Kalma is dead.

There’s no denying it. Her body lays headless and limp on the sloped amber ground. My flames crawl over her, and I don’t feel any response. The natural heat of her body slowly leaves her.

I try to eat her, but even dead, my hottest flames cannot burn her flesh. Instead, I cast the inheritance ritual inscription above myself and Tore. I can’t ignore my tribe’s teachings. Especially when a body so nutrition rich like Kalma’s is in question. Leaving her to rot would be a waste of unthinkable proportions.

I feel Tore’s fingers wrap around my chest. I’m lifted off his back and placed on the ground before he walks out of the inscription’s range. He doesn’t want any? Well, I won’t complain. More for me.

As soon as the ritual starts, I realise it’s going to be a long time before I’ll get through her. Even in death, Kalma doesn’t want to be cooperative.

While her energy slowly flows into me, gradually enhancing my capacity with the lacklustre efficiency of the ritual, I cast my gaze around the cavern we find ourselves in. I don’t know whether to call it creepy, or intriguing. My eyes tell me an incredibly different story than the flames spread throughout.

Visually, the space looks normal, if you ignore the strange illusions that appear any time you move. But to the touch of my flames, it’s as if we’ve stepped into an entirely different world. Connected flames less than a metre apart were also somehow on opposite sides of me, separated by dozens of metres. Other instances will have my flames overlapping each other to my senses, but never touch.

I watch Tore carefully as he walks away. For the first twenty or thirty metres, nothing seems off, but beyond that, the strange visual inconsistencies grow. The air warps, making his body appear distorted with each sway and step. I send a wisp of fire toward him, but despite travelling in a straight line to my eyes, I can feel an almost constant change in its heading. It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly where that wisp is even while looking at it directly.

Tore turns to the side and pivots, no longer walking directly away from me. In an instant, his body flattens, disappearing from sight. I keep my eyes toward the area I lost him, but he doesn’t reappear. I send my wisp off its straight path as well, and like Tore, it leaves my sight.

My eyes land back on the barely processed body of Kalma. Should I leave her for now and chase after him? Through the brightness of my flames, the light coming from above looks like a tiny star in the distance. We fell a damn long way, so I’d rather not be stuck down here alone.

Tore makes his appearance again, walking through the flames behind me. I turn, and sure enough, he’s there, just coming within range of my thermal sense.

The space here is strange.

I fall to my back within the ritual. It’s hard to imagine Kalma is actually dead. The amount of destruction she’s caused upon the world has been immense. And for what? Some end of the world only she knew about?

Now that she’s dead, I regret not asking about it. About what she knew of Eldest Ember. About anything, really. She left us with nothing but doubt of what’s to come. Do we have any way of knowing she wasn’t simply delusional?

Well, at least she won’t be able to cause any more damage than she already has. We’ll need to make our way back up to the surface soon, but for now, I just want to relish in the feeling of victory… and the growth provided by Kalma’s corpse.

The flames I left attached to my team are well and truly out of my range now. I hadn’t been paying them too much attention during the fight, but I hope they are okay. I want to make sure none of Kalma’s attacks reached them.

I pass my hand over the smooth surface below me. It’s warm to the touch. The amber earth does a good job of reflecting the heat of my flames, almost doubling the heat as I bathe in the flames I refuse to extinguish. As soon as they’re gone, I won’t be able to create them again. Though, with only air to consume, they’ll run out of energy soon. The ground is impenetrable to my flames.

A heavy rumble echoes down from above, followed by a shower of dust. The rumbles only grow louder in the next few seconds. A thousand impacts blended into one continuous sound.

Are the falling mountains only now reaching us? The crunch of a stone slamming into the amber surface beside me is all the answer I need.

“We should make our way up.” Tore beats me to it.

I reluctantly disperse my floating inscription and climb into Tore’s offered hand. He lifts me to his shoulder before reaching down and picking up Kalma’s corpse, tying her to his waist by her tails like one would game after a hunt. Tore favours his right hand, not using his left when it would have been easier.

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Did he injure it during the fight? It must have been when we crash landed. Even incorporeal, and having the ursu take the brunt of the fall, that had hurt. I can’t imagine what it might have been like for Tore.

I’d love to help him, but there’s not much I can do. Tore shrugs off the injury as if it were nothing, and hopefully it is to him. Maybe if we meet Imiha, she can heal him? It’ll be a long time before that, though.

Not only is the climb above us daunting, but we have no way of knowing what we might find once we reach the surface. I’d rather not join another battle once we return.

Tore leaps through the air, grabbing the wall as a large crash quakes below. Rock and gravel buries that strange amber surface once more. We can’t stay down here any longer. There are people waiting for us above.

❖❖❖

It took over an hour of climbing to breach the surface. With gravity working against us, the difference is staggering. Tore would leap up the wall with incredible speed, but the falling debris far too often slowed our progress. Most of the time, Tore would use the falling stone as a platform to jump higher, but a few times I had to thrust us into the wall for the giant to recover.

