Krayson stood in darkness. After passing through the webs more times than he could remember, he was almost grateful. Kumo had shown him many possible futures. Some were unlikely to come to pass, shown to him only so that he might know the depths of humanity's doom. Others were things that were all but certain and just moments away.

He saw Enfri at the head of a massive exodus. Thousands of Aleesh trailed behind her as they carved a path out from the jungles of the Reach on their long road south. An army of Melcians waited for them, and no one left the north alive. The race of Shan Alee fell to extinction.

Reyn lay in a pool of her own blood as Josy wept over her. Alone, the duchess faced the vast desert without food, water, or a way across. Surrendering to hopelessness, Josy knelt beside Reyn's body as her pursuers fired their weapons until she joined Reyn in death.

Pacifica sat in a throne that didn't belong to her, one she never wanted. Once regent and now empress of an empire that had lost its sovereign. Pressured and besieged on all sides, Pacifica had no choice but to dissolve Enfri's dreams of a reborn Shan Alee to save the lives she was responsible for.

The visions of possible futures continued until Krayson at last saw the pattern connecting them all.

"There's no hope," he said.

Kumo stood beside him. The Great Spider kept to his male form on this side of the web. He let out a long breath and nodded.

"In every vision you've shown me, the doom prevails. Demons win."

"As you say," Kumo said.

Krayson chuckled.

"Does this amuse you, my saint?"

Covering his eyes, Krayson couldn't stop laughing. He could almost feel his sanity slipping away. One thing, however, stood out to him.

"You haven't shown me any good ones," he said.

Kumo watched him without answering.

"Am I supposed to believe... among all the possibilities in this web of yours... there's not a single future where the doom doesn't crash on our heads?" Krayson uncovered his eyes and looked up at Kumo.

The god smiled.

"Thunders, man, speak plain."

Kumo's smile broadened. "Because there are none," he said.

"Well that wasn't what I wanted to hear."

"None yet," Kumo amended.

All around them within the darkness, points of light started to appear. Krayson turned about to watch as the stars were born.

"For there to be hope in your ending," Kumo said, "you must know of your beginning,"

Krayson frowned. "Is that something you even know about? Gods weren't there at the beginning. You're a recent addition to the world, no older than mortals."

"This is so," Kumo said, "however, I have not spent my imprisonment doing nothing but spinning threads."

Krayson regarded him with a scowl.

"I've been listening," Kumo said. "Watching. Learning. At my core, I am a spirit. I am the embodiment of what mortals see in their mind when they look backwards, and also when they look forwards. To be god of memory and fate, it is not enough to simply watch. I must understand, because mortals desire understanding. For me to learn what Fate holds, it isn't enough to simply know what has happened before. I must seek the truth of how all that you perceive came to be. The old forms must be heeded, and the old forms demand I seek answers to your questions. Those answers lead to new questions, and I must answer those as well."

Krayson grunted. "Was one of those questions you uncovered perhaps... Where'd these demons come from, anyway?"

Kumo snorted, then he gestured towards the stars appearing before them. "Our enemy made an error, my saint. They seek to become gods and so chose a saint for themselves. Through Vintus Algara, a mortal with the vast memory of the old masters at his disposal, I was offered a glimpse at what occurred long before my inception."

"You..." Krayson looked at Kumo with an unwelcome sense of newfound respect. "You peeked through the keyhole?"

"If a royal assassin and prince of Althandor can be considered a keyhole, then... yes."

Krayson hummed in appreciation.

"I sought other avenues, also," Kumo said. "Demons do not hold complete dominion over all their creations. Several among the proteurim are less loyal to their creators as demons would wish."

"Like Lidya?"

"And others. If we had more time, I would show you memories of another skindancer your empress has grown aware of. Mogga's tale is as illuminating as it is ancient, and he has passed on the things he knows to his chosen people. From their minds to my web, the truth of the old masters can be known. From these disparate sources, I have pieced together fragments of memory that I have woven into my web."

Excitement began to grow within Krayson. He gestured emphatically with his hands. "Well? Show me!"

Kumo chuckled. Among the stars, a world appeared. A globe of blue, brown, and green. It was cloaked in white clouds with lights shining on its surface where the shadow of nighttime fell.

"Your planet," Kumo explained. "What you know of as the world."

"Astronomers have maybe... ten... different names they've given it."

"'The world' is enough," Kumo said. "For now, at least. You haven't yet traveled to others."

"Others!"

"Oh, yes. Plenty others. There's one just over-" Kumo gestured vaguely to his left "-that way, somewhere. The demons were interested in it long ago, thinking it might provide them with a home once this world died. They never had the chance, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. They need to reclaim this world before they try conquering another."

Krayson was back to scowling. "Start from the beginning, would you?"

Kumo nodded graciously. "As you say, then. The beginning."

