Kill it!

The imposter's red eyes never left her. As they fought, Maya could feel that blood-cursed gaze taking in her every movement.

Maya worked her sword in a precise kata of stabs and slashes, each designed to wear down an opponent's defenses. The doppler thwarted each blow, seemingly without effort. She had it on the defensive— Maya advanced and the doppler gave ground— yet she couldn't break through his guard and score a solid blow.

Zanda was near but kept her distance. Against a killer of Dashar's level, a dragon was a liability. An osteomancer could kill her in moments, especially when he had no cause to conserve his ether. Better for her to hang back and lend what aid she could through the bond. Maya could feel strength flowing into her and Zanda replenishing herself from the Ethereum's eternal wellspring. That added aid was just what Maya needed to tip the scales of power even further in her favor.

Maya and the doppler fought in bursts of speed. Both warriors were enhanced by magic to move at a blinding pace. Maya would strike just to have her attacks brushed aside, and they would dart away to a different spot in a flash for another exchange. The duel already took them far from the others and the prison, but it didn't matter. Maya had only one goal left in the Ethereum. She would either see this monster ripped to shreds, or she would fall. Maya could accept no alternative.

The imposter fought using Dashar's favored third stance. He kept his weight on the toes, always ready for a sidestep. Armed with a pair of curving short swords, he was able to defend and counter with efficient movements. Dashar had always been like a machine in combat. He didn't spin and dance with his dual blades like some Espallan dervish. He was relentless. Brutal and indomitable. Block and strike came in the same instant.

Maya's single blade had to work twice as fast to attack while keeping his counterstrikes at bay. She remained in second stance, placed her feet to allow her to dodge the anticipated attacks, and she sliced for his neck, limbs, and torso.

"You've improved," it said simply. "Aunt Maebh's lessons have finally taken root."

Maya bared her teeth and struck again. The imposter backpedaled, taking him a long distance away with his enchanted speed. Maya pursued and brought her sword down in an overhand blow to split his skull. The doppler blocked her strike with crossed swords.

"More than that," it said. The creature grinned. "You might even be her equal."

Maya pushed down with her sword, wishing to feel it cut into his smirking face. "Don't talk to me like you're holding back."

"Am I not?" He swept both his blades wide, pushing Maya's sword away and opening her up for a straight kick to her abdomen.

Maya was pushed back by the strength of the blow and felt the air forced from her lungs. She raised her sword back up into a guard, but the doppler hadn't moved. It stood there, tilting its chin back in an arrogant posture.

"We had the same teacher, Cousin, but I surpassed Maebh a long time ago." He strode towards her with languid steps. "You have grown strong, Maya. Very strong, but you are not the Highest Queen."

"Not yet," Maya spat. "I have to kill you first!"

She pulled ether from her blood, more than she would've ever before dared. In the Ethereum, with the unprecedented stores of the Eidolon, Maya unleashed lightning from her fist, lightning of a magnitude she would have never before imagined.

The landscape seemed to dissolve around her. The stones and grass of the Ethereum were caught up in the spell and used as fuel. The world quaked as if the entire universe had been sundered.

The doppler was hidden by the blinding light of the spell for a single moment. He burst forward, slicing through the lightning as if his swords could physically cut it. The spell arced around him and deflected away, turned by a deftly placed ward that shunted the enormous power aside by just a hair's breadth and allowing him to pass through unscathed. An apotheosis erupted from the amount of ether he put into his shield.

As he charged through the spell, Dashar called out to her. "You're not the only one who draws unlimited ether from this world!"

Maya manifested a blast of spellfire in his path, a small one meant to block his line of sight more than cause injury. In the next instant, she stepped to her less dominant side in hopes of coming at him again from an unexpected angle. When she charged into her own spellfire to strike, her blade impacted steel.

The fire dissipated, and Dashar crouched with his sword held in perfect position to receive her attack. He'd seen her misdirection coming and executed a flawless defense against it. He didn't need to see her to know what she would do.

