My resolve was set.

  The Horr were beginning to disperse themselves further out from the middle of the city where the maelstrom started. Once we were past the main line that they formed, it was significantly quicker and easier for us to reach the museum without having to stop every minute to stay out of sight. I used those calm moments to get my story straight.

  My eyes drifted upwards towards the swirling clouds, dyed blood red by the energy emitted from the Etherscope. Durandia believed that this was the less destructive way to handle the situation, so I daren’t imagine how bad it would have been if not for her intervention. All we had to do now was fulfil our end of the bargain and finish this off.

  “Maria, Samantha!”

  The perimeter of the storm had grown to such an extent that Veronica and Genta had been forced back to where Maxwell, Claude and Adrian were hiding. They were waiting for us when we hobbled back down the main avenue after killing the King. The three boys ran up to us.

  Max frowned, “Are you okay? You look like you’ve been through some...”

  “I know. I’m not looking so good at the moment,” I sighed. I was limping, clutching my ribs, and my clothes were covered in dust, mud and blood. Some of it had gotten onto my face too, marring my usually impeccable looks.

  “We managed to beat it somehow!” Samantha cheered, “And we captured Landon Sloan. He’s handcuffed in the bell tower at the market square.”

  Veronica turned to me, “You didn’t kill him on the spot?”

  I smiled in response, “The only real punishment for him is to see a public reckoning on his legacy. An infamous one, to be sure.”

  She nodded. She thought of me as some kind of boorish criminal, running around and killing anyone when it caught my fancy. I’ll have you know that I’m a refined and professional criminal – who understood that leaving a trail of dead bodies in my wake was a personal failing and not a sign of success.

  “It’s going to be difficult to get to the museum now, but if we don’t do something soon it won’t matter where we hide. You have to hurry and stop this.”

  “There’s nothing else we can do but destroy that crystal,” Genta added, “I don’t know how you’re going to do it – but that’s the only way.”

  Claude looked at the storm, holding on to his coat as the wind whipped through his hair. It was getting intense again. I would have to battle against that gust and find my way to the building without letting my bad leg disable me.

  “It was a scary fight with that demon, but we won! All we have to do is go over there and do the same thing to the crystal, right?”

  A brief moment of silence put her on edge. I delivered the good news.

  “I’m not letting you come with me.”

  Samantha stared at me for a disconcertingly long time. A complicated mixture of emotions flowed behind her glassy eyes, before she finally turned into a contorted expression of fury.

  “What the hell is wrong with you, do you think I’m going to stand here and let you do this heroic sacrifice crap?”

  “It’s not about you ‘letting me’ do anything. Durandia brought me here because of what I’ve done, it doesn’t take a genius to see that I’m the expendable one between us. I’d never forgive myself if I let you die doing this.”

  She stuttered and spluttered, half-formed words tumbling from her mouth. She couldn’t speak correctly because of how angry she was with me. There was so, so much to unpack that she didn’t know how to express it.

  “What... What’s wrong with you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What’s wrong with you? You’ve always been like this! You always say depressing stuff just like that, implying that you’re going to die, or that you’re some kind of human shield who’s meant to be the first one to go! Veronica, say something. I thought you wanted to keep her safe?”

  Veronica abdicated on the spot, “It doesn’t matter what I want. She’s going to go there and do it regardless.”

  Veronica knew that she could only stop me through force, and there was no guarantee that it would be non-lethal. I’d fought with her once before after all. She understood that I was going to do whatever it took to get my way, and even with the revelation of my true identity she wasn’t willing to harm her daughter. Not finding any help from her, Sam tried to appeal to me again.

  “I said before that you’re not a bad person. Would a bad person do everything that you’ve done for us?”

  “I was protecting myself,” I replied coldly.

  “I can smell your bullshit from a mile away, Maria! You don’t believe a single bloody word of what you just said! If you want to live, then there’s nothing wrong with saying it out loud!”

  “What good is that going to do?”

  “Not much, but I thought that you trusted me enough to be open about this. You’re so worried about me that you’re not thinking about yourself.”

  “That doesn’t matter. If I don’t go and do this, we’re all going to die anyway. It’s completely independent of what I want or think. This entire thing was planned from the very start! We don’t have any control over it.”

  “Yes, we do! The Goddess told me to hold fast to what I believed in. Our decisions still matter in the end. Why don’t you care about yourself? Do you think you don’t deserve it?”

  I threw out my arms and nodded, “Yes. From any objective standpoint, I don’t deserve it. There are any number of more noble, righteous and good people who could have taken my place. Don’t pretend that this was a reward or a scheme to find my true nature. Durandia chose me entirely because of the utility I serve.”

  I started to back away having said my piece. Samantha tried to give pursuit to stop me from going alone.

  “Get back here!”

  The boys held her back. I turned on my heel and ducked beneath a piece of collapsed building, pushing out into the no man’s land that had been created by the heart of the maelstrom. I was immediately pushed onto my backfoot by the strength of the wind. My long black hair whipped in every direction and obstructed my vision.

