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    Shock passed through Ein’s face, but the fleeting emotion was quickly replaced with anger. “How could they have allowed such a thing?” Each word was clipped and short.


    “We need to reach them if we’re going to find out,” Sarien said, eyeing his father. The barely contained fury was new. His father had lost his temper in the past, but not like this.


    “There is more here than what we can see,” Deidra cautioned. She took another sip of her tea, thinking. “If you charge in like rampaging bulls, it will do you little good. The Gatekeepers must have a reason for their actions.”


    “A reason?” Ein bellowed. “I’ll show them a reason!”


    “I’m not saying it is good or just, but they would not do this without taking the consequences into consideration. They aren’t idiots.”


    “I’m not so sure,” Ein spat.


    “Mother is among them,” Sarien reminded.


    Ein’s chest heaved, his fists balled tightly, but the mention of Anja calmed him.


    “The Slayers are involved as well. They attacked their own prisons, remember?”


    “They did,” Ein agreed.


    “The penitentiaries?” Deidra asked.


    “Fallen,” Ein grunted. He stood. He looked deflated. “I’ll be outside when you’re ready to go. I need some air.”


    “At least the ones we went to,” Sarien added after his father left.


    Deidra nodded thoughtfully. “No matter how I twist and turn the facts, I can’t perceive the reason for why the Wayfarers and Slayers wish to release Wyndemir. We are missing pieces. Vital pieces.”


    “Perhaps, I can simply ask them. Can you help us find a way in?”


    Deidra looked apprehensive, but relented. “There is a way through the barrier. Force won’t be enough, not when it was built to withstand the primal forces of the universe, but I have a door just for me. I created it when I fled Nexus.”


    “Why did you flee?”


    She shook her head. “That is a story for another time, Sarien. I have one more answer for you before we leave, but this one is not a certainty, but pieced together from scraps of history that have survived time bordering on the infinite. Do you understand?”


    Sarien stood, ready to leave. “Yes.”


    “Your flame.”


    “Father already told me the reason for its shape.”


    “I’m not talking about its shape, but its color, and why the two became one.”


    “You know why?” he asked incredulously.


    “I can guess, which I think is the most you’ll get from anyone.”


    Sarien leaned in close, every fiber of his being wanting to hear the answer. “Please tell me.”


    “It is written that to bind the Prime of Chaos and bring order to the universe, one must become two. Rather than power, the universe needs balance. Unwillingly, the custodians were separated. The totality of their selves ripped asunder to create the two individual entities. Two, they must remain. Two, and never again one.”


    He blinked when she fell silent.


    “I’m sorry, what?”


    “Like father, like son,” Deidra muttered.


    “Is that from a text about Wyndemir?”


    “Yes, the Prime of Chaos. The one became two, don’t you see? It is the creation of Wayfarers and Slayers.”


    “They were one,” Sarien repeated, staring at the palm of his hand, “and now they are one again.”


    “Not as dense as your father, then.”


    “But how is that possible?”


    “It’s not. It’s not possible, or it should not be.”


    Sarien sat back down with a thud. “Do they know? The Gatekeepers?”


    “How would I know? Though, they must have seen you by now and come to their own conclusions. They’d be dead-brained not to put it together.”


    “Is this what they wanted? To make the two powers come together again?”


    She snorted. “Doubtful.”


    “What makes you say that?”


    “They don’t have the imagination, but more importantly, they’ve been planning this for a long time by the look of things. Since before Ein even met your mother.”


    “I suppose,” Sarien said tentatively.


    “Oh, make no mistake, snaring you will be one of their goals now that they have seen what you are and what you can do. I don’t know why they haven’t yet.”


    “One of the priests of Wyndemir did try to recruit me in Rhinerien, but I don’t think that counts.”


    Deidra raised an eyebrow. “Priests of Wyndemir?”


    “The priesthood in Rhinerien. The rhinn worship Wyndemir. Well, some of them do.”


    “Poor fools,” Deidra said.


    The door banged open and Sarien flew to his feet, but it was only Kax.


    “Let’s go already! I’m bored with the abyss now. Find me something to cut!”


    Sarien turned to Deidra. “Could you show me the way in? I’d love to talk to you more, but time is working against us.”