His other blade came swinging towards her neck. Maya halted her momentum and reversed course, tossing herself into a cartwheel in direction with his blow. She felt his sword cut towards her head close enough that she lost hairs to its razor-sharp edge. As she reset on her feet, her sword came arcing up in an underhanded swing. The doppler leaned back, however the unconventional angle caught him in poor position.

Maya's sword sliced him across the cheek.

She didn't stop. Elder magic poured through the blood on her sword, intent on crushing every bone in his body. In the same instant, she poured an equal amount of ether into her self-enchantments and drove her blade towards his chest. Maya roared and called lightning to strike down on them both.

Her protections shielded Maya from the lightning, but the explosion of where it struck the ground engulfed her with dust and debris. Her assault was overwhelming, attacking the doppler from head on, from above, and from within simultaneously. Nothing could withstand that. Nothing human.

"You've become great, Maya."

The dust settled. Maya's sword blade was held in the grip of a bone-armored gauntlet. The monster's eyes were locked on Maya's face. His thumb ran across the wound Maya gave him, and the tip shone with a soft light that pulsed to the tune of flesh essence. As it passed over the cut, the wound sealed. He was unscathed, and her osteomancy failed to harm him.

"You take oren," Maya snarled. "Because you inherited Dashar's dependence or just because you like it?"

"I am Dashar."

Maya pushed on her sword to try to run him through, but his osteoform had it held secure. "You might have his memories, but they're not yours! You're nothing compared to him!"

He sighed, almost regretfully.

Maya's hands shook from both adrenaline and rage. "You took my cousin away from me, and now you parade about with his face. You damn fiend. Dashar's not here to do it himself, so I'll kill you in his place!"

"And what then?" he asked. "Will you seek out that creature? Welcome it into your house, unquestioned? Are either of us real?"

"I know it," Maya said.

He curled his lip. Red, beast-like eyes narrowed.

"I believe it," Maya said. "Wherever he is, whatever he's doing, I have faith in him. I know he's fighting you."

"You're certain?"

"A queen never has certainty. She has family."

Maya manifested a pulse of force between her and the doppler. The creature was thrown back, but he managed to keep his feet underneath him. Maya threw lightning towards him, uncaring if any of her strikes landed. She doubted they would, but she wasn't using astramancy to attack. She wanted to keep some distance between them while she manifested essences she wasn't yet familiar with.

The doppler used wards and enhanced agility to bypass Maya's lightning. His advance was slowed but not halted. Pace by pace, he closed the distance between them with his swords ready.

Maya was careful. She kept her new essences subtle and easy to miss through ethersight. Power was all well and good, but the skills the doppler inherited from Dashar's blood were greater than what Maya possessed. He was good enough to face a fully realized Eidolon in open combat. What Maya needed more than power was the very thing she'd been lacking all her life. She needed subtlety. Cleverness. She needed control.

As the doppler neared, Maya lunged towards him. She fed additional ether into a barrier ward cloaking her body, enough to deflect the slashing strikes aimed at her. Maya pushed through the doppler's blows and seized him by the front of his armor. She could feel the raw power coursing through her veins as she turned on her hip and hurled him with all her might.

Power, it seemed, was also useful.

She'd bought herself the time she needed. While the doppler righted himself in midair to land on his feet, Maya manifested the final components of a spell she'd been longing to use. Her new favorite and one she wished Krayson could've been there to see it just for the chance to witness the look on his face. The blood runner had given Maya the key component for a lost magic she wished for ever since she was a little girl.

Maya's feet left the ground and rose a pace into the air. Lightning crackled around her, arcing from her body to strike at anything nearby. Her entire body shook from the enormous strain of holding in the ether saturating her blood. So much magic flowed through her that the only way she could endure it was to set it free before it overwhelmed her from within. Maya was most familiar with astramancy, so she hardly had to spare a thought to manifest lightning essence. Hovering above the ground, Maya was the tempest, now arrived and ready to unleash all its fury.