It felt as if Krayson plunged towards the world. They passed through cloud and sky before arriving on a grassy plain. Krayson felt a wave of motion sickness and wobbled, but he refused to grab onto Kumo's arm to steady himself.

"This is the civilization of the firstborn," Kumo said.

He gestured towards a city that sprawled across the plain before them. Spires of metal and glass rose to touch the clouds. Steel highways stretched as far as the eye could see. It appeared hazy to Krayson, indistinct and dreamlike as it'd been when he first passed through Fate. As if this vision was comprised of distant recollections that were more impressions than true memory.

Kumo took slow steps towards the city as he spoke. "After centuries of delving into memories, I have learned little more than this," Kumo said. "Little more than the fact that it existed. What it was like, who dwelt there, the wonders and horrors of the first age... they are lost to time and known only to those who saw it for themselves."

Krayson followed Kumo, his gaze locked on the distant city. "So that's the world of the old masters?"

"They were powerful. They were ancient. At this time, they have already held dominance over the world for countless millennia. But most importantly, they were mortal."

Krayson's eyes narrowed. "Mortal?"

"No more omnipotent than humanity," Kumo said. "Flawed. The old masters did not begin as demons. They began as beings little different from yourself. And then..."

Ahead, the city of steel and glass vanished. It was consumed by a dark emanation that grew from within its center that grew to encompass everything in sight. The towers became rubble, the landscape was scoured to the bedrock, and the sky turned black with dust."

"As humanity, the old masters sought power," Kumo said. "Theirs was a magic unlike yours. In this age, the Law of Five didn't yet exist to give order to magic. Their power was primal and chaotic. When the old masters attempted to control the uncontrollable, they caused a cataclysm which destroyed their civilization and brought an end to the first age of this world."

Krayson shaded his eyes with his hands as he attempted to peer towards the center of the dark explosion. "What were they trying to do?"

"Nothing more insidious than attempting to understand the universe and their place within it. Their failure was spectacular, but it wasn't total."

Kumo brought the two of them into the ruins of the ancient city. Amidst the rubble and scorched remnants, there was a small area that had survived the destruction. As if a single, circular parkland in the midst of the city had remained untouched, there was one place that wasn't devastated by the end of this age.

Through the smoke and haze, Krayson could see movement. At first, it was just a slight shift in the light, then as if the air was parchment that could be torn, a rip appeared. Crackling energy erupted from the rift, striking out in seven directions. Where the tendrils of sickly green and yellow energy struck, bright and blinding light began to shine.

"The old masters uncovered the Ethereum," Kumo said. "Rather, what would one day become the Ethereum. It was not the realm we know, but a maelstrom of pure energy and undirected potential. Limitless power, and they attempted to contain that raw potential within imperfect vessels."

"What sort of vessels?" Krayson asked.

"They numbered seven," Kumo said. "Great scholars. Teachers. Scientists. These seven learned beings attempted to create a tap into the eternal wellspring of the Ethereum. The forces they sought to command were too great, and their world died for their hubris."

The flow of chaotic energy ceased, and the rift closed. Where the power had been coursing, there was something new. Seven figures slowly began to move, rising to look out on the destruction they had caused.

"Antares," Kumo said, gesturing towards one of the figures. "He who you now know as Hasanvor, the Lord of Bones." Kumo swept his hand to encompass others. "Rigel, she who today commands the Courtesans under the guise of Nalthorio. Centauri, she who is the source of corruption within Melcia. Vega, he who seeks to forge shattered kingdoms into a weapon against humanity. Algol, the maker of weapons that will soon become a plague across this world. Carinae, another who has born the guise of Nalthorio but has used it to pervert the better parts of humanity to serve him. And lastly, there is Sol."

Krayson watched as the seven figures stood. They looked out on the devastation they'd caused. All but one fell to their knees, covered their faces with four-fingered hands, and wept tears of grief and shame. Only one remained upright.

"Who is Sol?"

"The Betrayer, greatest of the old masters. He is dead now."

"How did he die?" Krayson asked.

"He was destroyed," Kumo said. "Slain, when evil saved your world for a time. Come, my saint. This was only the beginning."

The web of Fate appeared before them, and Kumo led Krayson through it to another time.

What followed were eras far stranger than the one that preceded them. For millennia, the world was a barren wasteland where little was able to survive. After thousands of years, the scars left by the Cataclysm began to fade, and life reemerged.

"The world is no simple entity that can be killed so easily," Kumo said as their steps spanned epochs. "Life is resilient. The world suffered a wound, but she is not so weak as to surrender to oblivion. In time, she flourished once again."

Kumo strolled through the centuries with Krayson at his side. Each step saw the passing of many years. Mountains rose only to be eroded away beneath long ages of ice and wind. Rivers carved canyons into the stone, which were then sealed once more by earthquakes. Krayson didn't want to blink, because he knew that each second brought new forms of life into the world that would fade as quickly as they arrived.