    Deidra stared at Kax. “I’ll show you. Let’s go outside.”


    Ein was pacing on the small plot of grass, muttering to himself.


    “He’s been doing that since coming out here,” Kax said, shaking his head.


    “Attention!” Diedra barked, clapping her hands together.


    Sarien’s father glared but stopped and gave her his undivided attention.


    “You two need to be ready,” she indicated to Ein and Kax.


    One of Kax’s blades materialized out of nowhere. “What for?”


    “Sarien and I will ease through the wayfaring and find a way into Nexus. The portal can’t stay open for long, so you’ll have to go through immediately when it appears.”


    They both nodded, and Deidra turned to Sarien. “Ready?”


    “Ready.”


    Sarien closed his eyes and focused, pushing everything but the gray flame out of his mind. A white light blossomed nearby, and he could tell it was Deidra. There was a mistiness that captured the harsh kindness of the old Wayfarer.


    No need to blare your presence out to everyone in the vicinity.


    The thought came to Sarien unbidden.


    Hello?


    The other presence shuddered at his attempt to answer.


    Like a freshly born babe. Just follow and try to be quiet.


    Deidra’s presence was weak, like the flame of a candle next to Sarien’s bonfire. Instead of replying, he did as bidden and followed as the old woman’s dim light drifted off into the wayfaring.


    Together, they crossed unfathomable distances in the blink of an eye. Other consciousnesses appeared and disappeared. Something about them exuded surprise and curiosity, but they disappeared so fast Sarien couldn’t be sure. A few times, they passed someone, or something, vast and powerful. They did not appear as the other flickers of white light, but rather more permanent. Like parts of the universe itself.


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    Halvgudar, Sarien thought. Not many, but even one free to move around the worlds was strange enough to him. Their attention swept over him like strong gusts of wind, and he found himself struggling to break free of their gaze.


    Focus on yourself and on me.


    The sending was faint, and he found the old woman far ahead. Startled, he asserted his gray flame and caught up, leaving the onlookers behind.


    Will they be trouble?


    Perhaps.


    Still unsettled from passing through the wayfaring, Sarien didn’t realize Deidra had stopped. He continued on and slammed into an invisible wall protecting Nexus. It was the same as when he tried to find his mother.


    Careful.


    She slid gracefully across the surface and Sarien followed, feeling awkward and heavy-footed in comparison.


    Here.


    The white light of Deidra’s wayfaring stopped. He sensed nothing. Expanding his gray flame, he perceived a multitude of places, people, and beings traversing the wayfaring across worlds. He saw worlds and stars, people and animals, destruction and war.


    Concentrate! It’s like you’re trumpeting your location. Make yourself small. Focus here.


    She indicated to the same small area again as Sarien pulled himself and his wayfaring together. He squeezed himself down, imitating Deidra’s size.


    The nothingness in and behind that barrier was incredibly unnatural when he felt the link between all else. As he forced himself to concentrate, he saw that something in the area was different.


    Now you see it.


    A tiny crease, for lack of a better word, was protruding out of the blank sphere surrounding Nexus. It stood out like a loose plank in a barn house. He reached for it with his mind.


    Wait.


    Deidra was too slow. Sarien flexed his gray flame and pulled, opening the barrier and his mind to everything within.


    Awareness blasted through him, but it was too much to take in, and with it came soldiers. It was the distinct image that filled his mind. Soldiers.


    In an instant, he and Deidra were surrounded by Wayfarers. Their strengths varied and he quickly counted at least fifty of them.


    Run.


    It was the single word Deidra managed before one of the defenders struck out at her, and she winked away.


    Sarien’s gray flame burned. These people dared attack them? In the vast space of the wayfaring, Sarien blazed. His fire enveloped the one who’d attacked the old woman and he could feel that person’s powers struggling against his own. Struggling and losing.


    Even without the slaying characteristics in his gray flame, Sarien was far more powerful, but there was no use holding back here. With barely any effort, he held the Wayfarer with his power, then threw them away.


    The soldiers attacked. Unsure how to navigate combat in the wayfaring, Sarien flared his power to keep everyone at bay. Even as he reached for more of them, others came at him from the flank. He couldn’t tell if they were injuring him, but it was enough to ruin his concentration. It was like they were trying to pull him inside the sphere.


