The strain of holding back the golden strands of energy was beginning to take a toll on my body as well as my swords. I knew each of the archangel blades was able to absorb a lot of energy, but Kai was pouring mana like a waterfall.

If he continued like this, I’d have to try blocking his attack with just one of the swords while I discharged the second and then repeat the process with the other one. And I wasn’t entirely sure if one blade would be able to handle the pressure of his attack.

Thankfully, Kai looked like he had heard me, and the tentacles flowing mana into my swords slowly withered and disappeared. That was not the case for the rest of my party who were still dangling in the air though, trapped by the beastly golden strands coming out of Kai’s back.

“Put everyone down and we’ll have a talk,” I said, letting my hands drop but not quite sheathing my swords.

“I’m not hurting anyone, Adel,” Kai said in a cold tone. “And nobody is keen on leaving us alone it seems.”

“Adel,” Myriam almost whispered again, “I…”

“I missed you too,” I replied, to what I thought she was going to say. “Both of you.”

It wasn’t just me trying to de-escalate the situation. I meant it. It was definitely true for Myriam, but I also missed Kai. Though perhaps the teenager standing in front of me now only resembled Kai in appearance, and was something completely different.

I had missed the boy named Kai. I missed my best friend and my sparring partner. Myriam and Kai. They had both grown up a lot since I had last seen them. Kai’s physical appearance had changed noticeably, though his face remained almost the same.

Myriam’s face on the other hand had changed completely, and it was not just because her hair was now only just long enough to reach her shoulders. Her eyes were the same, but something in them was different.

Her look showed much more about what she had been through than her mouth would probably ever tell me. I could see pain in her eyes and regret. Then she pursed her lips and squeezed her eyes and I could see the familiar look of Myriam’s relentless determination.

“Kai will let them all down,” she said, nodding to reassure me of the safety of her plan, “and you will tie them up. We cannot afford to let you interrupt us once we begin the ritual.”

“Myriam, we want the same thing as—” Seika started, but her magical bonds wrapped themselves around her mouth, muffling her words.

“Put them down!” I commanded and discharged the concentrated mana from one of my swords in a burst which landed right next to Kai. “NOW!”

“Kai, stop this immediately!” Myriam shouted.

The boy, or whatever was inside of him, was now looking me straight in the eyes. His face was gleaming gold on one side and purple on the other, as it reflected the light of the mana tentacles holding my friends and the light of the floating light orbs that had led us here.

I didn’t take my eyes off of him. This was a primal beast that I was facing and not the boy I used to know. Moving my eyes away would mean I had admitted my defeat.

A moment passed.

Another moment passed, and I realized that if no part of Kai remained in the shell in front of me, I was gambling my friends’ lives.

“Put them down,” I said, as I sheathed both of my swords, “and I’ll join you… as a hostage.”

“Adel, no!” Man yelled at me. “Stop throwing yourself in danger’s path.”

“That doesn’t solve our problem, Adel,” Myriam retorted, albeit quite mildly as she definitely wasn’t enjoying having this negotiation with me. “They’ll just follow us and try to free you when we’re busy performing the ritual.”

“I can send them all back,” I said, and turned my eyes to the ground. I knew they would hate me for this.

As expected, all four of them started yelling at me for my stupidity, Seika only able to let out muffled screams with every breath. But I had quite some time to think about this situation as I was crawling up behind Myriam and Kai when they were still dealing with Man and Seika.

There was no other option I could think of which would get us all out of this alive. The four of them would definitely escape with their lives, as I’d send them back to the tower with the hourglasses, and I’d still have quite a lot of time to think of another plan for if Myriam and Kai took me with them.

“How are you going to do that?” Myriam asked, a glimmer of hope shining in her eyes as she started to believe that maybe this situation could be resolved without bloodshed.

“Don’t do it, Adel,” said Kard, in a tone that would sound like concern to anyone who did not know him enough.

But I knew him better, and I understood that he was trying to tell me something. Kard knew he wouldn’t be able to stop me from doing something once my mind was made up—even more so this time around, since he was bound and floating several feet in the air. I tried to understand what he was trying to tell me and saw him subtly pointing with his index fingers. I looked at the ground where the fingers of both of his hands were pointing, but I couldn’t see anything of value to my plan.

However, as the tentacles moved him around, one finger of each of his hands remained pointing though they did not necessarily point at the same place.

He’s not trying to show me something. He’s trying to tell me the number one.

He wanted me to use just one of the hourglasses to send them all back. This way, Kai and Myriam wouldn’t think to search me for mine.

Oh, he was good. Better than ever.

“Before we set out to find you,” I started explaining, “we prepared for having to get out fast in an emergency. Seika has a device that can teleport all of them out of here.”

“How do we know you won’t just teleport back again?” Kai asked, calmer than ever.

“They’ll use an hourglass that will teleport them to a cauldron back in Leka An,” I replied. “One-way trip. Standard teleportation devices that we took from the emptied houses in Nara.”

I noticed my last comment shook Myriam, who seemed keen to see this done.

“I know of these devices, Kai,” she reassured him. “Once you flip it, you are teleported back to the cauldron after sixty seconds. But they all need to be in physical contact with each other while one of them holds the hourglass.”

“Then let’s do it already,” Kai said, and brought Seika in front of me in order to retrieve the hourglass.

I reached into the pocket where I knew her hourglass was and looked into her eyes. She was glaring at me with her eyes wide open as if to command me not to do it, even though she knew my decision had already been made. I smiled and hugged her as I retrieved the hourglass, my hand resting for just a second on her belly.

“I’ll be back before the baby comes out,” I said, before breaking the embrace.

Gagged as she was, she let a high shrill scream from her throat, kicking as the tentacle took her away from me once more.

“Kai, why are you separating them?” Myriam asked now. “He’s going with them.”

“No,” I protested. “I said that I believed you and I meant it. I want to see this through as well. Besides, you’re going to need protection.”

“Protection from who?” Kai asked, puzzled.

“Two members of the Order have been trailing you,” I replied. “They were at the monastery just before us. Myriam, they killed a priest named Galad.”

“Galad? No, it can’t be,” she said, seemingly at a loss. “We just saw him last night. He was fine.”

“The other monks found him dead,” I continued, “and told us that two priests of the Order asked about you and went down into the crypts.”

“That means they might be going in circles in the forest,” Kai said, “like we are. Myriam, I think Adel should stay.”

“We can handle them,” Myriam said. “We’ve handled worse, and you seem to have control of the power in you now.”

“I don’t!” Kai shouted. “I am not controlling any of this. I’m simply standing here and talking. I can move my own body, and speak my own words, but these things are moving on their own Myriam. I don’t know if it’s the forest magnifying the magic, or if it’s because this thing in me senses that it’s close to being free again, but it just acts on its own.”

That was unexpected. Seeing those things come out of Kai, I had immediately assumed he was controlling them. Believing that made it so much easier to hate him for the killings he’d committed and the lives he’d destroyed.

What if he really wasn’t in control?