The world seemed so far away.

From beneath, there was an endless spread of clouds: soft, white, and inviting. Her body wasn't hers; the air moving into her lungs was a separate entity, and the whole ocean of emotions washed into the endless abyss of her being.

Amidst all this, Loren opened her eyes. The sterile familiarity made her feel at home. The spotless windows, through which nothing could be seen due to the high, dense trees that lined the outside, winked at her. Crisp curtains sat half-drawn. The yellow runes gleamed above her, so white it was almost blinding. Loren sat up, her body light. At the end of the bed, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees, sat Kommora, the wrinkles deeper than ever across her face as she surveyed Loren with those unforgiving and serious eyes.

"Kommora!" Loren said, grinning. "Fancy you visiting me!"

To her surprise, Kommora didn't even blink at her words. Those eyes stared straight down at Loren's belly. Loren followed her gaze. Her stomach did a somersault when she realised her own face rested on the pillow, eyes shut and cheeks sunken. She reached out to touch it and flinched back, staring at her pearlescent fingers.

"Wh-what is this?!" It just struck her that her voice sounded odd. Almost as if it had no place in this plane. It didn't echo. It didn't reach her ears. Maybe she never spoke out loud. Maybe she just thought the words. "Kommora?"

Again, Kommora just gazed with the same concern at the unconscious Loren on the bed.

Loren cast her mind back, but every thought came slowly, like swimming through syrup. She was in Finberry, talking to Seiren's old neighbours. She'd searched Seiren's old home. The image of the intricate indigo rune in the Harreds' home flashed before her eyes and she gasped. Of course; she was hurrying back to Benover with the news.

"Kristen Harred's alive!" she shouted. "The king's mages are in on this. They must have abducted her and faked her death! Kommora!"

And yet Kommora didn't even bat an eyelid. It was as if Loren was in a different world altogether. Loren bit her lip and threw her arms forward, hoping to grab Kommora -- anything to catch her attention.

Her arms passed cleanly through Kommora's torso. A gasp escaped Loren's mouth.

"Kommora! What's going on?" Her voice cracked. "Kristen Harred -- you need to help her!"

She grabbed at Kommora again, but made no contact. She made a sound of exasperation mixed with growing fear. Out of nowhere, a searing pain tugged at her heart. She gasped, clutching her chest, her breath knocked out of her. Eyes watering, she stared down, but there was nothing causing the pain. Was it a heart attack? Lung infection? Muscle strain? But there was no reason for it -- yet it was too severe to be anything benign. It tugged again and she cried out in pain.

"Edden and Inara will never forgive me if anything happens to you." Through her tears, Loren looked up at the sound of her parents' names. Kommora rubbed her forehead with her hand and groaned, before propping her chin in her palm again and staring with frustration at Loren's body. "I hoped to tell you the truth before... before anything happened. You always asked me why I had such an agenda against the king's mages. I didn't want to tell you, but seeing as we're both in this kind of deep shit now, it's probably time. I only wish you can show me you can hear me."

"I can!" Loren said out loud.

Kommora sighed and ran a hand through her hair, turning it into a tangled mess, and rubbing the bridge of her nose with the other.

"It's stupid. Yet a part of me can't help but hope. Ha! The other mages would be wanting to condemn me for being so out of character." She groaned again, the lines on her face deepening. It hurt Loren to see Kommora, who had always been such a commanding giant, crumble before her. "It was my promise, and my fault. Edden went on that mission at my bidding, back when I was doing military liaison."

Loren remembered hearing about that. She was quite young then, but Kommora was the mage liaison with the military for about twenty years before becoming a full-time mage, and was chief advisor for tactics in attacks involving magic.

"There were rumours a family of an old mage was harbouring magic, powerful magic that promised everlasting life, and they refused to turn the knowledge over despite magical law and despite the Council's bidding later on. But the Council didn't want to stage a battle between mages, so they sent an undercover instead."

My father, Loren realised.