    Desperate to get out of the trap, Sarien cast himself back through the wayfaring.


    They followed.


    A brief moment later, Sarien slammed back into his corporeal form.


    “They’re coming,” he yelled, just as a man appeared out of thin air.


    Kax took the man’s head off with a single swing.


    Deidra yelped and threw herself to the side as a man and a woman stepped through the wayfaring, a bright white light hovering in front of them.


    Ein’s darkness engulfed them both and Sarien saw the realization hit them before they fell limp to the ground.


    “I’m holding my barrier,” Deidra grunted. She strained under the pressure.


    Sarien reached into the wayfaring again and lent her his power, just like he’d done with Thys’s gateway.


    The barrier shattered like glass, and Deidra’s eyes widened in surprise. “What did you do?”


    “I’m just trying to help!”


    “Then put up a new barrier of your own making, you cretin!” she barked, more out of fright than anger.


    “I don’t know how!”


    A female Slayer with one arm engulfed in dark light, the other holding a small cube, stepped through a gateway and immediately attacked Kax. She shoved her arm toward Kax, but her glowing darkness sucked into him and Kax grinned.


    “I’ll show you the void,” Kax said, running the woman’s chest through with his sword. The woman fell limp to the ground.


    Fire erupted from Ein’s hands, burning someone on the other side of an opened gateway.


    Sarien did his best to focus, but was rudely showed to the ground by a young boy who possessed a frightening strength.


    “Reze?” Kax shouted in surprise, and the boy glanced up at Kax and froze with fright. It was then that Sarien saw the boy’s wide mouth and large eyes. A rhinn.


    The boy Kax called Reze blinked away an instant later.


    For the moment, no more attackers emerged from the wayfaring.


    “Sarien, help me with the barrier now!” Deidra shouted. “Carefully, mind you!”


    Sarien panted hard and reached for his gray flame. Like he’d done with Thys, he extended his own power to aid Deidra in using hers. This time, he only released a trickle.


    The old woman still gasped as their powers entwined, but she held on, and the barrier Sarien unwittingly destroyed was restored stronger than before.


    “Look at it,” Deidra ordered, and he did.


    “I think I understand,” he said.


    “Then hold on to it. More will be coming.”


    “I’ll hold them off.”


    He felt a pressure building in multiple spots surrounding the sphere that protected Deidra’s house and her small plot of land. The attacks were like gnats buzzing around his head.


    Ein stood over the two Wayfarers he’d captured. He held the now blackened device he’d used to signal Sarien, along with an arrowhead. He looked grim.


    “Sarien, come over here.”


    “What is it?”


    “I’ll show you how to handle a void prison.”


    Kax was kneeling and going through the pockets of the fallen. He looked up. “Is now the best time for that? I want to see this Nexus.”


    “We’ve got time now,” Ein grunted.


    He held out the device. “Can you focus on this at the same time as the barrier?”


    The buzzing did not relent, but it was no more than an annoyance. He nodded and set his hand on top of the cube.


    He let his power flow through it, and immediately identified its inhabitant as the male Wayfarer who attacked them.


    “Good, you can sense him in there. What is he doing?”


    “Nothing.”


    “Nothing,” Ein agreed, giving Sarien a look of pride. “Often, they rage against their bonds or scream for release, or for the mercy of death. A void prison is no laughing matter.”


    “I’ve been in one. Wasn’t that bad for me.”


    “It’s because you’re part of the void, son. You’ll have to tell me the story some time, but for now, we’re going to try?—”


    “Wait. I escaped using my wayfaring. Couldn’t he do the same?”


    Ein shook his head. “That is not something Wayfarers are capable of. Moving without the use of a gateway, yes, but not out of a void. You either did so due to your unique powers or something else occurred.”


    Sarien thought back to the poor, trapped creature. The one forced to use its powers to nullify all those on Malac. Perhaps it had allowed him to escape.


    “Now focus,” Sarien’s father said. “The Wayfarer imprisoned in the cube is strong of will or he would have crumbled under the pressure of my void. I’ll show you how to break even your strongest opponents.”


    Ein’s voice boomed in the void.


    HOW DO WE GET INTO NEXUS?


