Grave was… wrong. Hunter should have known from the first moment they’d met. A single creature in an empty place. His instincts could have told him what that meant, but his mind, what he’d learned from his friends, had gotten in the way.

  In fairness, he doubted Grave had been deceptive when they’d first met. He had been broken, reduced to a scrap of flesh compared to what he’d been in life. Not by anything, really. Nothing physical, or what passed for that here. No, it was time, time, and the knowledge of betrayal. That, at least, Hunter understood, because it had been one Grave had been bonded to.

  Not that it made the present any better. As soon as Grave had sensed whatever Daniel had been doing his body had fully restored itself as memories returned. Hunter would have said that meant the same for his mind, but no. He’d broken in some way, openly displaying grief and regret mixed with interminable resolve. Nothing Hunter could say would stop the god from his path, so he’d stopped trying.

  Now he was in a cage constructed from the unreal material from beneath him, formed to provide no exit. Impenetrable, and despite his nature, despite Freedom calling out for his escape, he couldn’t get through.

  The human, more than twice as tall as others of his kind, looked down once more on Hunter with shame. The cage followed each step, and thus did Hunter. Shimmering latticework temporarily thinned to allow for a more direct conversation, though the strands that remained were stronger than any of Hunter’s teeth or claws.

  “It is not long now.” Grave’s voice was despondent, a word Hunter had no reason to know and yet knew the meaning of anyway. Something odd, but then he’d always been able to understand Daniel once they’d made their bond. Either way it was an accurate description. “It will be easier if you consent. You won’t break. Will you help me?”

  Still the same tone, still the same person, but there was something underneath now that crept through the underbrush of Grave’s mind. Hunter could see it in the eyes, pitch black save for two lines of purple on each that crossed perpendicularly in the center. “No.”

  Grave looked away, but didn’t open the cage. “I have to do this. I see a glimpse of his plans. Here, and elsewhere. He wants to do it all again. I have to stop him from doing this to another world.” There was a touch of darkness when Grave mentioned ‘him’, the blackness of the eyes momentarily worming over the purple in places before that cleared. Grave shook his head and almost, but not completely, returned to how he’d been before finding the last of himself.

  “We divided the world between us. Eight pieces, balanced by opposing domains. The safest way, the most stable. Balance must be maintained. It’s written in alabaster in blood.” Grave almost bit the last word in half before spitting it out, the ground blackening where it landed. “We became too fixated on that. Too slow. Too slow. But they always came. We could never stop them, only hide until time forced their hand. We’ve done this so many times, too many times. If we’d just saw the truth and taken responsibility, you would’ve never been harmed.”

  Hunter just stared back, knowing that his refusal would land on deaf ears. Grave wasn’t looking at him at this point anyway, instead turning to one of the nearby astral creatures that had begun to spawn yesterday and unmaking it with a gesture and a frown. “Soulless. This domain should be so much more.” Grave closed a hand and, in the distance, the ground erupted around a group of creatures and left nothing there when it was over. One had been as tall as he was.

  The world shook for a moment, Grave’s eyes growing completely black as his form wavered, but then it passed. “I died here too, you know. Close enough. They almost reached that region this time. Maybe that was the breaking point. Maybe they needed that part of me they stole for your friend. They took so much, but I am a god still. Endless. And I will take it all back, if only so that I can do the right thing.”

  “This isn’t right. You aren’t right,” Hunter replied, unsure why he was trying.

  “No. But it matters not. See? Here is the cancer that eats at this world.” The world rippled around Hunter. He had already seen how distance and relativity in the astral did not match up with the real world. You couldn’t be in deep forest one moment and a mountain too in the next, nor grasslands to desert save for one place. But here, it was like that everywhere. The astral tangle Grave had prevented him from entering was not visible from far away as it should have been. Likewise, where Hunter entered now was far different from the astral he’d known, like stepping from the Thormundz into Aughal. It was a fine analogy because he felt death all around him.

  The main colors of the sky were still purple and black, but like Grave’s eyes when he angered, they ran together. The deepest of the color reached down to poison the land, making it as black as where Grave had spat. Cracked, as well, the land pushing at itself to create faults. Hunter knew without needing to be told where he had just entered.

  The Crest. Or where the Astral overlayed with it. There was a moment of wrongness inside of him as he was dragged across the boundary, a twisting inside of him that Hunter deeply feared. Grave’s eyes flashed, sensing this, and outstretched a hand to his cage. The astral material separated from the floor below and shone once more, the blackness attempting to grip it forced away.

  Hunter panted without air as the intrusion was stopped, but that wasn’t the end of the nightmare. Presences lit up from the far distance, a promise of predation like the roar of a dragon issued from its mountain. That made Grave sigh darkly. “Twisted beyond any hope of recovery, like the other. True death is their only salvation, so why should it be any different in the material? Stay firm, friend. I will need to use my full power.”

