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    An incredible pressure in the wayfaring originated from somewhere in Fyrie. It kept him from attempting to stall Wyndemir’s coming. He’d felt it for days, but it wasn’t until he found himself on this hill near Eldsprak’s capital that he recognized it for what it was. Priests of Wyndemir manipulating the wayfaring to draw their god closer with greater speed.


    No matter what he attempted, he couldn’t break through. It wasn''t something the priest could do on their own. Rather, they would be communing with those on the other side, pushing the god to Maydian. How they managed such a feat, he couldn’t even begin to guess, but Sarien thankfully had some help of his own.


    It gave him no small sense of relief when, from one moment to the next, the priests’ ritual winked away. Sarien breathed in deep. Lana and Kax had dealt with that particular issue for him.


    Small pockets of resistance still dotted the landscape, and he saw them all through the white flame. The priests of Wyndemir diverted some of their attention to their god’s imminent arrival but were mostly occupied with the forces trying to overrun Fyrie.


    Finally, it was time for Sarien to fight back.


    Daisy’s barking startled him, and he opened his eyes to find the enemy army approaching. He blinked away the sweat that ran into his eyes, looking around for Heylien.


    "Where is Heylien?" he asked one of the travelers.


    Speaking when he held the white flame active in the palm of his hand was a struggle, but he’d found he needed it to read the wayfaring. It was the only way to tell when Wyndemir would arrive.


    Soon.


    Very soon.


    "The archer?" the traveler asked, frowning. "He asked us to send him away."


    Sarien swore under his breath. Heylien was the only one quick enough to have a chance of reaching someone for help, but this was not the time to dwell.


    The white flame throbbed.


    A creature running on all fours crested the hill, saliva slobbering from its elongated mouth filled with exceedingly sharp teeth.


    Sarien felt a sliver of terror rush through him, threatening to obliterate his concentration. He clung to his wayfaring desperately as he manifested his black flame alongside his white to fend off the beast.


    It fell limp mid-stride as the black flames touched it, but many more soon took its place.


    Sarien turned to the travelers and shouted, "Run!"


    Monsters funneled around him like a herd of horses splitting apart to avoid a boulder in an otherwise open field. Sarien extended his black flames, enveloping them to protect the panicked travelers. Each of their lives could mean the difference between victory and defeat. He vowed that none of them would fall to this attack.


    The white flame throbbed.


    Increasing the size of his black flame allowed Sarien to bring down swathes of monsters, but more kept coming, and his black flame was drawn to his white like a stallion to a mare in heat. It grew large and unwieldly, insistent as if it had a mind of its own.


    The screams of trapped rhinn echoed in his mind. He realized that the monsters were rhinn soldiers turned against their will into wicked beasts by the priests of Wyndemir. Once released from their corrupted flesh prisons, they screamed like any other man in the void.


    Without the time to transfer the beings into an object, Sarien held them and he endured their wails.


    And he took more.


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    Black flames swiped the charging beasts again and again until they began to clamber over one another to reach him. Sarien was forced back, little by little, and afforded himself a quick peek over his shoulder to ensure that the rest of the travelers had escaped. Daisy sat, wagging his tail like he didn’t have a care in the world.


    "Daisy, run!"


    The dog didn’t move.


    The white flame throbbed.


    A long arm ending in a spike thrusted at him from the mass of monsters, nearly skewering Sarien. A claw reached his arm and tore into his flesh. Black flames spewed from the wound, killing the attacker instantly.


    Gathering his strength, Sarien made his flames billow forward in a wave, striking down those in front of him. Sarien gritted his teeth and planted his feet firmly to the ground. His black flame grew exponentially as it fed, gaining strength with each new scream added to the chorus in his mind. He struggled to hear his own thoughts above the terrified cries of his prisoners. He did not know he did it, but he endured.


    The white flame throbbed.


    Sarien forced his black flame away from the white, focusing on mowing down his enemies. They surrounded him now and he could not see if any chased after the travelers.


    The white flame throbbed.


    A rumble shook the ground violently and Sarien stumbled. A small rat-like creature sank its teeth into his calf. It died instantly, but his leg almost buckled from the sharp pain. All of a sudden, the earth rose underneath him, sweeping him up and away from the horde of monsters.


    The white flame throbbed and twitched.


    Confused, he carefully looked around and spotted Emeryn peeking out from behind a boulder down the slope near where a section of the wall had crumbled. She looked tired and injured, but triumphant.


    She was not all he spotted. The monstrous creatures had set their sights on the travelers who fled to a new force arriving from the north. He didn''t recognize the approaching troops, but hoped they were friend and not foe. He could do nothing but stop the monsters below him. Sarien’s black flame devoured all he could reach, though he continued to use his will to force it away from his white flame that flickered in his palm.


    The white flame throbbed again, and the world cracked.


    It took everything Sarien had to keep his powers under control as he gazed up into the sky to see a fracture rip into the fabric of reality itself. The size of it was incomprehensible, and what emerged turned Sarien cold. A single gigantic finger prodded the tear, followed by another.


    He could only stare, frozen, as the hole was torn open enough to let an arm through. It looked human, but emaciated, with deathly pale skin clinging so tight to the bone it appeared shriveled and dead. Despite being up in the sky, the enormous arm reached all the way to the ground, its knuckles dragging in the dirt in the middle of the Eldian army that was trying to press forward through a now collapsed main gate while monsters harried their flank.


    His white flame in his palm flickered and pulled upward, as if drawn to this new entity, and his wayfaring was in an uproar, blazing cold and churning inside him.


    Sarien raised his left hand into the air and steadied his breath in an attempt to focus. The rhinn travelers were gone. Alone, he knew he would not be able to close the gateway, but he had to try. There was no other choice. Wyndemir had arrived.


    As his white flame and link to the wayfaring strengthened, his black flame diminished, allowing the monsters to pass below him and charge for the fleeing rhinn.


    Gritting his teeth, Sarien called more of his slaying forth, narrowly catching those who’d attempted to bypass him.


    Divided between two tasks, and with hundreds of rhinn in his mind, his concentration wavered, and he cast about desperately for a solution.


    A bark from Daisy centered Sarien and allowed him to push the screams in his void aside. His black flame raged on, killing those trying to pass and the ones hammering at the pillar in an attempt to reach him.


    With his white flame, he began to assert his will against Wyndemir and his allies.


    Sarien grabbed onto the gateway and Wyndemir''s arm jerked. An irritated swipe against the ground tossed people and rhinn aside like ants. It struck against the city wall surrounding Fyrie, razing it with ease. The hand made a fist and pounded into the ground throwing up large masses of earth into the sky.


    Once again, Sarien got the sense that it was not Wyndemir himself forcing the gateway to expand. No, there were a multitude of people guiding the god. He felt their wills and power clashing against his own.


    He was more powerful.


    Still, the gateway would not close. Even with Sarien putting his entire strength into destroying the passageway, it refused to stop widening.


    Sarien knew then that Wyndemir was pressing it open with the sheer force of his presence.


    His white cold flame blazed in Sarien’s palm, turning into a tall pillar.


    Wyndemir’s gateway was wide enough now to reveal the top of his skinless, sinewy head. The god forced it through, and a pair of wide-open, lidless eyes stared out from a human-like face. Its gaze turned directly to Sarien, who collapsed to his knees under the immense pressure of the god''s stare.


    The white flame throbbed.


    The black flame raged.


    The voices inside his head jabbered in terror, joining into a cacophony that threatened to crumble his concentration.


    Sarien was suddenly cast in shadow as Wyndemir moved his enormous arm, reaching for him atop his pillar of stone.