The doppler hit the ground ahead. He landed heavily on his feet and skidded across the ground, carving a furrow into the forest floor until coming to a stop. As he regained his stance, his red eyes took in the sight of Maya manifesting flight. The expression that came onto his face was unexpected, but it seemed appropriate.

He was awed.

Maya aimed gravity essence towards him. The acceleration was instantaneous, so sudden that had Maya not been manifesting specialized wards to thwart inertia, it would've ripped her apart at the seams.

The doppler couldn't track her with his eyes, she was moving so quickly. Maya struck him with the force of a train at full steam crashing into spellwrought stone. She felt his ribs crack at the impact then quickly mend themselves through osteomancy. Maya's aura of lightning danced across the wards surrounding him, weakening them nearly to the point of shattering. She reoriented her gravity skyward and hurtled with the doppler into the sky. Before the creature could recover, Maya set her feet against his chest and kicked for all she was worth, manifesting another gravity spell on the doppler before they were separated. Maya halted in place while the doppler continued upward.

"I'm not remotely done with you," Maya said. Wild energy coalesced in her hand, and she hurled it after him. The light burned in Maya's eyes but she wouldn't close them to the blinding power. The hunter's eye never left her prey.

The wards on the doppler buckled beneath her spell, then shattered. Maya heard him give a shout of pain. It made her want to smile.

She hadn't had time to lock the spell on the doppler, and it burned through the measures of ether she placed within it quickly. His skyward plummet slowed before natural gravity reasserted itself. Maya shot towards him to intercept his fall. Her sword was a storm in her hand. The astramantic power dancing along its length made it appear as if forged from a captured bolt of lightning, and it shone as bright as the sun.

A league above the ground, Maya crashed against the doppler once again. At the last moment, he managed to get his swords between them and blocked Maya's blade before it cleaved him in two. Sparks erupted from the clash of steel, and Maya continued upwards as the doppler fell. She reoriented to face downward and adjusted her gravity. Like a meteor, she flew at him again.

The doppler was better prepared. He not only managed to deflect her block but attempt a counter. His sword struck against Maya's side, though her wards were more than enough to keep it from cutting into her. Maya adjusted the velocity of her descent to stay next to him and continued her attacks. Again and again, the doppler barely managed to hold her at bay. The blows kept shoving him away from her, but constant readjustment of her flight spell kept them close.

It began to dawn on Maya that her adjustments were starting to not only be for position but also for speed. Their fall was slowing until it came to a complete stop. The doppler flew back from Maya under his own power, and they faced each other while still hanging high above the ground.

Quicker than she ever would have thought possible. The doppler truly did have Dashar's skill. His mind. After only a few moments, he isolated Maya's spellcraft and replicated the manifestation.

Then again, perhaps his success was born more out of desperation than anything else.

The doppler's breathing was labored. The injuries Maya gave him and the effort of maintaining a new spell this advanced were taking him to his limit. Beyond his limit.

Maya tilted her head back to stare down her nose at him. She allowed a mocking smile onto her lips. "I'm impressed. You survived into round two."

Wearing a smirk to match hers, the doppler brandished his swords. Even battered, he exuded the same confidence Dashar always possessed. Now that he stopped talking, he resembled Dashar more.

Maya took a moment for one last thing before returning to the duel. She manifested her holding spell and drew out the wolf's head cowl. Placing it over her head, there was a moment in which she felt as if, wherever Dashar was, he'd approve.

The doppler watched her donning the cowl and tilted his head inquisitively.

"Expecting me to say how this is my face?" Maya grinned. "Truth is, I just think it looks good."

The doppler shrugged in vague acceptance.

Maya assumed a stance. With her footing being taken out of the equation, she needed to improvise a little. She bent her knees and held her legs back, removing them as easy targets in midair swordplay. The doppler followed her example.

They spent a moment gauging the other, then charged.

oOo

A rumble shook Kumo's lair. Krayson flinched, not from the shaking but from the latest apotheosis to come smashing against his growing headache. This latest one was strong enough that he saw what looked like a wince on Kumo's face.

"The child of Gara is-" Kumo wrinkled her nose. "-spirited."

