Liliandra's life began as most do--with the sensation of cold air against her wet skin. The womb she had left had been heavenly--seemingly filled with light, despite the utter darkness--but she knew it was time. She would not put off her own life...she would be needed soon.

She found herself on a hard, stone floor. The first thing she saw were her own fingers--small and narrow, those of a newborn. Looking ahead she saw bars--prison bars, with two burly women behind them, each heavily armored and armed with spears.

She sensed her mother behind her before she even looked. She wasn't planning to look. She didn't want to--she knew what was about to happen, and seeing her face would only make it more unpleasant.

"It's time, my dear," came her mother's voice. "My work here is done...and I must go."

"I know," Liliandra replied.

There was a golden light that reflected off the bars and the walls beyond. The presence faded. Liliandra knew her mother was gone.

"I told you they could do that," one of the guards said.

"Then why did she wait?"

"Doubtless to wait until she had this little brat."

"Hey, that's mean."

"She's a demon, Maura."

"Yeah, but she's also an angel."

"Then where are her wings?"

"They talk about me as if I wasn't listening," Liliandra said to them. "I wonder if I should do the same to them."

They turned towards her. She locked eyes with one of the guards...the guard suddenly went stone-faced, as though she were staring into the eyes of a ghost.

"Maybe you can settle this," the other guard said, seemingly unfazed. "Are you a demon or an angel?"

Liliandra looked down at her fingers again. They ended in talons, but they were not demonic, nor bestial. They were perfectly transparent, like glass--they looked almost as though her fingers simply ended in tips of pure crystal.

Reaching back with one hand, she felt the smooth skin along her back...she had no wings, neither angel nor demon.

At least, none that were visible.

"I suppose I might be neither," she answered.

"Should we risk chaining her up, or just leave her in there?" the guard asked.

"It won't do you any good," Liliandra said.

"Why not? You a teleporter?"

"These cells are protected against magical teleportation," the other guard said. "We're not retarded."

Liliandra smiled. Without saying a word, she stepped back into the shadows and vanished from her cell.

"She's bluffing! She's turned invisible!" one of the guards yelled. The guards from the room lined up, crossbows drawn. A hail of bolts struck the walls of the cell, plastering practically every square foot of it.

None of them hit anything but bare stone.

"Hmm...do you want to tell the boss, or would you rather we all live?"

"They're going to notice the angel is gone."

"Yeah, well, we'll just tell the truth about that...we'll just leave out the part about her having a kid right before she left."

******

Getting out of the city was even easier than getting in had been. Now that Aerothi's troops knew about the hidden entrance, they were going in and out of it constantly--Annelique's whole group just wandered right alongside as though they belonged there. Annelique was beginning to realize that the completely mish-mashed nature of Aerothi's army meant practically nothing would look out of place. Cassandra played the part of an officer disturbingly well, barking orders and giving nearby members of the army the impression that they were going out on patrol. She even managed to double back and sneak their clothes, armor and weaponry right out from under the soldiers who were now guarding the lower part of the wall.

"So where is Eternity?" Sudvana asked as they walked back in the direction of the boat.

"Let's just say you're in for the ride of your lives," Cassandra said with a dry smile.

"I dunno, they were flying around inside dragon pixie stomachs yesterday," Kaboom said.

Cassandra just chuckled.

"Something you want to share with us?" Annelique said, looking back and forth between Cassandra and Gairanda. Gairanda was just looking at the dirt in front of her, watching her own footsteps.

"Amateurs," Cassandra said with a smile.

When the group reached the beach, there was no sign of a new ship--rather, the old ship had changed. Some changes were subtle, some extreme. The ship was longer and taller. The crossbows had been replaced with a variety of strange weapons that Annelique didn't recognize--they seemed to be technological weapons. The battlewings looked more like jet engines than fins. Runes were carved all over the hull in interweaving patterns, and the sails seemed to be made of sheets of pure blackness--not even the tiniest amount of light escaped them. There was a faint glow coming from parts of the ship--some from the runes, some from the hull bracing. Other, much brighter glows were coming from elsewhere--primarily the weapons and several lights on the deck. The elevated sections of the ship--the raised command deck, the captain's quarters, and so forth--seemed to be made of crystal rather than wood, as were several other parts of the ship. Metal bracing was visible against the masts. The great artillery gun was now made of pitch black metal, with lights pulsing and blinking along it's surface.

"What happened?" Sudvana asked.

"It appears Klayer kept her end of the bargain after all," Cassandra said with a broad smile.

"I thought she was going to give you a starship," Annelique said.

"Oh, she did," Cassandra said. "This is the Starslicer. I was trying to build the new ship into a replica of the original...it seems Klayer has done this for me."

Cassandra and her crew began to board. The rest followed them trepidatiously, stepping onto the deck one by one. There were strange new sounds in addition to the strange new sights--odd hums and quiet pulses.

Cassandra ascended a flight of stairs to the command deck, where a strange, crystalline control matrix now stood in the place of the steerage. Crystals hovered in place and strange lights and symbols sat on it's surface. As Cassandra moved the crystals and touched the lights, strange things began to happen on the ship--runes would light up along the deck, sails would unfurl, and audible thrums would emanate from within the ship itself.

"Ah yes, Klayer, perhaps I owe you a little something after all..." Cassandra said, her face seemingly exuberant. "Everyone aboard?"

"Yes ma'am," one of the crew confirmed.

"Good," Cassandra said, hovering her hand over one of the crystals. "Ladies," She said towards Annelique and her friends, "prepare to experience...the Starslicer."

Within moments, everything they could see had been blasted away in a blur of motion. They could see the dark shapes of the coastline beneath them for only a moment before it vanished beneath the shape of the greater continent and the sea beyond. The planet beneath them receded with dizzying speed, and as it's spherical edges crested their vision the Starslicer began to turn, facing it's prow away from the world. Strangely, the deck seemed to hold them as if it had gravity of it's own--Annelique supposed that was to be expected with starships, but there were many other things she had expected that were not present. Not being an engineer, she knew little of what to expect except the basics, but those basics seemed quite a ways off.

"Not that I'm complaining, Cassandra," Annelique said, "but I'm curious. Why does your starship look like a boat?"

"A few reasons..." Cassandra said. "It's more exciting. It's certainly more my style. And it lets us operate on the water much more easily and inconspicuously."

"But doesn't this open deck leave you exposed? This ship is tiny!"

Cassandra smiled again. "Deploy the sails," she ordered.

There was a bustle of activity and suddenly, from somewhere beneath the deck, two more sets of sails--similar to those hanging above the main deck--emerged from beneath, causing the combined masts to form a triangle around the vessel.

"Okay...still exposed..." Ralier said.

"Let's just say there is a lot more to Starslicer than meets the eye," Cassandra said proudly.

"I'm hoping so, because I've heard there's some pretty messed up stuff up there--here--in space," Ralier said, looking around and realizing for the first time that they were, in fact, in space. The view of the stars was brilliant, a hundred lights in every direction of every color of the rainbow, and behind them thousands more. Nebulae of many colors crisscrossed the speckled horizon and the crescent outlines of several planets were visible, passing by at a surprising--almost disconcerting--speed.

"Though I've got to admit, the view is pretty nice." Ralier said.

"How fast are we going?" Annelique asked.

"Very," Cassandra replied.

"So how long will it take us to get to Scyther?" Ishiar asked.

"Actually, we're headed to Talia Ruby."

Ishiar didn't look at all happy about that pronouncement. "Why?"

"Scyther is a long ways away from here. But there's a star portal in Talia Ruby that leads to Alvaria Sapphire, which is a lot closer."

