Micah coughed, trying to clear the taste of brimstone and pitch from his throat. The air was hot and thick, the aftermath of dozens of high level spells clogging his lungs. With a groan the stone bricks under his feet shifted, almost causing Micah to lose his balance as the entire world lurched.

Next to him, Trevor’s injured leg gave out under him, sending his brother sprawling to the floor. Micah’s left hand lashed downward, snatching Trevor by the wrist before gravity could pull the man away from him.

He glanced over his shoulder with a grimace. The shattered railing of the patio shed a couple of rocks that he lost sight of as they fell to the mountain below. Even as he watched, the bleak, lava dappled landscape of the volcanic range drifted past them as the ashen wind pushed the flying castle onward.

Micah hauled Trevor to his feet, careful to keep him stabilized just in case the tower shook under the once more. Both of them were breathing heavily, smeared with half-dried sweat and blood.

“I guess you were right about those ritual sites,” Trevor began with a chuckle that quickly devolved into a fit of coughing. “There’s a reason the Baron has daemons guarding them. They’re definitely what’s keeping this monstrosity aloft.”

“That isn’t the Baron anymore,” Micah replied, planting the butt of his spear into the stone bricks of the floor to steady himself. “I don’t know who or what he is, but he burns like the Sun when I try to look at him magically. The rituals it used to rip this castle from the ground are beyond anything I’ve ever seen or even heard about. Whatever that thing is, it isn’t from Karell.”

“Still,” Trevor continued, hobbling over to one of the flying building’s walls and resting his shoulder against it. “You were right. One ritual site down, five more to go. If we can manage to disrupt all of them, release the energy the Baron has stored in them from the mass sacrifices, this entire castle is going to come crashing to the ground.”

Micah didn’t respond, instead looking past his brother and into the fortress itself. The ballroom just beyond the archway was destroyed. The wreckage of shattered stone covered every surface, half burying the locust-like body of the two luoca daemons that had been guarding the ritual site.

Just looking at the creature made his shoulder ache. Improved Regeneration, a powerful wood magic spell, struggled to cleanse his body of the monster’s corrosive venom, the unfortunate result of a slip in footing when Micah had tried to create a distraction so that Trevor could evade a fatal attack from the creature’s wings.

One mistake and the luoca had buried its scorpion tail handspan deep in his body, all but ignoring his magical defenses and heavily enchanted armor. A blast of magic and a thrust from his spear had forced the creature back long enough for Micah to begin the process of healing himself, but the damage was done.

It would take hours if not days to counteract the reality-melting and magic defying properties of the daemon’s venom. Micah could still fight, but he would be nowhere near one hundred percent. Meanwhile, Trevor-

Micah bit his lip. He’d needed to reattach his brother’s leg after the fight. Trevor hadn’t pulled back quickly enough after a stab from his spear, and a single stroke of the monster’s wings had removed his leg at the knee.

“Theoretically, but-” Micah bit his lip, looking back from the destruction of the battle to Trevor’s injured and battered form. “I don’t know if we have another five battles in us. Fuck, even if we survive the daemons, the amount of energy released when I break the seal on the rituals.”

He sighed, running a hand through his sweat-soaked and slightly charred hair.

“It took everything in me to redirect the blast from disrupting the ritual around us,” Micah continued grimly. “It hurts to think about the number of people sacrificed to keep this abomination aloft. If I was even slightly distracted, that explosion easily could have wiped both of us from the face of the planet.”

“But-” Trevor’s bravado cracked.

“I don’t think this is a fight we can win,” he shook his head gently. “We’ve overachieved to make it this far, but I think we’ve hit the end of the road brother.”

“But Drekt and Esther, they-” Trevor began only to trail off, unable to finish his thought.

“They’re gone Trevor.” Micah shook his head, voice catching in his throat as he responded. “I’m not sure if their life force is being used to keep this castle in the air or to power whatever artifact is being used to trigger the volcanic eruptions that have been following in its wake, but dying here won’t help them.”

“This can’t be the end Micah,” his brother finally looked up at Micah, tears lining the man’s eyes. “We’ve accomplished so much and come so far. Dozens of people have died simply to get us into this castle, let alone the other two teams that were massacred by daemons once we arrived. This can’t be where the song abruptly cuts off.

“You heard the prince,” Trevor continued fervently. “It’s literally the end of the world if we fail. The volcanos keep spitting lava and ash and there are more of them every day. Even if there is enough farmland left after the eruptions to prevent starvation, it’s only a matter of years until the atmosphere is completely unbeatable. There has to be something we can do.”

“Of course there is.” Micah smiled thinly. “It’s been over a decade since I used it, but I still have my blessing. Whatever took control of the Baron, it happened in the last year or so. That’s when things truly went to shit. If I go back in time, I’ll have almost four years to fix things.”

“Of course,” Trevor replied, grasping onto the thread of hope Micah offered him and holding on for dear life. “There’s still time. This isn’t even anything new. You managed to fix everything back in Basil’s Cove. That’s all we need to do. Send you back so you can stop everything. Even if you fail, all you need to do is survive long enough to go back a second or a third time. You can save Drekt and Esther. You can save Pereston, you can-”

Micah smiled gently, doing his best to ignore the pain in his shoulder as he put a hand on Trevor’s arm.

“I’m going to need your help Trevor.” Micah nodded toward the archway that opened onto the ruined balcony where the two of them were standing. “It doesn’t know where we are for now, but the blessing takes time to activate. Not much mind you, but given the amount of time magic it uses, I’m sure it’ll grab ‘the baron’s’ attention.”

“Got it.” Trevor slapped him on the back. “I’ll keep him out of your hair little brother. Just be sure to give my regards to me on the other side.”