  The bars of Hunter’s cage snapped closed, completely blocking his sight. Yet, by the strange rules of this place, he could still hear as if the cage wasn’t there. Still feel the tremble in the air, the booming replies from whatever it was Grave was facing. They were all different, but had a madness similar but different from him. Some sounded human, speaking words he could understand but did not wish to with voices that bit and competed with each other to form them.

  There was no telling how long the battle lasted, only who would win. Not once did the cage around Hunter crack, and while it was shaken, he was never injured. During that time, he felt as if he were young again, hiding in the emptiness under a tree he could barely fit into while a thunderstorm raged, knowing that he was but prey to those creatures who it strengthened. He held on, emboldened by the two bonds still connected to him, and as it had before, the storm passed.

  Grave was moving again by the time the cage was opened enough that Hunter could see. Bodies still littered the ground, smoking, bubbling, liquifying, all slowly melding with the ground. “None will bother us now,” Grave said, nothing on his person marking any injury or even mild inconvenience. His clothes, which had become some form of tight vest over a shirt and pants that clung loosely to the legs. Not a scratch or scuff on them.

  The world moved in multiple directions for a moment as Grave brought them above and around an arm the width of a small hill, then settled as they reached the other side.

  Grave broke the silence after the remains were in the distance. “We are strongest in our domains.” There was an almost apolgetic tinge to the words. “There is Balance there too. Time, truth, lies, you can find these anywhere and nowhere. But there are places they are the strongest. I am somewhat unique in my domain. I was never meant to be fully here.” Grave stayed silent after that, and Hunter had an ominous feeling the ground soon confirmed.

  “What is… no, it is familiar, but I don’t remember…” Grave was staring down too now, confused. They’d come to a section of ground that remained clean of the darkness, though the sky was still tainted. The god remained on guard. “This isn’t me. Who could? Oh.” His face set after that and soon enough Hunter saw them. Three people, two men and one woman, seated in a strange pose with something in the center of their formation his eyes refused to define. It was physical, but also melded into the floor, the two impossibly connected. The astral tangle had been confusing to look at, but Hunter knew he could never understand what this was.

  “He comes again,” one said as they all opened their eyes. The three were muscular, wearing loose robes belted at the waist and not much else. They somewhat reminded Hunter of Arcanists, but the comparison didn’t fit.

  “With another? That is new.”

  “Who are you?” Grave asked, still confused, as he took in the only other things Hunter had seen here that talked. “Why is this place familiar? I have regained all but cannot remember this.”

  “I turned you back,” the first said sadly. “Again, and again. Defeated so thoroughly your mind burned the events from itself to salvage your ego. You gave me no choice.” She glanced at the others and they rose together.

  “What is it he brings, an empowered spirit?”

  “No, it has regained itself.” The second man glanced at Hunter, then back to the woman, addressing her rather than Grave. “Why does he have that soul caged?”

  “Necessary evil.” Grave answered, despite that disrespect. While he didn’t remember these people specifically, he seemed to realize something. “Illustrious. Your people were there at the betrayal. Why? Did we not open more secrets, more doors to you than any other? Did we not make such works of magic as to alter the course of the war itself?”

  “Your war,” the first spoke again, the only to directly address Grave. “We trusted you, respected you above any other, but you left us behind to rot. You say the Illustrious were favored, yet how many like us came before, only to be ground into the dust that collects in your false libraries? If the Crest is the great destroyer then you are its closest second, ruin to all but your names and system.”

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  “I was going to help you, and then you conspired with my brother to betray me!” Grave’s eyes blazed black and purple, before they dimmed again. “We have had this conversation before, then.”

  The other two turned to the first at that, and she didn’t answer Grave. “He is more lucid this time, and those eyes…” one said to her. “Something is wrong.”

  “I am resolved now. I know what has to be done. We cannot break the cycle.”

  “Because of what you took from us. The limits you imposed!” the first shouted, breaking her calm. “You could not trust in those that could grow to contest you and traded the company of dragons for an army of mice.”

  “All in the name of stability. Balance must be maintained,” Grave replied, and Hunter could pick out a strange ruefulness in his voice, stained with regret, as if he agreed in some way with the woman. He looked to Hunter, and then at the three. “I need the power of two souls. I beg of you, consent to communion and I will ensure your souls are relinquished to the Astral where they may pass on to a better world.”

  “You cannot be allowed to return now,” the woman denied, looking for a moment at Grave with a bit of unease. “Wait until we have completed our vengeance and work with us instead of those marked by the original sin. The old gods have become stuck in their ways. Stay, and return when we have triumphed and cleansed your body. Together we can finally vanquish the Old Ones and settle this system conflict. Regardless, you cannot best the three of us without that which you have foresworn.”

