For several seconds after the vision disappeared, I couldn't move.
The Central Hall had returned around me, but part of me was still trapped inside that black-stone chamber. I could still see the shackle around a wrist, the chains disappearing into the wall, and above all, that red hair falling across Morgause's lowered face.
The voice hadn't completely left me either.
The Queen shouldn't be here.
"Nellie, what the hell just happened?" Blazer leaned toward me, studying my face with a frown. "You stared at nothing for several seconds and started saying Morgause's name."
I lowered my eyes to the map spread across the table.
"I saw her."
Blazer's expression changed.
"Morgause?"
I nodded.
Caelum immediately abandoned his instruments and stepped closer.
"Tell me exactly what happened."
I took a slow breath.
"I don't know what it was. I wasn't asleep, and I didn't feel anyone casting a spell on me. Images just appeared." My fingers tightened around my staff. "Dark stone. Chains. A shackle... and then her."
"What condition was she in?" Caelum asked.
"I couldn't see clearly. Everything came in fragments." I swallowed. "But she was chained."
Blazer stayed silent for a moment.
"You're sure it was Morgause?"
I looked at him.
"I know Morgause."
"Right." He ran a hand through his hair. "Stupid question."
Caelum pointed toward the region marked northeast of Valcrest.
"Why do you associate the vision with this anomaly?"
"Because I saw outside too. Two peaks with a rock formation between them." I touched the map with one finger. "This."
Caelum looked down.
"You hadn't seen our measurements before entering this room."
"No."
"Then it becomes difficult to explain this as something created entirely by your own memories."
"Wonderful. My terrifying vision was probably real."
He ignored the sarcasm.
"Was there anything else?"
I hesitated.
"A voice."
Both of them looked at me.
"At first it said, 'She shouldn't be here.' Then, when I saw Morgause, it spoke again." The words returned far too clearly. "'The Queen shouldn't be here.'"
"Did you recognize the voice?" Caelum asked.
"No."
My first instinct was still to go straight to the castle.
I wanted to find Hellista and ask when she'd last seen Morgause. I wanted to walk through every room, reconstruct everything that had happened after Thundery vanished, and find anything that could tell me who had taken her.
But Thundery had already given me the most important answer.
Morgause had still been alive when she was displaced.
Conscious.
Giving orders.
That had happened before my vision.
The castle could tell me where Morgause had been.
The anomaly might tell me where she was now.
"I'm not going to the castle."
Blazer raised an eyebrow.
"That is not what I expected to hear."
"Me neither." I looked back at the map. "I'm going with you."
Caelum narrowed his eyes.
"It could be a trap."
"I know."
"We don't know when what you saw actually happened."
"I know that too."
"And if we find Morgause—"
"First, we find her." I met his eyes. "Everything else comes after that."
I didn't want to hear any possibility beginning with if we're already too late.
Not after Rowan.
Not while the respawn network remained uncertain.
Caelum eventually nodded.
"Then we'll take a small team."
We left shortly afterward.
Caelum brought two researchers from the Department of Dimensional Studies and a mage specializing in barriers. Blazer and I completed the group. We used a transport formation to reach one of the last eastern outposts still connected to Valcrest, then continued on foot.
The farther we traveled, the clearer the scars left by the Rupture became.
We found a stretch of cobblestone road sitting in the middle of an empty field with no buildings anywhere around it. Farther ahead stood exactly half of a fountain, severed along a surface so perfectly smooth that no ordinary tool could have made the cut. We even passed several small stones floating a few inches above the ground, perfectly still, as though gravity had simply forgotten what it was supposed to do with them.
Caelum checked one of his instruments.
The needle wouldn't stop trembling.
"Spatial activity is continuing to increase."
"Nellie language."
He sighed.
"The closer we get, the worse it becomes."
"Much better."
Blazer walked beside me.
"You've been quiet for too long."
"I'm thinking."
"That's usually dangerous."
"I'm thinking about Morgause."
"Ah." He nodded as though the world suddenly made sense again. "That's more reassuring."
I gave him a look.
His faint smile disappeared a moment later.
"We'll find her."
"Don't say things you can't know."
"I didn't say she was all right." He adjusted the sword resting over his shoulder. "I said we'll find her. Once we do, we'll figure out what we need to break to get her out."
A small smile escaped me.
"That philosophy explains far too much about you."