"The Cataclysm destroyed their world," Kumo explained, "but it was not an end. The old masters were changed by their delvings into the Ethereum. Now immortal. Immaterial. They had become as much a part of the Ethereum as they were of the physical realm. So long as magic exists in the world, they endure. Endless."

"I'd go mad," Krayson muttered.

"As did they," Kumo said. "They knew themselves as destroyers, and survival became their Hell. Through countless eons, they could do nothing but grieve and hate themselves. Except for one."

Krayson recalled how just one of the seven hadn't appeared to regret the destruction. "Sol?"

"Sol. The greatest of them, when faced with tragedy, saw opportunity."

"What are they after?" Krayson pressed. "Vintus said they're trying to make a new era. They call it Paradise."

"That which was lost and can be again," Kumo said. "Greater than the world they destroyed. A perfect world. Sol's Paradise would benefit from ageless masters and be formed underneath their exacting guidance. However, building a copy of their lost world would never be enough. It is not the cities they mourn. The demons wish to assault the veil that lies between the world and the Beyond."

Krayson frowned. "I would've said that was impossible once. I know better now. You're really saying the demons want to resurrect all the other firstborn they killed by accident?"

"It is so," Kumo said. "This is their most fervent desire. They see it as their one chance for atonement. However, the ransom that must be paid for it is for all who came after to meet the same fate."

As they walked through the memories of the ancient world, Krayson watched as entire civilizations rose and fell. Many times. Dozens— perhaps hundreds— of great empires that flourished for a time before being returned to dust.

"The old masters guided the rise and fall of many civilizations," Kumo said. "Creatures that arose and developed a spark of reason came into being, and demons would appear before them. The old masters came as teachers, giving knowledge and understanding. This is fire, they would say. This is science. This is magic. Use it and become great, as we once were."

"To what end?" Krayson asked.

"Countless failures," Kumo said, "but not without purpose. Each time they destroyed an era, the old masters learned something new. One vital step closer to the Paradise they seek." Kumo gestured towards mountains rising before them. Spires of metal grew from the peaks, spellwrought and beautiful. "Until something... truly miraculous... came into the world."

Krayson watched as creatures soared between the mountain spires on great wings. "Dragons," he whispered.

"Born of the chaotic energies of the Ethereum," Kumo said. "Creatures as much of magic as of the physical realm. At last, the old masters found a race that could serve as a bridge between the two, bringing demons one step closer to the veil. The aeries of the mighty became the first stage of the final solution."

"The road to Paradise began with the dragons?"

"From the mighty, the demons created a new form of life. For the first time, they sought to directly engineer a race to carry forth their will. Using dragon bodies and their own blood, the old masters created a new and pure race."

Krayson nodded along. This was starting to delve into subjects he knew something about. "They made the proteurim."

The aeries fell to disrepair before crumbling to nothing. Dragons retreated from being the dominant race on the planet as something new took their place. Vast empires, with cities of black stone, spread across the world. The new civilizations flourished, a new era of unparalleled sophistication. Magic and science rose to heights that hadn't been seen since the first age. The proteurim empires reigned supreme.

"So it was." Kumo sighed. "However, even that was a failure. The proteurim were powerful. They were perfect. But they lacked the ability to control magic as the old masters needed it to be controlled. Any attempt to reconnect to the eternal wellspring, let alone to breach the veil into the Beyond, would only unleash a second Cataclysm. The old masters began to truly know fear. Perhaps their quest was impossible."

Krayson bit his lip. "Then, something unexpected showed up."

"Yes, my saint. Something unexpected, and that which they hadn't realized they had been searching for."

In the shadow of dragon ruins and demonic monuments, a new race emerged into the light. They were smaller than the dominant races. Weak and fragile. Utterly devoid of magic. But they were tenacious. Full of ambition, curiosity, and wonder. But most importantly, they had faith.

"A new people," Kumo said, "with a new power. Alongside the advent of humanity came a change in the Ethereum. How this came to be or why, the old masters still do not know. Humanity's need to understand the world around you imposed... understandability... upon the workings of magic. Chaos gave way to order, but the mechanisms behind your ability to reforge reality did not matter so much as what could be done with such power. As humanity spread, my kind began to awaken. Born of mortal faith, spirits and gods took form."

The webs of Fate appeared before them, and Kumo parted the strands.

"Where to next?" Krayson asked.

"Enter, and I will show you the final answers you require." Kumo waited at the passage entrance for Krayson to lead the way through.

"In for a penny, in for a mark," Krayson murmured as he stepped into the web.

"This is an important memory," Kumo said. "One I was present to witness and one that still haunts me with its consequences."

They arrived on an arid plain. Large rock formations dotted the landscape, and they were oddly shaped into sweeping edifices, like daggers driven hilt-first into the ground with the blades twisted to lie parallel over the land. In the shadow of the stone blades, Krayson saw what appeared to be campfires.