"What's a star portal?" Ralier asked.

"The stars across the galaxy are linked together--at least, some of them are. Elvet says it's because they have spirits, and some stars have their equivalent of soulmates that they share some sort of bond with...anyway, the upshot is that if you fly into one of those stars, you can come out the other."

"I thought flying into a star was bad," Ralier said. "You know. Instant incineration and all that."

"Not if you attune yourself to the energy of the star. Which our darling Elvet is more than capable of doing for us."

"Which one of you is Elvet?" Ralier said, looking around.

One of the crew behind her spoke. "I am."

Ralier looked back and was rather surprised by what she saw--all of them were. Behind them was a woman overshadowed by a pair of feathery wings, longer and thinner than Anneliques and black as soot. She was wearing black bracers with a brilliant silver lining, and beyond that, she wore a simple white dress that was tied at her neck and ran all the way to her ankles. She was showing even less skin than Annelique was--only her hands and face were visible. Her eyes were the color of garnets, her fair skin pale. She appeared unarmed, her hands clasped peacefully together in front of her.

"There was another angel here this whole time and I never noticed?" Ralier said incredulously. "Did any of you other guys see her?"

"I was below, seeing to the ship's well-being," Elvet said. "And I am not actually an angel--I am a dark angel."

"So, you're an angel, only evil?"

Cassandra laughed out loud. "Hardly. She's our resident saint. Dark angel is a species of angel that comes from the demon realms. Some are evil, some are good."

"Most of my sisters are evil, in truth," Elvet said. Her voice was soft and quiet, as if showing reverence to some unseen but fragile entity. "I have chosen a different path from them."

Ishiar couldn't help but notice something strange about this newcomer. Part of her seemed to radiate peace and calm, but there was something else--something beneath the surface that seemed very familiar to her. She just couldn't put her finger on what it was.

She looked to Gairanda for an answer, but Gairanda--unbeknownst to anyone--had collapsed onto the deck.

"Gairanda!" Ishiar yelled out as she ran over to her body. How could she not have heard her fall? And if not her, how could no one else have?

The others ran over to her as Ishiar did. On closer inspection, from her position, it actually looked as though she had laid down, or at least controlled her fall. But she resisted all attempts to wake her.

"Could the ghosts be attacking her again?" Sudvana asked urgently.

"If I may," Elvet said, walking slowly from where she had been, "you all seem to have rather strange spirits. This one in particular...I feel pieces of the planets and the stars within her."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ralier asked flatly.

Elvet knelt and gently placed her hand on Gairanda's head.

"She seems to be in communion with their spirits..." she said. "Many of them at once. Even I can only commune with a single world or star, and only the very surface of it's spirit. She is deep within them."

"Do stars dream?" Ralier asked.

Elvet looked at her. "I...suppose they might. They are not quite like us--I do not believe they sleep in the way that we do. Why?" she continued, looking back at Gairanda. "Does that have something to do with this?"

"We're not sure. She seems to be trapped between worlds somehow...between different dreamscapes, or mindscapes," Annelique said.

"I see," Elvet said. "Very strange, but it would explain what I am sensing. Her spirit must be lost among those she is communing with."

"Can you bring it back?"

"I shall try," Elvet said. Taking Gairanda's hand into her own, she closed her eyes and a look of serene calm came over her face. Several long moments passed before Gairanda's eyes opened. They had a strange, flickering light, as though the reflections of the stars in her eyes were brighter than they should have been.

"Are you alright?" Annelique asked.

"I...yes," Gairanda said, slowly standing. Elvet stood with her, still holding her hand. When she was fully on her feet, Elvet's eyes opened and she looked at Gairanda.

"Even my vision cannot see the things that you can see," Elvet said. "You have an incredible gift."

"I might agree if it didn't make me black out every ten seconds," Gairanda replied. Looking up at Cassandra on the command deck, she called out "You should know, there is more out there than just stars."

"Oh, I know," Cassandra called back.

"What is she talking about?" Annelique said, ascending the stairs to the command deck.

"Monsters," Cassandra replied, her smile never waivering. "Lots...and lots...of monsters."

"Space monsters?" Sudvana asked. "The starship-swallowing kind?"

"Oh yes," Cassandra said ominously. "Incidentally, you'll want these," she said, pointing to what appeared to be silver anklecuffs that were chained into the deck. Each of the crew had one of them attached to their ankle, as did Cassandra herself. Annelique and her companions thought it wise to take Cassandra's council and snap them onto their ankles as well.

The ship appeared to be slowing down. In the distance they could see tiny flashes and strange specks. As they drew closer, the flashes became explosions and the specks became starships--thousands of them, fighting what could only be hundreds of thousands of space monsters. It was practically a wall covering the whole horizon of their vision.

"Goddesses..." Sudvana said. "I had no idea there were this many."

"There normally aren't," Cassandra said. "We're lucky today."

"Please tell me we aren't going through that."

"We aren't going through that," Cassandra said nonchalantly.

Sudvana sighed with relief. But as the wall of starships and monsters became larger and larger in their view, Cassandra made no indication that she planned on changing course.

"Oh no--you can't be serious!" Sudvana yelled.

"You're right, I wasn't serious," Cassandra said. "We are going through that." She grinned wickedly as the ship came so close that they started to see the weapon trails of the ships and the monsters fighting one another and hear the bestial roars and the gunfire. They could make out their shapes; curved steel battle platforms engaged in desperate combat with tentacled monstrousities, sludgy amoebas and even stranger things. The swarm of monsters stretched back further than they could even see, and some looked to be truly collosal in size.

Cassandra grinned widely. "My friends...you're about to see why everyone in this sector knows Cassandra the Corsair."

With a sudden roar the ship dove straight past the wall of ships and headlong into the cloud of monsters. Bolts of energy began to leap from it's deck weapons as the crew started firing on any monster that got close. They shot with deadly precision, shearing off limbs, striking eyes, and burning off the wings of pursuers with frightening efficiency. The waves of monsters formed a dizzying cyclone around the ship as Cassandra piloted it as though it were a giant starfighter. Enormous beasts shot blobs of acid and hard chitinous spikes that practically filled space like a hailstorm, but somehow every barrage missed it's mark--some of the larger projectiles were even shot down by the ship's crew.

Annelique's heart was hammering in her chest--there was a nightmare swirling around her, in the flesh, threatening to swoop in and devour her or her companions at any time. Her hand was clutching the hilt of her sword so tightly that her knuckles hurt, even though she knew full well it would do little good against these monstrous enemies. She would be all but helpless if one of them attacked her.

Cassandra was laughing maniacally. The monsters grew larger and larger as they went on, and the cloud of beasts grew even more dense until it was like a hailstorm of claws, tentacles and sprays of acid. Annelique didn't even know how it was possible for the ship to evade so many enemies. In time the cloud of creatures became so overwhelming that even Cassandra's skills and those of her gunners could not pull the ship through unscathed. Blasts of chitin and globs of acid began to spray the ship. Those that struck the black sails seemed to vanish, and while the ship itself seemed to have no shields, there was a flash of energy whenever a projectile struck the deck and the projectile was often broken or deflected just as though it had struck a shield.

The same could not be said for the crew, however. One of them was struck by a blob of acid almost as large as she was--she fell screaming to the deck, her armor melting off of her like wax. The others seemed prepared, however--a spray of water from a nearby hose had cleaned the acid off of her after only a few seconds and she was immediately taken below to be healed. Annelique was alarmed, however--those few seconds were enough to leave serious burns on her skin.

