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    As Sarien and Kax approached the ruined gates of the prison, they came upon bodies in the grass.


    “They look like Eldians,” Kax noted.


    Sarien went down on one knee to get a closer look. An emblem stood out in stark darkness next to the otherwise brown and gray colors of the man’s clothes. Round with a pitch-black fist on top of a background of white. “Those in Malac look the same as us.”


    “At least they’re not rhinn. Getting tired of dealing with them.”


    Sarien stood with a groan. The days and nights keeping Wyndemir at bay and using the last bit of his power to open a gate to this new realm had taken a lot out of him. He needed to rest desperately, but it would need to wait.


    The gaping darkness beyond the broken doors did not look inviting, but he was certain he’d find his father inside.


    Kax slid his hand down the smooth surface of the wall in wonder. It was a flat black, reflecting no light. “Let’s see what’s inside.”


    The enormous scale of the building only settled in Sarien’s mind once they approached. With walls taller than those of Fyrie and Tyralien combined, the gate proved gargantuan. The doors were thicker than Kax was tall. Sarien did not linger on the question of who did the damage. Hopefully, they were long gone.


    They stepped through the opening and were immediately swallowed by darkness. Since neither of them thought to bring torches, Sarien brought forth his gray flame. It didn’t give off a light as powerful as his former white power, but it was enough to make out their surroundings.


    The floor was as dark as the walls, and no matter how much strength he gave the flame, the ceiling was beyond the reach of its glow. There were no rooms or other corridors, just a vast chamber of nothingness.


    No sound. Not even from their footsteps.


    “What is this place? I’m not going to be much help if there’s no one to cut.”


    Sarien was too focused on his inner strength to answer. Gray flame coursed through his entire being. With his inner divide gone, Sarien felt complete for the first time since he discovered his powers.


    Before his change during his struggle with Wyndemir, he hadn’t thought of himself as incomplete. He hadn’t understood why his black flame and his white struggled to come together. Now he did. They were meant to be one. Always had been.


    He knew the truth now but was no closer to figuring out why the Wayfarers and the Slayers were separated into two organizations. Why were they white and black, when gray was the original form? He hoped to find the answers to those questions from his father and, perhaps, more so from his mother.


    “Now there are stairs out of nowhere.”


    Sarien held out his hand to see that the floor opened up into a deep and dark chasm with wide steps leading straight down. Without a railing around the sides and nothing to mark the stairs, they were nearly invisible in the dim light.


    Sarien took out his father’s device and found that the dim, pulsing light it emitted was an improvement over his gray flame.


    He let the gray flame retreat back into the churning swell of power inside him. “Let’s descend.”


    Kax squinted into the darkness surrounding them. “No other rooms, but there’s something about this place.”


    “What do you mean?”


    “The walls, the floor, even the air. They’re making me feel all giddy inside.”


    Tentatively, Sarien reached toward the floor, questing with his mind and a fine strand of his gray flame. If the mere act of being within the building affected his friend, there must be a reason. The flat blackness alone was a clue.


    Screams of anguish, the terrible wailing of broken minds trapped in time beyond comprehension, deafened him.


    Sarien stumbled back, yelling from equal parts fright and surprise. His scream hung in the air before dissipating into the eerie silence.


    “People. People are trapped in there.” He swallowed repeatedly against the rising bile, but succumbed and emptied his stomach onto the floor.


    Kax went down on one knee and put his hand on the floor, careful to keep distance between himself and Sarien’s mess.


    “Don’t!” Sarien yelled, but it was too late.


    Kax’s eyes turned into dark orbs. A wide smile spread across his face, and he nodded to himself before rising. “All is well. They are serving their sentence.”


    “What do you mean?”


    Kax blinked, his eye color returning to his original brown. “What?”


    Sarien eyed him closely and then the floor. “This whole place is a prison. The prisoners are trapped in the walls and floor, even the doors. I get the sense they’ve been here for a very long time.”


    “And your father is here somewhere?”


    “I think so.”


    “There you have it. What better prison than one where the offenders are confined in a void? Your father’s people must be jailers by trade.”


    “My mother’s writing did mention something about that, about the Slayers trying to contain Eld and the other gods who escaped to Maydian.”


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    “That sounds perfectly reasonable to me,” Kax said, taking the first step down the stairs into the darkness. “Let’s not dwell on those lost in the void. No need to shed tears for the slayed.”


    Sarien hurried after, not wanting to let Kax out of his sight. Kax walked blindly into the dark, though with confidence, as if he didn’t need Sarien’s weak light. “I don’t like the way you’re talking, Kax. You’re not yourself.”


    A very familiar grin split Kax’s face as he looked over his shoulder at Sarien. “Everything changes. Some for the better, some for the worse. Don’t you agree?”


    “I suppose so,” Sarien said. He’d need to keep a close eye on Kax. If they could only find Ein, perhaps his father would have the answers to explain what was happening to his friend. Ever since Sarien accidentally connected Kax to the slaying, his friend had changed. It was an honest mistake that continued to have profound consequences. Sarien worried about what was yet to come.


    The dim glow from Ein’s device did not brighten or change as they descended the stairs. His hope that it would show them the way diminished with each step into the abyss. Around them, a vast darkness spread in all directions, not unlike Sarien’s experience in the actual void back in Malac.


    “Eerie place,” Kax said, sounding like he was back to his old self.


    After a while, something finally changed. When one step didn’t turn into another, Sarien stumbled with surprise.