Micah opened his mouth, silenced by a thousand thoughts bursting to come out all at once. Instead, he only nodded to his brother and stepped back. Closing his eyes, he reached deep inside himself, preparing his body for the unnatural sensations elicited by the blessing.

“Blessed Return,” once again, the voice that came from his throat was foreign, feminine. Magic began to roil and gather around him as the runes etched into the core of his being activated, reaching out from Micah’s body to harness time itself.

The entire castle shook. From the ground under his feet to the walls of the building itself, it quivered like a great beast drawing in a short, sudden breath.

“MANLING!” A wave of boundless animosity rolled over Micah, accompanying the inhuman scream of rage.

Mana coalesced around Micah as time slowed like treacle under the influence of his blessing. In the distance ephemeral red light, visible only via his arcana skill, exploded into being around one of the castle’s towers.

“I CAN SMELL YOU!” Silently, he willed the blessing to move faster as four wings of fire sprang into existence around a distant figure at the center of the arcane corona. “TASTE YOUR FEAR.”

With a single flap of its wings, the creature leapt toward Micah and Trevor, burning through the ash clogged air almost faster than the eye could track.

Trevor waved his spear, summoning an oval of green wind magic in its path.

It didn’t bother to dodge or even slow its course, slamming through the barrier with a bestial scream. Frantically, his motions slowed almost to a stop as time ground to a halt, Trevor thrust forward with his spear, creating a lance of green energy that rocketed through the air and struck the approaching figure.

The blow knocked it slightly to the side, but Micah didn’t even bother to look for damage. From here he could make out what remained of Baron Hurden’s features on the approaching form, the old man’s eyes burning with rainbow flames.

“PATHETIC!” Hurden halted in the air, his four burning wings splayed out around him as he raised a glittering sceptre above his head. With almost contemptuous ease, he swung the weapon despite hovering almost a two hundred paces from both Trevor and Micah.

Mist and flame engulfed Trevor, consuming the man before he even had a chance to scream.

The breath caught in Micah’s throat as the creature that had been Baron Hurden turned its fiery gaze on him, cracking his charred lips open to sneer at him.

Time stopped.

Once again fog and fire sprang into being, leaving a defiant Trevor in its wake. The Baron rocketed backward, wings flapping unnaturally as they moved in reverse.

“NO!” The creature screamed, a rod of green light leaping from its torso and traveling back through the air toward Trevor’s spear. “THIS IS WRONG. IMPOSSIBLE.”

Micah locked his attention back on his antagonist. This was new.

The burning rainbow of light in the Baron’s eyes winked out. For a fraction of a second, the power and malice was gone from the man’s scarred and burnt face, leaving only a scared old man.

“Please-” Micah could barely make out his plaintive whisper.

Then smoke, thick and oily black began to pour from his eyes, mouth, nose and ears. His body shook in the air, convulsing as it accelerated backward toward the tower it had come from.

The smoke rushed away from the man, defying the flow of time as it reached toward Micah in a roiling tendril the size of his waist. His feet began moving backward as Micah began retracing his steps, bound by the power of his blessing as he began traveling into his own past.

“NO!” The alien tentacle shuddered, an animalistic scream of rage and malice as it quested toward him. “YOU MAY RUN LIKE PREY, BUT YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE!”

In the distance, the mummified body of the Baron slammed into his tower where it lay unmoving, the eldritch force animating it long gone.

The creature pounced like a snake, slamming into a sphere of glowing force that surrounded Micah. For a moment, relief filled him, only to be replaced by dread as the monster lashed out at the egg again, leaving a webwork of cracks in whatever magic was protecting him.

“I CAN TASTE YOU MANLING,” It curled around the sphere of force, rainbow lights flashing in its inky depths as it spoke to him. “PARTIALLY OF THIS WEAK WORLD OF SHADOWS AND PARTIALLY OF THE MISTS YET HOME IN NEITHER.”

“I WILL SUCK THE MAGIC FROM YOUR BONES.” The creature squeezed tight, expanding the lattice of cracks in the field surrounding him. “I WILL WATCH THE LIGHT LEAVE YOUR EYES AS I TURN YOUR SOUL INTO A THOUGHTLESS WISP TO BE BORNE ABOUT ON THE ENDLESS WINDS OF ELSEWHERE.”

The magical sphere around Micah vibrated, struggling to protect him from its relentless attacks.

“YOUR GODS SEEK TO PROTECT YOU MANLING,” the voice took on a mocking tone. “AND THEIR EFFORTS MAY HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENT AGAINST A LESSER BEING, BUT THEY UNDERESTIMATE ME.”

“THERE ARE ONLY TWO BEFORE ME IN ELSEWHERE,” smoke poured into the sphere with Micah as the creature ripped a fist-sized hole in the defenses. “I AM A PRINCE. NO. AN EMPEROR.”

The dark gas tightened into a needle, plunging cobra-quick toward Micah’s heart.

He couldn’t even dodge, chained to the magic that was pulling him backward through time as the blessing dictated his every move.

In the moment before it struck, a blast of light all but blinded Micah. The creature surrounding him leapt away, loosing an incomprehensible screech as a tendril of brilliant white ripped through space itself and scooped him from its grasp.

Pain and wonder filled his body in equal measures for a fraction of a second as he became everywhere and everywhen at once.

Then the second was over and Micah found himself sitting in a comfortable chair at a very familiar table, a steaming cup of tea cooling in front of him.

“I wish I could say that it was a pleasure to see you again Micah Silver,” Mursa’s smooth voice sent a chill down his spine as the goddess of the moon and magic strode into view. “But as I presume you’ve managed to guess, things have grown a bit out of hand and we need to talk.”