The Conjuration Wizard

Death.

Everything seemed sharper in this state, stripped bare of mortal limitations. The benefit to being in this state was that I now could enjoy the benefits of having both my eyes and arms again, the downside is that I’m dead.

I hovered there, a pulse of memory and will in the infinite stillness. I thought of Luna — of her laughter, her quiet strength, the warmth of her beside me on those long, silent nights. I had promised her I’d come back, no matter what. Now, that vow lingered with a bitter edge. I’d failed again. I was here, and she was… I didn’t know where she was or what she would think when she realized I was gone.

A weight settled over me, a sorrow I hadn’t quite expected.

Back on Earth, I had been a Dungeon Master, a storyteller, a few times have I guided others through the very paths of the dead in our games, describing the Boneyard with its towering spires, vast fields of souls, and Pharasma’s glistening palace atop the center spire. And now here I was, another soul about to enter her halls. All the rules, the lore, the knowledge I had obtained over the years was pointless.

Knowledge itself could not wake me from this slumber.

Knowledge itself could not bridge the gap back to the waking world of the living.

Knowledge itself could not bring me back to Luna.

The fog that blanketed my perception lifted, revealing the gleaming structure of Pharasma’s Palace at the heart of this endless purgatory. A magnificent edifice of white marble, its walls pulsed with an inner glow that seemed to reflect every soul that had ever passed through it. The black onyx floor was polished, gleaming, the very image of death’s finality beneath the pure light of birth. Pharasma was both ends of existence, and this palace was her temple, her throne, her domain over the greatest mystery of all.

I felt a pull, as if the palace itself had called me, bypassing the endless throng of souls flowing through the River of Souls. By all rights, I should have been among them, waiting my turn like the rest. Yet, here I stood, ahead of the tide, as though my judgment had been expedited.

Perhaps she already knew everything. Perhaps she wanted to speak with me personally before making her decision. Or maybe she had simply decided my fate required swift resolution. Then again, it could have been all of these things woven together, her will driving the course of events.

At the entrance, I recognized the towering forms of two vanth psychopomps, their dark wings folded like funeral shrouds against their skeletal frames. They were ancient creatures, angels of death, each masked by a vulture’s visage and holding an ornate scythe that shone with symbols from an era long forgotten. The symbols seemed to shift and glimmer, I knew that it was an exercise in futility to try to read them; they were promises made in another world, in a language from an age long since forgotten.

I took a breath — or something like a breath. The weight of loss hung heavy on my heart. It was tempting to give in to that sadness, to let myself crumble here at the edge of everything.

But then I remembered Luna, remembered the way her voice steadied me, her promises that we were stronger together than anything we could face alone. She wouldn’t give up on me. I couldn’t give up on her. I’d promised her I’d always come back after all. No matter the cost, I would find a way.

Besides, I’d hate to become a liar.

Steeling myself, I reached for Promise out of instinct, craving the solidity of the sword, the comfort of Luna’s mark on its pommel. My fingers brushed against nothing but empty air. Promise wasn’t here, and a hollow ache blossomed in my chest, somehow deeper than the loss of life itself was the lost Promise. It felt as though I'd left a key piece of myself behind, and the absence stung as sharply as any wound. I missed the feel of it, the certainty it brought with its mere presence, its silent reminder of Luna and the promises we swore.

But this was the realm of death, after all. Souls left behind all things of the living world — weapons, armor, bodies, and eventually even their memories. I had nothing to hold onto here but my own will.

I lifted my gaze to the two vanths, their silent, skeletal faces watching me with the stillness of the grave. Dark wings draped over their forms, feathers frayed and heavy with the passage of countless eons. I took a breath that was more out of habit than out of necessity and moved forward, each step echoing on the onyx floor beneath me. The two vanths shifted slightly as I approached, their scythes poised like silent guardians of all that lay beyond life’s threshold. Their empty eyes locked onto me, waiting.

“I am Sebastian Hilam,” I said, my voice sounding small and strange in the endless silence of Pharasma’s domain. "I have come to petition the Lady of Graves."

They did not speak, but their heads tilted ever so slightly, their hollow eyes seeming to weigh my soul, as though testing the depth of my resolve and the sincerity of my request. The silence was deafening, broken only by the distant hum of the palace itself, an eternal monument to the endless cycle of life and death.