"And I'm still alive."
"For now."
The forest grew quieter as we reached the mountains.
First the birds disappeared.
Then the insects.
Even the wind seemed to pass through the branches without moving them as much as it should. The gorge ahead narrowed between two rocky rises, leading directly toward the region I'd seen in the vision.
The barrier mage spread a thin layer of protection around us while one of the researchers checked the readings.
"The intensity just doubled."
Caelum turned toward him.
"Over how long?"
"Less than a minute."
Then the sky roared.
I looked up.
Something was falling toward us.
Not like a person.
Like a projectile.
"Barrier!" Caelum shouted.
The figure struck the center of the gorge.
The mountain shook.
Rock, dust, and a brutal wave of magical pressure exploded outward. The mage's violet barrier flashed into existence and cracked almost immediately under the impact.
I drove my staff into the ground.
Blazer planted himself in front of Caelum.
The other three weren't as fortunate.
Both researchers were thrown by the shockwave. One slammed into the rocky slope and dropped instantly. The other rolled several yards before going still.
The barrier mage tried to reinforce her spell.
"I can still—"
She never finished.
An invisible force struck her head-on and hurled her into the wall of the gorge.
Her body hit the ground.
She didn't get back up.
"Shit!" Blazer drew his sword.
I quickly checked the three of them.
They were breathing.
But none were conscious.
Out of the fight.
The dust began to settle.
A woman was crouched in the center of a newly formed crater.
One knee touched the shattered stone, a hand resting against the fractured ground while long dark hair fell across her face.
She slowly stood.
She was tall. Two long horns curved backward from her head, and her black clothing resembled nothing I'd seen among Morgause's demons. It wasn't armor. It wasn't a military uniform.
It looked ceremonial.
Ancient.
And after falling from the sky hard enough to shake a mountain, she didn't have a single injury.
Blazer raised his sword.
"Who the hell are you?"
The woman didn't even look at him.
Her eyes went directly to me.
She smiled.
"So you came."
A chill ran down my back.
That voice.
It wasn't identical to the one I'd heard inside my head. That one had sounded distant and distorted, as though it had crossed an impossible distance to reach me.
But the cadence was the same.
The same calm.
"It was you."
Blazer stretched one arm in front of me.
"Nellie, stay back."
The stranger kept watching me.
"I hoped you would recognize the way after what I showed you."
My stomach tightened.
She knew.
"What did you show me?" I asked. "Say it."
Her smile widened slightly.
"Your Queen."
Blazer moved.
His sword crossed the distance between them in an instant. I knew his style well enough to see that he wasn't trying to kill her; the angle was meant to stop just short of her body and force her back.
The woman raised one hand.
Two fingers caught the blade.
That was all.
Blazer froze.
"What...?"
He pulled.
The sword didn't move a single inch.
The woman tilted her wrist.
Blazer was hurled several yards through the air and hit the ground hard.
"Blazer!"
I raised my staff.
"Nellie, wait." Caelum extended an arm in front of me without taking his eyes off the woman. "We still don't know what we're dealing with."
Blazer began pushing himself back to his feet behind us.
The stranger seemed vaguely amused by the entire situation.
Caelum took a cautious step forward.
"Who are you?"
She looked at him.
"Valeriam."
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to Caelum.
He went still.
"Valeriam..."
The woman smiled.
Blazer finally stood, brushing dirt from his clothes.
"Judging by your face, I'm supposed to know that name."
"Not exactly." Caelum frowned, searching through a memory that seemed buried very deep. "I thought the name was a later corruption. Something created by centuries of copying damaged records."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
Caelum never took his eyes off Valeriam.
"The Five Goddesses."
Valeriam didn't correct him.
Caelum drew a slow breath.
"The stories predate Aldren. They predate Caerwyn. Some may be older than our earliest calendars. They speak of five women associated with the great races of the world—figures whose power became so extraordinary that history eventually stopped remembering them merely as rulers, warriors, or mages."
Blazer returned to our side, keeping his sword ready.
"Let me guess. People started calling them goddesses."
Caelum nodded.
"The Human Goddess is described as both conqueror and protector. According to the oldest accounts, she united human peoples that had remained divided for generations, and her presence alone could decide the outcome of a war."
Valeriam listened in silence.
