Relia felt a wave of clarity when the mana struck her soul. She’d spent these last few months stumbling through a thick fog, but now she could finally see.

  ‘,’ a feminine voice said in her mind. ‘’

  Relia jumped at the sound. “Glim?”

  Pure mana coalesced in the air in front of Relia, taking the form of a young woman with blue skin, blue hair, and a matching dress. It was Glim, but she wasn’t inside a mirror. This new form had three dimensions, standing on the cobblestones beside her.

  A second Glim flew toward Relia’s father, transforming into a whirlwind of sapphire blades. Ashur retreated, but the blades pursued him across the palace grounds. The pair clashed several more times over the next few seconds. Each collision sent shockwaves through the air, louder and brighter than any storm.

  Relia blinked at the battle, then turned back to the mana spirit. “Is this real?”

  “It’s real.” Glim’s voice was different now, as if she’d aged ten years. “This might hurt. I’m sorry, but you need to see it.”

  Memories assaulted Relia’s mind before she could answer. She witnessed Glim’s last few moments with Elend. She felt their pain as if it were her own. Elend could have been a Mystic. He could have been immortal.

  But he’d traded that power away. He’d traded it for .

  Relia sank to her knees, the pain pushing against the barriers in her mind. She’d been wrong about Elend. So, wrong. Her father could show her memories, but those memories were faint whispers compared to Elend’s sacrifice. Tears streamed down her face. She wished she could apologize and thank him all at once. But no words were enough.

  They were all gone. And for what? To save her? Relia didn’t deserve that. She loved her friends more than anything in this world. That love should have been stronger than her father’s power.

  “I need you to focus right now,” Glim said. “We only have a few more seconds.”

  “Seconds?” Relia shook her head. “I don’t—”

  “I can give you my power,” Glim cut in. “I can bond with your soul if you’ll let me.”

  “Of course,” Relia said at once. She didn’t fully understand Glim’s bond with Elend, but she knew Glim would die without a human host.

  “Good. But you need to advance first. Otherwise this will kill us both.”

  Panic squeezed Relia’s chest. “I don’t have my revelation.”

  “Then find it.” Glim’s eyes blazed with an intensity Relia had never seen before. “Elend believed in you, and so do I.”

  Relia closed her mouth and fought down her objections. Glim was right; after everything the others went through, she had to try. It was the least she could do.

  “I train to . . .” She almost fell back on the same old phrase, but stopped herself mid-sentence. The words felt wrong on her lips now. Not just wrong, but arrogant. She’d been so sure she knew the right choices. Not just for herself, but for those around her.

  But how could you make the right choices when you didn’t have the right answers? Without the right answers, you could only blunder through the dark in a storm of self-righteous fury.

  Even now, Relia didn’t have the answers she sought. But she have her revelation.

  Before today, she’d seen mastery as the last step of a long journey. A time when she could act with confidence and purpose. But mastery was just one more step in the world of mana arts. In some ways, it was more of a beginning than an end. A chance to learn more than she’d ever learned before.

  Relia drew in a deep breath and spoke the words. “I train to what’s right.”

  Training wasn’t just about doing. Training was learning, adapting, and changing. You didn’t just improve your techniques. You improved the very reasons that drove you. Yes, this world was flawed, but that was life. You couldn’t change it overnight, but you could understand it a little more each day.

  Her soul must have agreed, because a burst of power ripped through her channels. It felt warm and wonderful, like coming home to her family. Her family.

  Relia’s senses expanded beyond her body, and she felt every detail of her surroundings. Every conduit of mana that ran through the palace. Every person in the safe rooms below. She sensed their ranks and aspects. Their fears, their hopes, and their dreams. This wasn’t like Silver Sight. This was more visceral, like resting her hands on reality and feeling its pulse.

  Even her thoughts were clearer. Relia saw her past self as a different person. That person had made countless mistakes, but she couldn’t let those mistakes hold her back.

  She had work to do.

  Elend and Irina couldn’t be saved. Only Aeons could cling to life in the minutes after death—she and her father had learned that lesson when they tried to save Elise.

  Fortunately, Akari and Kalden were both Aeons.

  “We need a power source,” Relia said to Glim.

  Glim pointed up at the shielded sky. “We have one!”

  Relia looked up at the dome of protection mana with its rippling waves of pale blue energy. The Aegis was built to withstand an assault from enemy Mystics. It would keep drawing power until the whole city went dark. She reached out with her Aeon soul, feeling the flow of mana. Sure enough, the Aegis was just another source of power she could draw from.

  “Hurry!” Glim said as another clash of mana sounded across the battlefield. “Can’t hold him much longer!”

