung in the balance, yet she could feel haunting laughter echoing darkly in her mind. A voice that was distinctly not hers chanted in her skull, GIVE IN. FIND PEACE IN DEATH!

A foul miasma seemed to permeate the air, invisible to the naked eye. A wave of nausea blasted her stomach, making her retch, corrupting her with intrusive thoughts to hate herself, to just die already, to despise Maleon Stonebreaker. Alexia grasped the locket at her sternum and summoned Leverith’s spirit. The blue glow whirled around her in the tiny enclosure but was repelled at the fissures between her and Maleon. Maleon’s voice came through the fissure, but it was no longer just his—it carried the menace of that unseen force.

“Laelynn could never forgive me for what I’ve done,” he declared with a cold finality. “There is no redemption for Maleon Stonebreaker. I am the monster who destroyed this town tonight. I am the monster that can kill the one who reminds me of her.”

He was just a few feet from Alexia, but he might as well have been oceans away. This darkness between them was impenetrable now, too strong to breach even with Leverith’s love. She had failed and now despair wrapped around her heart. Maleon would never return to the man he once was. Worst of all, without him she was certain she would die here.

Perhaps she deserved this for killing Sir Barnett and dozens of other men just trying to protect their homes from a monster. But even if that was true, Alexia had too much to live for to simply accept Zamael’s claim on her soul. Timmeck’s promise. Protecting the world from the Chimaera. Restoring peace. Zander’s love. All these dreams and responsibilities wouldn’t let her give in. She begged for her life, for the chance to love.

“Stop!” Maleon roared. “I will hear no more. Die knowing this last promise I make you: your Ruby lover will follow you straight into Zamael’s Hells! I will track him down and make sure he doesn’t harm the Sapphire! You will both die, never knowing each other’s love!” Maleon caught his breath then continued over Alexia’s cries. “This is the world we live in, girl. A world of broken people and broken dreams where love dies and innocence is lost!” His voice calmed, but only grew sharper in its hatred. “Give in. Find peace in death.”

He could kill her. She deserved it, after all. But the thought of Maleon killing Zander spawned a powerful yearning inside of Alexia. She needed to see him again. Zander was innocent of her crimes. He didn’t deserve her pain. He was Leverith’s answer. Her yearning grew, like a child inside of her. The air began to croon a melody, and she felt Zander here with her.

Clutching the locket, Alexia screamed with all the strength she had left. The Ring of Peace on her finger flared green and divine energy poured from the locket, harnessing more power than she imagined possible. For that moment, she didn’t just channel Zafrir’s wind, she was Zafrir himself, commanding all the world’s air. Had she been oceans away, there would be no wind. Had cognitive-affectomancers tried to summon the breeze, they would have failed. For it was hers. And she had complete control over it.

Pebbles were eroded to nothing but dust, stones scattered from the epicenter of her blast, walls of boulders were rocketed across the grand cavern, and the ceiling itself lifted over her head, the very earth compressing and cowering as Alexia battered at it with more wind than was imaginable. The wind moved with Alexia, emanating from her with a deafening roar as she stepped through the opening. The ceiling collapsed behind her, sealing the final tunnel as she relinquished her hold over the Zafrir.

She found Maleon crushed beneath a boulder, his body pinned from the waist down, helpless, over a hundred feet from the tunnel’s shattered mouth. The Stonebreaker couldn’t channel the earth to obey his commands. He couldn’t break the stone that was breaking him.

Their eyes met. She could break the stone, heal his broken body, but she couldn’t restore his broken heart. This was the greatest lesson he would ever teach her. At last, she solved Maleon’s riddle and earned the knowledge that came with it. Love did not always conquer hate. Not everyone could be redeemed.

“Any last words?” Alexia asked, her staff leveled at his face.

She expected him to beg, to plead for mercy. But no, Maleon was not a coward in the end. “Until next time,” he managed.

Alexia trembled. Tears blurred her vision as she lowered her staff. “Until next time,” she echoed softly.

Maleon closed his eyes.

Alexia’s magic lifted a nearby boulder with ease, guiding it over his upper body. She thought of many things to say, verbose derisions and condescending remarks that would've been all too storybook and devoid of real meaning. In truth, her final words to him were already spoken. Their time together was at an end. Somewhere deep within their ephemeral relationship, love had resided. The love of a man remembering how great he could’ve been and the woman he had lived for. And for Alexia, it was the love of the man who had saved her life and inspired her to face her fears; it was the love of a man who could've been one of her greatest allies and a true Leverian hero.

Leverith, let us reunite when all is done and only remember the love. Until next time, Maleon Stonebreaker.

Alexia let go of the stone.