"This is one of the many scattered tribes of humanity in this dark age," Kumo explained. "They live in hiding from both proteurim and the mighty. The former culls their population, taking them as slaves or as stock to be experimented upon at the behest of demons. The latter simply sees anything and everything as a threat to their dying kind and would burn all such interlopers from the world."

They entered underneath one of the stone overhangs. A collection of wooden huts were built as lean-tos against the rock, sheltered from the sight of flying creatures. Several dozen humans picked about the little community, preparing food or tools, caring for each other. Surviving.

These humans had lean bodies, if not emaciated. Garments were simple coverings made from plant fibers and animal hides. Their skin was dark, but their hair was golden and eyes were green.

"Aleesh," Krayson whispered.

"Not yet," Kumo said softly. "Soon. Do not forget what that name means, my saint. As of now, they are just the people hunted by the mighty."

Several of the proto-Aleesh gathered around a fire which smoked heavily of incense and herbs. An old woman muttered words in the Aeldenn Tones, not as incantations but as prayers. A young man assisted the crone, perhaps an apprentice.

"The sky woman," Kumo said. "Humanity feared nothing more than the sky in this age, for that was from where most dangers fell upon them. Harpies, weres, dragons, and fiends. To be sky woman was to be fearless, because to lead her people, she must love them more than she fears any demon. A sky woman's love drove her to heal those that others would leave behind, to welcome those who would otherwise be forsaken, and to persevere where no one else would see hope."

"Empty green ones," Krayson muttered under his breath. He shook the idle thought out of his head and indicated the young man at the sky woman's side. "Were sky men a thing back then?"

"No. He was new." Kumo had a curious expression as he regarded the young apprentice. It was like mild suspicion that didn't have a leg to stand on. "If you look around, you will note that there are no other women in this community. Girls and infants, but none old enough to learn the sky woman's lessons. All of them were taken by vampires for their blood or by injury or illness. There was little choice but for the sky woman to choose Inwé as her successor."

Krayson came fully alert and regarded the young man anew. He walked to the campfire and sat down with his legs crossed and hands on his knees. He was opposite from the sky woman and the young man who would become the first human arcanist. Listening to the Aeldenn Tones the sky woman mumbled, Krayson puzzled out the meaning of her prayers.

"She prays for salvation," Krayson said. "The proteurim are dying out, but their cruelty grows worse."

"The doom has already fallen upon the proteurim empires," Kumo said. "Centuries before this memory, the old masters reached an impasse. They attempted breeding humanity's faith into the proteurim but met only failure."

"Resulting in shifters," Krayson said. "More human than demon."

"A new tool, but not the tool that could bring Paradise. Something else was required, so the demons allowed their favored children to fall. Cunning, the old masters knew the proteurim would not simply die quietly. They would lash out in impotent rage at the world that forsook them, pushing humanity to the brink of destruction."

Krayson let out a slow breath as he started to understand. "To the point where humans would pray so hard and so long for a solution that their faith would conjure it."

"And so a new god was born," Kumo said. "A spirit of fire, defender of humanity, a god of hope and salvation." The Great Spider looked into the smoking flames with sadness in his multi-colored eyes. "Yet his birth is not as we would wish, for Sol has awaited this moment."

Krayson furrowed his brow and leaned forward, his eyes drawn into the flames.

"Long has Sol watched these people. Driving their faith. Spurring them to pray harder and longer than ever before. At his direction, the faith of these people has been turned towards a singular purpose."

Krayson raised his eyes to the sky woman and felt his blood run cold.

The manic light within her green eyes was beyond the hope for salvation. It was hope for something more. It was a desire as ancient as the world itself.

"Sol," Krayson murmured. "This sky woman... is Sol."

"Had I only seen the truth then," Kumo said. "When I advised you not to dwell on what may have been, my saint, I spoke from experience."

The demon in the guise of a sky woman thrust her hands upwards. She shouted for her dying tribe to call out the name of their savior deity.

"Shanothé!" the people chanted, Inwé's voice joining with theirs. "Shanothé! Shanothé! Shanothé!"

"The name chosen," Kumo said. "The name spoken. In the primal magics that demons mastered long ago, names hold great power. Sol bound his name to this word. The faith of Inwé's people was stolen from the god who should have been and instead went to something else."

Krayson watched in morbid fascination as the old crone collapsed while clutching her chest. The sky woman was likely nothing more than a conjured husk worn as a mask. The true creature abandoned that form to assume another, leaving a young man to desperately attend to his teacher.

A new god arose from the flames, a figure which burned as glowing charcoal. Looming over the mortals underneath its gaze, it issued its first command.

SAVE THEM

The proto-Aleesh quailed with fear as the voice of a god crashed over them.

RISE AND SAVE THEM ALL

Krayson was unaffected by the voice. Whether it was because his blood was flush with ether or because this was merely a memory, he couldn't say. Whatever the reason may have been, Krayson didn't care. He sat where he was, glaring up at the face of the imposter god above him.

