Ian’s eyelids fluttered open.

“Well?” Zhuram asked. Euryphel stood off to the side, his posture stiff with concern.

“I can see,” he said, staring at the Life practitioner. “Thank you. I owe you a favor.”

“As I said earlier, it was aid freely given in defense of the common good.” Lindabet Zhuram looked like she wanted to say something else but held her tongue. After spending the past few hours in her presence, Ian could practically taste the indecision and curiosity on her mind.

When she had opened her mind to him while restoring his body, he had felt how ambition roiled within her. She was the master of two affinities, and until his arrival, she had never known a third affinity was possible. He knew what she wanted, even if the answer wouldn’t be satisfying.

“Linda,” he began, “if you wish it, I will tell you the key to awakening a third affinity. Be warned, it’s almost impossible without ascending.”

“Please do.”

Ian explained what he had learned from Ancient Ash–how ascendants needed vast amounts of time and extremely rare resources to gain additional affinities. He told her how he was a special case since he had still been within the five-year period of swift advancement, so he didn’t need thousands of years like most others. For an example of rare resources, he told her how Ash provided him a crystallized form of Beginning affinity that jumpstarted his progress.

“Is it impossible to unlock a third affinity without ascending?” Zhuram asked.

Ian considered the question. His gut response was “yes,” but his Beginning affinity rejected such a simple response. “If you can stay alive for thousands of years, and find rare materials attuned to the affinity you want to awaken, it’s possible.”

“Where would I find materials like that?”

Ian shrugged. “Rifts, probably. I’m just making educated guesses, Linda–I can’t tell you a definitive answer. Compared to most ancients, I’m an aberration–my path to awakening affinities won’t be the same as yours.”

“Sounds difficult,” she muttered wistfully. “No wonder no one knows about it.”

“It was difficult,” Euryphel said softly. He looked surprised a moment later, as though he hadn’t meant to speak the words out loud.

Ian coughed. “So. I’ve been thinking about what’s next, since I can’t stay here indefinitely.” Both the executor and Night Queen stared at him with rapt attention. “We need to deal with Achemiss as soon as possible. If he’s truly reappeared on the other side of the world, he should be close to Euryphel.” He nodded to the former prince. “Given Achemiss’s intent to destroy this world, he should stand out in your fatesight, allowing us to locate him and end him.”

“I’ve already been looking for him,” Euryphel stated, “though I haven’t found anything obviously pointing to him yet.”

I’d like to question the assumption that Achemiss’s intent to destroy the world connects him to this world’s people through fate, Maria transmitted through the lich bond. That has always been more of a vague, far-off goal. People living today would not have suffered from Achemiss’s machinations–that plight would fall to their descendants.

Ian froze at the implications. Moreover, injured as I assume he is, his current goal should be recuperating and returning to Eternity, not creating a world-ending apocalypse.

He might only have direct fate with us, Maria concluded, and perhaps a few others who are already involved, like Eury.

That will make him difficult to find, won’t it?

So long as he isn’t trying to kill massive amounts of people, yes, he’ll be difficult to track down at a distance.

But you can do it, Ian said.

Yes.

Ian’s original plan shifted. “While Euryphel searches for Achemiss, I will seek shelter elsewhere. I need to fix my soul.” He turned to Zhuram. “You’re intelligent and know the stakes. I won’t claim to know all that you can bring to muster between Datcha’s resources and practitioners–just do what good you can and keep Euryphel in the loop. Anything you say to him, you say to me.”

To Euryphel, he added, “After this, I’m going to find Soolemar. Aside from his skill with souls, he also knows Achemiss best. We’ll need him.”

“I understand,” Linda said. She then told Euryphel, “I intend to involve Suran Rindo. The range of his fatesight is lacking, but I’m curious what he’ll be able to glean from his card auguries.”

“Please do,” Euryphel said, “I was also considering asking him. We can use all the help we can get.”

—

It was almost time to leave.

“When we next meet, we can re-establish our quantum channel,” Ian mentally told Euryphel. Unfortunately, ascending had scrambled his configured quantum channels, forcing him to reestablish them. “Until then, I’ll reach out to you every twelve hours or so.”

When the prince nodded his assent, Ian dismissed him with the transmission artifact and began to peruse the clothes available at the safe house. Linda watched stoically as he rifled through a wardrobe. He’d already pulled out a set of clothes, only to realize that they didn’t fit. His size had changed, after all–he’d put on muscle since ascending. Lean muscle, but still, more than he had before.

“I’ve grown too used to auto-sizing clothing,” Ian explained, chuckling at himself as he tugged on a pair of black sweatpants and a gray t-shirt. He had swept Maria’s cloak of flames over and around his shoulders like a shawl, the silky fabric the color of charcoal when the flames were extinguished.

Zhuram threw a matching charcoal ball cap his way. “To cover your ember crown.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Ian caught the hat, noted the icon stitched across its front–a pink margarita–and put it on, then looked at himself in the mirror. He scratched his temple. “I guess this is passable.”

She cracked a grin, finally shedding her serious countenance. “It’s much better than what you came to me with.”

“That’s not saying much.” He coughed. “Well, I’m off, then.” He headed for the staircase.

“You’re an enigma, Ian Dunai,” she said suddenly.

He paused and looked at her over his shoulder. “You’re not the first to say that.”

“You’re incredibly strong, yet you act…” She trailed off, as though realizing that what she intended to say might be taken the wrong way.

Ian turned around and clasped his hands behind his back. “Go on. You won’t offend me.”

“You don’t act like someone who is powerful. If I hadn’t felt your three affinities, I wouldn’t have guessed you were practitioner.”

Is she calling me meek? Ian wondered.

Maria responded with mental laughter.