"Thunders, was that a pun?" Krayson asked wearily.

Kumo directed the ire of her female form in Krayson's direction. "Of course not," she snapped. Her aged voice took on a particularly sharp edge when irritated. "It was wariness. An Eidolon in this era is chaos within the web. I spent the last twenty-five years tracking the damage a thread like hers can cause to Fate. Be assured she is dangerous."

Krayson rolled his eyes. "As if I need assurance. You never spent a week cooped up in a train car with her." He braced his hands on his knees and faced the spirit sitting across from him. "Now, tell me. Why do you insist the old masters' doom can't be stopped?"

"Because it has already arrived," Kumo said. "No magic, lost or found, has the power to undo that which has already been woven into Fate."

Krayson shook his head. "You're wrong. I've seen it happen. Hydromancy changes even the certain futures granted by Nashal."

Kumo closed her eyes and sighed. "You misunderstand what Fate is, my saint. You speak as if you believe Fate is that which will happen predetermined."

"That is the accepted definition," Krayson pointed out.

"Not fate. I mean Fate!"

"You lost me."

"Capitalized, fool boy! A capitalized word is inherently different."

"Now you're just being difficult for the sake of it."

Kumo pinched the bridge of her nose. "I never expected to miss Min," she muttered. After taking a moment for herself, Kumo opened her eyes and glared pure murder at Krayson. "You will listen to what I have to say. This is vital to the survival of both your world and mine."

Krayson gestured for her to proceed.

"The nature of Fate," she said, "is right here before you."

"The web?" Krayson asked, glancing towards the wildly dancing spider threads covering the chamber walls.

"This is Fate," Kumo said with a nod. One of the long, crystal spines rising from her back extended. It stretched towards the threads and ran along them as if she were plucking the strings of a harp. "Within these are written the memories of your world. Observe how they shift to the tides of mortal belief and action. Memories of what was and memories yet to be made."

"The future, you mean."

"This is so. To the heights of Fate." Her spine stretched longer and rose to near the top of the lair. That high up, the threads didn't move at all. Those had found their place and didn't seem able to move from them.

"The past," Krayson said. "That's where Fate has already been determined."

"You begin to comprehend. Memories of what was, and below them, memories yet to be made." Her spine traced towards the point where stillness in the web gave way to motion. "Yet there is more. Here, lies the is. Near to there, that which may be falls into patterns that can be perceived."

Krayson raised an eyebrow. "More predictable?"

Kumo nodded. "It is so. This is where my power lies in full, the perception of what may come. Once, in an era long past, I could touch deftly upon the threads of Fate and be as an arrow flying into the depths of endless time. My will struck towards desired outcomes, affecting change within the web of Fate, and bringing those futures to pass." She lowered the crystal spine until it rested once more behind her back. "With the Betrayer's treachery and Hasanvor's machinations, I was imprisoned by my own kind. That power I once possessed is lost. My temples lie in ruins within the desert left by Shoen's Sin, and my worship has been forgotten. Mortals who remember my name think me ancient mythology or an old man laughing at their misfortune. It is no longer within my power to thwart the old masters, if it ever was."

"But you're free now," Krayson said. "Can't you... I don't know... get power from mortal worship again?"

"In time, perhaps," Kumo said, "but time is not a luxury in humanity's possession. The doom has already arrived. There, upon the is, lies the tipping point, the moment in which all hope for a future outside the old master's desire is lost for all time."

"And humanity falls," Krayson murmured.

"In time," Kumo said. She gestured towards threads closer to the floor. "The end of humanity will come. In decades. In centuries. Beyond your lifetime or within it. Precisely when matters little, for the end comes regardless. The old masters will stand triumphant within the world they desire. They have already waited eons. What are a few centuries more to beings such as they?"

Krayson opened his mouth to ask a question, but Kumo held up a finger to stop him.

"I know what it is you will ask," she said. "First, there is more you must know. Look again unto Fate."

Complying, Krayson looked.

"Gaze, my saint, and tell me what you see."

