At dusk, the five of them stood again in the ruined courtyard of Mahi Esri.
No one spoke much.
The day had been too ordinary for what waited.
Repairs continued along the walls. Hammers rang from scaffolding. Soldiers changed watches. Someone burned dinner in one of the kitchens, and the smell drifted over the inner yard with enough force to offend Fendor from fifty paces away.
He looked toward the smoke.
“If we survive this, I am filing a complaint.”
Nethnarel held the iron-bound chest.
“With whom?”
“The cook.”
“About surviving?”
“The food.”
Hexen smiled.
Isamu did not.
Kaylor stood at the edge of the shallow circular depression where the Ageless Tower had once occupied the world.
The sun was lowering.
The carved wooden hammer still hung from his pack.
The real Hammer of Thunderbolts rested across his back.
Final Word remained at his side.
But neither weapon was in his hands.
That was deliberate.
Nethnarel noticed.
“You're not taking the hammer in?”
“I am.”
“You're not holding it.”
“No.”
Fendor glanced over.
“Growth.”
Kaylor looked at him.
“I can still hit you with it.”
“Partial growth.”
The sun touched the horizon.
The chest began to hum.
They all heard it.
Nobody joked.
Nethnarel set the chest down.
She opened the lid.
The packed dirt inside remained dirt this time.
The Crystal of Chaos lay in its center, perfectly clear, impossibly clean, red and blue turning within.
The blue ring rotated.
The red lines pointed down.
The courtyard answered.
Light appeared beneath the stone.
One circle.
Two.
Ten.
The old runes awakened in ghostly pairs.
Fire.
Water.
Earth.
Air.
Chaos.
The five heroes stepped into the depression.
Kaylor looked once toward the fortress wall.
Workers stood above watching.
Not cheering.
Not understanding.
Only watching five people disappear for ten seconds into a place where ten seconds might become an hour or a lifetime.
Kaylor turned back.
“Ready?”
Fendor shrugged.
“No.”
Hexen said, “Yes.”
Isamu nodded.
Nethnarel picked up the Crystal.
The world changed.
The Ageless Tower returned around them in fragments.
This time the echo was worse.
Much worse.
The previous night, pieces of the chamber had merely vanished.
Now entire sections drifted.
A staircase hung upside down in darkness.
One wall existed hundreds of feet away and yet close enough to touch.
The floor beneath them pulsed between stone, glass, water and nothing.
The ten rune pairs burned with unstable light.
At the center waited the Platform of Sealing.
Five hand positions.
One empty recess.
The Crystal reacted immediately.
Red lines inside it pushed outward.
The platform answered.
Nethnarel felt the pull.
Not physical.
Recognition.
She hated that word.
But it was true.
The platform recognized the Crystal.
The Crystal recognized the platform.
Something unfinished had finally returned to the place where it belonged.
Fendor looked around.
“Still no dragon.”
Kaylor glanced at him.
“Disappointed?”
“Deeply.”
“Liar.”
“Obviously.”
Isamu walked toward the platform.
Slow.
Measured.
The floor steadied beneath each step.
Not because it liked him.
Because he gave it nothing sudden to answer.
Hexen followed.
Nethnarel came next.
Kaylor.
Fendor last.
When all five reached the center, the hand positions illuminated.
No one touched them yet.
The Crystal recess remained dark.
Nethnarel looked at the others.
“We do this exactly as we planned.”
Fendor raised one eyebrow.
“We planned?”
“We discussed variables.”
“Ah. Scholarship for planned.”
“Fendor.”
He smiled faintly.
“I'm listening.”
Nethnarel continued.
“If the platform begins pulling power through any one of us—”
“We say it.”
“If anyone sees or hears something the others don't—”
“We say it.”
“If the system begins collapsing—”
“Hexen calls halt.”
Hexen nodded.
“If Kaylor decides he should absorb whatever would kill the rest of us—”
Isamu looked at him.
Kaylor sighed.
“I know.”
Fendor smiled.
“If Nethnarel decides she needs to learn one fascinating thing before letting go—”
Nethnarel glared.
“I object to the inclusion of that.”
“Overruled.”
“By whom?”
“Unity.”
Kaylor laughed.
The platform flickered.
Isamu looked down.
“Now.”
Five hands entered five grooves.
The runes awakened.
The chamber became still.
Not safe.
Still.
