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    It turned out that Sarien and the others couldn''t leave immediately from Rhinerien. Mica and his resistance needed time to prepare and gather their resources.


    Sarien spent the time getting to know the bound man he’d placed into the button. Sarien balked at using his powers as torture, but decided he needed to leave his soft-heartedness behind. He needed answers and was quickly running out of time. So, he stoked his black flame until the traveler was ready to speak.


    WHY CAN I NOT CREATE WAYPOINTS?


    Nothing exists in my void. Can you transport without stepping through a waypoint?


    I CANNOT. RELEASE ME, HUMAN, OR WYNDEMIR WILL DEVOUR YOU!


    You are a priest? I saw no tattoo on your forehead.


    The presence in the button fell silent for a moment before replying.


    I AM NO PRIEST. THEY WOULD NOT HAVE ME.


    But you know of Wyndemir. Is your god the reason for the monsters?


    HIS WILL HAS ONLY BEGUN TO SETTLE IN OUR WORLD.


    I’ll take that as a yes. What does it mean when a priest’s eyes turn purple?


    WYNDEMIR SPEAKS THROUGH THE BELIEVERS AND SHARES HIS WILL.


    Sarien got the impression of a raving madman frothing at the mouth. The person trapped in his button was a zealot. Could the answers he gave have any truth to them?


    Why do the priests want Maydian if they welcome Wyndemir’s coming?


    Mad laughter erupted from inside the void and Sarien unleashed his black flames. When the screeching stopped, he finally got an answer.


    WYNDEMIR DEVOURS ALL WORLDS. THEY MERELY MAKE WAY FOR HIS GREATNESS. THROUGH HIM, ALL WILL BE PARADISE.


    This was reminiscent to the pyromancers'' relationship with Eld. To be backed by a god was a powerful thing. Still, the rhinn hadn''t answered Sarien''s question. At least not entirely. The priesthood thought their long-lost god was going to bring paradise to Rhinerien. This contradicted why the rhinn were in Maydian. He was sure that there was more behind the invasion. He’d seen the priest with the tattoo twice now, and each time he got the sense that the man knew something the others didn’t.


    There is another reason for your attack on my home. Tell me!


    Only mad laughter met his questions. Sarien released the imprisoned rhinn into the forest and the force blew apart a nearby tree. The button crumbled, and the rhinn returned to his body by Mica’s building and groaned.


    Sarien wiped away a sweat from his forehead. He shuddered, disgusted with himself. Still, Sarien didn’t waver in his use of torture to extract information. He’d do it again if necessary. Hopefully, it wouldn’t be.


    What worried him was that he expended a great amount of power on the rhinn but the rhinn still hadn’t talked. Had to be either true resilience, or more likely, complete madness. Had he driven the rhinn over that brink?


    The more frightening question was whether Wyndemir was real, and if he was real, was he coming for Maydian? He knew something was wrong. Conjuring up the gateways took more effort than normal. But, why?


    Daisy slept at his feet. The dog’s leg twitched, and he wagged his tail in his sleep. Just watching the animal gave Sarien a sense of peace. He would discover the priesthood''s plans. Once he reconnected with his friends, they’d find a way to fight back. Together.


    His hand brushed up against a square object in his pocket, and he withdrew the device from his father. He wondered where his father was now and what he was doing. Perhaps he needed to find Ein and his mother. The Gatekeepers would surely know what to do in this situation.


    Without any conscious thought, Sarien gathered his will and stoked the white flame while thinking of his parents and of the device in his hand. No gateway opened no matter how much he tried. Something blocked him from traveling. Flummoxed, he created a gateway with an exit a little further into the woods. It worked, but Sarien felt drained.


    He couldn''t find or help his mother. Perhaps, he never was able to. This only raised more questions.


    With that in mind, he put his father’s device back and withdrew his mother’s book from his pocket. As he flipped through the pages, a few passages about the wayfaring caught his eye.


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    Ivan is dead. Liv is dead. Juoko managed to flee. Barely. They found Taera, and Ivan would not be deterred. Flames and ice and brute force were not enough. I told them before leaving, but Ivan would not listen.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.


    Despite these heavy losses, we must carry on with our task. Eld waits for us in Fyrie and we can delay no further.


    We are still without communication from outside Maydian. Yesterday, I attempted traversing the wayfaring and found myself locked out of it, as if actively kept from touching the white light. I am not proud of my emotional response in discovering this and even less so of having to be consoled in the slayer’s embrace. Something is not right with the wayfaring, but that will have to wait until Eld can no longer inflict pain and suffering on Maydian and its populous.


    Still, the feeling of helplessness in being disconnected from the wayfaring and effectively being trapped in Maydian haunts me. Also, I think Ein secretly smelled my hair when he was soothing me.


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    His mother had been locked away from the wayfaring entirely. A sense of doom crept into Sarien’s chest, and he couldn’t shake it. Someone or something out there was controlling the wayfaring.


    Reading about his mother’s and father’s adventures made Sarien miss the kind of life they could have had together. These lines of text were a poor substitute for a real relationship with his parents. It wasn’t a thick book by any means, but there was still much to be discovered, and he couldn’t help but smile when reading about the budding relationship between his parents.