Krayson squinted, but he couldn't see anything written. "Just spider threads."

"And what are the threads?"

"A tapestry," Krayson guessed.

"An apt comparison," Kumo said, and there was a sense of pleasant surprise to her praise. "A tapestry depicts an image, a whole unto which individual threads are unaware."

"Threads..." Krayson whispered. He rose to his feet and approached the edge of the chamber. "The threads are... people?"

"Many are representations of mortal lives."

"But not all." Krayson felt like he was beginning to understand. "The mighty, shifters, and fey. Every stone, every tree, every beast. They all affect Fate."

"All that which mortals perceive," Kumo said, remaining where she was.

"Even you?" Krayson asked.

"Even me. All spirits. All gods."

"Even them?"

"It is so."

Krayson scanned his eyes over the web in front of him. "Which threads belong to demons? I'll rip them out right now."

A suddenly apprehensive look came to Kumo's face. She raised a hand towards him. "Please, do not vandalize Fate. It took all of time to create it."

Krayson pursed his lips. "Right. Just representations anyway, you said. Yanking them out won't change that they're still out there."

"Indeed. Look here upon this thread." Kumo's spine reached out again and touched upon a strand that seemed much thicker than the others. It didn't dance as wildly, but still it swayed. The effect it had on the web was dramatic. Thinner threads were drawn towards it, where they twisted in new and frantic contrast to the path they held before.

As Krayson watched, he understood. This thread was an element of great change in the web of Fate.

"This thread," Kumo whispered, "is your own, my saint. The thread belonging to the body you now inhabit and those of your past lives. It reaches back through the depths of time and ahead into countless futures. Its path is perhaps the most unpredictable of all, for upon it lies the fate of so many others. It reaches into futures where it endures, others in which it is cut short, and still others where all you love comes to an eternal close."

"Not just mine," Krayson said. His eyes found four other threads that behaved in the same manner. "These other ones. All seven thunders, the Five."

"It is so."

"That's what the Five are. The guiding threads of Fate."

"As other gods bestowed elder bloodlines, this was the weapon I forged. I created fulcrums of destiny, threads to pull others into a pattern that may serve to prevent doom upon our two worlds."

Krayson held his head in his hands. "I don't understand."

"To bring you understanding, I must answer the question you wished to ask." Kumo appeared at Krayson's shoulder. "Ask, my saint. Ask, and I will answer."

Krayson turned to face her. "Demons. What are they?"

"Beyond your understanding," Kumo said, "yet within it. The old masters are far older than you realize, far more powerful, and at the same time, far less."

He frowned. "That tells me nothing."

"If you wish more from me, we must strike our accord. In exchange for all that I shall give you, I require payment."

"Even with the stakes this high?"

"The old forms must be heeded."

Krayson sighed and looked away. "You can only be what you are. What will it cost me?"

"Memory," Kumo said. "Such things hold great power here. With this power I take from you, I will possess the strength to recreate my dominance over my divine stronghold. Once again, the god of memory and fate shall preside over destiny."

"What do you mean, memory?" Krayson demanded, feeling abruptly hesitant. "You're going to take my memories?"

"Not all."

His body was trembling from acute fear, and his voice grew quiet. "What will I forget?"

"Do you truly wish to know?" Kumo asked. "Does it change what you know you must do?"

Krayson looked down to his feet. His eyes felt inexplicably heavy. "Please. Just don't take my memories of Saveen. I... I need them."

Kumo's face grew unreadable. After a long moment, she nodded. "We have an accord. Come, my saint. Pass with me through my web into the memories of your world."

The feminine form of Kumo melted away and was replaced by the Great Spider. Kumo climbed up onto the threads of Fate, then turned themselves to face down at Krayson. Kumo's frontmost legs reached down and pulled clusters of threads aside as if drawing a curtain.

"Enter," Kumo said, their voice now deep and masculine. It shifted between the dual tones once more. "Witness what was and what may come."

Krayson took a bracing breath to steel himself and stepped through the passage.