For a moment, I wondered if they would turn me away, dismiss me with a sweep of those immense scythes, relegating me to the lines of souls that waited in endless submission for judgment. But then, one of the vanths, with the faintest creak of bone, extended a boney hand toward the palace’s entrance, a wordless invitation into the unknown depths of Pharasma’s domain. I felt a chill, a pang of unease, but I nodded, straightening myself as best I could and stepping forward.

The other vanth fell into step beside me, a silent guide as we crossed the threshold into Pharasma’s Palace. The light shifted here, neither warm nor cold, glowing from the walls and ceiling in a way that felt less like illumination and more like an echo of souls themselves, mingling into a mosaic of memories long forgotten. The white marble walls towered on either side, each inlaid with veins of glistening onyx that seemed to pulse faintly, as though the palace itself were alive with the spirits who had passed through these halls in ages long since passed.

Every step we took resounded through the stillness, a reminder that this was no place for the living. I was in the heart of death’s domain, guided by ancient psychopomps into the depths of the unknown, surrounded by the whispers of those who had come before and the faint hum of the souls who awaited their final judgments.

I clenched my hands, a pang of longing filling me once again as I remembered Promise, the weight of it in my grip, the comfort it gave me on long, lonely nights when duty kept me from my love. But that was behind me now. Only one thing mattered now — far more valuable than the blade itself, was the promise I had made to find my way back to her.

The ever silent vanths guided me through the winding, towering halls, each step leading me deeper into the heart of Pharasma’s Palace. The light grew dimmer as we progressed, fading into an ethereal glow that seemed to resonate from the stones themselves. Everything somehow felt heavy here — not physically, but in a spiritual manner, as though the air carried the weight of countless lives and secrets, whispers from souls lost to the annals of history.

Soon, we came to a stop before a massive set of double doors, standing tall against the marble walls and onyx floors. They were ancient, towering, and oppressive, with carvings that wound their way across the surface in patterns that defied logic. The markings — no, they were more than that, they were words — formed a language that pulled at some primal place within me. Its beauty was grim, harsh, and raw, and it seemed to speak of forgotten realms, secrets so old that even the gods themselves must have forgotten them.

The vanths’ scythes bore the same cryptic inscriptions, etched into their blades in jagged, angular lines that seemed to pulse with the significance of something unknowable. I could feel it calling to me, though I couldn’t comprehend a single symbol. Whatever language it was, it was beyond anything I’d ever encountered, something so ancient it felt woven into the very fabric of death itself.

The vanths stopped on either side of the doors, turning to face each other, their skeletal forms solemn and still. With a slow, unified motion, they lifted their scythes, crossing them in front of the door in a silent ritual that felt almost reverent. A resonant hum filled the air, like a low droning chant that came from nowhere and everywhere, vibrating through the stone, through my bones — or what constituted bones for a spirit.

I braced myself as the hum deepened into a soft rumble. The doors began to shift, stone grinding against stone, as they slowly parted. The doors opened with a solemn grace, revealing a vast chamber that seemed paradoxically endless and finite, filled with an ethereal light that neither illuminated nor shadowed but simply was.

In the center of the throne room sat Pharasma herself, a figure of cold, unyielding authority. Her ashen skin held the pallor of both birth and death, her eyes a blank, haunting white, as if they could see through time itself. She was cloaked in a dark robe that flowed around her like wisps of smoke, her fingers resting lightly on an hourglass filled with red sand. Her gaze was distant yet somehow exacting, like she could see through every inch of the soul.

Before her throne, with the dignity and weight of ages, was Aldin. But he wasn’t the same as I remembered. His feathers had taken on a shadowed, silvery hue, and his eyes, always so bright and familiar, now glimmered with the wisdom — or weariness — of lifetimes. Aldin's soul felt older than the familiar who’d perched on my shoulder and chirped insults through our countless shared nights. Here, he seemed timeless, a reflection of something far beyond the comparably short amount of time we’d shared on Equis.

Pharasma's voice was low and steady, each word resonating with the cadence of fate itself. “Our pact holds, spirit. You shall be given your moment, but when it ends, you will be reincarnated, bound to my cycle once more.”

Aldin inclined his head, the way he did when he was deep in thought or in rare moments of humility. “I understand, Lady of Graves,” he replied, his voice laced with a deep, reverberating calm. He looked up, and for the first time, his gaze turned toward me.

Seeing him, I felt an ache cut through the numbness that had settled over me since my death. “Aldin,” I murmured, my own voice sounding faint and hollow in this vast chamber, but I knew it reached him all the same.