Ten lines of light reached from the paired runes into the platform.
Five channels.
Five hands.
One empty center.
Nethnarel held the Crystal above the recess.
For a moment, nothing in her moved.
She had thought about this since the previous night.
All through morning.
While the others ate.
While Fendor complained.
While Hexen walked the fortress garden.
While Isamu sat quietly.
While Kaylor watched ordinary people rebuild walls dragons had broken.
The Crystal was more than dangerous.
That had never been the real problem.
Danger could be managed.
Studied.
Contained.
The real problem was that she wanted it.
Not because it promised domination.
Not because a voice whispered power into her mind.
It offered no promises at all.
That was worse.
It represented unanswered questions.
Magic before the modern rules.
Oslan before collapse.
Possibilities removed from the world.
A piece of the age before magic had a name.
She could spend the rest of her life learning from it.
Perhaps centuries.
Perhaps longer.
There might be truths inside it no living wizard had touched.
And if she placed it into the platform, she did not know whether any of those truths would survive.
Fendor watched her.
Said nothing.
That somehow made it harder.
Kaylor looked toward the Crystal.
Then at her.
“Nethnarel.”
“I know.”
“You don't.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“You don't know what happens.”
“No.”
“Neither do we.”
“That is not comforting.”
“It isn't supposed to be.”
Isamu kept his hand steady.
“Choice first.”
Hexen nodded.
“Then power.”
Nethnarel stared into the clear stone.
The red lines moved.
Beautiful.
Dangerous.
Unknown.
She lowered the Crystal.
It touched the recess.
The platform opened.
Not mechanically.
Stone flowed aside.
The Crystal sank until half of it rested below the surface.
Then stopped.
Nothing happened.
Fendor exhaled.
“That was—”
The world exploded.
Fire filled the chamber.
Not flame.
The idea of fire.
Heat without source.
Light without fuel.
Nethnarel screamed.
The channel beneath her hand became incandescent.
Across the platform, water erupted upward around Isamu.
Earth rose beneath Kaylor.
Wind tore at Hexen.
Fendor disappeared behind fractured versions of the room.
The Crystal brightened.
Every rune pair awakened at once.
Nethnarel tried to pull her hand free.
It would not move.
Not trapped.
Connected.
She felt the fire channel directly.
Not as heat.
As possibility narrowed into one state.
Burn.
Consume.
Transform.
Fire wanted to become only itself.
Across from her, Isamu gasped.
Water surged through him.
Not drowning.
Yielding.
Flow.
Cold.
Depth.
Kaylor's knees bent under impossible weight.
Earth pressed through his bones.
Stillness.
Endurance.
Permanence.
Hexen's robes snapped around him.
Air pulled at every part of him.
Motion.
Freedom.
Direction.
Fendor stared into a thousand realities.
Chaos.
Every outcome.
Every choice.
Every path.
The platform began tearing them apart.
Hexen shouted first.
“Too much!”
Nethnarel heard him.
Barely.
The fire wanted all of her attention.
That was the trap.
Each force demanded mastery.
Not cooperation.
If she surrendered to it, she could control fire beyond anything she had ever known.
She felt that.
Not a spell.
Not a technique.
An invitation.
Become the thing.
Command it because nothing else existed.
Across the platform, Isamu's breathing changed.
Slow.
Measured.
He closed his eyes.
Water crashed around him.
He did not resist.
Did not surrender.
He breathed.
One count.
Two.
Three.
The torrent weakened.
Not because he controlled it.
Because he stopped letting it define the whole.
“Balance,” he said.
The word barely crossed the platform.
Hexen heard.
He lowered his head.
Wind ripped at him.
His first instinct was druidic.
Shift.
Become something heavier.
Something rooted.
Something with wings.
Something adapted.
He stopped himself.
No shape.
No answer through becoming something else.
He stood as Hexen Brew.
The wind howled.
He opened his hands.
“Move,” he whispered.
The air changed.
It passed around him.
Not defeated.
Allowed.
Kaylor was being crushed.
Earth pushed down.
The Hammer of Thunderbolts seemed suddenly very close.
Power.
Strength.
Hit back.
Break whatever held him.
That had worked often.
Very often.
His free hand moved toward the hammer.
Isamu saw.
“Kaylor.”
One word.
Kaylor stopped.
The pressure doubled.
His knees touched the platform.
