I hit the ground and squeezed my eyes closed. “Luna,” I said, a bare whimper.
“She cannot be with you. Not right now.” This was the voice of the cloaked man I’d met in the Aetheric. The one I’d named Lochryn. “Breathe.”
“Why are Guardians always telling humans to breathe?”
“Because we can’t do it for you, obviously.”
“Hurts too much.” I could hear the others’ voices, but they sounded so far away. I wasn’t sure if they could see me through the haze, much less move through it.
“Do it anyway.”
“Okay,” I said. I closed my eyes and pursed my lips. Quick, short breaths.
“Good,” the voice said.
The pain didn’t ease, but I found I could live through it. Light shifted and changed, the effect visible even though my eyes were closed. The lights shifted into a rainbow of colors, shimmering and sparkling against the stone. It was beautiful, not unlike the River of Souls, but filled with color.
I lifted a hand and the light stirred, flowing around my fingers like water around a pebble. It was warm, but the heat was soothing. It was a relief compared to the fire in my heart.
“Not much longer now,” the voice said.
“Because I’m dying?” I whispered, not expecting an answer.
“You are not dying. This is not death. It is a removal.”
“What does that mean?”
The dots of light flowed down my hand and up my arm.
“Only a moment more.”
The Aetheric chill crept up my body as the lights moved, and they gathered on my left hand, too. Should I have been fighting this? Was it the work of some enemy? My suspicions were strong for a reason; they’d kept me alive.
“Am I supposed to fight back?”
The ember flared again, and I clutched a fist against my chest, lungs frozen against the sudden pain.
“Do not fight. They are not hurting. They are healing.”
“Healing what?” I managed, trying to breathe despite the tightness in my lungs, each breath strangled. The lights moved down my arms like fluid.
“What was broken long ago to keep you hidden, even from me.”
“You mean the seal?”
There were voices in the light, whispering things I couldn’t hear or understand but recognized as words nonetheless. There was a rhythm. A beat. And power with it.
“Now is the time for your fight to begin. Get ready.”
The beat grew louder as the lights covered my legs and abdomen, working their way to my heart. But the seal didn’t want to break. It hurt for a reason. To be broken was to abandon its responsibility.
Infused with Aether, the ember flared again, and I thought my skin was boiling, bubbling. The lights kept moving, progressing, a wave that crashed across the ember…and then the pain simply fell away.
The ember still smoldered, but it had been transformed. It no longer fought with the remains of the seal. It was gloriously warm now, the combustion of a different kind of energy. Of smiles and sunshine and embraces and passion.
This fire had burned forever, as eternal as our world, as the Aetheric, as the emperor who’d claimed this land.
And like all souls, it burned brightest.
