The chaotic wave of sorcery swept Xenro several paces forward, sending him staggering across the scorched plains of the Realm of the Dead. His heels dug deep into volcanic ash as he regained his balance. Before he could completely register what had just happened, the portal behind him dissolved into air, and he was alone on the stormy plains, with no route of escape in sight. He had left the mortal-- Farren, far behind.

The first thing he felt upon stepping into Draedona's realm was the twinge of regret.

I should not have left her there.

In their chaos-ridden lives, with hurdles to overcome at every corner, mortals might blurt out things they did not mean. Had the thousands of years of his life taught him no patience? He should have accompanied her, should have tried to see the reason behind her fear, but instead he left her there.

He had not kept his word. One step out of his confinement, he had saved the life of one mortal but put another in danger.

This was not how it was supposed to be. Draedona's realm was not supposed to be in such turmoil, as it was now. Something had gone horribly wrong.

Usually, the Realm of the Dead welcomed him with neither apprehension, nor trepidation, but a soothing calm.

Aye, Death was an old friend, for she was always at the end of each of his tales he'd lived through in the Mortal Realm. When he walked those mortal lands, he had made friends, fallen in love... and outlived them all, time and again. Those stories may have started differently each, but Draedona always drew the concluding line, taking his loved ones from him, away to her melancholy realm.

Xenro used to be angry, at first.

Yet in her actions there never was any malice, only adherence to an undeniable law of nature: mortality. When the pain of parting would afflict Xenro, she would reassure him.

"I cannot ever go against the rules of nature, but in my realm, I shall keep all safe. I will hold their hands and guide them to the Golden Gates. In my realm, I am equal to all."

And she had truly upheld her principle of equality in all places. Even if Father resented Xenro for not being able to make himself into the weapon of destruction he wanted him to be, even if other immortals had turned their back to him, Draedona never had been one of them. The doors of her realm remained forever open, her voice ever so kind.

But now, something terrible had sunk its claws in her peaceful realm. The souls of the dead were safe no longer.

Around him, an ash storm howled and raged, the parched land of Draedona's realm ravaged beneath its onslaught. Corrupt sorcery rode the turgid air, making it difficult to breathe without one's lungs burning.

Shielding his eyes with his arm, Xenro struggled to make his way across, but every direction, the land looked the same. Cracked plains stretched out all around him, black trees swaying in the far horizons. The sky above swirled a murky red. Then realization struck him like an iron fist.

This is no ordinary ash storm!

There in the storm wailed voices, pleading to be set free from this agony, crying in vain for the gates to open. Those were not winds, but a turbulence of souls more than the realm could hold. The Realm of The Dead was overencumbered with dead souls who could not pass on-- and more and more dead were adding up.

Who had closed all the gates?

Xenro gathered his sorcery, and tried to conjure one of the many Golden Gates into existence, but magic did not seem to work the way it should in the realm which in itself was distorted.

The sorcery backfired, throwing him several feet back into the storm, and not one, but hundreds of glittering gates of gold materialized around him all at once, their brightness blinding him for a moment.

When he got to his feet again and chanced a look above, his face contorted in horror. "What...are these?"

Pitch-black chains, alive and wriggling like worms, held each of the gates shut. Everywhere he looked, chains dangled from the gates, twisting and coiling around the golden bars. The gates hovered in mid-air, and the chains were much, much longer, trailing all the way down to the parched ground, and stretching to the horizon.

Xenro forced his frayed mind to think. There had to be a way out of this. Moreover, he needed to rescue his friend from this corrupt realm. How long had Draedona's realm been in such condition?

Think.

He found, all the chains, which stretched across the ground in parallel lines, led in the same direction.

Sword in his hands, the God followed. He knew not what awaited him at the end, but he trudged on. The chains lashed out to strike him, to twist around his ankles and wrists-- he defied them all. His blade clanged into those chains, and their virulent magic travelled down his arms.

His skin burned and blistered-- he held his ground. But exhaustion was beginning to claim him once again, a sharp pain rising in his chest.

You have been forsaken. You wield power no better than a mortal man.

Yet should he back away when the Realm of the Dead was in chaos, when his old friend was in grave danger?

He had his centuries of inertness within that statue. Now was the time for action. He pressed on, against the wailing storm, against the chains, against the pain now spreading through his limbs like hellfire.

But nothing could prepare him for the sight he saw when he reached the end of the chains, where they converged into a single point.

The Goddess of Death kneeled upon the dust, face lowered. Chains coiled around her limbs, holding her down so firmly, the links cut into her skin. Her robes were in tatters, rough winds whipping her slack hair this way and that.

If only a few hits from those chains could drain his energy so thoroughly, heavens knew how she felt now, with hundreds of those twisted around her body. They seemed to feed upon her life-force, growing stronger the more she struggled.

