When first Simel came to her to explain how it was that Gorondos had swiftly augmented his power, Cyrona was astonished. It was so staggeringly simple that it seemed impossible that it could be so. The fact that the revelation came from ordinary mortals bothered her even more. How poorly had she and her brethren crafted the mortal world that such a thing could be true? The Water Angel glanced at the glassy blue spheres she created for herself, a variety of differing manifestations of the Water Aura, and wanted to laugh at the absurdity.

I brought this world its waters, she fumed as she sat at the bottom of the Cersomin River near Gadisia eyeing her newest creations. And yet...

She decided to create one more that would capture the peculiar properties on the brackish waters where the river met the sea. She sailed along the riverbed at a speed that she was sure baffled the fishermen and traders in their boats above. Even the most simple-minded of fish glanced at her in astonishment.

"Oh, quiet," she playfully fumed at them.

Larger aquatic creatures, especially those with more of a mind to speak of, gaped in awe at her pace. This included sentient beings like the mud-dwelling Meruns, frog-like creatures the weight of a man, and the hulking tentacled Koakars. Both of which had largely disappeared for the winter, hibernating in the river's muck. With the warming weather, they were at last active again. She intended to direct them to aid her once Omonrel and his allies were on the move, but for now she was content to allow them the peace of ignorance.

Once she pushed through the Gadisian capital itself and under the teeming masses of ships in its harbor, she reached the warmer southern brackish waters and the delightful colorful fishes and other creatures she had placed there so many years ago. Red and white striped fish, dazzling iridescent blue crabs, eels glowing green, and countless more. Even the ordinarily loathsome Baloteths, strange creatures resembling slugs with long bony mouths that could slurp up food at an impressive distance, were a welcome sight after what she had been through.

Simel's instructions for how to match the powers gained by Gorondos, and that doubtlessly would be replicated by their other foes, relied upon capturing peak aspects of the Auras and housing them in physical manifestations. This would, as he explained, provide massive reservoirs of the Auras' power that could augment their innate strength. "Power upon power," the Mind Angel explained. "Wellsprings of the Auras to aid you." Cyrona had initially scoffed at the notion. How could it be that such a thing could allow her or any of the other angels strength they did not already possess? Her own experimentations soon proved her wrong.

Having greater concentrations, nodes of intense presence of the Water Aura, near her caused her to pulse with augmented vigor. Conjuring waters where they did not already exist became far easier. Two days earlier, on a stretch of barren land on the southwest of the continent, miles from any place with any water already present, she decided to test her heightened capacities. With just just the slightest effort, she brought forth from naught but thin air a wave of water as high as any one would see on the oceans and let it crash into the sands below. She then focused and created a dozen such waves, but suspended them in the air just above the ground before folding them in upon one another and dissipating them.

That this grants us more power is such an absurdity, she thought as she prepared to craft another such object. But absurdities exist. There is no sense in denying that.

The Water Angel cleared her mind of all distractions and instead focused on the Auras around her that lay at the heart of those delightful brackish waters. The vibrant and volatile strands of the Water Aura danced in ways they did not in other domains. She caressed her hands around them, recalling how it was that she had crafted these waters in their earliest state. Drawing only slightly from all that surrounded her, she strained as she condensed bright and glistening strands of the Water Aura into a blue green sphere smaller than her hand. With a flourish, she encased it in a crystalline structure and then examined it.

"Very well, Gorondos," she sighed. "Our next meeting shall be different."

She spun around and pushed back north up the Cersomin River, lovingly caressing the fishes of her waters as she passed by them.

~

Nalt lay in a featureless plane of blinding platinum light for what seemed to stretch into months and years. There was little to say or do and so he just sat there and rested. An eerie ringing sound kept entrancing him, but he had no concept as to what it was. The voice that had accompanied those glowing golden eyes from earlier had not yet returned to him. He desperately wanted to hear it and see those eyes again, but no amount of wishing made it so.

He began to wonder if he was dead and that this was what had awaited his soul. It wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't good, either. He'd heard about the Communion of Souls that was supposed to be where you went when you died, but this couldn't be that. After all, it was just him. Alone. He was never quite sure what the Communion of Souls was supposed to be, but this didn't seem like it.

"Remember what you felt here," he heard the voice that accompanied the glowing eyes from before. "It will serve you well."

"...like he's finally coming out of it," he heard Mastohlt's voice. "Grenna, did you hear me?"

"Oh, thank the High Angel," Grenna said just as his eyes opened. "Do you have any idea how long your were out?"

Nalt's vision blurred and the room spun around him. His arms and legs ached. In fact, everything ached. He coughed to clear his throat, which was both parched and filled with phlegm. After hacking so hard that his lungs felt like they were bleeding, he finally cleared things up enough to talk.

"Gonna guess it was a while?" he weakly replied as he took in the small stone bedchamber he found himself in. "Smells like Gadisia in here."

"Yes, we are back in the warm embrace of the Harbor's Eye," Mastohlt said with a pompous lilt. "They were quite happy with what we did in Sicahn."

"Did everyone make it out?" Nalt asked as he looked toward Grenna, almost not caring what she said was since her presence gave him the main answer he wanted.

She sighed and shrugged.

"We lost two pairs of the men Igrasa lent us," she grumbled. "I've got no idea if they achieved their missions or not because we had to get out of Sicahn in a hurry. Hauling your heavy ass out of there without anyone nearly as strong as you to do it was a fun thing."