Aldin ruffled his feathers, his beak tipping in a wry, almost nostalgic smile. “Seb… you look terrible.” He cocked his head with a warmth that was strangely comforting, even here. “Getting killed by a giant horse-bug, of all things. I knew you had terrible taste, but really?”

A dry chuckle escaped me before I could stop it, a familiar blend of fondness and irritation. “Trust me, it wasn’t my plan.”

Aldin looked me over, his gaze carrying the weight of one who’s seen this path tread too many times. “You always had a knack for finding trouble. Even here, standing before the Gray Lady herself.” He turned back to Pharasma, dipping his head respectfully before she looked between us, almost as if studying the last shared breaths of two souls intertwined.

The goddess’s expression remained impassive, but a faint shift in her posture made it clear she was observing, waiting as if this farewell was something she had seen countless times before and yet held it as an invaluable significance of its own.

“You know,” Aldin’s voice softened, turning reflective, “I always thought if I had to go, I’d be going out after you. But it seems the tides turned.” He looked up at me, his gaze searching, almost as if he were trying to memorize me before our paths diverged.

The realization hit me like a blow — he was truly leaving, truly about to be reborn. Soon he would be whisked away to the Lake of Mortal Reflections to undergo reincarnation.

I looked at Aldin, really looked at him, his body softened and made ghostly by the light filtering from our shared state of death. There was no edge of sarcasm in his gaze, no teasing gleam. Instead, there was a somberness there, a depth I hadn’t seen there before. His feathers had a spectral shimmer, and his eyes — far older, far wiser than I remembered.

Aldin broke the silence first, his voice a gentle rasp that managed to carry through the vastness of the chamber. “Seb… I’m proud of you. You fought for something worth fighting for. Not everyone does that.” He shifted his wings, almost in a shrug, but the sentiment held firm. “You’ve done better than I could’ve imagined… better than I think you know.”

Something in me cracked open at that. There was so much I wanted to say, too many memories and inside jokes that rose unbidden, too many moments when he’d stood beside me, my best friend, my best-buddy. But I swallowed all that, gathering myself into a simple truth.

“I love you, Aldin. I always have.”

His feathers ruffled softly, his form rippling as he regarded me with a look that spoke of countless memories. I stepped forward, reaching out, and he extended a wing, brushing it against my hand. In that moment, he felt as real as ever. We both knew what was coming next, but in that moment it didn’t matter.

“I’ll find you,” the words slipped out before I could swallow them back. “When you reincarnate… I’ll find you. I swear it. I’ll—”

Aldin cut me off, his eyes narrowing with a flash of warning. “Seb, don’t make promises you can’t keep.” His gaze held mine, unyielding, a silent reminder that some things are beyond even us. “I’ve seen more years than you can imagine, died a few times too, and this old fool doesn’t want you shedding tears over me. Alright? I’m grateful I got to share a little of that time with you.”

The words hung between us, then faded as a subtle shimmer appeared beside Pharasma. A portal materialized, rippling with a soft blue light, beyond which lay an endless expanse of water. The Lake of Mortal Reflections — the place where souls go to wash away their former selves before reincarnation, to shed memories of lives past like leaves drifting from branches.

Aldin gave me one last look, his wry smile surfacing as he spread his wings, poised on the edge of everything we’d known together. “Goodbye, Sebastian,” he murmured, his voice a soft whisper that only I would hear.

Then, he soared.

Through the portal, he merged with that blue expanse of water before vanishing from sight altogether. The portal snapped shut as quickly as it had appeared, leaving me alone with Pharasma, and the silence that was filled with the echoes of his parting words.

The silence stretched, vast and cold.

Pharasma’s gaze held steady, her white eyes unblinking. I could feel something shifting beneath the surface of that impassive expression of hers — some distant weight, like the tolling of an ancient bell in the depths of an endless cavern.

Then she spoke, her voice as ancient as the stones of her palace. “Sebastian Hilam,” she said, as if my name was both familiar and foreign to her. “This is not the first time you stand before me.”

Her words stopped me cold, snapping me out of my mourning. “Not… the first time?”

A slow nod was her response. “You have entered my palace once before. We have spoken before. You — and I — entered into a pact.”

The concept of it twisted through me, thick and heavy. “A pact?” My voice sounded thin, ghostly in the expanse of her throne room. “I don’t remember… anything like that.”

“That is by design. The memory of it was taken at your request. You wished for clarity of mind, unfettered by what you described as a ‘distraction’ to your magical studies. I obliged.”

