It was some time after dawn the following day when Dalcaster received an unexpected visitor.

He arrived by horseback, one man with a leather bag strapped to his back, a hood obscuring the top half of his face. The horse trotted through the piles of dark aura still left behind from the slaying of the Prime Sin Adrogan the previous day; the aura splashed dryly like black sand, some of it kicking up in dense little clouds as the horse ran. Kendrick and the others sipped from wooden cups of oatmeal in the street outside their inn. The horse rider’s cowl reminded him of Zorgen; he put a hand on the hilt of the Psysword and kept sipping his oatmeal with the other.

“Who goes there?” asked Olser. Judging by the bags under his eyes and his unkempt tangle of black hair, he hadn’t slept, despite urging others to do so. Olser stepped into the street to block the path of the horseman. “State your business.”

“Pick no quarrel with me, stranger,” said the rider. “I am merely a messenger.” The hooded man dismounted the horse and Kendrick tightened his grip on the Psysword. “I come bearing a gift.” He undid the clasp of his leather bag and opened it, removing a tightly-wound scroll that he unfurled and read to himself. Oh, I guess this guy is legit, Kendrick thought, relaxing. Why did he have to start out all cryptic like that? “I am to deliver this gift to one... Gydeon of Tornbie. This letter tells me I can find him here in the city of Dalcaster.”

Kendrick hung his head. Sahni did the same next to him, while Bellara sighed and cast her gaze to the side. “You’re a day late,” Bellara told the courier. “He’s dead.”

The courier scrunched up his lips in what was not quite a frown, but indicated some small amount of pity for the fallen stranger. “How unfortunate. Did you know him? Do any of his kin reside in this city?”

Bellara shook her head. “We knew him, yes. We were his friends.”

“My condolences. How to put this tactfully...” The courier took out a decorative box from his bag. It was made of emerald green velvet with a gold trim around the corners. “As a courier, I need to free up space for other messages and items. Shall I leave this with you, then?”

Kendrick looked at his witch companions and they exchanged a collective shrug. “Sure, yeah. We’ll look after it. Thank you.” The courier handed the box to Kendrick and rolled up the scroll to hand to Bellara. “So, wait, you’re still delivering packages and letters with... everything that’s going on?”

The courier tossed the bag over his shoulder once more. “Letters expressing what people have been too afraid to say before now. Gifts to bring people joy in what could be their final moments. The occasional magical artifact or weapon delivered to spellcasters militant. Not to mention all the crystals alone. Business is booming.” He climbed back onto his horse. “I’m no mage or soldier. If someone sorts out the Rift, I’ll have made plenty of gold. If not, at least I’ll have had something to do on my last day.” He flicked the reins. “You lot stay safe out there!” With that, he was off as quickly as he’d arrived, his horse clopping down the cobblestone street toward the other end of Dalcaster.

Why couldn’t I have been summoned to be a courier? Kendrick wondered.

“Do you think we should... open it?” Sahni asked sheepishly.

“I feel like we should at least see what it is, yeah,” Kendrick replied. He untied the string holding the box together and lifted the lid, tucking it underneath. “Wait, is this a... box of holding?”

Inside the box were essentially four items: a golden circlet encrusted with crystal shards, two crystal-bearing gold wristbands, and a mound of whole crystals, some that looked dull and empty and others with varying degrees of fullness. Closer inspection told Kendrick that the jewelry may not have been gold at all, but rather orkanite—just like the Psysword.

“All this for Gydeon, eh?” said Bellara. “He must have been well-connected in the magical community. That, or he paid a hefty price for this. Let’s see what the letter says...” Her gaze flitted back and forth across the page in silence. Shortly thereafter, her eyes misted over and she cleared her throat, looking away again. “Olser says we’re leaving momentarily. I’m going to go help wake the others. We need to get going.” She handed the scroll to Kendrick, who held it open, and Sahni stood next to him, pressing her cheek against his to get a better look.