  Even with the wind, I could still hear Samantha calling out for me. I ignored the sound of her voice and ventured deeper into the madness with a single-minded intent. It was time for me to flip that coin and see what Durandia had in store for me. There was nothing that I or Sam could do about it. This was all planned from the beginning.

  I was the only living being stupid enough to try and get close to the crystal now that it was reaching criticality. The demons were nowhere to be seen, warded away by the intense heat and pressure being exuded from the holes in reality that it was opening. The scene was apocalyptic in nature. It was like I was standing in the blast radius of a nuclear detonation happening in slow motion.

  Signs of devastation engraved themselves into my mind while I made the long journey towards the museum, ever vigilant for the signs of more demons who were waiting in the shadows to leap out and attack me. No such attack was on the horizon however. It was a lonesome trek towards the eye of the storm.

  The front side of the museum, the street-facing fa?ade and the main building where the Etherscope was kept had been almost completely demolished by the violent release of the crystal’s energy. The tall stone pillars were laid out across the road, the windows shattered, and the walls collapsed in several places. The destruction did nothing to stop the out of control reaction that Sloan had knowingly started.

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  Scorch marks scarred the pieces of demolished stone, revealing that energy emissions were so intense that they were hot enough to kill me if I approached unprepared. I was already feeling the heat under my collar, and it would only get worse as I drew closer to the target.

  I formed a new type of barrier using my magic. Normally I would erase everything in reach using Durandia’s blessing – but this time I needed to be able to see through that field without it swallowing all of the light that passed through. Venturing a guess, the shield I created was designed specifically to erase the heat in the air that surrounded my body and nothing else.

  The moment I stepped around the corner it was obvious that my ploy worked. The sheer heat crashed against the circular bubble, leaving streaks of smoke where the hot air collided with the void around me. The fact that my body wasn’t a smoking pile of charred flesh was a good start, and gave me the confidence to push through the lobby area and towards the main chamber.

  What I saw on the other side defied explanation. The crystal had been freed from the metallic bindings and was now floating in the air, slowly rotating and emitted bolts of red energy that shot towards the floor and whichever walls were left standing. The machine had been melted into a pile of slag, and none of the other exhibits in the main hall had survived either.

  I got closer. The heat intensified. Bolts of energy shot outwards in an attempt to reach the shortest path to the ground, but they dissipated on the edge of my protective field. I was being pushed back – but eventually I passed an invisible threshold and stumbled my way through. It was right in front of me. All I had to do was reach out and destroy it. Without the Bloodcrowned King to protect it from attack, my magic could finally reach.

  It was loud, it was visually overstimulating. It was like standing in the centre of the sun and watching the plasma roll over my eyeballs. Brain rattling on the inside of my skull, knuckles clenched until they turned white and my nails dug into my palms and drew blood.

  I expanded my senses and tried to shut out the interference. There was only one thing left to do, and for that I only needed to reach out and destroy the crystal at the heart of the bedlam. My physical and magical strength were both waning. One more. Just one more spell and I was free...

  So why didn’t it work?

  I ground my teeth together and scowled. Work! Work! No matter how hard I focused or how much I willed it forth, it refused to work the way I wanted it to. The power that Durandia had given me wasn’t doing a damn thing. I kept trying and trying, but it wouldn’t erase the crystal. I could destroy everything around it but not the actual target I was aiming for!

  Upon closer inspection I noticed something significant. When a smaller piece of the crystal was erased, it would disappear, only to come back as soon as the field was disabled. I enveloped the entire crystal, banishing it to the void only for it to pop back into existence a millisecond later when my spell went away. I could still see a faint outline of the energy within even after I destroyed it, was that a tether keeping it held in our reality?

  What the hell had Landon built here? This was a lot more than I anticipated. I thought it was nothing more than a crystallization of blood and magic – but there was more to this scheme than we had learned about. Whatever he had done, it granted the crystal properties that made it impossible for a godly power to destroy.

  That bad feeling in my stomach was back. There was only one other option I had, and it involved using the more traditional form of magic that I used everywhere else. The more energy intensive type – the type that demanded more stamina and energy from my body.

  I tested my theory, shattering a small piece of the crystal only for it to regenerate again. I tested another idea. I destroyed the physical presence of the crystal with my normal magic and simultaneously erased the magical signature I could see left behind using Durandia’s power. That did the trick. A piece was destroyed and stayed gone.

  But that confronted me with a problem. There was too little energy to spread so thin. Maintaining the shield was taking everything I had left, and to envelop the entire crystal in a rational magic field would exhaust me instantly.

  I couldn’t destroy it like this.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me...”

  I was too exhausted to get angry. I stared at the red surface of the crystal and considered my options. There was nowhere to go and no one to rely on for help. It was either drop my shield and destroy it with my full strength, or run away and let our reality collapse, free for Horr to invade through any dead tissue they could find.

  There were no other choices to be made. This was a test of my resolve. I could risk my own life to save the world, or take the coward’s way out and let it fall into ruin. From an outsider’s perspective it didn’t seem like a choice at all, but being in the moment and knowing that you may kill yourself in the process changed everything.