"The old forms must be heeded," Krayson muttered. "I take it that came as a nasty surprise to Sol. Shanothé. Whoever the hell he is now."

"Indeed," Kumo said. "The old masters would have preferred it if subverting mortal faith allowed them to do as they please. Unfortunately for them, that is not the case and the reason only one other has gone through the same ascension."

Krayson pursed his lips as he nodded. "Little point in becoming a god if your faithful are the ones calling the shots." He tore his gaze from the false god and looked to Kumo. "How did Antares become Hasanvor?"

"In much the same fashion," Kumo explained. "The Lord of Bones already existed, long worshipped by the clans of Thandor. However, so great was their reverence of Death that they refused to utter his name. And so it was forgotten. This allowed Antares to weave a name of power into the whispered traditions of the Thandi, until there would come a time when the Lord of Bones chose a saint for himself. Then, if this saint called out a name belonging to a demon when it was demanded of her, faith would once again be stolen."

Krayson winced. "I'd hate to be that saint. Who was it?"

"You know her as the Queen Founder, Algara. However, back then she was merely Gara of Thandor before assuming the holy 'Al'."

"Algara," Krayson said flatly. "You're telling me the original Algara was a blessed saint?"

Kumo had the nerve to smirk. "That's not everything. Do you really think you and your friends are the first mortals to be my Five?"

Krayson scowled.

"After this memory, when Shanothé bestowed the first elder bloodline upon Inwé, the advent of mortal magic began." Kumo gestured for Krayson to rise. "Inwé soon met a powerful warrior among the mighty, Darkoo the Majestic. Together, they forged a bond of friendship that would lead to humanity and dragons being freed from the proteurim. A new empire rose amidst this land, the land over which Shanothé was now god. The land of Shanothé's chosen people."

"Shan Alee," Krayson said as he got to his feet. He followed Kumo away from the proto-Aleesh and their new deity. Together, they walked out underneath the open sky. "Why've I never heard the name before?"

"Erased from history," Kumo said. "Once the Dragon Emperors learned of what their god truly was, they sought to destroy all memory of him. His name was chiseled away from their temple walls. Those who dared utter it were purged without mercy. For generations, the Aleesh believed the Dragon Emperors were pushing the empire towards a secular path, away from spiritualism and superstition. Instead, it was a desperate bid to combat the forces that were even then conspiring to bring a new doom upon humanity."

"What were the demons trying to accomplish with Shan Alee?" Krayson asked.

"They wished to create a method of breaching the veil." Kumo conjured another passage of webs. "They succeeded."

Krayson balked in mid-stride. "How?"

"You know the answer to that question already, my saint," Kumo said. "You have held it in your hand."

"Oh..." Krayson breathed softly. "The Imperial Diamond."

"Aleesh research labored for generations to create a power source of such magnitude that no force in reality could withstand it. A theurallurgic construct to contain the bloodsongs taken from thousands of disposable mortal arcanists. With such strength, even the veil between us and the Beyond can be breached. It can be shattered."

"That was the doom the old masters intended for Shan Alee," Krayson surmised. "A shattering of the veil, and demons could bring back the souls of the firstborn."

Kumo nodded. "A necessary step towards Paradise, but it was not the final one."

"What is?" Krayson rubbed his forehead. "Instead of getting their dead people back, they lost Sol. A setback, but the Imperial Diamond's still around."

"So they began the next phase, trusting that the Imperial Diamond will be theirs again once more. Remember that I was imprisoned, my saint. I was locked within this cage because I began to see the patterns. I saw the old masters' seven-fold mark within my web. I knew of how new elder bloodlines would pave the way towards Paradise."

Krayson chewed his lip. "Right. You didn't want the spirit callers to turn spirits into fey."

"Remarkable, is it not? How fey bodies resemble those of the old masters."

"I thought Algol was a fey at first when I met him," Krayson mumbled. "My era is meant to bring about the fey, so they can rule the next one. They'll breed with humans who survive the doom, bringing about a world of feylings. Further down the line, Eidolons. That's why the demons are so afraid of Maya. She's not one of the steps. She's the goal. A race of Eidolons for all the firstborn souls that come back from the Beyond to possess."

"You see now," Kumo said. "That is Sol's Paradise. His people returned from Beyond and given bodies with unlimited arcane potential. The last age of this world begins, and it will never end. There will be nothing able to stop the old masters from conquering all reality."

Krayson nodded. Yes, that certainly seemed like something he wanted to avoid. Mostly because he and all he knew needed to die for the demons to reach that point. "So, how do we stop it?"

"As I already told you, my saint, evil saved the world for a time."

Krayson wrinkled his nose. "The death curse, you mean. Shoen's Sin. He used the Imperial Diamond before the demons could get their hands on it, and he..." Krayson looked around him. The arid plain wasn't yet Shan Alee. It wasn't yet the Espalla Dunes. "Shoen used the Imperial Diamond, but what exactly did he do with it?"