The pieces fell into place like puzzle fragments soaked in fog. I had asked for this? I had willingly erased such a thing? "But why? What would lead me to—"

Her expression softened just slightly, an infinitesimal shift that would be missed by almost anyone, but I saw it, a crack in the cold stone of her timeless exterior. The expression alone was more than enough to cut me short. “The pact was made to deal with something outside my cycle — an anomaly, something that does not belong and yet persists still. You referred to it as the ‘Nothingness.’”

A faint shiver crept through me at the mention. The Nothingness. The void I’d glimpsed twice now, with those terrible, disembodied eyes — gold encircled by sickly green, staring into me from the depths of a place beyond the mundane. That presence had haunted me, its whispers gibbering just beyond the edge of language. My chest felt tight, an instinctive reaction, as though the memory alone were enough to summon it.

“I presented you with two choices: return the Nothingness to the cycle or submit to judgment," she said, her voice like tempered steel. “You chose the former. The pact you made with me sets a path for this, and if you choose to uphold it, that purpose will shape you."

I swallowed, or tried to. "And if I stick to this pact… I’d return to Equis?”

Pharasma nodded, the barest inclination of her head. “You would be resurrected, yes, but changed. The pact dictates that your resurrection must be completed through the Nothingness. It will not be pleasant.”

Her words lingered in the cold, hushed air. Return to Equis, to my life, to… Luna. But at what cost? As if sensing my doubt, she extended a pale, graceful hand to the chamber around us, her robe of black whispering softly as it shifted.

"Alternatively," she continued, her voice deepening, "you may choose judgment now. I would send you on to the afterlife of your choice. A realm within the cycle awaits, offering peace — or purpose, if that is your calling. You would become part of something greater, as all souls must, eventually."

Her words carried the weight of finality, and I felt the ground beneath me begin to tremble. The afterlives — the realms of angels, archons, devils, demons, and so much more — places that would erase me, as I was, forever. I would lose everything, become something other. My love for Luna, the memories of those nights under her stars, the laughter, the heartache, the promises…

“I see that you understand what is at stake,” she said, watching me. “The afterlives are… thorough. Complete. They take your essence, reshape it, and you become what is needed in the beyond. The person you are now, Sebastian Hilam, would cease.”

Her voice softened, just slightly, a flicker of something that might have been compassion. “The decision is yours, and yours alone. The pact, or the cycle. But know that whatever you choose, I will uphold my end.”

I breathed in deeply, looking up at her, absorbing her words. “What can you tell me about this… pact? About what I agreed to?”

Pharasma’s gaze held me in its pale, timeless depths, her features as still as if they’d been carved from stone. After a long moment, she answered, her voice lowering in a way that filled the throne room with an almost mournful gravity.

“When you first crossed into death,” she began, “it was not here, not into my cycle. You were intended for the afterlife of your home world — a place I do not govern. But another force intervened.” Her tone shifted, edged with a restrained frustration I hadn’t expected. “The one you know as the ‘Nothingness’ intercepted your soul, tore you away from your destined path, and brought you here. It cast you, disoriented and formless, before me.”

I swallowed, though there was no physicality to it. I could not remember when I had first died, the most I could recall was the refreshing glass of water I drank before everything changed, but beyond that, nothing.

“It was never meant to have you,” Pharasma continued. “Nor was it within my authority to deny it. So, we struck a deal.” Her words carried the faintest tremor, and I felt a chill ripple through me. “It would surrender its claim on your soul, in exchange for an agreement that you would work toward returning it to the cycle.”

“And it let me go?” I murmured, barely believing. “Just like that?”

“Not entirely. It did… allow you to leave, but with conditions. And so I granted you the life you lived, on Equis.” Her gaze turned piercing, almost severe. “You were sent to that world, carrying this pact, which would remain unknown to you until this moment.”

My mind spun, piecing together fragments, the dread in my stomach deepening with every word. “But… why Equis? Why not… Golarion? Or Earth? Or any other plane or planet?”

“That,” Pharasma said, “was its choice, not mine. For reasons it would not divulge, it insisted upon sending you to that world. I held no sway in that matter.”

Another chill coursed through me. The Nothingness, this force so otherworldly, had chosen Equis for reasons of its own, binding me to its purpose even while it released me into another life. The pact wasn’t just something I’d made; it had been engineered — designed to guide me toward a fate it wanted me to fulfill.

A pit formed inside my soul.

I had been a pawn from the very beginning.