  Relia reached out to the bodies of her friends. Tendrils of pure mana flowed out from her hands, cradling their broken forms, pulling them closer.

  She pressed her hands against their chests—one on each body. Akari’s spine had been snapped backward, her body folded in half the wrong way. Her father’s mana had shattered bones and torn muscles beyond recognition. Kalden’s wounds were cleaner but no less fatal. A spatial blade had cut through his torso, severing bones and organs in a single strike.

  Worse than Elise’s woundsWorse than anything she’d ever healed before. But her friends had the souls of dead Angels inside them; those souls clung to life in a way no ordinary mana artist could match. Not even a Mystic.

  Relia cycled her Moonfire, cold and sharp in her channels. That Cloak extended to her friends, finding footholds in their broken souls. In that moment, the boundaries between healer and patient dissolved. Their wounds became her wounds. Their souls were her soul.

  The temperature dropped around her. Frost spread across the cobblestones in crystalline patterns. Her breath flowed like steam from her nostrils. Nearby benches groaned under the pressure, and windows shattered in their frames.

  She felt her friends through the connection. Akari burned like a dying ember. Her raw determination hadn’t faded with her last breath. If anything, it burned brighter now, refusing to accept this end. Kalden was quieter but no less stubborn. His mind still worked, even as a shroud of darkness crept over his brain. His aspect searched for patterns, seeking the path back to life.

  The Angelic mana flowed between them like a river of light, carrying pieces of Relia’s own soul to fill the broken gaps. Akari and Kalden had a bond. A bond that let them share mana, thoughts, and techniques.

  Now, that bond extended to Relia. The three of them would be linked after this moment. No one would ever separate them again.

  Akari’s spine snapped back with a sound like breaking ice. Bone fragments drew together like iron slivers to a magnet. Torn muscles rewove themselves.

  Kalden’s cells regenerated one at a time. Layers of tissue connected. Skin and muscle reformed like flowing quicksilver.

  Then the fighting stopped across the battlefield.

  “What happened?” Relia asked Glim in a breathless voice.

  “I’m out of mana,” Glim said. “I was using the rest of Elend’s power. Now it’s gone.”

  “What happens now?” Relia asked.

  “He’ll come for you.”

  Relia shook her head. “I’ll die before that happens.”

  “Good,” Glim said. “Then we’ll fight him.”

  “How do we fight a Mystic?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Together.”

  If only it were that easy. The others had tried to fight him, but they’d lost. Now, the odds were worse than ever. Akari and Kalden were alive, but death always left its marks. Most Aeons took years to rebuild their power after an event like this. Some of them spent months in a coma. Others couldn’t handle the trauma, and they never fought again.

  What would happen to her friends? Their bodies had healed, but what about their mana and their minds? Would they ever recover from this?

  Space warped across the garden in that moment, and Relia’s father stepped forward. His mana was calm, as if he’d already won.

  A cold dread crept into Relia, and she shuddered despite the strength of her Master body. “This is what he wanted,” she whispered to Glim. “You, me . . . all four of us. He wanted me to bring them back.”

  Elend had sacrificed himself for this chance, but it wasn’t enough. They were still trapped in the Aegis. Her father had everything he wanted.

  Akari gasped beside her—a raw, desperate sound as her lungs remembered how to breathe. Her eyes snapped open, wild around the edges.

  A heartbeat later, Kalden woke with a start. His dark eyes found Akari’s, then Relia’s.

  “It’s okay,” Relia told them. How did you explain something like this? How did you tell your friends they’d come back from the dead? “Just try not to—”

  “,” Akari whispered through gritted teeth.

  “Wait,” Relia said. “”

  The other girl sprang to her feet, gathering spacetime mana in her palms. Her gaze settled on the Darklight’s fallen bodies and the blood-stained cobblestones. Then she turned to face Relia’s father across the courtyard.

  Blades of Angelic mana formed in Kalden’s hands as he surveyed in the scene. Several expressions flashed across his face as he processed everything. “Is there no other way out of the Aegis?” he asked Relia over his shoulder.

  “N-no,” Relia stammered. “Only my father can open it.”

  “How?”

  “The Honor Guards outside. He has to give them a command. There’s a code phrase. I don’t know it.”

  Kalden nodded as if he’d expected that. “You okay now?”

  “I will be,” Relia said after a short pause. She glanced back and forth between her friends. “Just . . . forgot how crazy you guys are.”

  “Alright,” Kalden said. “Then there’s only one way out. We have to make your father retreat.”