Kumo gestured towards the web of Fate. "Pass through, and I will show you."

He might have moved with more eagerness than he'd admit to, but Krayson practically leaped through the passage. He moved into another memory, nearly two thousand years after the one he left behind.

"Your Majesty," a man said as soon as Krayson stood in the new memory. "I've sent word for the Sapphires and Emeralds to fall back to the palace."

"No!" The answer came in a shout. "Throw them back at the slaves. Whatever else happens, we must have more time!"

The words were in Aeldic, and Krayson had to concentrate to translate them when they were spoken so rapidly.

He stood within a golden chamber, open to the outside air. Pillars lined the opening between the chamber and a balcony, silk curtains providing a semblance of separation from the outside. The room was dominated by a massive, long table holding maps of the Continent. The borders Krayson was familiar with didn't yet exist, and the land itself was unknown. There was no desert between the Li Lung Mountains and the great forests of Althandor. Furthermore, there weren't three great forests but a single forest that nearly spanned all the way to Gaulatia.

Aleesh men and women bustled about the chamber, possessed with a hectic energy. Their heads were pressed together in hushed conferences as they discussed the defense of the Imperial City. What scattered words Krayson caught spoke to military disaster.

"...feint assaults all across the holdings..." one murmured as they passed.

"We cannot get accurate counts of their numbers. They are too many."

"...new reports from Marwin and Valek. The Ruby Grandmaster says the daan are falling back, but there's been no word yet from Marwin."

"...is unthinkable a sentinel city could fall. You must be mistaken about..."

"...telling you, the daan are not advancing on the knighthoods. Their aim is the palace, as if this is all to keep our attention fixed here..."

"Why is the emperor not sending knights to Marwin? If the daanmirata falls to the slaves, their numbers will..."

Krayson shut out the voices. They were immaterial. He sought out the focus of them all, the second voice he'd heard in this memory. There, at the head of the map table and leaning as he gazed onto his empire, stood Shoen.

He was a tall man, beautiful and cruel. Krayson hated himself a little for admitting it, but he imagined that he could see a glimmer of Enfri in Shoen's features. The same nose, the same impressive head of hair, also something of Enfri was in Shoen's jawline. If he hadn't known better, Krayson could've let himself be convinced he was looking at Enfri's close relative rather than a distant ancestor.

"Your Majesty, I beg you," the man speaking to Shoen said. "The daan are already breaking collars throughout the outer city. If we allow it, they may be convinced to retreat before threatening the inner districts. We cannot hold against their armies while your forces are scattered throughout the empire."

Shoen waved his hand dismissively. "Falling back will only embolden them to press further. I know whose hand guides their strategy. I see their aims buried within Gara's moves. They try to manipulate her as they try to manipulate me."

"My emperor..."

"Silence," commanded a woman's voice. "Your emperor has spoken, Mogga. Your place is to obey."

A dragon stood in human form at Shoen's elbow. She was obviously a gold, with blue eyes and black hair. She was taller even than Shoen with a dancer's body. Her nudity was just barely prevented by black strips of silk and a large amount of platinum jewelry, and she fixed an icy glare on the hapless petitioner.

The man bowed to the dragon before withdrawing with reluctance. Once he was out of the emperor's eyesight, he started running, and Krayson thought it looked like he meant to keep running until he was out of Shan Alee.

"Eat the next one, love," Shoen muttered. "I can't be distracted. Not now when we're so close."

The dragon smiled fondly. "As you say."

"When..." Shoen hesitated, and he had yet to raise his eyes from the maps. He didn't blink as he spoke in a tone almost too soft to be heard. "When I begin, you will leave me."

The gold frowned. "You can't be serious."

"I am. Find the Shield and his Sapphire. Take them far from the borders."

The dragon drew close to Shoen and pounded her fist on the table in front of him. "You want me to run?"

Shoen finally looked his bound dragon in the eye. "I want you to live, my Vizier. Protect my son, bastard that he is. He's the only one it can be."

Mika the Vizier, Krayson thought. The Ascendent's mother. She doesn't seem like a slave. Not if she's talking back to the emperor like that.

"He's third summit," Mika argued. "He's impure blood."

"Pure enough." Shoen turned his attention back to the maps. "More importantly, the old masters do not know of him. It's vital, love. They must believe there are no more bond forgers, or they might suspect we saved other things."

Mika brought her face close to Shoen's, her scowl as deep as any Krayson ever saw from the Storyteller. She spoke in a hushed whisper, for her Diamond Knight's ears alone. "That won't last. What do you think the daan will do once you're gone? They'll plunder the ruins. They'll find..."

She looked towards Shoen's hand. He was gripping something tightly within it.

"I've fought with Gara long enough to know her mind," Shoen whispered. "Of all the daan leaders, she is the most pragmatic."

Mika squinted, confused.