Pharasma shifted slightly, her robes whispering against the stone floor. “Now, you stand at the same threshold you crossed once before. To continue with the pact would mean reentering its sphere of influence, and you would experience all that it deems necessary to complete the task.” Her words hung in the air, filling the room with an unsettling sense of inevitability.

Then, with a faint wave of her hand, she gestured, and a portal appeared beside her throne, expanding outward in a cold, dark shimmer. Its depths were entirely devoid of light, an inky blackness that seemed to consume everything it touched.

“This,” she said, “is Nowhere. The place where the Nothingness waits. It is a void, barren of warmth or light, beyond even my sight. Should you choose to fulfill your pact, you will enter there.”

The portal loomed, vast and forbidding. Every instinct in me recoiled from it, the sheer emptiness of it pressing against my senses. But beyond it, somewhere in the bleak expanse, lay my path back to the world I’d left, to Luna, to the life I’d built and the place I had come to call home.

I felt Pharasma’s gaze upon me, steady, unyielding. “I have ruled over the fates of mortals and gods alike since before this universe began,” she said, her voice softer now, almost gentle. “In all that time, I have watched every thread of existence bend to one truth above all: love bears all things.”

Her words lingered in the air, more profound and immense than any I’d ever heard. Love bears all things. It struck at the heart of the choice before me, the life I’d led, the connections I’d made. That love — for Luna, for Aldin, for the world I’d come to call home — was the one thing that made me feel alive, even in this spectral form.

And as I looked into the portal, into that absolute darkness, I realized that if love could bear all things, perhaps it could carry me through Nowhere, too.

Maybe even carry me home.

I turned back to Pharasma, meeting her pale, ancient gaze, and nodded slowly. "Thank you," I said. Her advice felt like a gift — or maybe closer to a warning. Either way, I’d hold onto it.

With one last look at her, I stepped forward and let myself drift into the portal.

The darkness swallowed me whole. For a moment, I felt weightless, suspended between nothing and nowhere, in the most absolute emptiness I’d ever known. The sensation was impossible to describe, a lack of sensation itself, like everything — even the memories of who I was — could slip away and fade into the black.

Death felt far more welcoming than Nowhere.

Time began to lose its meaning. Hours could have passed, or only seconds; I floated, untethered, with no way to anchor myself to anything familiar. I tried to focus on Pharasma’s words, on Aldin’s last goodbye, on the thought of Luna waiting for me somewhere in the life I’d left behind. But even memories felt faint here, like flickers of candlelight seen from miles away.

How long had I been here? A day? A year? A century? I couldn’t tell. The void stretched on and on.

Then, like a single star breaking through a cloudy night sky, a tiny point of light appeared in the distance. It was small, faint, a pinprick in the endless darkness — but unmistakable in its existence.

Hope flared in my chest, and without thinking, I dragged myself toward it. It seemed impossible to reach, the light always just out of reach, but something urged me forward, some primal instinct to close the distance. And as I drew closer, the faint glow brightened, resolving itself into the warm, flickering glow of a campfire.

The warmth was unexpected, it was like a shadow of a memory of warmth rather than the real thing, but it was enough to make me feel… something. I moved closer toward it, watching as the firelight spilled outward, casting faint shadows in the dark.

As I stepped into the edge of the fire’s light, the whispers started.

They were soft at first, low murmurs threading through the air, but they grew louder as I moved closer, tangling together, overlapping. They sounded like the same voice, a man’s voice, yet as if dozens of versions of him were all talking at once, each arguing with the other, filling the air with the same words spoken in ways that contradicted and clashed with each other.

“…no, that’s not it, can’t you see —”

“…but it was supposed to be…”

“…only one way… wrong, it’s all wrong…”

The words blurred together into a cacophony that prickled at the edges of my mind, impossible to truly understand, like listening to a single echo splintered into a thousand pieces. I tried to focus on one voice, one phrase, anything that could make sense of it all, but every word was drowned out by the others, all too fractured to follow.

Yet even as the voices rose, something about them felt… familiar. Like a memory I couldn’t fully grasp, a thread I’d seen woven into the fabric of my life before but couldn’t pull loose. This place made it hard to remember anything, or anyone.

Step by step, I moved closer to the fire, its glow pushing back against the dark, warm and almost tangible. The whispers faded as I neared the campfire, the discordant murmurs receding into silence. The tension eased, the quiet settling over me like a blanket.

Seated at the fire’s edge, facing away from me, was a man, his back straight and his shoulders rigid. The firelight cast his figure in shadow, obscuring his features. He was perfectly still, his gaze fixed on the flames, as if he’d been waiting there for ages, for something — or someone.

