Sera’s sword fell from her limp hand as she dropped to her knees. Cabrin and Akane stood worriedly over her, but they understood. She was exhausted.

She hadn't noticed the adrenaline that had been surging through her body, until now that it had begun to wear off. Her arms felt heavy, her legs felt flaccid and useless, and the pain in her chest from where the male had struck her, twice, made her wince with every breath.

“I don’t want this,” she whispered.

“What did you want?” Cabrin asked. “Why did you come here?”

“I just…” Sera grasped for an answer to give him but she could find none.

“Sera,” Cabrin crouched beside her. “I know why you came. I don’t ask so that you would tell me. I ask so that you would tell yourself.”

Sera stared at the ground for a moment. What did she want? She knew that she came because this was the place where she had been found as a baby all those years ago. She knew that she came because she wanted answers, but what answers did she expect?

“You couldn’t accept what I had to say last night,” Cabrin continued. “But now I think you’re beginning to see the truth in my suspicions. You came here searching for answers, but before you continue, you’re going to have to prepare yourself for the answers that you may find.”

Sera bit her lip as she considered his words. She could have turned back before she climbed the slope to this place. She could have turned back before entering the forest. She could have turned back before setting out across the plains or when she left Chilse and John. She had every opportunity to turn back.

The ranger was right. If she wasn’t ready for what answers this place held for her, she should go back now to her comfortable, familiar life. But that was impossible. Even if she did go back, she would never get back the life she once had. It wasn’t just the violation of her body. It wasn’t just the experience of having taken the life of another. Sera had been discovered to have a power that no one else had. She had been found to possess something that had such a profound meaning for the whole world. If she went back now and acted as if none of those things had happened, it would be the single most selfish thing anyone could do, and that would haunt her forever.

Sera slowly rose back to her feet, her face bore a look of reluctant acceptance. She had no choice. She had to know what powers she held and why.

The two Asunese rangers watched silently as she went back into the ruin, past that dead Chimera, and into the room which served as Damien Dufort’s tomb. When she returned, she held the decayed book which had served as the man’s journal.

“I found this book,” she said quietly, her voice shaking. “It was Damien’s journal. He wrote of a place nearby that I think we should visit.”

Cabrin and Akane exchanged looks.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“That’s the man who found you,” Cabrin said with a hint of surprise.

“What sort of place did he find?” Akane asked.

“I don’t know, exactly,” Sera answered. “It's hard to make out, he wrote something about a chamber where the magic of the gods is still active.”

The two rangers’ eyes widened with awe. Sera continued.

“He left a map that shows the way,” she said. “It’s not far.”

Cabrin approached her to view the map from over her shoulder. Akane hummed thoughtfully as she looked up at the sky. The sun would begin to set in a few hour’s time.

“Jikan wa aru to omoimasu ka?” she said to Cabrin in their strange language.

Cabrin, reading over the map in Damien's journal, answered her, "This map seems very accurate. It shouldn't be too far. If we go now, we may be able to take a quick look and make it back to town before sundown. What do you think?"

Sera became aware of the silence that followed the question and looked up to see both Akane and Cabrin waiting for an answer. Waiting for her answer. "Me?" she squeaked.

"You are the reason we're here," Akane stated.

There it was, Sera would have asked had she not just been faced with the single most terrifying thing she had ever experienced in her life. Had they not shown up, Sera would most certainly have been dead by now, but it begged the question. What were they doing here? Certainly they didn’t just happen by.

“You’ve been following me.” Sera concluded out loud.

“Yes.” “Hai.” They responded.

“Why?”she asked.

"After last night? Isn't it obvious?" Cabrin questioned. "You are the single most important thing that has happened in over a thousand years."

Cabrin had told her that she would need to be prepared to accept the answers that she would find, and she had decided that she would be, but Sera still couldn’t believe that she was this so-called second coming of some mythical hero. Sera thought back to the story that had been read to her as a child. The story that she herself had read to other children a thousand times over. Celeste was said to be an angel, a mighty warrior who slayed monsters and demons. She was a remnant of Heaven who held the very same wisdom and magical powers of the ancestor gods. Celeste was an icon, a legend. Sera could not see herself in such a figure.

And yet, here she stood, having used magic to kill a monster.

Twice. She thought as she remembered the man called Corvo.

"This is your journey, your destiny," Cabrin said. "It's your call."

Sera closed her eyes and exhaled, steadying herself with the weight of that word. Destiny. Looking up at the pink sky above them, she gave herself to resolution. "Before sundown?" she asked.

Cabrin nodded with a grin.

Taking a deep breath, she made her decision. "Then we'll go." she said.

Sera put away her sword to study the map in Damien's journal.

“Mada shinjirarenai! Mahō! Honmono no mahō!” Akane exclaimed behind her.

Sera spun around to see the woman wide-eyed with wonder.

“Yes,” Cabrin said, smiling and shaking his head in his own disbelief. “This is going to take some getting used to.”

Sera was confused for a moment before she realized it. She had put her sword away, but without a scabbard to sheath it, where had she stowed it? She looked over herself, confused. All she wore was a simple white dress. There was no belt, or sash, or anything that she could have used to hold her weapon, and then it clicked.

Reaching out with her hand, Sera made as if to grasp the handle of her sword and feeling her fingers curl around an invisible presence, she pulled. She pulled her sword from thin air.

Akane laughed gleefully at the amazing feat while Cabrin beamed, unable to contain his stoic persona. Sera just stared, dumbfounded at what she had just done.

It really was magic.