Tormented by a fate both unjust and inescapable, Anneliese descended toward the speckled campfires. The part of her that had once endured adversity now droned like distant static—deafening, ceaseless, drowning out any lingering sense of obligation to those who had suffered in the ripples of her existence.


    Frustration smoldered in her chest, thick and suffocating. She drifted through the sparse laneways, blind to the wary glances of her fellow exiles. Her turmoil burned so fiercely that even the wind seemed to hesitate, as if unwilling to cross her path.


    “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”


    Lascivious’s voice slithered through the crowd, slipping from the mouths of strangers as their faces warped, their expressions twisting into something not their own. His image flickered between them like a mirage—stretching, distorting—a dozen lips shaping the same taunt.


    A whisper. A coaxing. A push.


    Thin tendrils of smoke curled from the corners of Anneliese’s eyes, faint and restless. She clenched her jaw, forcing steady breaths, willing it away.


    “You’re stronger than I ever was at your age,” he mused, his voice now spilling from a ragged boy tending a cow.


    The boy’s lips never moved. But Lascivious’s smirk still smeared his jawline.


    “Clearly,” Anneliese muttered.


    With image of an archangel descending upon him, the boy flinched, his fingers tightening around the cow’s coarse fur before he shrank behind it.


    Lascivious persisted. His sinister snickering intertwined with h’s word. “What is it you desire so deeply that you would forsake these people to claim it?”


    “Peace of mind,” Anneliese said, her dead-eyed stare rooting the scattering bystanders in place—until her shifting gaze sent them scrambling for cover.


    From beyond her periphery, a friendly voice called out. It’s abruptness sending a different kind of chill up Anneliese’s spine.


    “He’s not far off the truth.”


    The ghost of Coble flickered beside one of the campfires, lounging as though it were a lazy summer’s day. His gaze drifted toward Weddle, who tended a small saucepan, while Bjarke absently tested what remained of his atrophied arm. Between them sat Gideon, wide-eyed, his fingers tracing the magical blade resting across his lap.


    Anneliese’s breath caught. “Coble?”


    “In all but flesh,” he replied with a faint smile.


    “You’ve been here all this time?”


    “Unfinished business.”


    “Kulum? Are you trying to save him? Save all of us?”


    Coble chuckled, stretching forward to brush his toes over his rounded belly before rising with surprising ease. “That’s what I admire about you—your intuition. Not quite foresight, but sharp. Sharper than I ever was, to be honest.”


    “That’s not honesty,” Anneliese muttered, weary of his cheap words. “That’s flattery.”


    Stolen story; please report.


    “I call it self-deprecation,” Coble said with a smirk. “But part of me believes it.”


    Anneliese’s frustration flared. “Did you choose me because I was sharp, or because Coble the Enchanter thought he could outsmart a foreteller?” She scoffed. “Look how well that turned out.”


    Coble exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Ah… Ravenna.” His voice softened. “You’ve never forgiven Draconian, have you?”


    “Don’t dodge the question.”


    “I persuaded Coble to ignore my father,” Weddle cut in, but Coble raised a hand to silence him.


    “Honesty is rare, and even I falter at it sometimes,” Coble admitted. “But I’ll come clean. It was my idea to send you to the orphanage. Bellamy was an old friend—the one who first introduced me to alchemy—and…”


    He hesitated, but Anneliese pushed forward, her voice trembling with pain. “Then why didn’t you send for me?”


    Before Coble could answer, another ghostly figure materialized behind Bjarke—a tall, dark-skinned woman. She cradled his slumped head, her presence soothing as she spoke.


    “Because your welfare was but a fraction of the terror we faced.”


    Anneliese’s breath hitched. “You’re the old girl—the wolf?”


    “I am Anyata, mother of Toto. My son was Bjarke’s predecessor, many generations ago.”


    “You were a wizard?”


    “I was a mother who sold her soul to protect her son. Now Toto rests peacefully in the afterlife, while I am cursed to walk these lands alongside the ancient who took him.”


    Anneliese’s gaze dropped. “A never-ending cycle.”


    “It is easier to hate than to forgive,” Anyata said. “But forgiveness brings hope. And in hope, there is purpose.”


    “If only,” Anneliese muttered, tracing the frozen ground with her eyes. The campfire’s warmth kissed her skin, but the goosebumps remained.


    Coble exhaled. “Perhaps you should start with Draconian.”


    Anneliese’s head snapped up. “What good would that do? He’s dead.”


    A voice stirred behind her. “Because if you can see the humanity in me, perhaps you’ll see Lascivious as something more than the enemy.”


    She turned.


    Draconian’s ghost stood before her.


    Her hands curled into fists. “No,” she said coldly, her breath merging seamlessly with the faint reemergence of her wizard state. “A thousand times, no.”


    Lascivious reappeared at the edge of her vision, leaning casually against a chicken coop, a smug grin playing on his lips.


    Weddle cleared his throat, pulling a large red book from his worn cotton sack. “If I may?”


    He handed it to Anneliese, but as she reached for it, her fingers passed through. The book landed on the damp earth with a muffled thud.


    “Ew.” Weddle winced, retrieving it quickly and wiping away the moisture. He flipped through its faded yellow pages, his eyes scanning what seemed to be blank sheets. “Look again,” he urged, his voice tinged with desperation.


    Anneliese stared. Nothing.


    “There’s nothing there.”


    Coble sighed. “It’s okay,” he murmured as the hope drained from Weddle’s face. The friar clutched the book tightly and retreated to his seat in silence.


    “It takes a third of an apprentice’s life to become a wizard,” Draconian said, placing a ghostly hand on Weddle’s scrunched back. “What begins as youthful curiosity becomes knowledge, but knowledge alone is meaningless. Only when it is tested—shaped by failure, refined by experience—does it become understanding. That is the path of wizardry.”


    His gaze shifted to Anneliese. “But your mind is closed. The ways remain invisible.”


    By the firepit, Coble knelt, sweeping a spectral hand through the ashes. A glow pulsed beneath his touch, blue and ephemeral, revealing an image of Kulum—huddled and weeping among the ruins of Keesh.


    “The fate of magic—and Vasier—rests on you, Ravenna, and Kulum.”


    “But Ravenna—”


    “She is not wrong,” Anyata interrupted. “But that does not make her right. By every law of chance, you will fail where Lascivious would not. Yet despite those same laws, I found my son. Coble became Grand Master. Bjarke became the demon slayer. And if you are half the person we believe you to be, the odds will never define you.”


    Anneliese swallowed hard. “What can I do?”


    “Forget who you are—or who you were,” Draconian said. “Become the part of yourself that still believes. Then climb those stairs and find a way.”


    Anneliese rolled her eyes, red and weary. “If it’s that easy, then, Draconian, I—”


    “Don’t worry, child,” Draconian interrupted gently. “When you are ready to speak sincerely, all will be forgiven, and the ways of wizardry will open. Until then—go get them.”


    With that, the spirits faded into the night, carried away by the prevailing wind.


    Only Weddle, Bjarke, and Gideon remained by the fire, each adrift in their own thoughts. Around them, wide-eyed pagans watched from the shadows, their faces caught between fear and fragile hope.


    Silently, they prayed that whatever war raged within Anneliese would end—


    And that, in the aftermath, a savior would remain.