Another streak of light across the sky above, and the ground beneath us quaked with such force it threatened to topple us.
“I’m here,” I said, tightening my grip on him. “Tell me what it is.”
“The Second Awakening wasn’t what we thought it was, Bast. I tried to make it something good. Something that would bring us together.”
“You brought magic to mortals,” I told him.
“That was my part, yes. But that wasn’t the only manifestation of the Source’s power. We invited something in that day. Something that has been searching for a way into our world. They called from the void beyond the Ether, and I answered it."
“Another monster?” I asked. “A distortion, like Lynette?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s older than that. Ancient forces, like the Source itself. I’ve only encountered one of those that slipped through. A darkness that made my blood run cold. And when Lynette and I ripped a hole between our world and the Ether during the Second Awakening, it was able to cross over once more to walk the Expanse.”
“How do you know this?” I asked.
“Because it told us so, Lynette and I. It called itself the Umbral when it entered our dreams, wearing the face of a man, and thanked us for setting them free. It had been them all along, Bast. Whispering to Lynette through the years, and pushingher towards the actions she took. It led her down the path to Distortion, and now it wants to keep us sleeping.”
“You mean it’s the reason you cannot wake?”
“No, not directly. The strain of the Second Awakening was the catalyst. That much I am sure of. The Umbral simply knows that we can do nothing while we slumber, and wants to keep us this way. It knows that we would stand in the way of its ultimate ambition.”
“Which is?”
“To snuff out the light,” Tobias said, his voice nearly swallowed by another falling star streaking past overhead.
My thoughts drifted back to the Sleeper’s fable and the story of the Great Light. Was it connected to this entity in some way?
“It took only a moment to wipe out the stars across the sky,” Tobias continued, his voice wavering slightly. “But now it seeks to extinguish the Source, and cast the Expanse back into the darkness from which it came.”
“It told you this?”
Tobias nodded. “It spoke to us as though we were old friends. I know not what its plans are outside of the Ether, but I know that we must not let them succeed.”
“Soon I’ll wake you,” I told him. “And we can face this threat together. I swear it.”
Tobias didn’t answer, his emerald eyes frozen in a thousand-yard stare that pierced straight through me. I seized him by the shoulders, shaking him quickly. He blinked, his gaze focusing on me once more.
“My hold is slipping,” he said, his words dripping in sorrow. “I can’t stay.”
I tightened my grip on him. “Please, just a little longer.”
“I wish I could,” he spoke quickly. “There’s so much more I want to say, but it will have to wait. Be careful, Bast. The Umbralis already in motion. I know not where its ambitions will steer it, only that it will work its way to the Source.”
“Don’t go,” I pleaded.
Tobias smiled at me once more. “I love you, Bast. Know that no matter what happens, this remains true.”
“I love you, Tobias. And I swear, I will wake you. Even if I have to rip you from your dreams myself.”
“I have no doubts,” he replied, the outline of his body growing fuzzy. “I will see you again. Hopefully soon. And I would selfishly ask that you pass that along to Cirian and Azrael, too.”
“Of course,” I agreed.
The image of Tobias flickered, my hands sinking into the space his flesh had occupied.
“Soon.”
The whisper of Tobias’s voice was swallowed by the moaning sound renewed from the chasm, the ground beneath my feet shaking violently from the force. Before I could react, the ledge gave way, and I toppled, head over heels, down into the inky blackness that awaited below.