    Kax trailed a little behind and jumped down several steps. His landing didn’t make a sound. Straight ahead, Sarien’s light reflected off something. They hurried toward it.


    They encountered a gigantic gate, similar in size to the one that they entered earlier. The obsidian black metal was adorned with a swirling pattern of white and black, which coalesced into a white emblem that Sarien thought represented light. It was the inverse of the emblem found on the dead men outside.


    Kax placed a hand on the enormous gate. It stretched high above them. “What do you think?”


    “How do we get it open?”


    Kax shoved hard against the door. The gate didn’t budge.


    “The emblem,” Sarien began, and put his hand against the door. He took care not to delve into the void.


    “What about it?”


    “White on black.” His flame was no longer a pure white, but perhaps it would work.


    Pulling on the gray flame inside him, Sarien stoked his power until it nearly consumed him from within. Equal parts white and black. The white flame allowed him to see how all things were related, and how he could connect things and places through the wayfaring. The black was its antithesis, a power to cut a person off from existence itself. Beyond all things was the void, always beckoning.


    Sarien manifested his gray flame and let it stream from the palm of his hand. Certain something would happen, he filled the swirling patterns of white with gray, and the corresponding color on the emblem lit, showering the massive dark chamber in light and revealing the far walls of the prison.


    The gate did not open, and he knew why. It needed more than the white or the black flames. The intricate lock required both at the same time.


    Luckily for Sarien, he possessed the means. Flooding the dark strands on the wall, the black background of the emblem drained of light and dispersed it through the lock.


    The enormous gate shuddered, shaking the ground below their feet. It silently slid back and to the side, revealing a chamber filled with light. Not a single torch or lantern as far as the eye could see. The light simply existed.


    Unperturbed, Kax sauntered in.


    Sarien hurried after.


    Doors lined the wall to their right. Four stood open while others remained close. The open doors revealed small cells, each with a blindingly white pedestal.


    Sarien approached one of the cells. A fine black powder covered the top of the pedestal. He recognized it as the same kind of dust that was the result of when a captor was freed from an object. The weapon used for holding one of the rhinn back in Tyriu disintegrated into a similar black dust once he released the prisoner.


    “Why do you worry about those tiny things when that is sitting right there?” Kax asked from outside the cell.


    Sarien peered out and to a raised platform that held a cube the size of a house. Each side was flat and black. Despite the bright light, no reflections showed on the cube’s glass-like exterior. Even from a distance, Sarien noticed a long crack along the middle of one side.


    “It’s different.”


    “It’s huge,” Kax agreed once they were close enough to climb up the stairs of the raised platform.


    “The others have been completely destroyed, but not this one.”


    Kax ran a finger along the crack.


    “Wait,” Sarien began, but it was too late. Kax’s eyes changed again.


    Then, just as quickly his eyes changed back, and he widened them in surprise. “You should take a look in this one.”


    “Why?”


    “Just do it. Hurry!”


    Sarien reached out and, to his surprise, found Ein raging against the confines of the void. His father’s screams reached him through the slaying. It was equal parts terror, anger, and anguish.


    Focusing, Sarien freed his father from his bonds. The cube crumbled into dust and a massive wave of force shot toward the ceiling.


    “What happened?”


    “I released him.”


    Kax glanced around them. “So, where is he?”


    A very familiar sound echoed in the empty chamber.


    A bark.


    “Daisy?”


    The dog sat next to one of the closed cell doors, tongue lolling as he happily panted and wagged his tail.


    Sarien couldn’t help but laugh as he approached. “What are you doing down here, Daisy?”


    Another bark.


    Sarien pressed his ear against the door. He heard a faint rustling. The door was marked only with an emblem of white. Sarien opened it.


    A man, wild-eyed and with a scraggly beard covered in vomit and spittle, stumbled out when Sarien pulled the door open.


    His father stumbled and fell, then reached a beseeching hand to Sarien. “Water.”


    Ein poured half a skin’s worth into his mouth, then dumped the rest over his head. Still panting, he leaned back against the wall, eyeing Sarien, Kax, and even Daisy suspiciously.


    “What are you doing here?”


    Sarien held up the glowing device. “You called for us, remember?”


    Ein’s eyes widened, and he searched through his own pockets until he came away with a matching item. It, too, glowed.


    “Didn’t think I’d managed it. All this time, I thought I was too late.”


    “Too late for what?”


    “To call for you, son!”


    Kax frowned. “Your dad sounds a little unhinged.”


    Ein grabbed Kax’s hands. “How long?”


    “How long what?”


    “How long has it been since that started glowing?” he asked, pointing to the device.


    “A few days,” Sarien replied.


    Ein fell back on the floor and ran a hand through his wet hair, laughing. “Days?”


    “Days.”


    “To me, it was years upon years.”


    Sarien swallowed hard. “Years?”


    “Decades.”


    “How?”


    His father pointed to the raised platform where the cube once stood. “That used to contain the Prime of Chaos. The stronger the prison, the slower the time.”


    “How did you end up in there?” Kax asked.


    Ein’s eyes widened, and he got to his feet in an instant. “Anja!”


    “Mother?” Sarien asked.


    “She hid her face behind a mask, but I would recognize her voice in the middle of a roaring crowd. It was her!” He squeezed Sarien’s shoulder. “You did it son, you sent me right to where I needed to go!”


    “You’re not making any sense. My mother was here? In this room?”


    Ein nodded enthusiastically. “Yes! But not alone.”


    “Take a breath, then start at the beginning.”