“However, healing your injuries has told me clearer than any words how terrifyingly cruel you are. Not even to your opponents, but to yourself. It makes me wonder if the casual, easygoing, dare I say awkward person before me is a lie. But I don’t think it is. Hence why–to me, at least–you’re an enigma.”

That was shockingly blunt, Maria thought. You must have made a good impression.

You sure? She called me awkward.

She’s convinced you won’t murder her, Maria explained. In other words, she trusts that you’re reasonable and level-headed.

Ian considered how to respond to Zhuram’s explanation. “The way I think is different from how sovereigns like you do. You have people relying on you, looking to you for guidance and following your example. As the moment demands it, you put on a mask and play a role.”

He considered what he had experienced in Maria and Eury’s souls. Maria faced constant scrutiny and doubt, her intentions good but her methods scorned. He thought of Eury and the many ways he hid all parts of himself from the eyes of others, as though he hoped to one day deceive even himself.

“You think that playing roles is distasteful,” she guessed.

“No.” His voice was firm. “It’s just not my path. Believe me, I can act however I want. I’ve assumed many roles in Eternity because it was necessary to achieve my goals. But here, now, I choose to act like myself.”

Her expression softened. “I see.”

With a final nod of his head, Ian left the safe house. Zhuram had provide him with several useful items, including a new glossY connected to an ID counting him as a citizen of Datcha, a bank account holding a quarter million auris, and a prepaid hovergloss pass. All of this was in a charcoal gray backpack that matched the color of his hat and cloak-turned-shawl.

Maria insisted that Zhuram providing such things was the bare minimum considering his status, and that he shouldn’t feel grateful, but Ian still appreciated Zhuram’s assistance. He’d been worried about keeping a low profile since he definitely couldn’t use his real name to get around. He had considered using his fake identity from when he went to the East before ascending–the twenty-seven-year-old traveler from Shattradan, Ian Baldwin–but he felt uneasy using it. Selejo had discovered his real identity when he’d been in hiding, after all.

With his eyes restored, he could appreciate the city anew as he navigated to the main hovergloss station. The city-wide order to shelter indoors had elapsed hours ago, and people were out and about with a vengeance, enjoying the cool, mild evening.

Ian had been in cities with mortals in Eternity, but this felt decidedly different. Eternity mortals were all unfamiliar, with different societies and standards. They also were used to interacting with ascendants and had a general understanding of their smallness in the grand scheme of things.

The people in Chemissa were bold in their ignorance. To them, this world was all there was. Ascendants were myths, Eternity shrouded in mystery. Even though regulars were beneath practitioners in the hierarchy of power, they still made up the overwhelming majority of people and held not-insignificant influence.

Ian thought that the key difference was that everyone on this world was mortal. Practitioners and regulars alike died on the same timescale. They weren’t true second-class citizens in the way that mortals in Eternity were. In Eternity, mortals were more important than ants insofar as they populated urban environments and made useful items, but they were expendable.

Perhaps returned ascendants don’t tell people about Eternity because they’re better off not knowing, Ian mused.

Maria considered for a moment before thinking, Some things are best left as legends.

Soon enough, “Ian Bellus” arrived at Chemissa Central Station. He moved along with the crushing throng of people, finding an odd satisfaction in being one with the crowd. Like everyone else, he boarded the civilian hovergloss and even had to stand, holding onto a thin rope that swung from the ceiling.

He transferred at another city in Shibaria and hopped on another hovergloss that would take him to north through to Stilla. The hovergloss ride was scenic, the line hugging the coast through Kester’s western mountains. The Gulf of Adrian–the stretch of the Illyrian Ocean between the eastern continent and the Ho’ostar Peninsula–was a sparkling blue beauty.

Why are you sad? Maria asked.

Ian started. He’d been looking out the window, lost in his thoughts. I’m not. He knew Maria hadn’t said that out of nowhere, however. He thought harder. Maybe it’s because I saw so little of this world before leaving it. So many beautiful places I left behind. I didn’t worry much about that, though–I thought that Eternity would have incredible sights to put this world to shame.

Eternity does have incredible sights, Maria pointed out, but I think I understand what you’re getting at.

You do?

I feel a heaviness within me, a deep, inexplicable melancholy.

Ian sighed and placed a palm on the window, his eyebrows furrowing. This isn’t our world anymore. How bittersweet a thought that is.

Maria’s mental sigh matched his own. Bittersweet indeed.

It was late when the hovergloss car stopped in Stilla. There wasn’t a train going into Gnoste until the morning. Ian didn’t want to risk staying overnight somewhere, so he continued into Gnoste on his own. Thankfully, the train had taken him close to the northern part of Stilla, which was dominated by desert land and relatively unpopulated.

To avoid using decemancy, which was easy to detect, he flew on a necromantic construct across the desert. He’d done much the same before his entanglement with Zilverna and Judith when he’d fled Selejo’s pursuit and rushed to meet Euryphel at the Jermal Trench.

The necromantic construct was freshly constructed using the thick arm of a cactus. He’d flattened it into an elongated disc that hovered across the sands. The strands of Death energy that imbued the construct with power were on its interior, hidden from most eyes. Only arrays specifically designed to detect necromancy would be a problem. Ian knew that in Gnoste, where Soolemar’s influence ran deep, he had nothing to fear.

Ian flew faster with the construct than on a hovergloss, the wind whipping at his skin and threatening to tear off the charcoal shawl. Ian reveled in the experience now that he could feel again, his nerves restored to full functionality after Zhuram’s treatment.

After nearly dying hours ago, I feel so alive, he thought to Maria.

Before long, he found his way to Soolemar’s underground lair. The necromancer wasn’t there–Ian assumed he must be in Morinapol–but Ian didn’t care. Soolemar would come soon enough.

He couldn’t wait to see his mentor and finally fix his soul.