  Ashur stepped across the courtyard, looking calm despite his wounds. Cracks covered his dark armor, trailing clouds of broken mana in his wake. A thin line of blood crossed his windpipe, and she sported two more wounds along his left thigh and lower torso.

  “You did that?” Relia whispered to Glim.

  “Someone had to,” the mana spirit said in a low voice.

  Relia’s instincts told her not to fight. He was still her father—a man who’d done the wrong things for the right reasons. He believed he was helping Espiria—saving the world from its true enemy. No . . . Relia pushed those feelings aside. Ashur had wormed his way into her mind and turned her against her real family. Worst of all, it took Elend’s sacrifice to help her see the truth.

  The five of them stood in silence for several heartbeats, facing each other across the broken courtyard. No more words passed between them in that moment. No half-truths, no threats, no self-righteous speeches.

  Then they exploded into motion.

  Akari vanished in a blur, appearing behind Ashur with a glowing blade. He knocked her away with a gust of pure mana. Kalden fell from the sky an instant later, surrounded by a whirlwind of his own weapons.

  The three clashed, sending shockwaves across the courtyard like thunder and lightning. Plants erupted from the earth in clouds of roots and soil. Bricks shattered in the surrounding walls, knocking them to their foundations.

  Her friends moved like two halves of the same fighter. Blades flew around Kalden like a swarm of silver insects. Akari caught those blades with her portals, striking from impossible angles. Kalden would feint high, and Akari would strike low with no clear signal between them. Was this because of their soulbond? Or was it all the battles they’d fought together? Maybe both.

  Relia cycled her Moonfire, running forward to join the others. The Angelic mana flowed through their soulbond, keeping her friends safe across the battlefield.

  Space warped around Kalden like folded paper—the same way her father had killed Akari a few minutes before. But Relia doubled down on her technique, strengthening every cell in Kalden’s body. Pale blue light shone from beneath his skin, and he held together for a few more heartbeats. Just enough time to escape.

  Her father went for Akari next. Dozens of blades flew from his outstretched hands. Even with her latest advancement, Relia struggled to track them all.

  But she shared a mind with the best dream artist in Espiria. Glim slowed Relia’s perception of time and guided her movements. A blade struck Akari’s windpipe, but Relia was ready for it. Moonfire flowed to that exact spot, and the Mystic’s technique glanced off her skin.

  That actually worked? They called it Angelic mana, but she hadn’t truly expected it to stop a Mystic’s technique.

  Ashur’s eyes locked on hers from across the courtyard. He knocked the others back with a burst of raw power, and a silver dome surrounded them. Relia couldn’t see the outside, but it must have resembled a giant mirror—layers of portals that reflected her friends’ techniques.

  Ashur closed the distance with slow, deliberate steps. He didn’t try to justify his actions or sway Relia back to his side. Instead, he attacked her from the inside out.

  Glim said in her mind.

  The mental attack hit her like a physical blow. Her father had been subtle before, melting away her defenses like acid. This felt more like a hammer.

  Relia and Glim formed a mental shield, straining to push him back out. She’d grown stronger with her advancement, but her father was still a Mystic. Fighting him was like fighting a storm.

  Relia thought to Glim.

  Glim said in a strained voice.

  Relia was about to ask how, but she already knew the answer. Moonfire was the strongest healing technique in the known universe. But the technique had a darker side, just like her life mana.

  The silver dome flickered as her friends bore down with all their might. Ashur's mental attack pressed harder against Relia’s mind. He was distracted. This was her chance.

  Glim said.

  Relia cycled the Angelic mana from her soul, pushing it through their bond. It filled Ashur’s body like an extension of her own. She felt his cuts, waiting to be healed . . .

  Then she inverted the technique in his channels. Instead of strengthening his cells, she broke them down. Instead of cleansing toxins, she made chaos. It was like playing a song in reverse.

  Fresh blood erupted from Ashur’s windpipe, running down his armor and splattering against the cobbles. His eyes widened in shock as he tried to force Relia’s technique out of his body. He almost succeeded until Glim joined the assault.

  A dozen blades flew from her father’s hands. Relia felt the gusts of wind as they passed her skin. The sound was a dry ripple, like parchment twisting in a vacuum. Portals opened around her, flinging her back and forth like a rag doll. Still, Relia ignored these attacks and focused on her own techniques. Despite everything her father had done, he wouldn’t hurt her. Not physically, at least.

  Meanwhile, Ashur’s own wounds grew wider, revealing muscle and bone. Most Mystics had natural healing, but Relia’s Moonfire countered those abilities. He was still just a human, despite his power.

  A few more seconds, and he would pass out from the blood loss.

  Space warped around Ashur’s body, and he vanished from sight. Her friends destroyed the shield in the same moment, rushing in to join her.