Every instinct told him to rise.
Resist.
Prove he could carry it.
Grazim's voice came from memory.
Not magic.
Memory.
You can't keep everyone.
Kaylor looked around.
Fendor was fighting something invisible.
Nethnarel burned.
Hexen stood in impossible wind.
Isamu held water without controlling it.
Kaylor realized the earth was not asking him to carry everyone.
Only himself.
He took his hand away from the hammer.
The weight lessened.
Not gone.
Shared.
A line of golden-green light passed from his rune pair into the center.
Nethnarel saw it.
One channel stabilizing.
Then air.
Hexen.
Then water.
Isamu.
Three.
Fire remained wild.
Chaos worse.
Fendor screamed.
Not loudly.
That frightened them more.
He stood with his hand in the groove, but his body flickered.
One Fendor became ten.
Ten became a hundred.
Every possibility lived around him.
Fendor dead in the Void.
Fendor old.
Fendor walking alone.
Fendor with the Oathbow.
Fendor with the Vorpal blade.
Fendor laughing.
Fendor kneeling beside Grazim's body.
Fendor standing at the Manticore's Tail with no one else.
Fendor standing with all six.
Fendor never awakened beneath the monument.
Fendor killed Thorax.
Fendor missed.
Fendor hit.
Fendor missed.
Hit.
Missed.
Hit.
Every shot.
Every possible line.
He could not tell which one was real.
“Fendor,” Kaylor called.
No response.
“Fendor!”
A hundred heads turned.
Nethnarel tried to reach him.
Fire surged.
She could not move.
Hexen shouted through the wind.
“Listen!”
Fendor heard too much.
Every version of every voice.
Then Isamu said something simple.
“Pick one.”
Fendor laughed.
A hundred Fendors laughed with him.
“That's your advice?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Choose.”
Fendor closed his eyes.
Chaos continued.
He listened.
Not for truth.
For familiarity.
Nethnarel swearing.
Hexen breathing.
Kaylor grunting beneath weight.
Isamu being infuriatingly calm.
There.
That one.
The room sharpened.
Most versions disappeared.
Not all.
Enough.
Fendor opened his eyes.
Five heroes.
One platform.
One Crystal.
Real.
He smiled.
“Found you.”
The chaos channel stabilized.
Four became five.
All five rune pairs connected to the center.
The platform roared.
The Crystal rose from its recess.
Only slightly.
Enough to show that the red lines inside had stopped.
Completely.
Nethnarel stared.
The forces were balanced.
For one heartbeat.
Then the center split.
A black crack appeared beneath the Crystal.
It ran across the platform.
Straight through the recess.
Nethnarel felt the fire channel spike.
“Something's wrong.”
Fendor looked toward the crack.
“No.”
The platform shuddered.
The rune pairs remained balanced.
The heroes remained connected.
Yet the center was breaking.
Hexen shouted, “The Crystal!”
Nethnarel looked.
The clear stone had begun fracturing from within.
Not randomly.
A hairline crack formed along the blue ring.
Then another.
The red lines pressed outward.
The Crystal could not remain whole inside the balanced system.
That was the point.
Nethnarel understood.
“No.”
Everyone heard her.
Kaylor looked over.
“What?”
“If we continue, it breaks.”
Fendor stared.
“Good.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
She hated that he immediately understood.
“Nethnarel.”
“There may be another way.”
Fire surged around her.
“There may not.”
“We don't know.”
Fendor's expression changed.
The jokes disappeared.
“You want to keep it.”
Nethnarel glared.
“I want to understand it.”
“That wasn't the question.”
The Crystal cracked again.
A shard lifted slightly away from the surface.
Inside it, blue and red light spilled through the fracture.
Knowledge.
Potential.
Oslan.
Everything she had wanted.
Nethnarel's free hand moved.
Toward the Crystal.
Fendor said, “Don't.”
She stopped.
“Do not tell me what to do.”
“Then tell yourself.”
“You don't understand.”
“No.”
His chaos channel flickered.
“But I understand wanting the thing you're good at.”
Nethnarel stared.
Fendor continued.
“We all do.”
Kaylor looked toward the Crystal.
“Neth.”
She hated when he shortened her name.
Especially now.
“What?”
“You told us Oslan's mistake.”
“I know.”
“They thought knowing something meant they could master it.”
“I know.”
Hexen's voice came through the wind.