By this time a terrifyingly huge space monster was on their tail; a crustacean-like creature with a huge, yawning maw and a swarm of smaller spawn filling the space around it. It was hurling more blobs of acid at them from behind--enormous blobs that were splattering into virtual rainstorms that Cassandra seemed to be having difficulty avoiding. It's spawn alone looked like they were capable of devouring the whole ship--the monster itself, from this distance, seemed like a small moon coming forth to devour them.

The great artillery cannon wheeled back and began to fire. It had a sound like a thunderclap and it's projectiles left a firey trail behind them, striking the monster and causing great spouts of blood and viscera to shoot out from it's body. Even so, they were but tiny pinpricks compared to it's titanic size. With all the weaving Cassandra was doing to avoid incoming monsters, it was gaining on them quickly. Soon the smallest of it's spawn were overtaking the ship.

They came in from above and from all sides. The crew started firing on them with the deck guns, but the beasts--each the width of an elephant and twice as long--had the advantage of surprise. Several of the crew were immediately snatched up in long, squid-like tentacles and stuffed into wide, toothy maws. The beasts then turned away and tried to escape with their meals but found themselves firmly anchored to the ship via the silver chains that the crew had put on their ankles. Their shipmates began taking shots at the confused monsters or placing the chains on cranks so they could drag the beasts--and their meals--back to the ship. The beasts were then shot to pieces or hacked apart and the slimy but generally conscious crew retrieved safely.

The unfortunate monsters that touched the black sails found themselves condemned to an entirely different fate--they stuck to them as if they were gluetraps, and it appears as though the ship's weapons could fire right through the sails--any monster who touched the sails was held helpless and doomed to be shot to pieces. Like the weapons, the crew seemed unaffected by the sails, as were the silver chains, so more than one escape was affected simply by sloppy flying on the part of the monsters. Many found themselves trapped simply because one of their long tentacles had errantly grazed against one.

Annelique had to admit that, as insane as it looked on the surface, there was a strange sort of sense to the ship's design. It didn't defend itself in the usual way, but it did defend itself--and, from the sheer amount of firepower they were going through, it seemed to be defending itself amazingly well. This did allow her to gain some control over her beating heart as she forced herself to calm down and simply stay alert.

As the ship twisted and turned, something began to appear above and below it--things that looked like black circular walls, studded with teardrop-shaped grey dots. They were both quite far away, but they were so enormous that they blotted out the stars on both sides. With no small amount of alarm, Annelique realized they were the upper and lower jaws of the creature that was chasing them.

"How close are we to Talia Ruby?" Annelique yelled over the din of battle.

"About halfway," Cassandra yelled back, her face now sweating.

Annelique pointed up. "There's--"

"I know, I know!" Cassandra said as she swirled the ship through more and more monsters. "Just give me a second to get closer to one of the big ones!"

Annelique's heart started racing again. The ship was headed towards another titanic space monster--a gigantic worm, seemingly miles long, with dozens of enormous, batlike wings along it's sides. It was spiraling towards them and Cassandra was gunning straight towards it in turn.

"Yeah, I think this one is big enough to plug her up!" Cassandra yelled.

The ship blasted towards it at top speed. The worm seemed intrigued by this new meal, and all but oblivious to the beast behind it. The worm opened it's maw which loomed above the Starslicer like a wall of flesh, teeth the size of buildings bearing down on them. Cassandra aimed for the rapidly-dwindling crack between it's lips, shooting through them just before they closed. Soon there was a tremendous splorching sound as the gigantic worm slammed into the open gullet of the crustacean.

Their victory was short-lived, however. The ship lurched violently to a halt as two gigantic pink cylinders crashed into it from either side. Annelique almost gasped as she realized they were fingers, each the size of a skyscraper.

"Nice trick," came a booming voice. A female face, hundreds of meters high, appeared on the starboard side of the ship. In the distance they could hear her slapping the other two monsters away.

"Fire!" Cassandra yelled. The ship's weapons all erupted at once, but the beast did not seem affected by the tiny blasts. The creature smiled and yawned to itself, as if for effect.

"Cease fire," Cassandra ordered.

"That was some pretty nice flying you did back there," the creature said.

"How the hell did we not see her!?" Sudvana yelled.

"Must have been cloaked or somesuch...which we can usually see through," Cassandra said, anger and frustration evident on her face.

"She's gonna eat us, isn't she." Ishiar said.

"I would," Cassandra said.

"Do you have a contingency for this?" Annelique asked.

"Case-by-case basis," Cassandra said.

"That is not reassuring," Ishiar said.

"You're such a tiny thing," the gargantuan beast said. "I'd hardly get any nourishment from you. Maybe I should feed you to my spawn instead. Unless you want to give me flying lessons," she said with a laugh.

"I'm about to teach you a lesson, alright," Cassandra muttered, all of the concern suddenly vanishing from her face and being replaced by an arrogant smile. "Swallow your meal when you've got the chance."

She tapped her command console. There was a disorienting *VOIP!* and suddenly the ship was free. The bewildered beast was some distance away now, looking around for it's target. "Hey!" it yelled as it spotted them in the distance. Starslicer was already bolting away from it.

Though they were outrunning it, Annelique could only stare in awe at the bizarre creature, now that it was far enough away to see. It had the head, arms and torso of a woman, but it's lower half was a series of plates with small, thorny outcroppings, almost like a legless, grey centipede. It swam through space like a mermaid on this strange parody of a tail.

This unnatural sight didn't make Annelique feel any better about where she was. Thankfully, however, the waves of monsters had abated--at least temporarily. They seemed to fear this titanic newcomer enough to keep their distance from her.

"Sorry if I scared you, didn't want to tip the critter off that we have a displacer," Cassandra said.

"Why didn't you use it the second she got us?" Annelique asked.

"Wasn't charged. Had to divert power to the engines. The systems on this ship take some juggling sometimes," Cassandra said. "There's only so much power you can pump into so much space before things start to explode," she said with a smile.

"That is why the ship is open," Elvet said. "The ship's ley-lines are stronger if they are not being blocked."

"Ley-lines? So the whole ship has a spirit too?" Sudvana asked.

"In a sense, yes," Elvet replied. "It is not a spirit as we think of it, but it has life, as all things do. It's thoughts are those of it's crew and it's movements are those of it's sails and it's coils, but it is an entity. Physical objects--all physical objects--are but shells for the spirits to reside in."

"Interesting," Ishiar said, being pretty sure it was all bullshit.

Then again...

"Hey Elvet," she said, "theoretically, if someone died and was reincarnated, would you be able to recognize their spirit?"

"There are ways," Elvet said. "I would have to be very familiar with the spirit to do so myself."

"Oh," Ishiar replied.

"Man the turrets, girls, looks like we've got another wave coming in," Cassandra said, her wicked smile on her lips once again.

"How are we going to survive this? Those ones are even bigger!" Annelique said. "Can't this ship cloak or something?"

"In emergencies, yes..." Cassandra said grudgingly.

"Then do it!"

"With this many monsters, I guarantee you enough of them would see us to make it pointless," Cassandra retorted, "and with the cloaker on, half of our other defenses go out--"

They didn't have time to continue their discussion--thousands of smaller beasts had started assaulting them like a cloud of insects. There were so many that they were crashing into the masts, knocking the ship this way and that, and swallowing the crew so fast that the rest could barely reel one in before another was swallowed. Weapons were impacting all over the ship, cutting down many more crew with jagged spikes and acid sprays. Cassandra could not escape the clouds of smaller monsters because she had to concentrate on avoiding the big ones--and they were only getting bigger.

"I've got to admit, there shouldn't be THIS many," Cassandra said, clinging to her console against the violent impacts the ship was now sustaining.