"I'm sure it was," Nalt laughed.

"But it was worth the trouble. We can't very well do without you, can we?" Grenna winked.

"I say, Grenna, I think I could've done fine without him," Mastohlt joked. She rolled her eyes and started making for the door.

"Turns out you woke up just in time, by the way. Apparently, Igrasa has a new mission for us," Grenna smiled as she opened the door. "Briefing is in three hours. I'll come grab you for that before it starts. In the meantime, look after yourself, alright?"

"You've got it," Nalt answered, nodding.

Once the door closed, Mastohlt started chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Nalt asked him, wincing through a short wave of headaches that roiled his skull.

Mastohlt brushed his hand through his dark thick blue green hair and smiled.

"You wouldn't know it based on how she was talking right now, but she visited you nearly every moment she could," the mage said with surprising note of sincerity for once. "Wella kept telling her that you'd make it, but Grenna kept coming here to check on you anyway."

Nalt developed a warm sensation around his heart upon hearing that. He couldn't stop smiling, either.

"With how nice you're being to me, I'm not sure I did make it," he tried to deflect Mastohlt's attention elsewhere.

"Don't expect it to last, you know," Mastohlt returned to his preening demeanor, putting his right hand in the front pocket of his dark blue coat. "Do you remember where the briefing room is here?"

"Vaguely. I'll manage," Nalt said, only partially lying. "Well, Grenna said she'd get me, so..."

Mastohlt nodded and traipsed toward the door. He pivoted back to smile and say, "I'm glad you made it through." He then closed the door and left Nalt alone in the sterile room.

Nalt noticed a grisly cut on the underside of his left hand that hadn't yet healed. As he stared at it, the golden eyes flashed again. He blinked several times and shook his head. After a few seconds more, an instinctual urge took over. Without even thinking about it, he moved his right hand over his left and thought again of the voice accompanying those eyes. A pulse of white light emanated from his fingers and, slowly, the wound began to close.

He was so shocked by what he saw and felt that he almost stopped it. He didn't know if he would hurt himself by continuing or aborting. A dozen panicked thoughts swept through his mind, including wondering if Mastohlt would be jealous now that he could use the Auras, too. By the time he chuckled thinking about that, his wound had fully closed. Aside from looking a little raw, he would've never guessed that it had been a grievous cut just moments previously.

"Um... Huh," he mumbled to himself. "I wonder what else this is good for."

~

Vorlan had failed to get Rithys's warning out of his own mind, even after spending some weeks in the mortal world trying to stay involved in the preparations for the coming campaign. He knew his mortal allies needed every bit of his assistance for what was to come. He aided Tathyk in priming soil for a rapid spring harvest as well as Aberos in augmenting a variety of sturdy beasts and creating other new animals to fill out of the ranks of Emperor Rohmhelt's armies. Still, he could not escape those gnawing doubts from what Rithys said.

Only one option presented itself. He had to speak to Forynda again.

Traveling in a whir of verdant light, he arrived in Forynda's bright sanctum where the High Angel levitated in its center, gazing into a portal she created that gave her a view of the main continent's southeastern coast near Gadisia. She closed it when Vorlan arrived and locked her golden gaze upon him.

"Vorlan, you seem unsettled," she said with the serene strength he so greatly missed from her since the destruction of Zarmand. "If you have a worry, feel liberated to state it."

"I spoke with Rithys not long ago," the Earth Angel started, but struggled to summon the courage to continue.

"I know you visited her to try to convince her to aid Cyrona. And she refused," Forynda spoke calmly. "And I know why she refused."

"Did she tell you?" he asked.

Forynda winced slightly, after which Vorlan heard what sounded like Nethron's voice muffled on the other side of a thousand walls. Knowing how she had responded the last time that subject arose, Vorlan was content not to mention it.

"She did not have to as I know what haunts her fears," the High Angel said in a somber tone.

"Is it true? Can we be destroyed for all time?" he asked, his voice growing weak as he tried to speak the words. "I need to know because if that is so, we need to stop this war this very instant at all costs."

After a short silent gaze at Vorlan, Forynda closed her eyes and folded her hands.

"What can happen to us, but has never happened, is that we can choose to dissipate into nothingness. What I know she felt was that panic when she was tortured at Parlon's hands and she wanted anything that would make it end. In so doing, she glimpsed that unthinkable path," the High Angel explained, a terrible sadness on her voice. "I felt her pain the instant she pondered it. It cut across the mortal world into ours like a burning blade. Parlon taunted her and Cyrona with the notion that this would befall Cyrona. Rithys, seeing that possibility herself for the first time, came to see it as a true threat. However, and I know that there is not the slightest possibility that Cyrona would ever do that to herself. There is no one less likely."

"Perhaps that is Rithys's fear," Vorlan riposted. "If Cyrona is in danger, every single one of us is."

That drew the slightest of scowls from Forynda.

"If there were anything that I could tell you to either absolutely confirm or allay your worries on this matter, I would tell you without any delay. I promise you that, Vorlan," the High Angel declared, her voice swelling. "And be assured, the moment is nearly ripe for my return to the mortal world. I will be fighting alongside you all very soon."

He said nothing more, but politely bowed to her and returned to a grove in one of the forests near Emperor Rohmhelt's camps to collect himself.

Soon. Whatever that means, I hope that soon is not too late.