He dashed toward her, only to have more chains rise and whip at him. He reared his sword through the air with a great cry, his bewilderment now replaced by fury. “Who dares to infiltrate your realm with this foul sorcery?”

Draedona looked up, surprise washing over her face. "You have come?" It seemed to pain the Goddess to even utter words. "Xenro?"

The chains were wriggling around too much for a comfortable conversation. He dodged another. "So I have! Who did this to you?" he cried, "tell me, who dared taint your realm?"

Draedona's smile was bitter as she looked up, struggling some more in vain. "Wish I knew." Her voice was dry and lips chapped. "All I know is that this is the work of a mortal. The very mortals I have looked after, whose passage into afterlife I made safe, I held their souls close-- protected them from being lost in the abyss! This is how they repay me."

When a few more vicious swings of his sword achieved nothing against those cursed chains, Xenro kneeled too, holding her pale, bony hands in his. His fingers burned, skin turning red and beginning to leak blood. He held on.

Mortals were the reason why his only friend was in such misery.

"His Majesty was right all along," she whispered. "The Chains are nothing new, though. They have appeared before, during the Great War. But now they have come back stronger than ever. As Lord Rhilio said, the root of the problem was in the Mortal Realm. The Apocalypse smothered it only briefly. Now it rises again."

Something seemed to crumble behind her eyes. Her faith in mortalkind. The faith which she helped Xenro build within himself.

All Xenro could hear was Rhilio's words. "This is why I tell you not to get mixed with their kind. The mortals live and die like flies, and are just as vile. They destroy what is beautiful, they wage war among themselves and continue to ruin the face of earth even as we speak. Do you understand, my boy?"

Xenro did, yet he did not.

He refused to believe the actions of a handful of people could taint the entire humankind. He just needed to find the one responsible.

Burning down the whole forest was never the solution when a monster ran amok within it. He needed to hunt down the monster.

"Tell me everything," he asked, his breaths ragged from exhaustion.

"What? Does this seem like the time for conversation? You need to hurry and escape."

But he wasn't sure he would be able to open another portal to enter here again, if he left now, neither could he free her. His powers were greatly weakened.

"I need to know. Everything," he said, "when did this first start? Any strange happenings before that?"

"Go away when you still can, my friend," said Draedona, "you have had your fair share of suffering in your father's hands. You do not need more."

She scurried away, yanking her hands off his and tugged with all her might on a chain. In the distance, one of the gates creaked open slightly. "I cannot hold this for long, go!"

He scooted over and added his strength to hers. The gate parted some more. "Be brief, but tell me all. I need to know so I can help you."

"Stubborn as always," Draedona sighed, finally giving in.

She told him everything, about the young man who arrived too early than his destined time of death, about the Chains, the strange sorcerous bindings that had first appeared, and snatched him away right before her eyes, and after that, how more Chains had begun to appear, in dozens and hundreds and thousands.

"The lad's name has stuck with me ever since," she rasped. "...Pertheran."

Xenro wished to ask more, but she was at the end of her strength. "Just...tell me where you want to go. I wish to see you safe, away from this wretchedness!"

The gates were about to close.

She could send him to the Autumnwind plains through the portals, if he asked.

"...The woods of Kinallen," Xenro said at last.

But would the sorcery-warped realm obey the command of the Goddess?

✦✧✦✧

Everything annoyed Corporal Gray.

The constant chaos around the camp, the godforsaken Council Mages coming and going as though they owned the place, and Rendarr's ceaseless pacing. Gray heaved a great sigh as he got up from his seat on the porch of the ruined commander's office.

Not much had happened since the day of the attack, other than Sergeant Wolturs begrudgingly sending her squad members into the woods in search of Corporal Clearstrike at the demand of the Council Mages. Each of the squad members, however, returned empty handed, saying they 'did not find anyone'-- and the mages were simply not willing to take that for an answer.

The only things that brought him peace was the fact Linder was out of danger. Unconscious, but healing, fast. Also, the days were becoming warmer, the chill of the supposed second winter waning away.

"But where did she disappear off to?"

Rendarr was still pacing to and fro. Karles and Klo had tried in vain to calm him. They all were worried for Clearstrike, but this man was on a whole different plane of overthinking.

Sweet Draedona, he hasn't eaten a whole damn meal in three days.

"Definitely somewhere in the woods. Obvious, isn't it?" said Gray in a drawl.

But Rendarr had a habit of not seeing the obvious. Or perhaps Gray was just bad at expressing his feelings.

He stared, dark eyes wide in worry. "I told her to stop-- so many times. But no! She just had to use magic!"

Gray, with great reluctance, said something he never imagined himself saying. "She did the right thing. Saved Karles' life."

"But, the law of--"

"The law can go and screw itself." Gray grabbed his shoulders and forced him to sit, just so he would stop his pacing.

Rendarr sank his face into his hands. "I told her to run. And look now, her face is all over the wanted posters, with her scar in the wrong eye, too!"

