They made a slow circuit of the rest of the town. The gardens, the theater where a play was to be performed later that evening. The main square where festivals were held throughout the year. They passed and met so many people, all of them happy, relaxed, and welcoming.

  Kar loved every minute of it. Not just to see life here, tucked away, kept safe, preserved whole for all this time. He was able to forget for a short while all the pain and horrors they had seen since coming to Iridess and discovering this Vault.

  “One more thing you’ve got to see.” Lore said, dragging Kar by the hand.

  Derek strolled along behind them, that cylinder out of its wrapping and slung across his back. Its strap ran diagonally across his chest. Lore too held her hammer in her left hand. It made quite the contrast against that green dress of hers. Feeling pressured, Kar had tucked his pair of stilettos behind the belt he wore, just behind the small of his back.

  The light was starting to fade, and from this part of Darby the fortress was visible, towering atop the closest ridge. Kar was trying to orient everything in his head. They must have made their assault from the opposite side of the fortress from here when they first arrived.

  Lore led them to a large slope on the town’s edge. It looked like a memorial of some sort. There were statues and plaques arrayed before a vast set of semicircular steps leading downward. At the base of those steps sat three, towering arches. There was open air beneath each one.

  “What are these?” Kar asked, slowing to take in the sight.

  “These are the Causeways!” Lore said, starting down the steps. “They’re all closed now, but supposedly, they used to open up into these giant portals.”

  Kar stopped altogether, suddenly feeling uneasy. Something about this place stirred something in his memory, a distant echo. He tried to place it but couldn’t. Instead, he just paused to admire the colossal constructs.

  So this was how people used to travel between the Hub Realms and Dara. Where the wars against the Shadowcryst once raged.

  “Come look at them up close!” Lore shouted as she continued to race downwards, holding the hem of one side of her dress in her right hand, that hammer in her left.

  “We’ll be right there!” Derek called after her. Then he grabbed Kar by the arm to hold him back. “So, hey. I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but just haven’t really had the right chance to.”

  “Yeah?” Kar asked, intrigued.

  “Yeah, about Lore.”

  Kar furrowed his eyebrows together, confused.

  “Listen,” Derek continued, “I’ll just come out and say it. I’ve had a thing for Lore since I first met her. It’d be hard not to.”

  Kar shifted uncomfortably, his breath catching in his throat.

  “Don’t get it twisted or misunderstand me,” Derek said, holding up a hand, “It’s obvious how you feel, and what she wants. And I’m not part of that picture, which is fine, I accept that. My point is this, she’s not going to push it. If you want to be more than just friends with her, you can be, but you’re going to have to be the one to initiate it, ok? I’m telling you this as your friend and because I know how you are. You can’t be timid here, man.”

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  Kar blinked, trying to process what Derek was telling him. He knew he shouldn’t be surprised his friend would have feelings for Lore too. He just felt like an idiot for not seeing it before now.

  “I mean, is it that obvious? How I feel?” Kar said.

  Derek laughed, his eyes squinting together. “It couldn’t be more obvious.”

  Kar pushed him lightly on the shoulder, “Oh Rift, don’t say that.”

  “Hey, there’s a reason she flirts with you like she does.”

  Kar nodded, trying to sort out his thoughts. “The thing is, it’s not a good time for me, to be thinking about stuff like this. We’re trying to get back, get out of here, and…” he glanced down at his void arm, “things have gotten… strange.”

  “I don’t think there’s a perfect or right time for most things in life, Kar. You just have to take the opportunities you can when they’re in front of you, you know?”

  Kar looked down at his feet, finding it difficult to entertain the idea of putting himself out there—telling Lore how he really felt about her.

  Which was how, exactly?

  His initial reaction was that things were complicated. But was it, really? Kar thought about her all the time. Had to control his heart rate and breathing whenever he saw, or spoke to her. Worried about her whenever she might be in danger. He realized he cared deeply about what she thought. What she felt. But the thing was, how could he really know what she truly felt? How well did he really know her?

  He took a deep breath, looking up at Derek. His friend smiled then gave him a slight push, “Go talk to her at least, see where things go. I’m gonna make myself scarce. I’ll meet you guys back at the inn later.”

  Derek strode off back down the street, one hand in his pocket, the other cradling his boxed Cylinder.

  Kar watched him go and felt a pang of something bittersweet. Almost guilt. He wasn’t sure if he deserved a friend like Derek.

  After a moment, he finally started down the steps to the large platform where the Causeways stood. Lore was waiting down there for him, smiling.

  “Where’s Derek going?” She asked as Kar reached her side.

  “He said he would meet us back at the inn.”

  “That’s weird.” Lore replied, reaching out and grabbing Kar by the hand again, “Well, I guess he’s already seen it. But come on, look at the patterns in the arches!”

  Kar’s chest felt tight. He knew this was his chance. Why was it so hard to work up the nerve?

  She dragged him along to the base of the central Causeway. Its crystalline stone etched with elaborate patterns, sweeping lines and swirling geometries. Kar’s mouth opened partially in awe. Why did he feel like he’d seen something like this before? With the same intricate lines…

  Lore led him to the archway’s base. As he approached, his right arm began to pulse.

  Not sharply. Not urgently. Just… insistently. Like a second heartbeat, out of sync with the first.

  Kar slowed.

  The recessed slot at the base of the Causeway caught his eye. He hadn’t noticed it from above. It was narrow and precise. Purpose-built.

  His shadowcryst fingers twitched.

  No, he thought.

  Lore’s voice drifted to him, distant. “Kar?”

  His arm pulled.

  Not violently. At first. Just enough that he felt the strain in his shoulder as if resisting a current.

  He clenched his left hand into a fist. His vision dimmed at the edges. The world seemed to narrow to the space between his right palm and the stone.

  NO.

  He forced his arm to stop. Willed it to halt. It did, quivering a span away from the slot.

  The pulsing slowed.

  Air rushed back into his lungs. Sound returned all at once—Lore calling his name, the wind through the arches, his heartbeat thundering in his ears.

  “I—I’m alright,” Kar said hoarsely. “I don’t think we should be here.”

  Lore’s smile had faded. “Yeah,” she said quietly, reaching out to rest a hand on Kar’s left forearm. “I think you’re right.”

  Her touch was soothing, reassuring, and distracting. In that moment, his dominion over his shadow arm slipped.

  Pain ripped through him.

  The same he’d felt when Melisdra had severed his arm, and it had regrown itself.

  Kar screamed as black void-cryst surged from the end of his arm, erupting outward in a jagged, savage point that drove itself forward—and slammed into the recessed slot.

  Kar threw himself backward and the void-cryst growth that had sprung from him snapped off, now embedded into the archway.

  The Causeway pulsed, and light rippled across the empty space that spanned beneath its arch. It coalesced to reveal a massive tunnel of—what must have been—absolute darkness. Shadowy figures stirred within, then shifted into the rays of the fading day’s light.

  Kar didn’t need to be told what they were, he instinctually knew.

  These were Shadowcryst.