“Balance isn't keeping everything.”
Isamu said nothing.
He did not need to.
Nethnarel stared into the Crystal.
All the unanswered magic in the world.
The dead Sage.
The warning.
She had believed for years that the greatest tragedy was knowledge lost.
Perhaps sometimes it was.
But preserving knowledge and possessing power were not the same thing.
The Crystal cracked again.
Nethnarel's hand trembled.
She wanted it.
That remained true.
The choice would be meaningless otherwise.
She withdrew her free hand.
Fendor exhaled.
Nethnarel looked directly into the Crystal.
“I do not need to own you to know you mattered.”
The fire channel steadied.
The Crystal split.
It should have exploded.
Everything in their lives suggested it should have exploded.
Instead it came apart beautifully.
One fracture became many.
Clear lines spread through the Crystal.
The blue ring broke into arcs.
The red waves divided.
Pieces lifted away from one another.
Dozens of transparent shards floated above the recess.
Each contained a fragment of impossible color.
Fire.
Water.
Earth.
Air.
Chaos.
The platform began pulling them outward into the five channels.
Hexen saw what was happening.
“No.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“What?”
“Not outward.”
He could feel the elements wanting to separate.
That was the old failure.
Each force returning entirely to itself.
Perfectly pure.
Perfectly isolated.
No balance.
Only division.
“Hold them together,” Hexen said.
“How?”
“Don't control them.”
Fendor laughed once.
“Very specific.”
Hexen ignored him.
“Let them overlap.”
Nethnarel understood.
“Channels aren't walls.”
“Exactly.”
Isamu looked at the paired runes.
“Boundaries.”
“Not prisons,” Hexen said.
Kaylor looked toward the center.
The fragments were drifting apart faster.
“How do we stop them?”
“We don't stop them,” Isamu said.
Kaylor stared.
“Then what?”
“Guide.”
All five shifted.
Not physically.
Attention.
Pressure.
Choice.
Nethnarel allowed fire to move toward water without trying to dominate it.
Isamu allowed water to receive heat without extinguishing it.
Kaylor allowed earth to change under motion.
Hexen let air move through all of them.
Fendor—
Chaos refused.
It jumped.
Every possible arrangement appeared at once.
Fragments scattered across a hundred trajectories.
Fendor's eyes widened.
There.
The problem.
One tiny interval.
For less than a second, five pieces aligned.
A clear line through the center.
Too small.
Too fast.
No one else saw it.
Fendor did.
That was enough.
His free hand left the groove.
The chaos channel destabilized instantly.
Nethnarel shouted, “Fendor!”
He was already moving.
The Oathbow came free.
Kaylor stared.
“What are you doing?”
Fendor drew one arrow.
There was no enemy.
No target anyone else could see.
Only five spinning fragments, crossing impossible paths through a collapsing field of elemental light.
Nethnarel understood a heartbeat too late.
“That's impossible.”
Fendor smiled.
“No.”
He drew.
The opening narrowed.
Three inches.
Two.
Less.
One instant.
One line.
Enough.
Fendor released.
The arrow passed through fire.
Water.
Earth.
Air.
Chaos.
It did not strike a shard.
That was the point.
It passed exactly through the empty space between all five.
The wake of the arrow connected them.
Five fragments snapped into alignment.
The platform answered.
Every rune ignited.
The arrow vanished into darkness beyond the chamber.
Fendor lowered the bow.
“That's enough.”
The world stopped breaking.
The five fragments remained suspended.
Not separate.
Not joined.
Balanced.
Red light flowed through blue.
Blue through gold.
Gold through white.
White through orange.
Each color became the next without ceasing to be itself.
The remaining Crystal fragments dissolved.
Not shattered.
Released.
The clear material became light.
The light entered the five channels.
The five channels entered the runes.
The runes dimmed.
One by one.
Fire.
Water.
Earth.
Air.
Chaos.
The pressure beneath each hero's hand disappeared.
The grooves became ordinary stone.
The center recess closed.
Nothing remained inside it.
Nethnarel stared.
“No.”
Fendor looked at her.
She dropped to one knee.
Not injured.
Searching.
One clear shard.
One fragment.
Anything.
Nothing.
The platform was empty.
The Crystal of Chaos was gone.
No artifact.
No jewel.
No piece small enough to hide in a pocket.