"What do you mean?" Annelique asked.

"Klayer..." Cassandra said quietly. "Klayer, you bitch. KLAYER, YOU BITCH!" she screamed.

"What?" Annelique yelled over the din.

"THAT!" Cassandra was pointing slightly off the port prow, towards a monster that seemed to dwarf even the other enormous monsters. It, too, had the torso of a woman--but it's bottom half looked like a spiked asteroid with a gigantic maw and dozens of thick, pink tentacles poking out of it's sides. "THAT," Cassandra screamed again, "IS ONE OF MNOKUGURA'S SPAWN! THAT BEAST IS OUT HERE!"

"IS THAT WHY THERE ARE SO MANY MONSTERS?" Annelique yelled back, barely able to hear her at this point over the sound of battle.

"I WOULD THINK SO!"

Annelique heard a sudden, almost deafening crack. She looked ahead just in time to see one of the masts snapping and flying back towards them. She dove to the deck just in time, but still felt one of her wings being painfully scraped as the mast flew over them and spun off into space.

There were monsters clinging to the hull now--one, almost the size of the ship itself, seemed to be trying--unsuccessfully--to pull it down it's throat. Others were simply oozing acid onto it from their maws, hoping to suck nutrients in. Annelique noticed with alarm that almost two thirds of the crew were missing. In their place she saw twenty chains pulled taut against the ship, trailing back to monsters with closed mouths and full-looking bellies. The remaining crew were too busy defending the ship--and themselves--to help them.

Annelique drew her sword. Taking a deep breath, she leapt from the deck and flew away from the ship towards the mob of chained beasts. Within seconds she had reached them, landing on a mollusk-like creature with a cone-shaped shell. She stabbed into it again and again with her blade, watching it recoil and hearing it roar an inhuman roar with each strike. Blood trailed behind them as she plunged the sword deeper.

Suddenly, she felt something wrap around her arm at the shoulder, followed quickly by another around her waist. A pair of tentacles yanked her off of the monster and she saw that another of the chained beasts, a long, squid-like creature with spines running along it's body in sharp lines, had grabbed ahold of her with it's tentacles. Their iron-hard grip clenched painfully around her as it thrust her towards it's fleshy, jellyfish-like maw, apparently not satisfied with the meal it already had. She slashed at it but in vain--within moments she felt the strange, silky texture of the feeding tentacles around it's mouth engulfing her face, followed by the firmer and slimier flesh of it's mouth proper. Her arms were pinned against her as the beast shoved her greedily into it's maw; all she could feel was heat and slime all around her upper body, along with the chain of it's existing victim sliding against her back. She tried to bend down and grab the chain around her own ankle but the creature's throat--or stomach, or whatever it was--was too narrow. It continued to draw her in until she felt her feet being engulfed by it's writhing mouth.

She felt something hard beginning to slide against the back of her head. It could only have been the boot of the crewman who had been eaten. Annelique was quickly shoved awkwardly upward into the other woman--she could feel the woman's scalemail dress crumpling and bunching up against the top of her head as she was shoved upward in the tight space. She felt the woman's legs against her back, squirming around. She heard a muffled voice, but couldn't make out what she was saying--the noise in the creature's belly was too loud and it's flesh too thick.

She squirmed for a few moments, trying to find some avenue of movement. Her arms were pinned closely to her body and her legs could only move an inch or two in any given direction. The beast's stomach simply didn't seem capable of stretching--or was too strong for her.

Suddenly, she heard the other woman scream. Her squirms became violent jerks as the muffled screech filled Annelique's ears. Before Annelique could react she felt a searing pain on her shoulder which quickly spread and began to run down her arm. She actually heard a bubbling hiss as a small river of digestive acid ran down her body, leaving behind it a trail of searing pain. Soon another trickle of the powerful acid dripped down, this time running down the back of her head and then further down her back. It was all she could do to keep from screaming and kicking herself. Even so, she twitched slightly and found herself breathing erratically--she had never felt acid this powerful before.

The stomach wall shifted against them slightly and it suddenly felt like Annelique's robes had filled with ooze. A split second after, she heard her own voice piercing her ears as she screamed--the pain was all over her now, the beast's stomach having secreted acid throughout it's entire length. She clenched her teeth as she felt her face burning--her fingers, her arms, her legs, everything. She could feel every fibre of her wings as they burned, soaked through with digestive juice. The bubbling hiss was replaced by a roiling boil from every direction as the acid bored into her, eating through her armor and flesh with equal eagerness.

She found her fingers losing their grip on her sword, her body squirming and jerking violently as her mind reeled. The pain began to abate slightly, but Annelique knew better than to think that was a good sign--it meant she was weakening. The creature was on it's way to digesting her.

Her mind raced. Perhaps if she was able to speak to the other girl, they could cooperate on a way out.

She reached upwards, trying to pull the other girl down towards her, or pull herself up.

She screamed again as a thick, half-melted chunk of the other woman's body came off in her hands.

She was gasping and panting in sheer panic now. She tried once more to grab her ankle chain, but she just couldn't bend her body down or her legs up. She felt around for something--anything--that she could use.

Then she realized that the other girl had been drawn up higher than she was--her chain started at Annelique's waist, well within reach of her hands.

Annelique tried to force her parched, burning fingers to move around to her back in order to grasp the chain. She struggled for several moments to do it, and during each of those moments she felt a little more of herself being lost to the fire that engulfed her body.

She wrapped her fingers around the chain and slowly pulled it, but she could not bring it out from behind her--she was too weak to wrench it away from the bulk of the other woman's half-digested leg.

Nonetheless, she started trying to pull herself down the chain, hand over hand, even though it was behind her. It was awkward and difficult, but she made progress--until the monster's throat realized what she was trying to do. It clenched and tried to force her deeper into it's belly.

Annelique clutched the chain as hard as she could. Tears began to brim in her eyes as her muscles burned from the exertion of holding against the giant, rippling cords of muscle that threatened to send her to her death inside this heartless monster. It sent thick rivers of acid down her body, trying to lubricate her passage--or damage her enough that she could no longer resist. The slime threatened to make her lose her hold on the chain altogether.

In the end, she did.

She didn't have the will to scream as she was sucked into the depths of the creature, now more eager than ever to absorb her flesh. The stomach was dripping with it's firey digestive juices and she could feel it's stomach walls churning against her now, shoving and crushing her like a steel machine. The half-dissolved chunks of the other woman mushed against her as she clenched her eyes shut and prayed for rescue.

She felt her skin beginning to give out. The greedy acids stripped it away, first in little holes, then in large chunks. Her muscle tissue began to dissolve and large chunks of her body began to separate from her, either being churned in the stomach or pushed up into the intestines. She could still feel every part of her--and through the pain and strange exhiliaration she still felt panic. She couldn't die--she couldn't let Aerothi win. She couldn't leave her friends alone.

But neither could she survive this. Even if they killed the monster now, she would be dead.

She let a strange sort of despair wash over her as she felt her liquified body mix with the liquids of the beast's digestive tract and with those of the woman who had been digested alongside her. They shared a brief moment of communion, their spirits in contact with one another only briefly--Cassandra's crew had been surprised at the incredible pleasure being digested had given her. For her part, Annelique could only remain silent and wait for her spirit to pass on.

******

It was warm here.

Safe.

She could almost imagine she was back home...back wherever she wanted, really.

She didn't know where she was...or, rather, where she was about to be. She was vaguely aware of who she was about to be...but that didn't make her eager. She didn't really want to know where she was, because she knew it wouldn't be home.