  The god shook his head. “I admire your optimism. I do not share it.” Grave didn’t close the cage this time. Whether he wanted Hunter to see or couldn’t spare the attention wasn’t clear. It didn’t matter, this was exactly what he’d been waiting for. Hunter began to concentrate, holding two things in his mind and desperately trying to push them together to make one. He hadn’t managed what he was attempting before, but he’d feared a true attempt would alert Grave. Now he was distracted.

  Ahead of him, the three were drowned out by a rising column of Astral almost as thick as the arm of the horror they’d passed earlier. It was no attack, but some kind of manifestation that grew clawed arms, sets of wings, and a massive fanged head that opened to reveal the woman standing within.

  “Truewyrm archetype. I see why you stand here.” That was all Grave said to the massive, coiling conjugation before him. “The other two… ah.” There was no fear in his voice, but there was a kind of concentration. The god looked up once more at the woman. “You are the only one that can stand against me.”

  “The only one here. We have not been idle in exile!” the woman roared, her voice now of the strange draconic creature in front of them reaching high into the darkness.

  “Is that so?” Grave reached down and removed a section of the ground, shaping it into a wide, flat stone, headless of the wide maw descending toward him. When he was finished, he threw the small astral rock toward the creature. It tried to swerve and avoid it, but the small creation veered toward the surface and bounced across the entire length of the wyrm as it fell. Ripples crossed the main body, and when they met on the other side, it began to violently dissolve.

  Less than mist was left in seconds, revealing first the other two of the Illustrious in deep concentration around the wrongness on the ground. A shell of the Astral formed around them in a dome, having grown fully transparent. Locking Grave from his goal.

  The god was prepared for what was coming but did not anticipate the speed or power of the blow as, carrying the velocity of the wyrm, the woman’s fist came crashing down on him. His jaw cracked as he stumbled back, raising his arm to erect a wall, though the Astral was sluggish to react to his commands.

  “I see.” Grave’s jaw cricked back into place as he placed more barriers, the woman now darting around him, seeking an opening. His emotions were calm now, left only with his drive to reach the space inside the dome. “A movement archetype, and you have learned to combine it. Of course, with all the time you’ve had. Stride? No, nothing so simple. You were one of my direct disciples, weren’t you?”

  His other hand twitched, and the woman’s next footfall missed as the Astral beneath her sank. A spike rose for her head as she fell, but she managed to blunt the end and arrest her fall as she grabbed onto it. As she rose it broke with the ground, becoming a staff in her hand. “Always the same mistake.”

  “You have the advantage of knowledge,” Grave admitted. “But this is my domain. Your path is limited and you have walked it to the end.”

  The woman remained at a distance, watching the god. He remained passive, defensive, and observing. Eventually she threw the staff like a spear. Grave stepped to the side with a frown before his eyebrows raised. The staff transformed into a small copy of the wyrm midflight, winging around to bite into him as the woman vaulted his castle walls and came for him.

  “Respectable control,” was all he said as the creature bit into him, twisting around a leg at the same time to restrict his movements. It rippled again with his influence, but he couldn’t break it apart like the larger one, not instantly. Grave ignored it after that and watched the Astral collect on the woman’s hands to form claws that tore into him as well, which did draw an exhalation of pain, before he gripped one of the woman’s arms and tore it off.

  The wyrm faded with that and the woman kicked off, but there was no despair on her face. Only faint solemn acknowledgement on Grave’s as he held an arm that did not bleed. “I will admit I loathe combat such as this. Perhaps you drove me away before, but my will is now unbreakable.” The cuts and gouges on his body repaired as the woman was slightly slower in restoring her arm. “Please, stand aside. Save us all this trouble.”

  “You cannot be allowed to return!” she shouted back, now with some strain and horror in her voice. “Can you not see what you would become if you claim that body?”

  “I know… Andrastia.” Grave stopped and looked down to one hand, clenching it. “I remember you now. Not here, but before. I ask one final time, consent before I must do what is necessary.”

  The woman looked into Grave’s eyes with wild disbelief. “You, you can not have fallen that far.” She spoke as if for all Grave was her enemy, he was betraying her respect by what he was implying.

  “Andrastia, return!” one of the two maintaining the shield shouted. “We can guard you until the way is open. Better to banish him when he returns than lose you this way.”

  “Do not-“ Grave made his first major offensive move, stepping on the Astral with such force that it scattered behind him. His control over it was simpler than his opponent, less nuanced, and more powerful for it. This was how it was for all gods. They were limited to their domain, but here, in the Astral, it was his to command.

