The ritual room had dark EternaStone floors and metal walls. A large square stone altar easily dominated the room, primarily due to a lack of competition. Not a single chair, desk, or other piece of furniture filled the room. Dad’s corpse lay on the altar. So far, only Remy and I were in the room. At the head of the altar, he picked up the ceremonial dagger and bled into a depression.

I followed his lead and used the dagger at the foot of the altar to slice at the thin scales along the bottom of my palm. The dagger barely managed to pierce and draw blood, but a second cut opened the wound enough to produce a stream of blood. I held the skin apart and focused on suppressing my rapid healing. When the basin was slightly more than half full I had to repeat the process.

“Ouch,” Remy commented with a sympathetic look.

I grunted in the affirmative, unable to muster more of a response.

Each drop of blood from Remy or I seemed to manifest memories in the back of my mind. Memories I’d forgotten about. Glimpses of Marius playing with me and Etienne. Flickers of happy times, treats from the baker we weren’t supposed to tell Mom about.

Above the altar Arx Maxima descended into the chamber. The large version of Arx Maxima, not the tiny diamond that followed me around. With each drop of blood that filled the reservoir Arx emitted a pulse of light.

My hand healed before the reservoir filled.

“That’s enough Emery,” Arx Maxima said. She commented before I even reached for the dagger, and I nodded.

“You have provided an acceptable amount of blood, Remy.” Arx Maxima informed Remy about thirty seconds later. A flicker of white-blue foxfire sealed his wound.

Two reservoirs remained empty on either side of the table, but Claire walked up to the empty basin on my right and lifted the dagger.

“Human blood,” Claire answered my unspoken question.

“Neither you nor Remy qualify as human any longer,” Arx Maxima supported Claire’s statement.

“I suppose I don’t either?” Coralie asked as she stepped up to the last basin. Her pale skin remained colorless, and her once blue eyes had changed to silver. She had absolutely no color to her, so it surprised me slightly when at a nick of the ceremonial dagger crimson blood flowed from her hand.

“Correct. You are something new, Mrs. LeeRoy. I suggest the term Severant. The closest example similar to your state would be a Revenant, but you are fully alive and missing only the fraction of your soul Xian cleaved you from to free you from that Castle.” Arx Maxima didn’t shy away from the topic, even though mom’s hand trembled at the mention of Xian cleaving her soul, but perhaps it was the mention of a Castle. When Xian entered the room she didn’t show any negative reaction to his presence, at least.

Mom’s concepts had all been wiped clean by the experience. She now had a single concept that I identified as Unmaking, with a single ability called Thread Snare. Thread Snare allowed her to grasp the strands of broken fates, shattered souls, fragments of stardust, and viciously attack and bind someone with them.

The ability made me realize how inherently violent the method Xian used to free her must have been. I was thankful to him, but maybe he could have found a way that didn’t inflict so much trauma on her? Gentle didn’t seem to be in the Urmahlullu vocabulary, but at the same time, he had done the impossible and freed her from being trapped as the foci of a Castle.

“I am about to begin. Step back, please.” Arx Maxima warned once all four basins were full of blood. I noticed mine was the only one that seemed to be boiling.

The last two to enter were Amaranthine and Corvusol. The black diamond floated to join Arx Maxima above the altar, in a synchronous orbit around Arx. Mom glared at the two, but didn’t say anything.

Spellforms created out of black energy took shape around the altar. Mathematical equations, strange sigils, and even letters in languages I didn’t know came and went in the golden power of Arx Maxima. The speed at which Arx Maxima and Corvusol computed and worked through an elaborate power like resurrection didn’t surprise me. What surprised me was when a pillar of divine light shone from Arx Maxima upon dad’s body. His wounds faded, he looked peaceful… but no heart-beat pounded in his chest.

“Again. With your aide this time, Amaranthine, Xian.” Arx Maxima’s words were terse, and the mood in the room grew grim.

Arx Maxima and Corvusol, both of whom were God like beings, had failed.

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Amaranthine stepped forward and waved a hand, which lit up a previously invisible mark of a dark rose on the back of dad’s hand.

“I will compel him,” Amaranthine said simply.

Xian walked up to the altar and looked at the dead man. Xian nodded for the crystals to try again.

Spell circles and equations flowed through the air. This time there were even more of them than the last time. As the light built up, Xian placed his hand on dad’s forehead, and his hand remained perfectly still despite the muscle spams that wracked his shoulders and body from whatever he did. I wondered, what did Xian see when he used the powers given to him by the self-proclaimed singularly Omnipotent being in all of reality?

Light flared intensely, and then dad’s body spasmed like Xian’s did. The light lingered, then faded. Xian pushed the eyelids on my father’s body closed.