She wanted to stay here, in her egg, and be safe and warm. She didn't want to go back and face what that life had had.

But everything has to come to an end...even death.

The walls cracked open and flopped to the ground. Annelique fell out of her egg, naked and extremely cold.

Strangely, she could still feel the ribbon in her hair, tied behind her and feeling strangely warm--the only part of her that stayed warm. How it had survived and managed to follow her here was a mystery.

In fact, "here" was a mystery of it's own. Annelique had no idea where she was. It was a cold world, with a pitch-black sky studded with colorful but distant stars. The ground--if you could call it that--looked like uneven patches of clear crystal or glass. Deep into it's surface she imagined she could see shapes--intricate shapes, from the look of things, but still too vague and dark to make out.

There were no plants, no animals. All she could see was a single, tall building, seemingly built out of the same crystal as the world around her--in fat, it looked almost as though it had been carved or raised out of it.

Despite it's height, it was fairly small otherwise--maybe twenty meters wide, with 3/4ths of that consisting of it's single gigantric entryway. It looked like a temple--several large pillars held it's entrance aloft, and it's corners ended in spired towers that climbed into the sky. Arcane writing--some of it angelic--was written across the archways that led inside.

The parts that Annelique could read spoke of ancient legends, most of which she did not recognize or remember, but a few names seemed familiar--names of heroes, but also of sages and scholars.

Slowly bringing herself to her feet, unhappy to be out of her egg but definately happy to be out of that monster's stomach, Annelique began walking towards the temple.

She noticed, rather abruptly, that someone else was there, leaning against one of the pillars. She was a very thin woman, with streaked grey and white hair and striking features. Her eyes were very strange--they didn't seem to have a color, but rather, they seemed to have every color in the rainbow overlapping, as though Annelique had six eyes and each was seeing a different color. She was wearing a simple grey tunic with a dress underneath. Her face was chalk white.

Annelique could have sworn she wasn't there before. Teleported, perhaps?

"Who are you?" Annelique asked.

"I'm the one you're looking for," the woman answered. Something about her voice took Annelique aback, but she wasn't sure why. It didn't seem hostile, or powerful, just...very, very strange.

"You're Eternity?" Annelique asked.

The woman simply stared back at her with her multichromatic eyes.

"Did you save me?" Annelique asked.

"Brightwind saved you," the woman said, stepping slowly away from the pillar and walking across one of the steps. "Didn't you know that angels resurrect when they die?"

"I...didn't know whether it happened here in Prime."

"Not always," Eternity said simply. "The decision can sometimes be complicated."

"Decision?" Annelique asked.

"Yes," was her only answer.

Annelique looked down at the ground before her. "Eternity...I guess you know why I'm here...can I ask you a few things?"

Eternity nodded thoughtfully.

"Why do the four of us bear the fate mark?"

Eternity took a long glance at Annelique, as though weighing the question.

"It was the will of Neruna. The mark is Neruna's mark. One of the marks of Death. Neruna is not well-known, because she is not a Goddess of mortals. To mortal beings, the Goddess of Death and Rebirth alike is Lerania."

"So Neruna is a Goddess to beings other than mortals?"

"Yes. She is the Goddess of the death of worlds."

"Worlds?" Annelique bit her lip. "Worlds like ours, or Taburas?"

"Yes."

"So...that means Aerothi is going to succeed?" Annelique said.

"Perhaps...parhaps not. Neruna is not simply a killer. She oversees death not just in the sense of when it should occur, but also when it should not occur."

"But she has placed the mark on Aerothi, and Aerothi wants to destroy the world--doesn't that mean Neruna has chosen to..." Annelique stopped. "But she put the mark on us, too, and we want to save it. So why both of us?"

Eternity looked down, clasping her hands behind her back. "I do not know. The four of you are meant to determine the life or death of worlds...perhaps more than just your own. It seems, however, that Aerothi is capable of destroying a world, and that you are meant to stop her. The question is whether you are meant to stop her before or after she accomplishes her plans."

Annelique gulped. "What if that was Neruna's plan? To have Aerothi succeed, then have us stop her before further worlds die?"

"You know the consequences, should that be the case."

"Our whole world would die," Annelique said, her face paling.

"I know it is not the answer you wanted...but if it's any consolation, I am capable of being wrong."

So she said. But Annelique knew better...they'd be lucky if they could stop Aerothi after she implemented her plan, let alone before.

"Aerothi said..." Annelique started, "that you answered other questions for her."

"Yes," Eternity replied. "She asked me what she was."

"What was she?"

Eternity smiled, though the smile seemed more sardonic than cheerful. "I knew...but I lied to her."

Annelique was aghast. "You *lied* to her?"

"It is not something I typically do...and it was not so much a lie as a glaring omission. Unfortunately, I think it would be best to hide the same information from you."

"Why would you hide it?"

"She..." Eternity hesitated for a moment, trying to put it into the right words. "The simplest way of putting it would be to say her mind wanted to know the answer but her spirit knew it would...make things considerably more complicated. And dangerous. Likewise, to tell you would make your task even more difficult."

"More difficult how?"

"Even if I said that, it would be too much. I'm sorry."

"What *is* she?" Annelique said, her voice suddenly commanding. "We've had to fight one nightmare or another in the name of defeating her since before I was even born. Charlotte says two of us have strayed from what we were. One of them was me. I know the other was Aerothi. What is she?"

Eternity gazed at her calmly. "I will tell you if that is truly your wish. But all your current fears will pale compared to what you will imagine once you know."

Annelique clenched her jaw. "We...we have to fight her. Not knowing what she is won't make her any weaker. We have to face that. We have to face what she is, whatever that might be."

"Very well..." Eternity said. "Aerothi," she continued, "is Neruna."

There was a moment while Annelique calmly processed this information. The calm did not last long. Eternity's words filtered through her mind, slowly triggering responses that began to build up--but not to fear. They were building up to anger.

"NO!" She suddenly screamed. Falling to her knees, she pounded her fists against the crystalline steps of the temple. "NO NO NO NO NO!!" Each word was in synch with the dull smack of her hand against the smooth crystal. "This is ridiculous! We're already losing! And now you're telling me fate expects us to fight a Goddess!?"

Her knuckles smashed into the steps once more as her shoulders began to slump. Her face was hot with desperate rage and she felt tears beginning to roll down her face. How was this fair? How was this fate? How could anyone honestly expect them to defeat a Goddess, of all things?

"She does not know she is a Goddess," Eternity said. "That much I hid from her. Now you know why I had hoped to hide it from you as well...I'm sorry."

Annelique didn't bother to hide her hopelessness. "What can we do?"

"Kill one world to save many...or risk many worlds to save them all. Resurrect your world, killing all of it's people, or defeat Mnokugura on your own...something that even Aerothi cannot do."

Annelique sat back on the front steps of the temple, saying nothing.

"I know what you want to say," Eternity said. "Ask me."

"Why us?" Annelique asked. "Why did this have to happen to us? We're not heroes. We aren't great warriors. We've barely been able to live this long." A tear rolled down her cheek. "Half of us haven't."

"There is something you must understand about fate," Eternity replied. "It is jailed by the cruelest warden in all of creation."

"Who is that?"

"Free will. Fate can never force someone to go against their own soul. It can make you angry, or hungry, or even kill you...but it cannot make your true choices for you. Even the Goddesses must play the cards they are dealt."

"But how does that answer my question?"

"Neruna chose you. She could not force anyone to do as she wished--not even herself, once she assumed mortal form. She had to choose from those she knew had the courage and strength of heart to oppose her when the need arose. You may not have been born with a masterful command of the elements or supreme mastery of the sword. But you are heroes."