  He struck her with the force of his will and weight of his soul. Grave did have one still, and it was that which truly warred here. Before, in the times he’d returned to where his body lay, he hadn’t been whole. What had met Hunter in the blank, astral plains would have folded like paper before this warrior.

  But the suppression on the Astral had been undone, granting it and him strength. What’s more, he had been shown what he’d needed to see to know himself, from the beginning to his end at the hands of traitors. He struck with no finesse, with only his hands, accepting blow after artful blow in return and caring for none of it. In the world below the Astral one could use resolve to extend life, especially with the right powers, but here it was life. The little spirit they’d rescued had almost been broken before they’d intervened.

  In the end, there was no contest. One who has honed themselves on countless battles against a novice found the touch of a master harder to overcome, even when wielded as a club. Grave smashed the woman to the ground, sensing the growing hopelessness and despair within her as he continued to reach with a hand that would grow fully dark as it neared her.

  That was the crux. She could absorb any amount of pain, and her control of the Astral was such that she could escape bindings if Grave had to divert his attention to undoing her companion’s shield. Then it would return to a contest of dancing wyrms and simple blows. It might have reached that point before, the god’s will unable to cross that final line needed for true victory.

  Now, with full knowledge of how and why he’d died, with his mind having shattered and been reforged for countless years only to now find a brother prepared to enact greater tragedy on another world, Grave looked down on his former apprentice as he gripped her soul. “Consent. Please.”

  She held his gaze, still defiant for all her soul wavered. “Never.”

  “So be it.” Grave had regained the power of communion, and what’s more, the ability to use it forcibly on another. An ability he had once thought abhorrent enough to nearly break with the others who would become deities. One he had once sworn to never use himself for the price it took. Every god in this world could sunder souls to fuel their domain, even those of monsters. It was where most spirits came from.

  It wasn’t until the eighth time Grave grasped with a dark hand that he won victory, squeezing the soul enough that it surrendered to his will. Andrastia vanished with a choking sob, beholding a fallen god who had abandoned the very reason he’d claimed his domain in the name of the greater good.

  Grave breathed in the first true power he’d held in millennia. He could do anything with this, so long as it was within his domain. Fuel some of the greatest works of it, bypassing normal requirements such as mana or time. He could bring himself back into the mortal world. Watching the fragments of the soul drift down into the clean Astral below him, he said, “I’m sorry, my child. I’m so sorry. Perhaps my work will be done before you manifest in the waking world.”

  “F-fundaments. We need to return,” one of the others intoned, and Grave observed them.

  “No! No, it is too late. We delay. Andrastia’s death will warn them.”

  “He-“

  “Flee and I will hobble you, if only for the satisfaction of watching him consume you first!”

  “I will break through eventually,” Grave warned them, though it was plain he wouldn’t be able to convince them to retreat. “I… I do not wish to do that again. Yet, my friend, I also do not wish to leave you here. I can ferry your soul if you…” His voice fell off as he returned to the cage and found it empty. Grave’s eyes panned outward, thinking to go to where he sensed the soul, before relenting. “Stay, then. It may be a kinder fate. Perhaps you will find a way back on your own. I wish you well, friend.”

  Walking with intent, Grave reached the barrier that separated him from returning from the Astral to true life and placed a single hand upon it. As all three watched, a small crack began to form.

  …

  Hunter finally broke free of the cursed Astral, fleeing from the Crest. He didn’t stop running as he no longer trusted Grave’s word on astral movement. The god had kept secrets, like the one that had allowed him to escape.

  Hunter had known combining powers was possible, and this had been key to their victories in the Spire before reaching the eye. Desperate, with limited options, he had tried fusing Freedom and Hunt. The two archetypes within offered a key to the cage and the path out respectively. He’d tried freedom alone, of course, but Grave’s had always caught on and done something to stop him from leaving.

  With Hunt he could stalk, move outside the awareness of a distracted foe. In his core, amid the fighting, he had managed to push them together to make… well, he wasn’t sure. The result of the mixing held in his head for only moments at a time, long enough for him to pass through the bars of the cage, but not long enough to define what it was he’d grasped before it flitted away.

  After that, he’d used Hunt to help him move faster away from Grave until the creeping wrongness around him grew too great to behold. Freedom took its place, but even then the atmosphere corroded at his mind, trying to take it. Hunter ran, focusing his intent on his friend as hard as he could, letting that lifeline guide him from an ocean of madness.

  Now he was free. And alone. Hunter didn’t know for sure but hoped Grave wasn’t following him. There were newly manifested things here, but unlike the horrors they were all weak. Some were large, or looked like they had the potential to be strong, but they were all too new. Young, but growing.

  Hunter ran and ran and ran, ignoring all but his friend, knowing now that if he did not find some other way back to life, a truer death than the one he’d suffered in Aughal would find him.