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“Sterling?”

“The water here…” Radiance imbues his face, and his eyes brighten. “It’s everywhere. In the air, the crystals, the stone. It’s like…”

Agnar tilts his head as if listening before kneeling and pressing his ear to the ground. “Like what?”

“Like I’ve been reading single words my whole life, and suddenly I can see entire libraries.” Sterling extends his hand again, and this time the moisture droplets prance around his fingers in complex patterns. “The water wants to be shaped. It’s alive.”

My neck tingles. I’ve never heard him speak of his power this way. Sterling is always practical about his abilities, using them efficiently, strategically.

This level of reverence is new…along with the idea of an element wanting something. My fire has never shared any desires with me. Unless…what am I missing?

The passage begins to climb, steeply at first, and then more gradually. The air changes, carrying a new, fresh quality. Ambient light appears, though I can’t identify the source. My flame seems dimmer now, less necessary, but I maintain the fire out of habit. And to stay vigilant.

We venture up the spiraling path. The crystal formations grow larger and more complex. Some pulse with internal light in time with the distant booms that continue intermittently.

Without warning, the narrow passage ends.

Beyond it, we find…absolute nothingness.

No floor, no walls, no ceiling. Just open, swirling space filled with glowing pinpoint stars that swirl in anomalous patterns. The void twirls and eddies like a whirlpool of light and shadow.

Beyond the nothingness lies a vast, verdant meadow.

Lush grass ripples in a breeze. Wildflowers, surrounded by trees with silver bark and golden leaves, explode in brilliant colors. Sunlight bathes everything, but how? How can the sun reach deep inside a mountain?

Crystal forms the “sky” above the meadow, refracting colorful prisms. Stars wheel through this bright “sky” in slow, deliberate constellations.

A fragrant breeze caresses my face, carrying the scent of autumn leaves, crisp air after a storm, sunbaked grass, and something that reminds me of the pure air of a cold winter night.

“Well,” Agnar stares, eyes wide, “that’s properly godly, isn’t it?”

Another boom—this one louder and closer—echoes. The noise is followed by deep sonorous voices angrily arguing in a language I don’t recognize.

With each boom, the glimmering formations on the walls pulse like heartbeats. Goose bumps erupt over my skin.

I’m starting to feel as if we marched right into the stomach of an enormous crystal beast.

Agnar grips his sword hilt. “Not liking those booms.”

“Same.” Those noises are concerning, but what can we do? Retreat? Everything in me screams yes, to haul ass out of this unnatural place. But we came here for a reason.

We need this passage.

I gesture to the whirling, sparkling mist of nothingness before us. “How do we get across that?”

The void might be ten paces across, or it might be fathomless. Distances are meaningless here.

A reply emanates from the air itself. “You don’t.”

The voice surrounding us comes from everywhere and nowhere.

Before I can freak out about that, a figure emerges from the void as if walking through an invisible door. His armor twinkles like liquid starlight. Weapons gleam in both his hands, but they shift shapes even as I watch. A sword morphs into a spear before changing into an axe, followed by an object I have no name for.

Energy swirls around him. Magic beyond my experience. Not elemental like mine or Sterling’s, but something wilder. Ancient.

“You should not be here.” The command in his voice hums through my bones. “You do not belong.”

His hands wrap around the shifting hilts of his weapons.