My Dear Son Gydeon,

I pray this letter finds you well. I have received word you have been traveling far and wide across Kanthos, and most recently that you would reach the great city of Dalcaster to assist the army in safeguarding those citizens. That is where I have dispatched the courier, and I hope you have not already left by the time he reaches you. I have enclosed a number of things with this letter, but the most important are these words: I am truly sorry. I regret a great many things I have done since the Rift opened and took your mother away from us. I am ashamed of the way I treated all Sectarians under my ministry, but you most of all. I think I came to hate magic for the way it failed your mother, but perhaps I hated myself even more for being powerless to stop the demon that killed her. In my grief, I gave myself over to blind faith and fanaticism, and I strayed so far from the loving light of Aldiel. I gave the Underworld exactly what it wanted: pain and misery in the Ecumene. And I made sure to inflict it upon everyone in my sight.

Gydeon, you have grown up to be a bright young man in spite of my grave failures as your father. You must have inherited your mother’s wit as well as her kindness. I hope that one day you might find it in your heart to hear my apology in person; I know a letter hardly suffices for what I’ve done. Until then, I would like you to know I am trying to do better. I had all the bars in the jail removed and I am rebuilding it as an inn for visitors to Tornbie. I hope one day that future guests might find those four walls much more inviting than any guests of our past did. Worship here is no longer compulsory, but it is still held daily every morning. Most still attend daily anyway. A traveling young witch is staying with us in Tornbie, and I have instructed our Sect to welcome her with open arms. She is about your age; I should like you to meet her, if you think you might return to Tornbie any time soon. I pray to Aldiel that you do, my boy. If you can bear the sight of me again.

The young witch staying with us wears a great deal of jewelry that she says enhances her spellcasting. I don’t know much about that, but she had some older pieces with her that she gave to me as a token of thanks for Tornbie’s hospitality. Can you believe that? We have a guest who is finally enjoying her stay. At any rate, she reminds me a lot of those witches who stayed with us before I so foolishly and heartlessly sent you away. Do you remember that pair of witches, one with red hair and one blue? They had that odd lad with them. I am not sure if these items are only for witches—your mother tried to educate me in our time together, but I’m afraid I paid little attention to her talks of magic. If you cannot make any use of these items, and if you are ever to encounter those prisoners again in your travels, would you gift these to them? If you are able to speak to them, I humbly ask you, my son, if you could please relay to them my humblest apologies. I ask not for forgiveness, only for them to hear that I am remorseful.

I lost my way, son. You knew the way the whole time and I was so full of grief and hate that I tried to drag you down with me. You are already twice the man I have ever been, and you still have so much life ahead of you. I hope that we can reconcile one day, perhaps when this invasion is all over. I think it is what your mother would have wanted. Stay safe until then. I will try to do the same.

With deep remorse and deeper love,

Your Father

When Kendrick looked up, Sahni was already crying. She looked up for Bellara, who was nowhere to be seen, and a moment later she buried her face in Kendrick’s chest and wrapped him in a hug.

“Bell u-usually t-talks me down,” she whimpered. “Could I have just a m-, a moment? Please?”

Kendrick nodded silently. He worried his voice would crack if he tried to speak.

“Everyone, gather round,” Olser announced to the group. “The last sleepers are being awoken as we speak. As is crucial for aural regeneration, we’ve all gotten at least some shuteye, I should hope. We’ve done great work for the Ecumene in slaying Adrogan. However, there is greater work yet to be done. The Dark Lord Urobius still walks our land. Threatens our people. Slaying his Prime Sin lapdogs or all his demonic little minions won’t change his resolve. Now we march eastward on the River Road to join the ranks of soldiers and spellcasters militant alike. We will add our strength to theirs so that we may drive Urobius back to the hole he crawled through... or better yet, slay him once and for all! What say you?!”

The group cheered. Olser pumped his fist and they cheered again. Kendrick observed everyone gathering up the last of their belongings and piling into the five remaining wagons that hadn’t been donated to the refugees of Dalcaster. He patted Sahni on the back and she took the hint, drying her eyes and composing herself for the journey they were about to take. Bellara emerged with the last shift of sleepers. Her eyes looked puffy.