Shoen chuckled, a bitter and rueful sound that lacked any semblance of actual mirth. "My most hated enemy... In her, I must place my trust. Algara, is it now? This so-called Highest Queen isn't the kind to allow what I'm about to do to ever happen again. She's wiser than that."

"That's too thin a hope," Mika said. "You already suspect the old masters are behind the daan's new magic. What if Algara is one of them? It'll be the proteurim empires all over again, with a demon taking the throne after you're..."

Mika went quiet, like her throat closed itself off before her voice could break. Shoen didn't respond.

Starting again, Mika spoke more softly, in control of her emotions. "I was bound to your father. I was bound to your greatfather, and to three other Dragon Emperors before them. I hatched when the mighty still had living memory of Inwé's face and was taught how to fly by the Majestic himself. I have lived a very long time, love. In all those ages, you are the first willing to make this sacrifice. Let that willingness be enough. Find another way."

Shoen looked up from his maps, but his stare was vacant. He gazed out as if seeing something thousands of leagues away.

"There is no other way," he said. "If there is, it's beyond me. I must kill him in the only way I know how. There's no other way to stop the doom." Shoen shook his head. "It's impossible enough to fight seven. Can you imagine fighting millions? Better that Shan Alee dies than I doom humanity with my hesitation. Better that the slaves only need to fight six."

Mika clamped her eyes shut and turned away.

"They wanted a way to bore into the Beyond," Shoen whispered. "I turned their diamonds into weapons. I will kill Shanothé."

Mika's eyes snapped open again, her expression aghast. "Love, that name..."

"I speak it now," Shoen said, his lips curling into a snarl. "I invoke the demon. Let the Betrayer hear me. Let him throw his daan rebellion against my legions. There's nothing more he can do to stop me. A god must be what he is, and Shanothé has always been the land." He turned towards Mika. "Go, my Vizier. Take my bastard son far away from this place. It's time."

Mika didn't attempt to conceal her weeping. She touched Shoen on the face, then backed towards the balcony. Once outside, the Vizier assumed her truest form and soared out into the sky.

"Alak Duvain Third Summit," Kumo said suddenly.

Krayson rounded on him, a tad startled. "What?"

"The Sapphire Knight the Vizier seeks. He is the illegitimate child of Shoen by a half-Thandi concubine. Aleesh enough to escape the collar, but not Aleesh enough to be recognized as his father's son. Most importantly, unknown to any but Shoen, the Vizier, and the Shield, he is marked as a bond forger. The demons will be fooled into believing that Inwé's line dies here for many centuries to come."

Krayson wrinkled his nose. "And that Sapphire Knight is Enfri's ancestor? The one who escaped the death curse and wound up starting the Alinwé line in Ejasta?"

Kumo nodded.

"But what does he mean?" Krayson asked, turning back to Shoen. The Dragon Emperor returned to his maps, studying every line of them as if they were the most important thing in the world. Krayson couldn't make heads or tails of what he was doing. "Shanothé is the land, and all that? The death curse killed the Betrayer, didn't it?"

"Yes and no."

"So help me, spirit..."

"The death curse killed all which gave the Betrayer life." Kumo guided Krayson to the maps. "Look here, my saint. These maps do not show only borders, hills, and villages."

Krayson's eyes widened as soon as he saw what Kumo referred to. A spiderweb of black lines, like fissures, spread across the map of the ancient world. "Ley lines."

Kumo smiled, almost as if he were proud of his saint's deduction.

Krayson turned away from the map. "Shoen didn't cast the death curse to kill the slaves. He didn't do it even to attack the Betrayer. Not directly, at least. He used the Imperial Diamond to seal every ley line in Shan Alee."

"Killing the land and all that lived upon it," Kumo said. "Utterly erasing the Betrayer and all he embodied from living memory. Sol was slain by the most evil act ever carried forth by human hands."

"Sol was dead, and Shanothé was forgotten," Krayson whispered, and immediately after he said it, he felt as if every hair on his head was standing on end. "All seven thunders. I did summon it."

"Forgotten," Kumo said, "but not lost. Only misplaced. He must be found again. The true god of hope and salvation must return to us."

Krayson wasn't paying attention to the memory any longer. His back was to Shoen as the last Dragon Emperor left his maps to kneel upon the balcony, drawing a knife from his belt. As Shoen opened his hand from around the Imperial Diamond and slit his own throat, Krayson was focused only on Kumo.

"That's why you showed me all this," he said, breathless. "Everything. The possible futures, what could happen, and what has happened. Thunders crash on my head, I know how to stop it. I need to get to Reyn!"

"The Five must stand," Kumo said. His voice grew in volume, swelling with what could only be passion. "The First is in peril, and the Second is doomed. You, the Third of the Five, need to take this truth to the Fourth, or the most vital of you all will be lost. Above all else, the Fifth must continue on. She is the thread against which even the other four are expendable. As it was with her ancestor, Jin Algara is the sole hope of salvation this world has. All that you've done has been guiding her thread towards this coming moment, where she will have one chance to thwart the doom for all time."