    The Wayfarer didn’t even acknowledge Ein’s question. He just sat with his eyes closed and his hands on his knees.


    Then, without warning, something shifted in the void. At first, Sarien didn’t understand, then it dawned on him. Time. His father manipulated time.


    “How long?” Sarien whispered, heart racing.


    Ein grimaced. “We’ll start with a week.”


    The pressure on Sarien’s barrier increased with each passing minute, but he remained focused on the cube.


    The nameless Wayfarer didn’t move at first, then his face twitched and Sarien sensed his jaw clenching.


    HOW DO WE GET INTO NEXUS?


    No reply.


    “We don’t have much time,” Deidra said from over by the steps to her house. She’d gathered some belongings, and it appeared that she was ready to leave.


    “One moment,” Ein said.


    Time in the void stretched impossibly far in an instant, then came to a jarring stop. Sarien was unable to discern how much time had passed.


    “One year,” Ein whispered.


    Sarien’s eyes widened in horror.


    “We need answers.”


    As time shifted back, the Wayfarer’s movement over the year played out before Sarien’s senses.


    A month, a whole month, he’d lasted before breaking. The Wayfarer opened his eyes and looked around him, then started yelling questions into the void until he realized no reply was forthcoming. After another month of pacing back and forth, and trying to use his power to escape, the man broke down sobbing. The screaming started soon thereafter, then the pleading. He spent two months entirely catatonic, sitting down and shifting his weight back and forth, back and forth.


    HOW DO WE GET INTO NEXUS?


    Ein’s words made the Wayfarer cry tears of joy and he fell over himself explaining what they’d have to do to get past the barrier. After receiving the answer they sought, Sarien felt the void shift around the imprisoned man, and his eyes widened when he realized what his father was doing.


    “No!”


    “What would you have me do?”


    The void took on incredible pressure, squeezing the man near bursting.


    “We let him return. There is no need to kill him.”


    He sighed, but nodded in resignation. “You’re being na?ve, but I’ll let you decide this time. Take his medallion.”


    The pressure from the outside attackers mounted as they focused on a single point. It still didn’t amount to much against his gray flame barrier, but he thought it was best to leave sooner rather than later. He grabbed the Wayfarers’ medallions.


    Ein tossed the void prison to Sarien, who released the Wayfarer. Incredible force erupted upward as he held the cube in the air. The sturdy metal turned to dust in Sarien’s palm.


    The released Wayfarer didn’t hesitate for a moment. He rolled on top of the woman, opened a gateway and disappeared through it.


    “Quick thinking,” Ein murmured.


    Kax pulled medallions from two of the other downed Wayfarers and handed one to Ein. “These will let us into Nexus?”


    “If a tortured man is to be believed,” Sarien sighed, holding up one for Deidra.


    She raised her hands and took a step back. “There is nothing for me in Nexus, not anymore.”


    A massive blast caused the barrier to quake. He grunted as a high-pitched noise started ringing in his ears.


    Kax pointed at his nose. “You’re bleeding.”


    Wiping his nose with the sleeve of his coat, Sarien straightened. “We need to leave now. Can you find your way out of here yourself, Deidra?”


    “Of course I can. I’m the one who built the place. Took eons, if you don’t mind me saying, and now the brat,” she pointed at Ein, “returned and it’s coming down around my ears in just a few hours.”


    Ein walked up and wrapped his arms around the old woman. “I’m sorry, grandma. I’ll make it up to you.”


    “Sure you will,” she scoffed, but Diedra embraced Sarien’s father with undeniable tenderness.


    Another blow struck his barrier, and he cried out. He knew he could best them in a fight, but maintaining the barrier was different. It spread his power thin, and he had to admit to himself that the gray flame did not lend itself to this sort of thing.


    “Deidra, you should leave first,” Sarien said.


    Deidra looked at each of them in turn, her eyes lingering on Kax before she blinked away. Sarien was too preoccupied to follow her through the wayfaring or to check if she’d made it out. He had to trust that she knew her way around the worlds far better than him.


    “Ready?” Sarien asked.


    Kax and Ein both nodded.


    Reaching out through the wayfaring, Sarien found himself at the barrier surrounding Nexus. He opened a gateway.


    It was time for the Gatekeepers to answer for their actions.