Annelique simply sat there silently.

"There is something else..." Eternity asked. "Something else Aerothi asked, which I think will be of relevance to you."

Annelique looked up.

"Fate marks are put there by the Goddesses to accomplish a purpose. They typically grant powers to their bearers to see that this purpose is fulfilled. Yours are no exception..."

There was a long pause before Eternity continued.

"Aerothi asked me what the power of her fate mark was...what it meant to wear this mark, given by the Goddess of the death of worlds. And I told her."

She began to descend the steps, kneeling in front of where Annelique had crumpled upon them. She took the angel's hand and placed another on her shoulder.

"Annelique, I know this is hard, and what I'm about to tell you won't make it any easier. But you may finally understand how you are supposed to defeat her. Your fate mark is not merely destined to create or avert death. It's power is death. Whenever a person dies, you will take a small portion of that person's former strength. This effect is small, but it stretches across a great distance--enough to cover your entire world. Aerothi does not have the powers of a Goddess; she has become what she is because she has caused the slaughter of so many creatures and has fed on the deaths of every one. You too have that power; every life Aerothi takes makes the three of you stronger."

"Assuming there are still three of us," Annelique said dejectedly. "I'm not sure Cassandra is going to make it here."

"She will. They will be here soon, but...brace yourself."

"For what?"

For the first time, Eternity looked away. A sad light had entered her eyes.

"There *are* only three of you now," she said, standing and backing away from Annelique.

Right at that moment, she began to hear a faint, distant howling sound. It rapidly became louder until Annelique could see something in the distance accompanying the noise--it was the Starslicer. It flew erratically, shifting and pitching left and right as it tried to make a landing. In the end, it half landed and half crashed, leaving splintered chunks of crystal and metal along the ground as it spun to a gradual halt along the crystalline ground.

The battle damage it had sustained was serious; entire chunks of the hull were burned out, some sections mangled beyond recognition. Some areas were so damaged that Annelique could see into the interior of the ship even from where she was standing.

Wasting no time, she flew over to where the vessel had landed. A handful of crew were stepping down the ramps towards the ground--only three, plus Cassandra herself. There only seemed to be one or two more on the deck. Cassandra looked haggard, breathing heavily and looking singed in places. There were gouges in her armor and one area even looked partially melted. Her formerly confident face now looked weary. Her three crew didn't look much better--in fact, they looked worse. One of them had the entire section of armor from her elbow to her neck melted off, leaving burned and welted skin in it's place.

"Are you alright?" Annelique called out.

Cassandra looked up, momentarily surprised to see Annelique, but if it held any relief for her she didn't express it. "When I find your friend Klayer I'm going to kill her," she replied. Annelique couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic.

Annelique looked higher up on the deck. Elvet was sitting with her back against the wall to the cabin, looking badly injured, being tended to by two healers who looked like they could use some healing themselves. Ishiar was standing on the deck, also haggard and short of breath, her face as stern and angry as Annelique had ever seen it, though it changed to a look of weary relief when she saw Annelique.

"Annie...you're alive," she said.

"Yes...are you alright?"

Ishiar waited a moment before answering. "I am..."

"Where are the others?"

"Gairanda and Ralier are down below...we don't know where the hell Kaboom went..."

"What about Sudvana?"

There was a pause.

"Let's just hope this place was worth it," Cassandra interrupted bitterly.

"Where...where is she?" Annelique asked, her heart suddenly kicking in her chest.

Ishiar looked back at her for a moment before answering. "She's dead, Annie," she said.

"D...dead..." Annelique repeated, suddenly feeling as though her whole body had melted into cold, clammy water--all except for her stomach, which felt ready to turn itself inside out. "Dead? How could she be dead?"

Ishiar's jaw was setting and unsetting beneath her face. She was looking down towards something on the deck.

Annelique didn't want to look, but her eyes forced themselves on it. It was a silver chain, it's end having been burned off by acid completely.

"Are you sure it--" she started, but she couldn't finish.

Ishiar nodded slowly. "Yeah. We're...we're sure."

Annelique wanted to say something, to protest, to mourn, to do something--but her heart was stilled in her chest, her lungs frozen. This couldn't be real...Sudvana couldn't have just died out there without her, just like that.

"W...what about Blast?" she asked, her voice wavering.

"She's okay...well, she's alive. She tried to get her out..." Ishiar said, looking over to where Blast was sitting against the stairposts leading to the command deck. Her head was buried in her knees, her arms cradling them to her. Her skin was horribly burned, and her own silver anklet--still chained to her--looked as though it had nearly melted as well.

"Like I said," Cassandra said, "this place had better be worth it."

"We need to find Eternity...unless you already have," Ishiar said to Annelique.

"Yes..." Annelique replied quietly.

"Tell me she had some good news."

"No," Annelique replied, her voice suddenly so choked it was almost a hoarse whisper. "No she didn't."

Ishiar snarled and threw her sword against the deck, sending it clattering and clanging across the boards with a noise that mirrored her own angry thoughts.

"Why am I not surprised..." she growled. "What did she tell you?"

"That Neruna is the Goddess of the death of worlds...and that Aerothi is Neruna."

"What do you mean, Aerothi is Neruna?"

"Neruna incarnated into mortal form as Aerothi. She actually doesn't know who she is," Annelique said.

"A Goddess, huh?" Cassandra said. "Sucks to be you."

"There's more. Every time someone dies, a piece of their strength goes to one of us. Or...all of us, I guess. That's what the fate marks do."

"We eat souls?" Ishiar asked.

"I don't know. Apparently it's just a small part, but if enough lives are lost..."

"We end up like Aerothi, taking on Giantesses like they were drunken pixies," Ishiar said. She looked even more disgusted and angry. "Our greatest power comes from the slaughter of innocents. Somehow I see Aerothi still having an advantage in that arena."

Annelique slowly floated to the ground, not feeling like flying anymore. She didn't really even feel like existing anymore.

"I'm half tempted to just say fuck it," Ishiar said. "Nobody is paying us to fight a Goddess. Chances are Aerothi's going to win anyway and everyone we care about is either with us or dead," she said bitterly.

Annelique almost felt the same way. She felt betrayed and hopeless. She had been forced out of her home in Brightwind in order to come to this world--to come to Sudvana. And now she had been snatched away as though she had never even been important. And if Sudvana could die, any of them could die--all of them could die.

"Then again, maybe we're supposed to be helping Neruna," Ishiar continued, "or Aerothi, or whoever the fuck. Not that we even have any way back there. The monsters are so thick we'd be dead before we made it even a quarter of the way. So it seems destiny has managed to shove a corkscrew up it's own ass."

There was a sudden voice from the doors leading to below deck. It was Ralier. She didn't look any happier than anyone else.

"Hey guys, we found Kaboom, but we need help getting her out," she said.

"Out?" Ishiar asked.

"You'll...have to see," Ralier said, a disturbed look on her face.

Ishiar followed her below deck. They found her in one of the lower bunkrooms. A thick, broken plank, one of many that littered the ship, was lodged in between two sections of the wall. She had apparently been caught in between; it had stabbed into her lower abdomen and was pinning her against the hull. Blood had soaked her patchworked clothing and the floor beneath her as well.

"A little help," she rasped towards them.

"I wasn't sure if it was a good idea to try to move the plank...we might just end up dragging her against the wall," Ralier said. "Can we cut through it?"

"It's too thick," Ishiar said. "Doesn't help that my sword is practically blunt now."

"Put this in the middle," Kaboom said, handing Ralier what appeared to be a stick of dynamite and a lighter. Her voice was wavering and her hands were shaking.