No final secret waiting for the clever wizard to retrieve after everyone else looked away.
Nothing.
Nethnarel closed her eyes.
For a moment grief hit her harder than expected.
Not because she had lost power.
Because she had lost questions.
Possibilities.
Whole branches of knowledge she might never touch.
Then Hexen placed one hand on her shoulder.
She opened her eyes.
The room was changing.
Not collapsing.
Resolving.
The impossible walls moved into place.
The upside-down staircase faded.
The distant wall returned to the distance where it belonged.
The transparent floor became stone.
The stars beyond the chamber disappeared.
The architecture simplified.
Then aged.
Cracks formed.
Dust settled.
The Ageless Tower stopped being impossible.
It became old.
Just old.
Nethnarel stood.
The runes were dark.
Isamu removed his hand.
Kaylor did the same.
Hexen.
Fendor.
Five heroes stood around an empty center.
Kaylor looked at the others.
“Is that it?”
Fendor listened.
“No screaming.”
Hexen closed his eyes.
He felt for the world.
Earth.
Air.
Moisture.
Heat.
Nothing fought anything else.
Nothing tried to become all that existed.
Nothing whispered through the walls.
He opened his eyes.
“Yes.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“You're sure?”
“No.”
Fendor groaned.
Hexen smiled.
“But I think so.”
The chamber began fading.
Softly.
No violent collapse.
No darkness opening beneath them.
Only transparency.
The platform lost color.
The walls thinned.
Mahi Esri's courtyard appeared through them.
Dusk had barely moved.
Kaylor looked toward the place where the Crystal had been.
Nothing followed.
No treasure.
No reward.
No new item.
For once, the Heroes of the New Beginning had entered an ancient place of power and come home with less than they carried in.
Kaylor smiled.
“I think that's probably good.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
“Do not say probably.”
Fendor laughed.
Then Mahi Esri returned.
Ten seconds had passed.
The watching soldiers stared.
The five heroes stood inside the depression.
No chest.
No Crystal.
Nothing glowing.
Nothing smoking.
One of the guards raised his voice.
“Did it work?”
The heroes looked at one another.
Fendor answered.
“We have absolutely no idea.”
Nethnarel hit him.
The guard looked alarmed.
Hexen stepped forward.
“It worked.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
Hexen crouched and touched the stone.
The earth beneath Mahi Esri felt ordinary.
Old.
Damaged.
Alive.
The pressure he had sensed since the Crystal entered the fortress was gone.
No elemental contradiction.
No strain beneath the world.
No wrongness.
Only stone cooling after sunset.
“It worked,” he repeated.
The courtyard erupted.
Not in magic.
In cheering.
Kaylor flinched.
He had forgotten people were watching.
Fendor bowed.
Of course he did.
Isamu smiled.
Nethnarel did not.
She stared at her empty hands.
Kaylor noticed.
He moved beside her.
“Regret it?”
She did not answer immediately.
“Yes.”
Kaylor nodded.
That surprised her.
“You're not going to tell me I made the right choice?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you can make the right choice and still hate what it costs.”
Nethnarel looked at him.
Something eased.
Not much.
Enough.
She looked back toward the dark depression.
“There was so much inside it.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
“No.”
She almost smiled.
“Thank you.”
Kaylor nodded.
Across the courtyard, Fendor was explaining to three soldiers how he had personally saved reality by shooting nothing.
His description was becoming less accurate by the second.
Isamu heard.
“Fendor.”
“Yes?”
“You shot through an opening.”
“That is what I said.”
“You said reality itself moved aside out of respect.”
“It did.”
“No.”
“Were you holding the bow?”
“No.”
“Then we have competing interpretations.”
Hexen laughed.
Nethnarel finally did smile.
They remained at Mahi Esri that night.
No one suggested leaving immediately.
That mattered.
There was nothing left to chase.
No Crystal to secure.
No Oslan vault to search.
No mysterious shard pulsing under a cloak.
No surviving final clue pointing toward another continent.
No new enemy had announced itself during the ritual.
The world simply continued.
They ate with the people repairing the fortress.
Fendor told the story of the impossible shot three times.
Each version became worse.
By the third, the opening had been the width of a hair.
Kaylor objected.
“It was wider.”
“You were busy being a mountain.”
“I saw it.”
“You saw nothing.”
“That was literally the target.”
Fendor pointed at him.
“Exactly.”