“There is not enough left, even for me. Every choice available to me with Path Maker was one that ends only in ruin. I would not do that to you, blood brother, or to you, Mrs. LeeRoy. I am sorry.” Xian’s earnest apology, and sincere regret were a one-two punch to the gut.

Mom let out a small, whimper of a cry.

“It’s not your fault, Xian. Mithras did this.” Claire hissed and tried to comfort Coralie.

“And lo, the blade of Mithras cuts not just flesh but the thread of being, severing soul from all hope of return. Whosoever falls beneath His hand shall find no gate, for in His dominion, none rise again.” Mom quoted one of the scriptures of the clergy, but the sharpness of her voice and the raw contempt in her voice made it clear that she had already moved beyond any faith for Mithras.

The pit in my stomach grew and grew. Etienne and Dad were both beyond us. Was this my fault? If I hadn’t gone along with Arx Maxima’s plans, would my family still be together in Solarias? Etienne’s voice, warning of the destruction of our family, echoed in my mind.

I condensed the anxiety and slapped a lid over it.

“From all ends come beginnings, and from ruin the seed of what is to come. Grieve, or not, for what is taken returns to us in forms unknown. The Cycle demands mercy nor malice, for it knows only the turning. Ever turning.” Corvusol offered what seemed like a benediction, before he left Arx Maxima’s orbit to return to Amaranthine’s shoulder.

From there, people talked. It was awkward. Remy told stories of dad to us all. Claire did the same. Chrys commented on me being a good person, and it being a reflection on the kind of person Marius must have been. Xian said nothing, as did Miyuki and Amaranthine. Mom and I listened, but neither one of us could find it in ourselves to share anything with the others or even each other. The loss was too raw.

One by one the others trickled out until only Arx Maxima, Mom, and I remained.

“Within the Enclave we often memorialized our lost ones in the Hall of Remembrance, where the remains were mixed into an EternaStone statue of the departed. The Tenebrous Dragons were known to send their deceased into a rift of chaos. Do you have any final requests?” Arx Maxima prompted after a long silence.

“What are the lights beneath you?” Mom asked the crystal.

“The Maw of Chaos,” Arx Maxima answered. “We sit upon the focal point from which all flows in, and out, of Chaos.”

“Can we set him to drift there? He can explore Chaos alone, until I join him.” Mom said with a sad, lingering look at Dad’s face.

“He would like that,” I agreed.

“I was supposed to join the Dustwalkers after he became comfortable in the trade. I got comfortable in my position, and he seemed so alive when he came home and told me about the mists and adventures you’d think he was a bard, so we both kept putting it off, and it never happened. Chaos can be our joint adventure, after we kill Mithras.”

Mom’s conviction at the end surprised me. Nothing about our reunion seemed to be the way I had thought it would go.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Mom wrapped her arms around my neck. I had to lean down. My shoulders and chest were too broad for her to hug me anywhere else, and my wings were still awkward and hard to control. I could barely feel any warmth from Mom through my scales, but when I patted her back, I realized this was because she was at a normal temperature. No more fire bindings, no more pyromancer.

“You aren’t to blame, Emery. Mithras is, and we’re going to kill him.” Mom repeated herself and brushed a kiss against the side of my face. The changes I had gone through seemed to be difficult for her to face because she slipped away from me to touch Dad’s hand one last time.

“Let me have my last words with him, please.” Mom asked me.

“Right,” I said back. I took one last look at Dad, then left the room.

Amaranthine waited in the hallway with Claire.

“Mom’s saying good-bye,” I said awkwardly, then looked between the women.

“I’m waiting for your mom. It’s easy to get lost in Arx Maxima,” Claire explained.

“Claire, I’m sorry ab—” I started, but Claire held up a hand to stop me.

“Until we find the adventurers who escaped, we don’t know who might be alive,” Claire declared with a fierce look. Her eyes almost took on the fierceness of a gryphon. I wondered how long it would be before she left Monados to search for them. Would it even be a day? That she stayed even now to look after my mom meant even more in hindsight.

“Thank you, Claire.” I bowed my head to her.

“Come on,” Amaranthine said as she took my hand and led the way. At first I thought she must have really memorized the layout of the floor, but Arx Maxima indicated which way Amaranthine should go whenever we came to an intersection. I focused on trying to figure out where we were going, but quickly realized I had never explored this floor of the Spire, and instead shifted my gaze to watch Amaranthine.

The Fey’s expression was best described as composed. She didn’t sway or flaunt herself the way she normally would have if it were the two of us, and she seemed perfectly comfortable with quiet, companionable silence. It proved to be a very quiet walk with only the whooshing of the elevator doors to distract me, until we ended up at an observation deck. We were clearly on the underside of Arx Maxima, even though it seemed like a mere one floor elevator ride. Below us, the chaos danced an elegant waltz across the Rift.

In time, a black capsule was released from Arx Maxima and floated into the abyss.

“Good-bye, Dad,” I said simply.