  Pain was nothing new to me. Swallowing a bitter pill was also not new. There was nothing for it but to charge ahead and get it over with. Every second I wasted considering my options made me weaker, and lessened my chances of destroying it.

  I dropped my guard.

  It was immediate and agonizing. My body twisted to one side to try and minimize my exposure to the heat and energy coming from the crystal, and I reached out with one hand to get my skin as close to the surface as possible. The heat was scarring my skin and burning me all over. My arm, neck, and face were all exposed, and I was certain that even the areas covered by my clothes were being cooked too.

  Every single bit of mana I had left was poured into the spell. I roared. The fire travelled down my throat and burnt my flesh. The pain made me shout even louder. I willed myself on. It was almost gone. Just a little more. The crystal cracked and withered as the structure was slowly destroyed from the inside out. All of that energy spilled outwards and intensified the star-like mass that was engulfing me. What was left of the museum crumbled, walls fell and the floors cracked.

  With a final burst of mana, it was smashed. Time slowed to a crawl. The strength in my legs left me. I was floating, falling, and ascending. My eyes shut. The smell of burning flesh filled my nose.

  Thud!

  I hit the ground. The swirling clouds overhead became still, the rapid change in air-pressure banishing the whirlwind that threatened to swallow our world. It was hard to smile at my success when I was suffering from severe burns across my entire body. Before I knew it, I was asleep. This familiar feeling of death, was this how it always felt?

  The horizon quaked and a booming voice echoed through the darkness.

  “Miss Walston-Carter...”

  Was that it? All of that hard work and compromise just to do a predictable heroic sacrifice at the very last second?

  “Jensen.”

  My throat was healed, or maybe my physical body was not a factor in this place.

  “Don’t be stupid. I’m not Jensen anymore. Haven’t been for a long time. Why the hell are you talking to me right now, want one last chance to gloat about it before I die for real this time?”

  Durandia paused.

  “No. Such a thing is beyond the likes of me.”

  “I don’t believe that you’re as above these pesky human emotions as you like to pretend. Xenia wouldn’t have decided to meddle in your plan if that’s the case.”

  “We have our feelings. We’re nothing but feelings – but I don’t find any amusement in mocking those who have done more than I have the right to ask.”

  I could still feel it. This pain across my body – lancing up my arm and across one side of my face. I’d been ripped to shreds, there was no doubt about that. There was no way for me to survive such an intense wave of energy and heat, explosively released into the physical world as a result of my interference.

  “I’m here to find my answer. What’s my reward for putting up with all of this?”

  “You make it sound like you would not willingly go to the effort, but I know that is not true. With the right incentive, the wrong person can make all the difference. I do believe that saving a billion lives is more than enough recompense for your past misdeeds.”

  “It’s not that simple. It’s never that simple. I’m a rotten bastard at heart.”

  “It may seem complex to you, but it is not to me. I brought you here because I saw the future which you would create.”

  “This one.”

  “...No. The future which is yet to arrive, the good you’ll do for this world before experiencing your second death.”

  That couldn’t be true. There was no way that Durandia was going to let me loose on this world again, knowing that I possessed some of her powers at that. I could cause so much trouble using them!

  “Don’t fuck with me. I bit it back there.”

  “The authority granted to me by my peers has ended. I am bound to step back here and now. Our contract is fulfilled. I no longer control your fate, I am merely permitted to see into the future using the Red Tree. You have the power to save even more lives, if you find the will to use what tools you have been given.”

  “Your powers of destruction?”

  “Not exactly.”

  My memories were given shape. I floated through a hallucinogenic theatre of everything that had happened to me since she brought me to Walser. I saw the battles I fought, the faces of the people I met, and the widespread destruction caused by the machinations of Verner Welt and Landon Sloan.

  “Violence is not your gift. You have the foresight, the intelligence, the resources and the allies to bring a greater change still. Adopting the persona of Maria Walston-Carter will provide you with ample opportunities to make further amends, if you so desire.”

  “And you’re certain of that even when I’m not facing the threat of being left to die?”

  “That was never a possibility.”

  There was a warmth seeping into the void. I could feel it, far different from the searing agony of being burnt to a crisp by that fire. It was the kindness of a girl who was far, far too forgiving. Was she trying to make me crack? Did she want to see me tear up and thank her for all of the support? She had another thing coming if I survived this mess.

  “Please, allow me to thank you. Whatever you believe – you have acted selflessly when offered nothing tangible in return for your service. This may well be the last time we speak. To do so again would require their permission, and we are only connected now as the membrane of the Veil is weak.”

  “I’m not going to say that you were out of line for doing this, considering what was at stake...”

  “Indeed. Your pragmatism is a positive quality.”

  As long as I didn’t willingly get manipulated because of it.

  Her voice took on a bemused quality; “Enjoy your time, Maria.”

  “I’ll try.”

  The blackness was pierced by lances of blinding light.

  I was swallowed whole.

  I stopped thinking.