  Akari whipped her head back and forth. “Where’d he go?”

  Kalden closed his eyes for a brief second. “Basement. Safe room on the east side.”

  “Good. Let’s make him desperate.” Akari turned to Relia. “You ready?”

  “Ready,” she said with a nod.

  A portal swallowed them like a sheath, and they appeared in the palace’s dark basement. Glim separated from Relia and vanished into the wall itself. Stone ground against stone as she pressed a hidden switch.

  The brick wall slid open, revealing a hidden chamber beyond. Her father knelt inside with packs of healing mana pressed to his wounds. One pack covered his throat while he pressed another against his left thigh.

  Relia didn’t hesitate this time. A second wave of Moonfire flowed through their bond, opening his wounds anew. He managed to resist until Akari and Kalden joined the fight. Then Ashur retreated through another portal.

  They followed him through several more jumps across the palace. The northwest corner of the rooftop, another hidden courtyard, a maintenance room. Each time, Relia lashed out with her Moonfire while her friends pressed the physical assault. Each time, Ashur retreated. But he was slowing down. His portals took longer to form, his movements grew less fluid.

  Finally, they backed Ashur into the edge of the Aegis. His gaze swept over them as they fought, but he didn’t look desperate. He almost looked relieved, as if he’d expected this to happen.

  A shockwave of pure mana blasted out from his hands, knocking Relia and the others off their feet. Kalden slammed into a brick wall, while Relia’s back hit the grass. Akari caught herself in a portal and landed on her feet like a cat.

  Ashur blocked Akari’s next attack and shouted into his comm device: "Override seven-seven-delta!”

  The Aegis flickered— a heartbeat of weakness in the shimmering blue dome. That was all Ashur needed. Space warped around his body in a silver spiral, and he vanished through the gap.

  Akari’s own Missiles slammed against the dome, sending ripples across its surface. “Shit,” she turned back to Kalden. “What the hell was that?”

  “He closed the shield behind him,” Kalden said in a breathless voice. “Barely open for fifty milliseconds.”

  Relia glanced back and forth. “So we’re stuck in here?”

  No one answered, but their faces said it all. Her father would heal his wounds, then return to the palace with backup. He would separate Relia from her friends and find a counter to her Moonfire technique. What if he wormed his way back into her head? What if Elend sacrificed himself for nothing?

  Glim said in her mind.

  Relia nodded and forced herself to breathe the cold night air. No matter what happened next, he couldn’t erase the progress she’d made.

  “Wait.” Akari pointed up toward the apex of the dome. “What’s that?”

  Relia followed her gaze. At first, she saw nothing but the familiar glow of blue mana. Then a shadow fell over the Aegis, blocking out the light of the moons. It started as a whip before stiffening into a blade. The technique stretched longer than three city blocks, rivaling the length of the palace itself. Its dark edge gleamed with pure destruction.

  “It looks like blade mana,” Kalden said. “But that’s impossible. Even for a Mystic.”

  The massive weapon hung in the air for several long heartbeats. Relia heard her own heart thundering in her ears.

  Then the blade crashed down, and the impact shook the world. A web of cracks spread across the dome. Buildings trembled on both sides. And the city grew dark as the shield drew more power.

  A second whip-blade joined the first, then a third. Each one twisted through the air, finding weak points in the structure. The ground shook harder than any earthquake.

  “Shield your eyes!" Kalden shouted.

  Relia barely had time to raise her hands before the world went white. Raw power pressed against her skin, and she couldn’t breathe. She felt the grass on her face, but she didn’t remember falling.

  Her ears rang until she cycled her Moonfire. She opened her eyes some time later, and it took several seconds to blink away the afterimage. The Aegis was . . . gone. Fragments of pale blue mana drifted through the air like snow, dissolving before they hit the ground.

  A man descended from the sky, dressed in traditional blade artist’s robes. He seemed to be floating, but Relia couldn’t see a technique. Just a pair of small blades beneath his dark boots. Half a dozen more figures floated down in his wake. All of them were Masters or Grandmasters. Some rode flying blades, while others approached on foot.

  Their leader gave off no power at all. He could be a Novice or a Mystic—she had no way to tell. He landed in the grass with practiced ease, his blades dissolving into silver mist beneath his feet. He was Shokenese, that much was clear. Tall and lean, his black hair was pulled back in a topknot, and a dark beard framed his sharp face.

  "Father?" The word escaped Kalden's lips, barely audible.

  The man surveyed the destruction as he approached. His gaze lingered on each member of their group before settling on Kalden. When he spoke, his voice carried the weight of mountains. “Son.”

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