Isamu drank quietly.
Hexen ate enough for three people.
Nethnarel listened more than she spoke.
At one point, a young soldier asked her what had happened to the Crystal.
Nethnarel looked at her cup.
“It's gone.”
“Destroyed?”
“No.”
“Then where is it?”
Nethnarel considered.
Every instinct wanted a precise answer.
She did not have one.
“Where it needed to go.”
The soldier nodded as though that were sufficient.
It wasn't.
But for once, Nethnarel allowed insufficiency to survive.
Later, the five stood on the wall.
Mahi Esri spread beneath them.
Lanterns glowed.
Workers slept.
The damaged fortress looked peaceful.
Kaylor rested both hands on the battlement.
“So.”
Fendor looked at him.
“So?”
“What now?”
Fendor turned toward Nethnarel.
She shook her head.
“Don't look at me.”
Hexen looked toward the horizon.
“No shadow.”
Isamu said, “Good.”
“No dragons,” Fendor added.
Kaylor glanced at him.
“There are definitely still dragons.”
“None currently attacking.”
“Good distinction.”
Silence followed.
A comfortable one.
Nethnarel stared at the sky.
She had expected losing the Crystal to make the world seem smaller.
It did not.
There were still questions.
Thousands.
Millions.
Books she had not read.
Magic she did not understand.
Places she had never seen.
The loss of one impossible artifact had not emptied the world of mystery.
That realization hurt less than she expected.
Kaylor looked at the four people beside him.
Five.
No sixth.
Grazim's absence remained.
Nothing they had done restored him.
Nothing should.
The world was balanced.
Not corrected.
Not made fair.
Balanced.
Perhaps that was different.
Kaylor thought of the road.
The broken wagon.
The little wooden hammer still hanging from his pack.
The village planting anyway.
He looked toward Oxland.
Home.
Fendor followed his gaze.
“Please tell me we're going back.”
Kaylor nodded.
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Hexen looked at him.
“No walkabout?”
Kaylor smiled.
“Not tonight.”
Isamu looked toward the road south.
“Morning?”
Kaylor thought about it.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Kaylor leaned against the stone.
“We leave after breakfast.”
Fendor stared.
“Who are you?”
Kaylor laughed.
“Someone hungry.”
That answer satisfied them.
Long after the others slept, Nethnarel returned alone to the courtyard.
The depression remained.
No runes appeared.
She stood where the Crystal had last existed.
Nothing answered.
She had expected temptation to return.
A shard overlooked.
A whisper.
A surviving spark.
Something that would let her tell herself she had released the whole while secretly keeping one piece.
Nothing.
The platform had taken everything.
Or freed everything.
Or balanced everything.
She still did not know.
Nethnarel looked at the stars.
Somewhere beyond them were answers she would never possess.
That had always been true.
She had simply disliked admitting it.
Footsteps sounded behind her.
Fendor.
Of course.
“You're very loud for an elf,” she said.
“You're very predictable for chaos.”
She looked at him.
He stood beside her.
Neither spoke for a while.
Then Nethnarel asked, “Did you know the shot would work?”
“No.”
She stared.
Fendor shrugged.
“I knew I could make it.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“You could have broken the entire alignment.”
“Yes.”
“You could have killed us.”
“Possibly.”
Nethnarel frowned.
Fendor looked toward her.
“You saw the opening too late.”
“Yes.”
“I saw it in time.”
“Yes.”
“That was enough.”
She hated how simple he made things.
Perhaps because sometimes they were.
“You'll put that on your grave.”
Fendor smiled.
“No.”
“What then?”
He thought.
“Something shorter.”
Nethnarel laughed.
They returned inside.
The courtyard remained empty.
The world remained quiet.
At dawn, the five Heroes of the New Beginning left Mahi Esri.
No parade accompanied them.
The guards waved.
The workers returned to repairing walls.
The fortress became smaller behind them.
Fendor rode ahead.
Hexen stopped twice to look at plants.
Nethnarel carried no Crystal.
Isamu carried almost nothing.
Kaylor carried two hammers.
One legendary.
One made badly by a child.
The road led south.
Toward Oxland.
Toward the Manticore's Tail.
Toward nothing urgent.
For once, that was enough.
And behind them, deep beneath the old stones of Mahi Esri, ten dead runes remained dark.
Not broken.
Not waiting.
Finished.