At one point, a mist beat down on my flames. The water thin enough to evaporate without too much issue. As we rose higher, the mist condensed into a waterfall, which was thankfully much easier to avoid. It was only when the sky was fully visible above that the source of the water was discovered; some underground stream that flowed into the voided space.

Tore crashed through the veil of smoke surrounding the immense pit and brought us in to land. Despite our success and escape, Tore’s eyes linger on the rising ash above. It has spread far to the horizon now. Is he worried about it being the same as the decay dust Kalma created? Does he think it will reform like how she could with that massive mountain?

I go to say that it’s just normal ash, when I think of a better way to reassure him. The remaining white flames spread into the sky, eating away the pillars of ash rising from the impact ring before rising with the smoke and burning outward through the sky. It takes a while, but eventually the sky is clear again.

Tore glances over his shoulder, giving me a flat look. What? Should I not have burnt it away?

The rotten growth of night in the sky remains unchanged after Tore threw Kalma too far to see. I noticed after that neither side tried to rise that high again.

“Hey, Tore? What is that?” I ask.

He follows my gaze. “I don’t know.”

He doesn’t? Kalma acted like it should be common knowledge. “You think the sky will return to normal?”

“Eventually.” Tore nods with a certainty that’s strange for someone who doesn’t know what the phenomena is. I guess those warnings to never fly too high weren’t without basis.

I watch the strange sky for a while. “Why did you leave when you did?”

“My people were in danger,” he answers simply.

“You know, she appeared almost as soon as you left. We could have fought her then.”

Though we might have been able to fight her had Tore stayed, actually beating her was impossible. If I hadn’t had the time to alter my flames to defend against her decay, we’d be dead and Kalma would be watching the fall of the pact nations right now.

Though if we’d killed her earlier, the damage would have been less severe. Ankor, alongside countless others, would still be alive.

“If you want to come with me and my team, we can take you somewhere to treat your arm,” I offer. The first thing I want to do is meet with my team, then finding out the state of the war, but helping Tore comes in a clean third place in my priorities.

Despite our success, he did leave it to the last possible moment to help.

“No, I should return to mine. There are those that still fight.” He drops me beside him, then allows Kalma’s corpse to fall unceremoniously to my feet. “I will be busy for a while, but New Vetus will welcome you. I’ll assure it.”

Tore doesn’t wait around. He bounds across the land and is quickly out of sight. No time to celebrate then? Well, if he’s this dedicated to the ursu, then I’m sure they’ll prosper under his leadership. I’m relieved Leal won’t have to suffer anymore.

Before I head off to find my team, I can’t help but stare at the immense transformation that has overtaken the terrain during the battle. It’s like a Titan went on a rampage. Only, if that were truly the case, how far-reaching would the effects be?

If there was to be a fight between Titans, then how could any unenhanced species survive?

❖❖❖

“You knew a riparian and never told me?” As soon as I hear the familiar voice carried on the wind, I pick up speed, throwing in a bit of thrust for the boost.

Standing amongst my team, along with a dozen other albanics, is Bunny. She has yet to notice me, so I take the opportunity. My wings clamp to my side and I barrel through the air into her back. She twists at the last moment, but too late. I slam into her, nearly knocking her off her feet.

It’s been such a long time since I’d seen her. Even when I’d made it across the Alps, Bunny had already gone to Vanguard and stayed there for the entire duration of the war.

The unfamiliar albanics all wearing similar armour as Bunny panic. A few step forward to separate me from my team member, while the others ready their weapons. Bunny, on the other hand, seems to have finally noticed my scorching feathers, and while the white fire is definitely different from what she would remember, she is quick to recognise me.

“Solvei?”

She doesn’t have her bag of weapons with her anymore. Instead, she carries only a long halberd that shines with the distinct glowing lines of an inscription. With the flat of the blade, she swats away two of her compatriots so she can pull me close while I slowly return to my normal form.

“I’m glad you’re alright,”

“How are you here? I thought you were stuck in the war against the Theocracy?” I ask as I fall to my feet. My changes have been getting much faster as of late.

“The cowards backed off after I killed one of their presbyters. It gave me the chance to return.” Bunny’s eyes land on the other albanics with their weapons still raised. “Oi! Drop them already!” she snaps.

Though they watch me closely, they do as she says.

“I had to fight through a horde of Viisin on the way here, but a short while back, they all dropped dead.”

Oh? So there’s no need to worry about the mermineae invasion any longer. Without the decay powering them forward, they won’t be able to compete against the pact nation’s mercenaries.

“Kalma’s gone then?” Grímr asks, stepping forward.

“Oh, yeah. That reminds me.” I turn to the flame carrying her corpse behind me. “I haven’t eaten much yet. Want to share?”

I’ll never forget my team’s expressions as the headless corpse lands before them.