"Are you sure the explosion won't kill you?" Ralier asked.

"I was kind of hoping that," Kaboom said.

Ralier bit her lower lip and wedged the dynamite into a large, splintered chunk of the plank. She lit it's fuse and she and Ishiar quickly headed back into the next room.

There was a loud bang and a clattering as dozens of pieces of shattered wood landed all over the room.

"A little help," Kaboom muttered again.

They came back in. The plank had been blown in half, but it was now pitched forward, it's back being held up by Kaboom's body, still stuck against the wall. She was wincing, new trails of blood visible from where the plank had torn through her anew as it changed position.

Kaboom and Ishiar ran over and started to lift the heavy plank, wrenching Kaboom's body with it.

"OWcareful careful careful!" she said with a grimace as they slowly lifted the plank and pulled it away from the wall. Once well clear of the wall, Kaboom put her hands on either side of it and, visibly bracing herself for the pain that was to come, started pulling herself off of the plank's jagged edge. She gasped through her teeth as her skin painfully pulled away. The moment she was free, she collapsed into a hunched sitting position against the wall. Both of her arms clutched around her wounded stomach and she clenched her teeth and her eyes shut. She was wheezing from the pain.

"Ow," she finally managed to mutter.

"I'll see if we can get a healer in here," Ralier said.

"I think all the healers are spent...or too injured to do anything," Ishiar said.

"Where's Blast?" Kaboom asked.

"She's up top...hasn't moved or responded to anyone since she got away from the monster."

"Crap..." Kaboom muttered.

"Half of the crew is dead and the other half is injured," Ishiar said. "We lost Sudvana and almost lost Annelique...apparently she got away somehow."

"Angels reincarnate in their original bodies," Kaboom said, still clutching at her wounds. "In her case, dying was lucky. She doesn't have to spend an hour bleeding to death like, say, me."

"You're not going to bleed to death, we'll think of something..." Ishiar said.

"Well, maybe you could go ask Annerambler real nicely if she would come put my intestines back in..."

Ishiar nodded and headed back up to the main deck. She didn't see Annelique, either where she had been standing or anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

"Annelique?" she called out. "Annelique!"

There was no answer.

"Well, shit."

******

"Why?" Annelique asked, tears streaking down her face. "Why her? Why did this happen?"

Eternity looked back at her, her expression sympathetic.

"It happened because it happened," she said simply.

"Bring her back. You're the void master--you can bring her back."

Eternity's face turned almost apologetic.

"I...could...but I can't," she said.

"Please...she was the only reason I was doing any of this. It was all for her. If she can't be here..." Annelique choked and sobbed. "If you can't bring her back, just...reincarnate her. Make her an angel, like Klayer did with me."

"The powers of Brightwind caused you to be born an angel, and it was because you were in Brightwind when you died," Eternity said. "Sudvana was not."

"That's what's wrong!" Annelique said. "She shouldn't even have died in the first place! And to have died alone out there, without--"

"Without you," Eternity said.

"Yes! Without me..." Annelique replied.

"Would it have made any difference if you had been there?"

"It could have. I might have saved her. I might have..."

"You might have had to watch her die with your own eyes."

"But I could have saved her!"

"Your companions tried," Eternity said. "And you tried. It is a testament to your courage that any of you survived at all."

"What can I do? There must be something I can do to bring her back. Why won't you help me? Do you just not care?"

Eternity gazed off across the horizon. "I care. I want you to be happy. Truthfully, I would want everything to be perfect for you, just as your caremistress would. But...I'm not your caremistress, Annelique. I want to help you, it's just that..."

There was a pause.

Annelique could not believe what she was hearing--or even what she wasn't hearing. How could the omnipotent master of void be at a loss for words?

"There's an old saying, you've probably heard it..." Eternity said. "With great power comes great responsibility. And I..." she looked across the horizon again, "I am very, very powerful. I can't allow myself to rip holes in the natural order just because I know how. Yes, I can bring back the dead. Yes, I can alter the flow of time and space. Yes, I can rewrite memories and forge and destroy spirits," she said slowly, almost as if she were admitting these things to herself for the first time. "That doesn't mean I should."

"Why not?" Annelique asked simply.

"Because! I am..." she sounded almost frustrated. "I am intelligent, and I can see many things. I like to think of myself as wise. But the more you learn, the more you realize you don't know. The more you see, the more you realize you're missing. And the more you can change, the more you realize how little grasp you have of the true consequences," she said. She let out a heavy sigh. "Even I cannot see the future, Annelique. I can...see something akin to it, but it is more like a spectrum, a range of things that could happen. The closer they are, the more narrow that range becomes. But ultimately I am still just looking at a web of possibility and guessing the outcome."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"I can have an enormous effect on things no one else can, Annelique. Aerothi would have you believe that it is the fate of worlds that are important, but they are not. Planets are devoured by planet-sized monsters every day, and every day a planet-sized monster is slain or eaten by another. It is part of the natural cycle of things. Bringing people back from the dead is not."

"So what? It's just one person."

"But you know as well as I do it isn't that simple. That one person means the whole universe to you...and that in turn could doom or save an entire world."

"So save the world! Bring her back!"

"You don't understand..." Eternity said, suddenly pacing back and forth on the steps. She seemed lost in thoughts of something else, dwelling on some distant memory. She sighed, her face suddenly wracked with frustration.

"Sometimes I wish I had his voice," she said. "He always has a way of making things make sense."

"He?" Annelique asked, puzzled.

Eternity turned back to her. "This universe was built by someone else. I have learned it's workings, it's true essence...I've learned about it's creator. I have had many trials of my own, and he was there for me many times, though I never knew it at the time...at least, not until later."

"Is that what this is about? You've been forbidden to use your powers by the creator?"

"Far from it. He forbids nothing...and that is what makes this so difficult. I could devastate all that was meant to be. I can break the rules, Annelique. That's what void magic truly is. It's understanding how the universe really works, because when you understand that, magic makes it simple to...well, to do all the things that I can do. And sometimes when you break the rules, you break the game."

"So that's it. You won't help me because you don't know what might happen. You're afraid you might cock things up."

"I can do more than just cock things up," Eternity said.

"I know. I've heard. You can unravel time and speak to the Goddesses and steal the powers of the heroes of legends past. But what good does it do? Have you ever wondered why you ended up with these powers? Like maybe *you* were supposed to play a part in destiny? Like maybe you're not just supposed to sit around playing sage and breaking angels' hearts in the process?"

"That thought has occurred to me, many times."

"And?"

"...And, I don't know."

"You don't *know*?"

"People say I know everything," Eternity said. "Obviously not. Should I be playing saviour, destroying all the beasts and monsters across the universe? A great service to their prey, but not to them. Do they not have a right to exist? Shall I vanquish the demons, erasing their very existance from the face of Ishara forever? Never again would they tempt or devour a mortal, which might make the mortals happier, but then again, I could choose to help them enslave all of Prime--that would certainly make the demons a lot happier. Do I have a right to say who shall exist and who shall not? Who has the right to be happy?"

"You're saying you understand the very fabric of creation but you can't even tell right from wrong."

"I'm saying it's more complicated than right and wrong. Right and wrong are just words."

"No, they're not! they're real, especially now! I may not know about the impeccable balance of the universe, but I know Sudvana should not have died helplessly in deep space!"

"How?"

"What?"

"How do you know that?"

"I just know," Annelique said. "I'm an angel. We can tell when things are wrong."

"You also have hearts," Eternity said. "Losing a loved one will always feel wrong, angel or no."

Annelique felt something in the back of her mind--something curious, like she was remembering something.

