They had her propped up against an abandoned horse saddle near the fireplace. A pile of fabric seemed to be piled on top of it so she could lean her head back back if needed. She could feel warmth coming from her left but by the amount of meager heat coming off of it, it felt like they had lit one or two candles to keep her warm. If she complained, someone would probably immediately make the fire bigger but she was honestly just grateful to be alive at all.

Laell fussed over her, making her drink and eat until Aris threatened to return back to unconsciousness if she was made to eat another bite of stale bread. When she felt well enough to be able to sit forward without being propped up, Ral had managed to gather key people into the room as she requested.

“Raka and my students have operations well at hand at the moment,” Yepla informed the room. “However we should make this quick so we can return to defending the area.”

Aris studied the solute of the people around her. Laell and the Librarian immediately to her right, followed by Gardlo, Yepla and Camaz next to them. Mikol seemed to be standing furthest away on the other side of the room - Aris had heard the tail end of his conversation with Ral and it seemed he did end up keeping watch and only returned at the last moment at her request. Rask also stood a little further away, perhaps near Mikol. Verne and Ral were to her left, perhaps at arm’s length. She raised her head and hoped she was ‘looking’ at Camaz.

“No more secrets,” she said. Camaz’s solute flickered slightly. “Even though you’re supposed to keep secrets. None of that applies anymore, does it, professor?”

“Well, people keep telling me how terrible I am at it,” Camaz said dryly. “You’re the one with your life tied to this. My resume barely has any relevance to what you need to do.”

She imagined her mentor standing in his haughty way, arms crossed, shrewd brown eyes hard but not unkind. She smiled, wanting to be able to see him again. “I imagine everyone here mostly knows what’s happening,” she started.

“Yes, Camaz has told us what he knows,” Gardlo said. “About your past, about Caelis. And the whole issue that Mind wants to destroy us, for some reason. I have a feeling the story is missing many details, but yes, we know the key points.”

“We have been unable to deduce why a Part would wish to kill us,” the Librarian intoned. “Even with the records on the Parts.”

“Oh, I don’t know why either,” Aris said. “But the other Parts are intent on stopping Mind from doing that. I still struggle to fully believe it, but one of them manipulated events to lead to the birth of me and my brother.” She paused and took a deep breath. “It is my belief that the reason we exist is because of this exact moment.”

“You’re supposed to be able to close the giant Gate,” Camaz said.

“Well? Seems like you did something that exhausted you greatly,” Ral said. “Did you figure something out?”

“Yes,” Aris said. “The giant Gate operates on the same logic as regular Gates. A solute exists to fuel it. We must destroy the solute in order to close the Gate. Because I failed to sense it outside of the giant Gate, I ventured closer in Shade form to find it.”

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“And?”

“Ral, the solute is inside the Gate. Up in the sky. Not only that, it’s massive.” Aris lifted her head and tried to picture it in her mind again. “Twenty… maybe even thirty times the size of what you would normally expect. It probably isn’t Gaian.”

Ral cursed.

“But the size of it isn’t the issue, it’s the location. If either of us venture through the Gate in our physical bodies, we’ll die immediately. I was only able to escape because of my Shade form.” Aris leaned back against the blanket and saddle. “But in Shade form I’m unable to do anything. I can’t interact with a solute anyway, regardless of my form. And you can’t go through the Gate at all.”

“So we need to find a way such that Aris can interact with the solute and push it out or for Ral to enter the Gate,” Gardlo summarized. “Both would require extensive runeology research and testing, with time we emphatically do not have.”

“No, there is a way, I think,” Aris sighed. “For me to travel through the Gate and perhaps push out the solute.”

“S-smoke form,” Laell muttered.

Aris hesitated but then unwrapped the bandages from her face. Curses rang out across the room when her face was finally revealed. “What is the meaning of this, Camaz?” Yepla demanded.

Because there would be no more secrets, Aris finally told them about the Part called Heel, or Doran. It still hurt to talk about her time out east, when she thought she could solve all the world’s problems with her stupidity and ego, but she persisted. The more she told the story of Doran giving her their eyes, the more she felt it. Doran had died for this moment to happen.

When it came to speaking about her ‘smoke form’ - the one that Verne, Camaz and Laell had been witness to twice and the form that almost led her to murder her own brother, the others corroborated her story.

“This is entirely a theory,” Aris added. “But if the smoke form is something that Doran left behind, then I believe I can access the Gate in that form.”

“But then what?” Camaz asked.

“I will try to find a way to reveal the solute to Ral,” Aris said. She paused thoughtfully. “Smoke form can be seen as a physical form. There must be a way for us to destroy it with this altered form.”

“This… method is entirely baseless,” Gardlo said. “But we are in an area where no theory would seem like the right one.”

“This method is the only one any of us here could even think of,” Camaz added. “It’s the only one with any chance of removing the threat completely.”

“I believe…” Mikol spoke up and everyone in the room started. “I believe Ralos had been set on such path for this.”

Aris eyed her brother’s solute. It was the same warm hue but it felt a little more relaxed. Like he was no longer itching to just run away. She didn’t believe for a moment that her brother had just naturally come with the ability to shatter solutes. It had something to do with his training with the Somas and he learned something there. Therefore she had every inclination to believe Mikol.

Doran had mentioned that his siblings were also working to stop Mind from passing the Finale, so it wasn’t hard to believe Ral also met with a Part. However he hadn’t deigned to mention it. Aris had the impression the betrayal he suffered had something to do with it and so didn’t prod, but the Yscian’s words reminded her of this. The hidden meaning seemed to only pass through the three of them.

To everyone else in the room, the Yscian’s words merely sounded like a vote of confidence. Aris kept it that way. “Then if there are no other suggestions, we should prepare,” she said.