"Goddamnit, Tonlin!" Gray snapped, "what happened that day was not your fault-- nor hers! She has to be on the run. You telling her to run doesn't change a thing, you blithering idiot! Now come with me and grab a bite to eat, damn you! You're gonna fall on your face and pass out, if you keep this up."

Now Rendarr snapped too. "And what's it to you? Why are you always on my tail, anyway? Mothering me like that..." he said, "don't think you being all nice will make me forget the match of strength I promised."

"You are unbelievable." Gray tore his gaze off Rendarr's freckled face for a moment, looking at the bustling camp, carts of supplies rolling in and out the gate. On a stump near the gate sat a ragged-looking, bruised-up Alastair, staring blankly into the distance and unmoving as though frozen in time. He had not uttered a single word since he was set free and his only friend, Dion took his place, captive in the cell down below in the patroller's quarters.

"Nah, I think you're just afraid of losing." Rendarr got up, but struggled to stay on his feet, his head reeling. "B-bring it on, we'll see who's stronger!"

Fantastic. Three days without proper food had finally addled his brains.

"You're coming with me to the mess-hall. Now." Gray wrapped an arm around his shoulder. "Then straight to bed after you've eaten your fill."

Rendarr huffed, but obeyed all the same. "To think you would back away from a chance of beating the daylights outta me..."

"Well, maybe I don't want to punch your pretty face!"

Rendarr blinked, then squinted hard for a while as he walked. "Sergeant Wolturs put you up to this, didn't she? Or why would you care so much?"

Another thing he hated about Rendarr, beside his obsessive pacing, was his inability to take a hint. And he had the audacity to look so aggravatingly fine in all his obliviousness, with his damned raven hair and stupid freckles.

"Aye, you got that right. Your sergeant asked me to baby you through all this," muttered Gray angrily, feeling his face heat up, "why on earth would I care otherwise?"

"Now that's more like the nasty, cranky ol' Gray I know from the Iron Arena!" Rendarr cracked up a grin.

Gray averted his eyes, just so he could look at something other than his stupid, happy-go-lucky smile-- and saw people crowding around the infirmary across the training grounds, a commotion rising among them.

His mind assumed the worst at once. Something terrible must've happened to Linder.

Before he could move, Rendarr broke free, and strode in the same direction, soon becoming one with the crowd.

But as they neared the infirmary, the shouts revealed to be cheerful rather than alarmed. As Eliora brandished her gloved hands to break the crowd, a hand reached out from inside the gloom of the infirmary and yanked Gray in.

"Cap'n?"

Captain Rivera grinned, raising a finger to her lips. "Doc isn't letting anyone in, but I think there could be a few exceptions."

She gestured to one of the beds, and as Gray's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he hissed in a sharp breath. "Sarge!"

There was Linder, propped up on pillows, bandages wrapped all around his torso and back-- up and conscious. He looked tired, yet pleased. Dressed in a plain white shirt, he had his hair down.

"Morning," he said, smiling, then looked at the door. "Why, this is the first time the soldiers of Kinallen are happy to see my wretched face."

Morning?

The lecture Gray had ready for him would fill a tome the size of one of Ryffin's alchemy books. How dare he make a whole secret plan with Karles and not tell him until the last moment?

And he has the nerve to say 'morning'!

Before he could begin his lecture, however, Karles elbowed his way through the crowd, and against the protests of the healers, threw his arms around Linder. "Gave me such a fright, you bastard!"

He winced, then returned the hug wordlessly, a rare shine in his eyes.

"Gods, give me some credit too, you lot!" Karles broke the hug to yell at the soldiers at the door, "he didn't catch that piece of scum all by himself, you know? I set up half of the traps. And this rascal of a man had the audacity to make me repeat the exact argument we had before we fell apart, and even made me punch his face. Talk about masochism!"

The next moment, in the small infirmary was chaos. To one side Eliora yelled at the cheering soldiers to clear the way, while her apprentice gushed about how great it was to perform intensive healing for the first time. Rendarr, the idiot had again wandered off somewhere.

But amidst all the commotion, one thing did not escape Gray's notice.

Linder's eyes scanned all the faces, no doubt appreciating their joy to see him healed up, but yearned for a glimpse of a particular someone.

Gray took a seat on a chair beside his bed.

Linder ceased his searching, and cleared his throat, trying to pull on his usual stern look. "Where is Sergeant Wolturs' Squad, I wonder?"

Indirect approach, I see.

"Depends on which member you're looking for," said Gray.

The characteristic frown wrinkling his forehead, he dropped the act. "Where's Clearstrike?"

The corporal winced a little. "Long story short, she's on the run from the law."

He had never thought the human face could go through the entire spectrum of emotions within a single moment, but Linder's did-- and halted at 'bewilderment'.

"She's what?"