I darted through the cracked streets and broken hovels of the imperial city. Ghosts all around, impervious to harm, exceedingly dangerous. Terror.

Gwyneth was a madwoman. Ruthless, powerhungry, and destructive. I’d always known, but never realized. She blinded me with good looks and a sharp tongue, but she never really hid her true nature. That was on us for not seeing.

I ran. I ran and ran and my legs screamed their protest, but I kept running. The ship called to me, my supplies, my spare clothes, but it was too slow. I didn’t know how much time I had before… before the girl I once crushed on became the next dark lord of the kindred.

Near the palace was a portal. A gateway to other worlds, long-dormant but still working, if Gwyn’s experiment back home was any indication. All it took was the right spark, a jolt of magic, a gesture of will. I could provide that, if I could sneak past Nero’s army.

Imperial guards in spectral regalia patrolled the streets around the palace, and in the military district they marched in rows and columns, a long-dead war machine still beating its drums. The portal was there, past their guards and soldiers and watch posts.

I dodged out of the path of one patrol, crept through the shadows past another, and fooled a lone soldier with a made-up story about noble ties. Slowly I approached the portal stronghold. It looked just as Strix had described: a thorn against the earth, a gash in the sky. Sharp edges pierced the city skyline and distorted what little light rained down from the pale white moon.

Here, in the heart of the emperor’s domain, I could see the true scope of his power. For all that the ghosts complained about lost legions and vanished protectors, there were still hundreds of men and women in armor. Hundreds of blades sworn to Nero’s command. There were more soldiers in just this one place than across the entirety of our island home. And there were far too many to sneak past.

Then a horn rang out. A call to arms. Messengers from the palace flitted to imperial captains and relayed orders from on high. The soldiers started to march away from the stronghold and into the city.

In the distance, I heard screams. The sounds of war.

I couldn’t stick around to learn more. I had to get back. I moved through the shadows and watched the imperial army deploy until only a skeleton crew was left to guard the stronghold. Too many, but I’d have to make do.

I drew my sword. Tommen had forged it for me a long time ago, when the chosen few completed our first round of combat training. We were ready to use real weapons, to fight in real battles. Tommen was always nice to me. I think, maybe, he saw the pain I was going through. He shaped the hilt into a flowery design, just for me. Gwyn mocked it, but I loved it.

I ran at the door guard and unleashed my magic before they could react. Crackling red surging along the sword blade, energy bleeding into the world and sending arcs of pain through two victims. The imperials stumbled away from me, shouting and cursing, and I kicked the door down. I needed to move fast, and that meant no time for remorse.

The portal stronghold was much less confusing than Nero’s palace. A single long hallway with half a dozen doors on either side and double doors at the end of it. Only a few ghosts got in my way, easily crippled.

Behind me, the two initial guards recovered enough to give chase. The hallway guards would follow suit. Faster, faster, running out of time.

The double doors were locked. I smashed the chain with my sword. Again, again, still intact but weakening. An imperial slashed at me and I felt the cold. I whirled on her and cut her throat with sorcerous steel. Back to the chain, then the ghosts, the chain, almost there.

The doors swung open and I lunged into the room, racing away from the spectral mob. There: the portal.

A vast chamber had been constructed around it. It reminded me of the cave back home, but sloppier. This was built by kindred hands, not the Ancients. Benches and shelves and banners to mark the territory. Bodies too, but no ghosts.

The Gate gleamed with runic markings. It beckoned to me. It was something that shouldn’t exist, a piece of unreality forged into existence. The metal was like crystal, an alien geode. The symbols made my head hurt like staring at a language you almost recognize but just can’t.

Gwyneth told me how she activated the Gate back on the island: lightning. I couldn’t conjure it like she could, but sorcery was sorcery and I had anger aplenty.

I pushed the doors closed behind me and shoved a bench in front of it. It wouldn’t hold for long, but maybe long enough. I stepped in front of the Gate, drew my blade, and reached for my power.

Strix’s teaching hadn’t helped me learn glamour, but it did connect me better to my sorcery. I could feel a well of energy deep inside me, something as natural as the blood in my veins or the twitching of my fingers. It was a vessel waiting to be filled. It needed a catalyst, and fuel, and then it could share my pain with the world.

I hated sorcery. I hated magic that existed to hurt others. I didn’t want to be like that. I didn’t want to be like Gwyn, or the nobles of old. But in this moment, it was necessary. So I found my anger.

I found her betrayal, her lies, her callous ambition. I found the fear in Finn’s eyes, the dismissal in Gwyn’s words. I found the broken bodies of slaves and the arrogance of Strix. I found the sounds of battle and the zeal of soldiers.

I remembered home. Gwyn’s mocking. The chantry’s ignorance. Mal’s warnings. I found my anger there too, in their worship of Gwyn and in their love of violence. I found the cold cowardice of the Council and the fiery single-mindedness of Morgan. Stolen moments, broken hearts, burning villages. My own ignorance, my own refusal to see all the signs even as my friends shouted them at me.

I remembered smiling faces and laughing children, and I remembered the ghosts of children wandering the imperial city. Gwyn didn’t care about them, didn’t notice them. If she had her way, there would be more dead children soon. Monster.

Anger gave way to conviction and surety. I hated Gwyn, but that’s not why I was doing this. My own personal feelings didn’t matter, not in the face of extinction.

My magic clicked, I swung my blade, and a hole in the world opened up.

A rift of multicolored light, the infinite cosmos stretching within the depth of a floating scar. The Gate flickered and glowed and screeched, and constellations sprung up all around me. Behind me, the doors shook and strained.

The lights were disorienting and jumbled, but one diagram was crystal-clear: our world, with two access points. One glowing, one dim. I reached for it, grasped it, and the portal twisted and shifted. The diagrams flew away, and the rift yawned in front of me, vast and inscrutable.

The barrier broke. The ghosts poured in. I ran into the portal.

Darkness, cold and infinite, a thousand muted stars. A veil, or skin, or the surface of water, a thin and invisible membrane pushing against me and flowing with me. Bursting.

I stumbled out of the portal and fell to cold stone. I was in a cave full of strange formations and alien light, and there were people staring at me and drawing their weapons.

Home. I was home.

I passed out.