I stepped closer, my mind finding stable ground as I moved into the fire’s clarifying light, leaving the darkness behind. The silence was absolute, the whispers vanishing completely as if they’d never been there at all.

As I entered the full glow of the campfire, the man turned slightly, giving me a profile view of his face. His irises were gold encircled with sickly green, they almost seemed to pulse with some sort of latent power. The fire's light revealed lines of exhaustion that were etched deeply into his features. He looked familiar in a way that was both impossible and undeniable, as if I were staring into a mirror set years into the future. His face held the unmistakable structure of my own, but aged — worn down, haunted by some endless strain. The recognition hit me like a lightning bolt, knocking the breath from my nonexistent-lungs.

Meridin.

My first character I ever put to paper. A name I rarely — if ever — think about, yet here he was, real, seated at a fire that burned with a light that somehow felt both inviting and unsettling. I tried to form words, to make sense of the impossible scene unfolding before me.

“Sebastian Hilam,” the man finally said, his voice rough, worn by a fatigue that seemed to run deeper than bone. He didn’t look up as he spoke, but the tone carried a strange warmth — or maybe it was just a familiarity, one soul recognizing another across whatever strange divide had brought us here. “Come. Sit.”

I hesitated, taking in the lines of his face, the fire’s light casting hollow shadows in his eyes. Part of me still reeled from seeing him, from the sheer impossibility of it. I took a few slow steps forward and sank onto the opposite side of the fire, still watching him, as if he might vanish at any second.

After a moment of silence, he lifted his gaze and finally looked at me directly. Eyes of gold encircled by sickly green — hazel eyes. And in that instant, I knew. The flickering light danced in his eyes, but behind it was something fractured, something deeply, fundamentally broken.

“Meridin…” I breathed, the name feeling strange on my lips, a relic from a life I hadn’t lived but had once imagined down to the smallest detail. He offered a small, weary nod in response, an acknowledgment that said more than words ever could.

“Yes,” he replied, voice barely above a murmur. His eyes turned back to the flames, and for a moment, he looked as though he were peering through them, past them, into some other plane of memory. “It’s… complicated,” he continued, his voice trembling just slightly. “But the simplest answer is this: I am the Nothingness.”

The fire crackled softly, but the silence that followed was so dense it felt as if the sound barely registered. I could feel my thoughts stumbling over themselves, struggling to process his words, his admission. This was the Nothingness? The formless, incomprehensible presence that had haunted me atop the Crystal Mountains — that had chased Luna and I through the Dreamscape to the Tree of Harmony and thus set off the series of events that led to this very moment?

It was him all along? The eyes matched at least...

A strained silence stretched between us, the campfire casting flickering shadows across his face. His gaze remained locked on the flames, unwilling to meet my eyes, as he continued, “Every time I try to leave this place… to stray from the light of this fire…” His voice wavered, and he swallowed hard. “The madness takes over. The whispers return, the… the pieces of myself that were shattered… that I unmade.”

He paused, his expression tightening, as if the memory alone threatened to bring those fragments to life. “It’s like being broken into a thousand shards, each one a piece of who I was, who I am. And every time I try to put them back together, they only clash, contradicting one another, each memory twisted against the others.”

I stared, struggling to make sense of it all, to imagine what such an existence must feel like. What it must have taken to be here, to hold onto anything resembling sanity within that fractured reality.

Meridin’s gaze softened as he finally looked back at me, and for the first time, I saw something else in his eyes — regret, raw and deeply rooted. “I never wanted this… any of this to reach you. The pain, the chaos. Whatever burden I carry… it should have stayed with me.” His voice grew even softer, tinged with sorrow. “I am sorry, Sebastian. For everything that’s happened. For everything that will happen.”

The weight of his words settled over me, a strange blend of apology and warning. Whatever this existence of his had become, whatever struggles lay behind those tired, haunted eyes, he hadn’t meant for it to touch my life. And yet, here we were, the flames casting strange shadows between us in the depths of Nowhere.

I sat in silence, the campfire crackling softly between us. Meridin’s words twisted in my mind, heavy and sharp. He was sorry? For everything that had happened? For everything that had touched my life because of him?

A slow, simmering heat rose within me, far more potent than the gentle warmth of the fire. “Sorry?” I spat, my voice sharp and bitter. “You’re sorry?” I leaned forward, fists clenched tightly at my sides. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through? What you put me through? What you have done to Equis? The Nothingness, the Elements of Harmony, the pact I don’t even remember making, the—” My voice faltered, anger swelling with each word. “You’ve been playing me this whole time. Haven’t you?”