    "What are you reading?"


    Sarien yelped out and reflexively reached for the white flames churning inside him. He disappeared and reappeared behind a nearby tree. Myn stared at him.


    "Sorry," he said, stepping out from behind the tree. "You startled me."


    "Didn’t know you could do that," she said, picking up the book he’d dropped. "What’s this?"


    "It’s a notebook my mother wrote."


    She placed it in his hand. "That’s lovely. I’ve never met my mother."


    Sarien sat again. "Me neither. What happened to yours?"


    "My father said she fell for some rich merchant and left us. I was two. What about you?”


    “That’s what I’m hoping to find out.”


    By the next day, Mica and his resistance were ready to leave. Two hundred rhinn gathered to fight against the Emperor and his priests. Sarien wasn’t certain if the priesthood and the Emperor were working together, but he didn''t argue.


    Pockets of resistance fighters littered Rhinerien. Mica sent out messages but couldn''t gather them all on such short notice. Sarien figured they could return for them later.


    "Ready?" Sarien asked. "I can’t be sure exactly where we’ll appear. We’re going to a friend of mine, and he could be fighting for our world at this very moment."


    The rhinn gathered around him clutched their weapons and looked to their leader with anxious excitement in their eyes. Mica stepped through a gateway of his own, emerging on the roof of his house. The bound man had been taken away. He hadn’t made it through the night.


    "Friends, freedom fighters!" Mica shouted. "We take our struggle to join with our human friends. Together we will strike at the Emperor''s heart! Go through, my brothers and sisters! Go through and prevail!"


    Sarien centered himself. In the calm that settled on his mind, his white flame stirred. To get to where they needed to go, Sarien thought only of Goslin, hoping that whoever kept a stranglehold on the wayfaring would not keep Sarien from his friend and his home.


    The air split before him as he opened a gateway to Maydian, large enough for five men to pass through at the same time. He gripped the haft of his spear to keep himself upright, as the gateway required an enormous amount of power to hold. Daisy sat on his shoes, watching the steady stream of men and women plunging themselves into a world beyond their own.


    Heat flashed through the opening and Sarien opened his eyes when Myn squeaked out a single word. "Fire." The world beyond his gateway was a sea of flames. In the distance, he saw a building unlike any other but one he knew by sight.


    "What is that place?" Myn asked, awe in her voice.


    "That," Sarien said, "is The Burning Tower of Firemagi."


    He stepped through and the heat blasted against him. Flames billowed from the lower windows, and balls of fire shot from higher up, exploding against the ground where troops shielded themselves as they fought against the rhinn soldiers protecting the enormous building. The tower was under siege, and Sarien was now part of the attack.


    Chaos erupted all around them, and no one noticed their presence. Mica ran up, his face already covered in soot. "What is happening? What do we do?"


    "Look for a tall man with an impossibly black shield," Sarien said. "He’ll know where you can help the most." He was about to set off running toward the tower but stopped himself and sighed. "It’s probably best if I come with you."


    Emiril pointed off to the west. "Is that the black shield you were talking about?"


    In the middle of the fight, surrounded by rhinn soldiers, far outpacing his fellow men, Goslin fought for his life. He swung his shield like a weapon, crushing his enemies like they were mosquitoes.


    "That’s him!" Sarien shouted. "We have to fight our way to him!"


    "Couldn’t you just make a gateway?" Myn asked.


    "Right," Sarien said, feeling stupid. It was safe to close the first gateway now.


    Mica held out his sword. "I’ll make one among the rhinn to the boy’s left, you make one to his right. Together, we will break the enemy’s spirit and save your friend!"


    Sarien concentrated and pushed through the resistance.


    Haen jumped through first, after giving his wife a parting kiss. She would not be fighting. Emiril followed, and then Sarien and Myn. Daisy barked but backed away, following Freyn.


    Sarien thought he saw something dark run past at an incredible speed, traversing the rhinn by running on top of their heads, shoulders, and shields, cutting through heads like it was nothing.


    Kax?


    Far above, someone screamed. "DIE YOU SCUM!" He peered up and spotted that deranged, flying aeromancer throwing gusts of wind to divert pyromancer flames. Then suddenly, lightning cracked from the sky, crashing into the tower. Wade veered to get out of the way of a fireball, then plunged through an open window. If that man was here, did that mean Lana was as well? What about the others?


    As he stepped through the gate, the din of combat turned from loud to deafening. To his alarm, he realized that the others were fighting not only rhinn, but monsters.


    "Close your eyes!" Myn screamed in his ear. He slapped his hands over his eyes. A thump followed by a light so powerful it made his eyes water assaulted his senses, powerful enough to make him see dancing motes through his hands.


    Sarien opened his eyes to find rhinn soldiers stumbling blindly. "Is that permanent?" he asked.


    She shook her head. "I don’t think so."


    "Sarien!"


    Sarien turned to see Goslin emerging from a crouched position behind his shield.


    "Goslin!"