"All the military told me was that it was of utmost importance that information regarding the life magic doesn't leak out because there are others intent on misusing it. Only I didn't realise just how close to home those others were. Edden got in touch with me one day with the emergency contact and said the king's mages instructed him to seal that magic away forever, and threatened his family if he were to fail. But Edden... that magic was from Sallows, not from some magical family. Those were all lies. Sallows developed this new magic under secrecy and we all knew him well. None of us wanted the king's mages to have it. But they would know he stole it if he didn't seal it away, so he and Inara asked me to seal it -- into you."

Loren sat back -- or would have, if she didn't phase through her own body and just hovered there, her mouth open. The tugging in her heart faded to a distant ache.

"Edden wasn't killed in action. The king's mages killed him in the end anyway. He wanted you to have that magic as a final present from him, knowing you would be gifted enough to go to King's one day. I was too old to accept this magic, but if you were my ward, I could keep you safe. You had so many questions, and I lied to you for so many years. I'm sorry, Loren." Kommora's voice trembled. "I'm so sorry. Edden and Inara trusted you with this magic, knowing the king's mages would come after them, but this kind of magic should not fall into the wrong hands. They trusted you would do great good with it, and you have. You've developed it from desperation to the salvation of thousands. They would have been so proud. But it was all my fault they died. I shouldn't have asked Edden to go on that mission."

Another tug at her heart made Loren gasp aloud.

"And when the king's mages confiscated your chaos magic research, I thought that must be the end of it. They'd gotten hold of it after all... and I'd failed your parents. But it seems Edden had thought ahead and knew if it were implanted within you it wouldn't be able to leave. And its manifestation as healing seemed to have hidden its true nature quite well from them. I suppose it worked out for the greater good after all. It must have taken on a healing form because of your own desires. God knows what it would be like in the hands of those heretics..."

The pain seared across the front of Loren's chest up to both shoulders to the point where she gripped them, eyes watering.

"...would never forgive me if they know what happened to you under my care." Kommora reached out and held Loren's hand. "Please forgive me."

Her skin -- Loren's -- was so ghostly pale beneath Kommora's pink fingers. Loren looked at her own face, ashen grey and waxy-skinned. She looked worse than the sickliest patient she'd had, but even they had responded to chaos magic after several months.

Chaos magic. Loren looked down at her pearlescent hands. If she looked closely, the blinding white streaks below the surface weren't ghostly blood. It was her magic, weak and thready, barely visible. And chaos magic didn't work on the user.

Her stomach lifted and sank at the same time: a most peculiar feeling. Disappointment she'd failed to pass the magic to Seiren in that desperate moment when she thought she was going to die. A small glimpse of hope that this was a temporary state aided -- or even caused -- by her chaos magic. But she knew chaos magic. There must be a way to reverse this.

The pain came back again, with vehemence. It lasted longer than the previous attacks, leaving Loren gasping and crying in a heap, her energy draining out of her. It never faded, remaining as a steady buzz like tiny saws tearing into her skin. There was nothing she could see, nothing she could change. And all the time, seared into the inside of her eyelid, she could see the strange rune with its angular base and criss-crossing lines. The rune Karis Bonneville had drawn using Loren's blood, siphoned from her wrist, and then activated with flash magic. The thick lines glowed with a dull crimson, framed by the white of chaos magic -- only the chaos magic was steadily being eaten away. It was the only thing keeping the blood magic at bay.

She swallowed another wave of pain and stared at Kommora, whose face was buried in her hands.

"Kommora!" No matter how loud Loren yelled, Kommora couldn't hear her.

She screamed as the pain reached a crescendo. She doubled over. A million knives drove into her chest, tearing apart her muscles and organs, but there was no blood. There was no sign of anything beyond the agony. Her vision filled with crimson, brighter than chaos magic, more vivid than blood. The blood rune expanded outwards, enveloping Loren and eating away at her soul.

"Please..." she whispered, her voice broken and trembling all over. The cold fingers of fear clutched at her heart before the blood magic jerked it with a flurry of blades. Whimpering and curled into a ball floating above her body, she squinted at Kommora, who stared at her body with a forlorn face. Tears fell from Loren's eyes. "I'm scared. Kommora, please help. Mother... Father... Rowan... please help me."

The pain wrenched her backwards. She arched with a shriek. The crimson rune in her vision exploded, swamping her. A million blades sliced through her body and sheared her soul into tiny pieces.

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