Meridin flinched, a flicker of pain crossing his features, but he didn’t interrupt. He sat there, letting me vent, his gaze firmly on the flames.

“I’ve been a pawn,” I continued, my voice trembling with rage. “Dragged into something I never asked for, never agreed to. And for what? To be a piece on your twisted chessboard?”

The fire seemed to dim for a moment, its glow shrinking under the weight of my anger. The silence pressed in as I glared at him, expecting some defense, some justification. But Meridin said nothing. He just sat there, shoulders slumped, his eyes distant and tired. The firelight flickered over his face, highlighting every deep line and hollow shadow carved by years — centuries, probably — of torment.

The fury within me began to waver, like a storm losing its wind. His silence wasn’t indifference; it was something else. Something heavier. He wasn’t denying my accusations, wasn’t trying to explain them away. He was just... sitting there, bearing it.

Gods, it’s hard to stay angry at someone like this!

And that was when it hit me.

Because of him — because of whatever deal, whatever manipulation, whatever insane plan had brought me to this moment — I’d been given a second chance with a life I never would have had otherwise. I’d come to Equis, learned magic, witnessed things that I never would have begun to believe that I could see. I’d made friends. I’d found… her.

Luna.

My anger drained away like water slipping through my fingers, replaced by a wave of something far more complicated. If not for Meridin — for his meddling, his choices, his madness — I never would have met her. Never would have stood under the stars she loved so dearly, tracing constellations by her side. Never would have felt her embrace, her lips, her love. The thought of her filled me with true warmth, a steadying light in the chaos of my emotions.

“I…” I started, my voice quieter now, uncertain. “I’m angry at you, furious even, but…” I swallowed hard, the words catching in my throat. “I found her. Because of all this. I found Luna. And I wouldn’t trade that for anything. Not even this.”

Meridin finally looked up at me, his eyes glistening with an emotion I couldn’t place. Gratitude? Relief? Or maybe just a faint reflection of the same aching love I felt. He didn’t speak, but the faintest nod acknowledged my words.

The silence stretched between us again, but this time it wasn’t heavy or oppressive. It was thoughtful, contemplative, as if the fire itself were listening.

“Why?” I asked at last, my voice steady but searching. “Why me? Why Equis?”

His gaze turned back to the fire, his expression unreadable, but the question hung in the air, awaiting his answer.

Meridin stayed quiet for a moment, his face illuminated by the flickering firelight. His jaw tightened as if struggling to find the right words, his shoulders went rigid. Finally, he let out a sigh, the sound carrying the weariness of countless years.

“I chose Equis because of its harmonic magic. I had hoped that the Tree of Harmony could have… finished me off, but that didn’t work out. So now It has to be you, Sebastian,” he said, his voice quiet but unwavering. “Because of the connection we share.”

My brows furrowed in confusion. “Connection? What connection?”

He looked up at me then, his eyes heavy with something I couldn’t quite place — regret, longing, perhaps even hope. “You created me,” he said simply.

“What?” I stammered, my voice rising. “I created you? What the hell does that even mean?”

Meridin’s gaze didn’t waver. “I was your first. Your first creation, back when you were alive on Earth. You poured your imagination, your creativity, your will into me. You gave me my strengths, my flaws, my goals, my very essence. You made me who I am, Sebastian. And because of that… there’s a link between us. One that stretches across realities, across lifetimes.”

I stared at him, my mind reeling. It sounded impossible, absurd even, but the weight in his voice, the earnestness in his expression… it felt like truth.

“You’re saying… you exist because I made you? That’s why this link exists?”

He nodded, the faintest ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “Yes. When I was unmade by the Singularity, my existence was erased and my touch upon reality was neglected, but our link remained through the unmaking. And because of that link, you’re the only one who I could reach, you’re the only one who can help me.”

I frowned, my anger resurfacing, though muted now by my confusion. “Help you how? What exactly are you asking me to do here, Meridin?”

His gaze fell back to the fire, his features cast in sharp relief by its glow. “I need to reenter the cycle,” he said softly. “To finally be free of this… paradoxical existence. To move on, like every soul is meant to.” He paused, his voice thickening. “But I can’t. Not alone.”

“Why not?” I pressed, though part of me already knew the answer.

“My mythic power,” he admitted, his tone bitter. “It’s what’s keeping me here, stuck in this state of neither living nor dying. It’s what’s holding my psyche together — barely. If I try to burn through it, to destroy it so I can enter the cycle, I lose myself. I lose everything.”