Krayson backed away, intimidated by Kumo's sudden intensity. He hardly noticed as the memory of Shan Alee fell to the death curse, as countless thousands of lives were snuffed out in moments, or as Krayson backed out through the web of Fate to find himself once again in Kumo's lair. The passage closed, bringing him back to the present inside the Ethereum.

The Great Spider was above him, in arachnid form and clinging to the ceiling of the lair.

"There is hope, my saint, but it lies on a strand of Fate I cannot see."

Krayson nodded and ran for the exit. Before he burst out into the desiccated wood, he felt his steps slow. Krayson came to a stop and looked up to his patron god.

"Wait. You said there would be a cost for showing me all this. A cost I must pay."

Kumo's eyes held him in their gaze. "What makes you believe I have not already taken my payment?"

Krayson blinked and looked away. His brow furrowed, searching his memory for any gaps. He didn't know what it would be like, having memories taken from him. Most likely, he would never realize what was missing.

Suddenly panicked, he felt his heart begin to race.

Saveen! he thought, terrified. Can I remember Saveen?

He immediately felt foolish for even thinking the question. That he could ask that at all meant his Bastion was safely in place where she belonged. Who or what, then, had Kumo taken away?

"You saw many things within my web," Kumo said from above. "Possibilities beyond counting. One future in particular coaxed great power from within you. This was my price, the memory of what you saw within your Fate."

Krayson frowned. "I don't remember anything like that. What did I see?"

The big spider made a sound that was an approximation of a harrumph. "If I told you that, it wouldn't be much of a price, now would it? Stop standing around like an idiot. Go, boy. Go!"

He didn't need to be told again. Krayson leapt out of the prison, and found himself surrounded by royal assassins. Worse, the Highest King himself was pointing a finger at him while his beast-like eyes got as wide as Krayson had ever seen them.

"You!" Cathis shouted.

Krayson thought he could be forgiven for the startled yelp he let out. Perhaps not for the second one when Lady Starra seized him in a crushing embrace.

"Bloody dunce," she said, halfway in hysterics. "You have any idea of how worried we all were? I oughta thump you from here to Shoto."

Krayson didn't know where to rest his eyes. The Highest King was still glaring incredulously at him, and even the queen was there. Maya stood next to them, looking oddly bleary-eyed as if she'd been weeping; that couldn't have possibly been the case, though. Zanda and Dashar were with Maya, and it came as something of a relief to see that Maya really had seen the truth of Dashar's identity as Kumo said she would.

Too much to take in all at once, and Krayson had a divine command to carry out. He extricated himself from Starra's hug, hopped up onto a gnarled tree root, and held his hands over his head to make sure he had everyone's attention.

"Alright, I need you all to shut up and listen!"

Cathis had an expression that was equal measures of disbelief and fury. The Highest King really didn't like Krayson, but that wasn't what was important at the moment.

Krayson pointed to Maya. "You, get that teleportation thing ready. The rest of you, get ready to fight like you never have before, because this is going to require every ounce of might House Algara has."

Maya came forward a few steps. "What are you talking about?"

Krayson took a quick and harried breath to settle his stomach. He was going to ask a lot of them, and they wouldn't see the reason why. But, it was the only way to save Jin. Krayson knew what needed to be done. Before Jin could defeat the doom, Reyn needed to do something truly spectacular.

"You need to all come with me to Shan Alee!" he shouted.

The assassins started collectively reaching for their weapons. Maya and Zanda both slapped their foreheads.

"Brother Joshuan," Starra murmured under her breath, "know your audience."

Krayson flicked his wrist at her. He couldn't let himself be deterred and started hollering at the top of his lungs. "Can't you hear me? Shan Alee! Shan Alee, damn you! Get your rocky arse over here, because I thundering said Shan Alee!"

Like a mountain that had taken the form of a man, the forgotten god appeared. A giant, stone face lowered out of the sky to hover above them, blood runner and assassins all. Like the rumbling sigh of an old man, the forgotten god breathed out in what almost sounded like relief.

Krayson knew the truth now. It was relief. After six hundred years of being forgotten, it still remembered what it was meant to be.

House Algara was startled by its arrival, to say the least. Only Dashar and Maya had experienced this already. Even Starra let out a frightened squeak as she clung to Krayson's arm.

"This thing again," Maya sighed.

"What is that?" Cathis demanded.

"Apologies, Your Grace," Krayson said, "but it's a little complicated. The short version is that this is what's left of a god a demon possessed, and we have to lead him back to his homeland so the god he was supposed to be can be born. Correctly, this time."

Judging by the vacant looks he was receiving from every corner, Krayson thought he might need to break out the long version sooner rather than later. No time for that just yet, so he banked on a common thread that united everyone present.

"Jin needs you," he said, and that appeared to work.