"The Beast Goddess belonged to the ancient semi-human peoples. Their traditions describe her as a hunter and guardian with extraordinary senses, able to cross wilderness where entire armies could not survive. Some stories credit her with teaching those peoples how to endure without submitting to stronger nations."
Caelum continued.
"The Elven Goddess was associated with the ancient forests and with forms of magic older than most systems we use today. Several texts claim she could alter the flow of mana across entire regions and that she protected the earliest elven domains during the wars of that era."
His gaze slowly returned to Valeriam.
"And the Demon Goddess."
For the first time, the woman's smile changed.
"The surviving fragments mention a demon named Valeriam," Caelum said. "A ruler predating every known demon kingdom. Some accounts describe her as the greatest protector her people ever had. Others..." He paused. "Others describe her as a calamity before whom even demons knelt."
Blazer glanced at the crater behind her.
"I'm starting to believe the second version."
"And the fifth?" I asked.
Caelum slowly shook his head.
"We don't know. The texts always speak of five, but only four identities survived. Some manuscripts are damaged precisely where the fifth should be named. In later copies, she disappears entirely." His eyes returned to Valeriam. "We don't even know which race she represented."
Valeriam gave a quiet laugh.
"But you do," Caelum said.
"Of course."
"Who was she?"
Valeriam was silent for a moment.
"There are things that were forgotten for a reason."
Caelum looked ready to press further, but Blazer raised a hand.
"Wait. Before the history lesson continues... are you saying she's literally a goddess?"
"We don't know whether that word was originally meant literally," Caelum replied. "Some traditions claim all five were born divine. Others say they began as mortals and reached such extreme levels of power that people eventually worshiped them."
"And what happened to them?"
"They disappeared. Death, sealing, a prolonged sleep... the accounts contradict one another."
Valeriam stepped forward.
Something changed.
She didn't cast a spell.
She simply stopped hiding whatever she'd been holding back.
Pressure descended over the entire gorge.
The ground cracked beneath my boots. One of Caelum's instruments split apart in his hand, and every muscle in my body tightened on instinct.
It was mana.
But it was more than mana.
It felt like standing too close to something my body understood as dangerous even if my mind couldn't measure why.
Valeriam looked over us.
"Queen. Mother. Tyrant. Protector. Monster. Savior." Her gaze moved slowly from one face to another. "I heard many names before I slept."
Caelum went pale.
Valeriam smiled.
"But it seems one survived."
"The Demon Goddess," Caelum murmured.
"That's right."
Blazer slowly exhaled.
"Still a pretty pretentious title."
I stared at him.
"Now?"
"She stopped me with two fingers." He tightened his grip on his sword. "Let me keep something resembling dignity."
Caelum stepped toward Valeriam.
"If you truly are who you claim to be, then you've awakened after thousands of years."
"As you can see."
"Did the Rupture wake you?"
Something shifted behind her smile.
"So that's what you call it now."
Caelum took another step.
"Then if your awakening is connected to the Rupture, there's a possibility the other Goddesses could also—"
"Where is Morgause?"
My voice cut through his.
Caelum fell silent.
I didn't care about the other Goddesses.
Not yet.
We could reconstruct thousands of years of lost history after Morgause was no longer chained somewhere.
Valeriam focused on me again.
"So we've finally reached what actually matters to you."
"You sent the vision."
"Yes."
"And the voice was yours."
"Yes."
"Why?" I stepped toward her. "Why did you want me to come here?"
Valeriam held my gaze.
"Because I needed to meet you."
I didn't like that answer.
"Where is Morgause?"
She didn't answer.
I tightened my grip on my staff.
"I asked you a question."
"You speak of the current Demon Queen with considerable familiarity."
The word current irritated me immediately.
As if Morgause were temporary.
As if her title meant nothing beside Valeriam's.
"Her name is Morgause."
"I know."
"Then use it." Mana gathered around me as I took another step. "Where is Morgause?"
Valeriam studied me for several seconds.
"Morgause..."
Hearing her name in that voice made my fingers tighten further around my staff.
I expected her to point toward the mountains.
To explain the chains.
To tell me Morgause was imprisoned somewhere inside the anomaly.
To give me somewhere to run.
A chance.
Anything.
Valeriam only smiled.
Not cruelly.
With absolute calm.
"The Morgause you're looking for..." Her eyes remained fixed on mine. "I killed her."