He met my gaze again, his eyes filled with a raw, desperate vulnerability I hadn’t expected to see. “Every time I’ve tried, the fractured pieces of my mind… they take over. The whispers, the madness. I become something else entirely. And then I end up back here, at this fire, as if nothing ever happened.”

I swallowed hard, the weight of his words settling in my chest. “And you think I can change that? You think I can help you burn through this power?”

“Yes,” he said, his voice firm. “Because of our connection. Because of your strength of soul. You’re the only one who can anchor me through it, Sebastian. The only one who can keep me from slipping into madness while I let go of the power that’s kept me trapped.”

I stared at him, my mind racing. This was insane. Impossible. And yet… I couldn’t deny the pull of his words.

Meridin’s gaze dropped back to the fire, his hands clenched tightly on his knees. “I know I’ve been a selfish bastard,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I know I’ve dragged you into something you never asked for. But I can’t do this alone. I’ve tried. Gods, I’ve tried.”

He looked up at me then, and the raw, unfiltered plea in his eyes sent a shiver down my spine. “Please, Sebastian,” he said, his voice breaking. “Help me.”

The plea hung in the air, weighty and raw, as though the entire void around us had grown still, waiting for my answer. I stared at Meridin, at the man who looked so much like me but carried the crushing burden of centuries — or longer. My emotions churned, a storm of anger, confusion, and reluctant understanding.

I wanted to scream at him, to tell him this wasn’t fair, that I never asked for this, that I didn’t deserve to be a tool used to clean up his mess. But the firelight flickered, casting shadows across his weary face, and something in me softened. He wasn’t just the arrogant, untouchable figure I’d always imagined. He was a broken man. Desperate. And he was asking for my help.

Luna’s face flashed in my mind — her soft smile, her steady gaze, the way she’d lend me her strength when I felt weak. If I turned away now, I’d never see her again. I’d never hold her, never laugh with her, never love her.

That reality was unthinkable — unacceptable.

I took a slow breath, steadying the whirlwind inside me. “If I help you,” I said, my voice low, “if I do this… does it guarantee I go back?”

Meridin’s eyes met mine, the faintest glimmer of hope in their depths. “Yes,” he said firmly. “Once we join, the power will pull us back into your body on Equis. You will live again, Sebastian. I swear it.”

I nodded, letting his words sink in. The path before me was clear now, even if it was one I’d never have chosen.

"Fine," I said at last, the word falling from my lips like a weighty vow. "I’ll help you."

Relief flooded his features, softening the tension that had etched deep lines across his face. His shoulders sagged, as though he'd been carrying a burden too heavy for one man. But just as I felt the first stirrings of resolve, a thought struck me, and I narrowed my eyes.

“This mythic power of yours,” I asked, my tone edged with caution. “Once it’s gone… will it leave anything behind in me? I need to know exactly what I’m signing up for.”

Meridin’s lips shifted into a faint, weary smile, edged with a hint of melancholy. “Your arm and eye,” he began, “my mythic power will mar those wounds permanently. No spell, not even Wish, will be able to restore them. They’ll be gone… forever.” He paused, his gaze flickering to the fire crackling between us before lifting back to mine. “But the pure seed of my power will remain, even after I am gone. A piece of what was once mine, what was the origin of my greatest power. It will become your… moment of ascension.”

I tilted my head, skepticism evident in the arch of my brow. “Down an eye and an arm permanently? And you’re calling that ‘ascension’?”

He nodded, a shadow of reverence mingling with exhaustion in his expression. “Ascension,” he repeated. “Think of it as a gift. For everything. For being caught in my chaos, for enduring where I faltered. It won’t change you unless you choose it to. But the spark will be there, waiting. Yours to wield, should you ever wish to.”

The concept unsettled me. Mythic ascension was so far removed from any goal I’d ever imagined, it might as well have been a dream from another life. Still, there was no point in arguing; the decision had already been made. My gaze dropped to my hand, then returned to him.

"Alright," I said, squaring my shoulders and steeling myself. "Let’s get this over with."

I extended my hand across the fire.

For a moment, Meridin simply stared at it, as though the gesture itself was more unbelievable than the events that had led us here. Then, slowly, he reached out. His fingers brushed mine — cool, trembling — and closed around my hand.

The fire roared to life, surging impossibly bright.

The air around us shuddered with an otherworldly force, and then everything dissolved into nothing.