"Wait..." she said. "No...that's not true."

"Isn't it?" Eternity said.

"No...sorrow is not meant to be this strong. Pain is not supposed to be this strong."

Annelique wasn't even sure where this was coming from--it just felt correct. Eternity gave her a measured look.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Annelique said. "There's something wrong."

"In a sense," Eternity said. "The Goddesses cannot truly control the souls of others, thus they cannot truly control fate...but they can stack the odds. When they consider something to be of importance, they can...alter...the normal perceptions of creatures in Ishara."

"So bringing her back is the Goddesses' will."

"Not necessarily. You have your instincts, but I also have mine."

"Eternity--"

"Don't you understand, Annelique?" Eternity said abruptly, her voice suddenly loud. "I *want* to help you, but I *mustn't*! Sudvana *had* to die out there!"

"Why? Where is the sense in all this butchery and death?"

"Your souls," Eternity said.

"What?"

"The Goddesses cannot control souls, but they can control the world, and the world affects the souls of everyone in it. I must not interfere this time--it's written all over my mind, all over the ether, even on Lerania's face. I can see her, Annelique, and I can see your friend within her, and I know I must not interfere!"

Eternity herself seemed almost desperate now.

"Your souls are on a path set by powers higher than me, higher even than the Goddesses, and I cannot interfere," she said.

"But shouldn't I get a say in what happens to my soul? Don't I decide which path I take?" Annelique replied.

"Annelique, that is your angel self talking. But that angel is not your soul. It is just a shell. Even your spirit is just a shell. Your soul is a force even I don't understand, and I cannot tamper with it's path. Of all the uses of my powers, that is the one thing I can do that is truly wrong."

Annelique simply stood there, wondering what this could mean--why the universe would *force* her to suffer. She simply stood there for a long time, she and Eternity staring back at one another.

Finally, Annelique spoke again. "What did 'he' say to you?" she asked. "When you were in a crisis, or going through a trial or whatever it was, what did he say?"

There was a pause as Eternity thought about this. She seemed uncertain for a moment, but when she next spoke, it seemed less anguished--more confident, more hopeful.

"He said many things...sometimes I thought they were riddles, but they were simply things I was not yet ready to understand. He is the one who first taught me that there is a difference between the spirit and the soul. He taught me that they all react with one another, but that the soul, ultimately, exists outside of all creation as we know it. Spirits and bodies alike are merely vehicles for us to percieve...for us to exist. But a soul is not a fixed sum. It is a dynamic entity of it's own, so the things which it experiences ultimately affect it. Even though you are outside the world, the world still touches you and leaves it's mark. He told me that of all the things in the universe, it is not life, nor death, nor good, nor evil that are important...it is souls. He taught me that things can make them stronger or make them weaker...metaphorically speaking. He said that it is the force behind the existance of souls that truly commands their path..."

Eternity's words echoed in Annelique's ears. Somehow, for a moment, she knew Eternity was right. This pain that had been overwhelming her only a short time ago was just part of one life, one experience--one piece of time in eternity. Joy and pain alike were part of a path--a path that only she could walk, because it was not about saving the world. It was about her. Having Sudvana stripped away from her--though it would sting her forevermore--was somehow a necessary part of that.

"I think...I understand now," Annelique said at last. Eternity seemed relieved. "But there is one last thing I need to ask before I go."

"What's that?"

"How are we going to get back?"

Eternity looked at her for a moment before answering. "I guess I could help you there...I guess that wouldn't be meddling too much." She smiled slightly. "By the way," she said, her expression turning serious again, "you might want to be on the lookout for a...well, let's just say a 'person' named Liliandra."

"Why is that?"

"It's important that you find her. She's rather unique, and you're the only family she has left in this realm."

"...Even though we've never met her."

"The universe works in mysterious ways, doesn't it?"

"Annie! Annie!"

Annelique could hear Ishiar yelling from some distance away. She was running towards her.

"We need you back at the ship," she said as she reached the temple. "Kaboom is wounded, and it looks bad. You're the only healer who isn't out cold or sucked dry, and we can't even get Blast to move."

"Alright," Annelique said. "I'll see what I can do."

"Is this her?" Ishiar said, looking over to Eternity.

"Yes," Annelique said.

"Good. We could use you, too. You're the one who fixed up that woman that got hacked up by the soul cleaver, right?"

"I am," Eternity said.

"Well, we've got another one for you. Her name is Blast."

Eternity nodded. "Very well. Bring her here. I will be inside the temple."

******

The sight of Kaboom was the only thing that could get Blast out of her stupor. Her sister finally managed to coax her into standing up and letting Annelique heal her body, though the task was an arduous one--Blast, unbeknownst to everyone else, was apparently on the brink of death and had only given up on saving Sudvana at the last possible moment. Even now she wasn't totally healed, but the grievous injuries were gone.

Kaboom and Blast walked together to the entrance to the temple, Kaboom's hand never leaving Blast's shoulder until they reached the entrance. After turning and giving her sister an unreadable look, Blast slowly began to walk up the steps into the temple.

It was pitch black inside. When she crossed the threshold into the temple itself, even the light from the outside world suddenly vanished. At the same time Eternity appeared, standing some fifteen feet away from her, illuminated by some unseen light source.

"Blast, the silent one..." she said. "Ever kind and always quiet, always with a joyful heart...up until now. Now that heart is broken, isn't it?"

Blast nodded sadly.

"It was not just Rea's blade that sundered you...so my powers alone cannot heal the damage you have been dealt."

Blast just stared back, an empty look on her face.

"Others have always wondered why you never speak," Eternity continued. "I think I know why. Though you do not know it, you inherited more from your fae blood than did your sister."

Blast looked back at her, her face suddenly perplexed.

"You remember how you always used to be embarassed when Kaboom asked you to sing? How it used to make you cry when you heard your own voice?"

Blast blushed, smiled, and nodded.

"Your part in this is every bit as great as theirs, but for a different reason," Eternity said. "I cannot heal your wound, but you can. Let your voice sing in your heart. You will find it's power is far greater than simple magic..."

Blast's smile vanished and her face turned uncertain.

"You cannot keep running from your own voice," Eternity said. "I know why you do not speak, Blast."

Blast's expression turned defensive. "I...speak," Blast said, albeit hesitantly.

"But you don't like to, and whenever you do, your pulse quickens and you have to hold your breath," Eternity said. "Haven't you ever asked yourself why?"

Blast opened her mouth to answer, but didn't. She simply stared back, as if unsure of what to say. In the end, she simply shook her head.

"It is because deep down part of you already knows the power you have. You feel what happens inside you when you hear your own voice. And it scares you."

Blast simply stared back silently.

"There will come a time when whispers are not enough," Eternity said. "Sing in your heart, then let the rest of the world hear it."

And with that, Eternity was gone. The light from outside filtered back into the empty temple.

Blast heard Kaboom's voice. "Bee? You back? Does that mean we're done?"

She was still standing there when Kaboom ventured into the temple and tapped her shoulder. "Bee? Blast? Hellooooo..."

Finally, Blast turned and looked at her.

"Was that it?" Kaboom asked.

Blast nodded.

"Are you sure? You still look pretty pale, and we didn't come all this way so Etnabounce could do a half-assed soul-stitch..."

Blast hesitated, her mouth opening and closing for a moment. "I'm...fine," Blast replied.

"Fine? Is that why you're shaking? Because when I'm fine, I usually don't do that."

Blast just shook her head, took Kaboom's hand, and led them both out of the temple.

If all Eternity did was bitch Blast out about not talking, Kaboom was going to be pissed.