“This is it,” said Kendrick. “Like... it, it. Isn’t it?”

Bellara nodded. “It is.”

Kendrick rolled up the scroll and set it in the box with the gifted jewelry and crystals. He closed the lid, tied up the string, and brought it along to their waiting wagon. “Let’s get to it, then.”

***

Their five-wagon group was smaller and much more densely packed than their sprawling cavalcade riding into Dalcaster. Now they were all crammed into the backs of wagons elbow to elbow; it felt less like an adventure and more like they were being shipped off to be cannon fodder in a war. I guess we kind of are, Kendrick thought nervously. He couldn’t find a comfortable way to rest his legs around the bags and box at his feet.

The road out of Dalcaster fed into the River Road, just as Olser said. It was a massive dirt road ten times wider than any road Kendrick had yet seen in the Ecumene. The edges of the road were lipped with the remnants of what had used to be riverbanks, now barely a stride high; this road was all that remained of the Great Red River that snaked across all of Kanthos in the primordial past. Now its dry, eroded bed served as a premade road for travel and trade.

And today it brought them east to join a much larger caravan. Olser barked some boisterous greeting at the wagons ahead of them, who responded in kind. They looked like more witches and wizards, based on their attire. And there were a lot of them.

What was a small group on a journey soon became a great migration across Kanthos; as Olser’s group crested a hill and Kendrick got a bird’s-eye view of the landscape, he saw they were at the tail end of a much larger procession of wagons and horses. It stretched for what looked like sunstrides down the winding River Road. In the distance, it just looked like a sea of drab grass had sprouted where the riverbed once was.

If these forces weren’t enough to stop Urobius, then Kendrick didn’t know what the Ecumene would do.

“For some reason, when you two summoned me here,” Kendrick said to Bellara and Sahni, “I thought this whole... saving the world thing was going to be all on me. That I would have to go one-on-one with the Dark Lord or something.” A few of the other wizards and witches in the wagon chuckled.

“If we are all arrows,” Bellara explained to him with an uncharacteristically sage air about her, “then you are a sword, Kendrick. A sword alone cannot do the work of ten thousand arrows.” She smirked at him. “But I would still very much like to have the sword there to help. It can do things that even ten thousand arrows cannot.”

Frisson trickled up from the base of his spine. “Okay. I feel better now. Ego boosted.”

“The last sighting of the Dark Lord was in Coneshire,” Olser shouted from his wagon to the Slayers of Adrogan, as he had come to dub the group. “It is believed the god then traveled westward in the direction of Bendonne. The Kanthian Army and all spellcasters militant in a radius of 50 sunstrides are now converging just outside of Bendonne, in the Plains of Anurath. That is where we shall make our final stand!” Most of the others cheered alongside their leader. Kendrick weakly raised a fist in mock excitement, but on the inside, he was getting that panicky twinge in the pit of his stomach again. It only worsened as the time and the sunstrides wore on.

“So, are these really made just for witches or what?” he asked a while later, tapping the box on the floor.

Bellara smirked. “Well, it’s certainly in the witch style of Kanthos, but those pieces are similar to the Psysword. Embedded crystals with orkanite conduits. Theoretically, any spellcaster would use them—although the circlet is typically something you’d see on an aura-sensitive like Sahni. Headwear like that heightens a spellcaster’s focus and helps them mentally organize different sources of aura.”

Sahni raised her eyebrows. “Really? You know more about these than I do.”

“What say you take the circlet and I’ll use the braces?”

Sahni nodded. “That sounds like a fair division.”

“So, do these braces give you any cool powers or anything?” Kendrick asked. “Like, do they make you stronger, or would you be able to do healing magic with them? Not that Sahni doesn’t do a great job—” He held out his hand to show he meant no offense. “—but, I mean... it could get dicey out there.”

Bellara snorted. “I’ve already told you, that is so not my forte. Healing is all her. I do the damage, and she can tend to the aftermath.” Sahni shrank, looking hurt by Bellara’s phrasing. “Like I said, if anyone needs healing and you turn to me for help, you’d be better off running for the hills! There’s a reason I skipped healing lessons at Redrune Academy. Far too boring...”

Kendrick didn’t like their hardline division of labor, but he supposed it was too late for Bellara to learn an entirely new branch of spellcasting to use later that same day. He placated himself with the idea that there must have been plenty of other healers in their midst.

He just hoped there were enough.

Their travel down River Road took up a good portion of the early morning. By midmorning, the sun was in its usual high arc toward the center of the heavens, but what should have been a brilliant blue sky was tinged with a gray haze. The light of the morning sun waned dimmer and dimmer the farther they traveled.

“Make ready, my brothers and sisters!” Olser announced. “I see a disturbance in the distance. The fight of our lives approaches!”

Kendrick hurriedly opened the green box at his feet, handing the two braces to Bellara and extending the circlet to Sahni. The blue-haired witch was doubled over in her seat, her intricate braids dangling next to her face. She let out a low moan that sounded as if she might vomit.

“Sahni, are you okay?” Kendrick asked. “I mean... all things considered?” She shook her head. “Here, I have this, um... hat thingy. Bellara said it might help, remember? Try it on.” When the witch didn’t respond, he leaned forward with the circlet in one hand and gently cupped her face with the other.

She looked up at him, her eyes glistening with a vulnerable look of fear and malaise, but there was something more in them... something like determination. She allowed him to slip the circlet around her forehead gently. She repaid him with a sad smile. “I think it might be starting to help,” she said after a while, brushing a cold sweat from her forehead. “And I’m grateful for that, because... This is the worst aura I have ever felt in my life. Worse than the Prime Sin. Worse than the night my family was... was taken.” She craned her neck around fellow passengers to get a better look ahead of them. “Can anyone see anything yet? We must be close.”

Kendrick angled for a better view as well. There was nothing on the road ahead but more horses, wagons, mages, and that ugly, thickening smog blotting the joy out of the sky. He saw no sign of anything else out of the ordinary.

That was until his lens chimed with a new reading.

DARK LORD UROBIUS | GOD

{WARNING! FATAL ERROR!}

{[email protected],0#0,000}

{4%0,^^0,0*?}

{##0,?00,###}

{WA#NING! FA#AL ER#ROR!}

{###,###,###}

{?##,?#?,#??}

{W?RNING? ?ATAL ERR?R?{{

||{???!???!???}

Pop!

Kendrick felt a burst of heat and spraying particles of glass flying in all directions. The witch seated next to him flinched.

“Ow!” he hissed. “What the...” He pulled the smoking remainder of his lens from the side of his head. All that was left was the golden arm that coiled around his ear and a few fragments of green glass still attached; the rest was history. “Well, that’s... probably a good sign.”

“Oh no!” said Sahni. “Kendrick, are you okay?”

“I think so,” he replied, plucking a small shard of glass out of his cheek. “I think my poor lens is done for, though.”

“What in the Ecumene happened to it?!”

Kendrick remembered how his lens had gone slightly haywire when trying to gauge the aura level of the Prime Sin Adrogan. “I think it was dealing with an aura threshold it had never encountered before... One that probably no one alive in the Ecumene has ever encountered before, either. It finally gave out.”

“Shame,” Bellara sighed. She wasn't looking at him, but straight ahead on the road. She gripped the hem of her short dress uneasily. “I don’t know how to repair it. I don’t think we’d have the time or materials to do so, even if someone else knew how. You should just toss it.”

Kendrick obliged, chucking the broken remnants of his lens out of the wagon. He looked back forlornly at the golden arm as it tumbled to a stop behind them and eventually shrank from view. It had been with him since the very beginning. Before the Psysword itself, even. But he didn’t have time to dwell on his loss.

Startled gasps and shouts rang out through the Slayers of Adrogan. Kendrick looked up in time to see a flaming meteor plummeting from the sky—headed straight for them.

He braced for impact.