Lamphrey knew he was coming.

  She was a Tialax well-versed in reading thoughts, observing patterns, and predicting behaviors. Among her Sisters, when there had been more of them, they called the practice ‘Tracing Eventualities’.

  It was an old kind of magic known only to the few Oneiromancers of the world. From before even the time of Karfanng. Before the great cosmic drama that dominated this world had even begun.

  She sat in her cabin in the battleship the rest of them had pilfered, and let her thoughts meander for a moment, knowing that a critical time was upon them. She’d known ever since the Archon had first been brought to Sanctum that he’d be the one to change the world. Still, she had watched from afar, and bided her time. She had kept her promise to Jun’Ei and given him the Memory Rune as the old wolf had told her to when the time was right.

  Now, it was her turn to act. Soon, they would approach the Second Act, wherein a revelation would take place that could shatter the very bounds of the realm they all called Argwyll.

  She heard quick footsteps on the deck outside. She had known he was coming, but what exactly he would say, and how, and why – that particular etching in time and space eluded her.

  She smiled as the door to her cabin creaked open. Even a woman as old as she was needed surprises every now and then.

  “Archon Ethan,” she said as his dark shadow loomed above her bed. “Be welcome.”

  He nodded once, and sat his Drytchling form down beside her. Even without touching his mind, she could feel how stretched his being was. And how fierce.

  “You are troubled.”

  He looked over at her. “Yes.”

  She took a moment before she replied, weighing her thoughts like gold in her claws.

  “You have such power,” she said. “Such tenacity, and such purity of spirit. Yet the very thing that gives you strength is clawing at you right now, is it not?”

  He cocked his eyes at her – two green, one red – but nodded slowly, as if he wasn’t surprised she could tell just by looking at him that something was wrong.

  “You told me power has its prices in this world, for me,” he said. “Was this what you meant?”

  She allowed herself a smile. “One cannot get something for nothing. Argwyll is ruled by more Laws than that which Kaedmon has defined. The Archon has its own rules, as does the Lightborn.”

  She watched him crane his head in his claws out of the corner of her eye. Outside, the rainfall continued in heavy pellets that slashed across the night sky, cutting the air like knives.

  “This Host,” Ethan said, “its…calling to me. It’s whispering, showing me thoughts that aren’t mine. Or, maybe they are. I don’t know – but – they’re getting stronger. Out there, killing that Titan, they were at their peak. It was almost like…I was being taken over, for once.”

  Lamphrey nodded, clutching her staff close to her breast. “And you fear this, do you?”

  He looked at her long and hard before answering.

  “It’s not me,” he said with a shake of his sullen head. “It’s never been me.”

  “But perhaps it is what you must be,” she stated, “if you wish to set this world right.”

  He rose suddenly with a jerk, and for a brief instant she thought she might have gone too far.

  “Forgive me, Lord,” she said. “I only meant –“

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  “No,” he said. Then – in a far softer tone: “No.I get what you’re saying.”

  He watched the rain absent-mindedly for a few minutes, his claws raking their way down the steel pane of the oval window.

  “I was never a leader in my past life,” he said. “I was a worker. I did what I was told. I did it good. But I never stopped and thought about what I was doing – why I was doing it. I think that’s why I was brought here. Because I think a lot of people here are used to thinking the exact same way. And I think this Host understand that about me.”

  He turned back to her and clutched a claw to his oaken chest, as though trying to still his non-existent heart.

  And Lamphrey’s eyes beamed as she began to realize what he was hinting at.

  “This creature’s no monster,” Ethan said. “It’s…. I don't know what. But it feels. It thinks. I'm sure of it. It’s trying to tell me something important.”

  She tried to keep from showing her surprise. It looked like the world really did still have some mysteries that were as of yet unsolved.

  Curious.

  “And that is why you have come here, to me,” she said.

  “Because you can read thoughts,” Ethan nodded. “Understanding dreams…visions…that’s what you do, isn’t it?”

  She licked her dry lips.

  “You would let me into your mind?”

  “Just so long as you don’t poke around in my prepubescent memories or anything,” he snickered. “All I need is and understanding of what this thing really is, and what it’s trying to tell me. If I’m right, it’s something big. Something important – and something I can’t just ignore before we deal with this Doctor. I don’t need anything distracting me from kicking his sorry ass.”

  She gave a curt nod, loosening her grip on her stave and motioning for him to lie on the bed.

  “I will do this thing as only I can do, Archon. But be aware that the process may be draining.”

  Ethan shrugged. “Can’t be any worse than fighting a giant slab of living corpses.”

  He lay down without hesitation, closing his eyes when she asked him to, and letting his claws go limp at her touch.

  The mind of an Archon was open to her. But she would do as she was commanded, nothing more. In spite of what she wanted…she could wait a little longer.

  She’d become good at waiting, after all.

  “Are you ready, Lord Ethan?” she asked.

  He answered her as though still in pain: “As I’ll ever be.”

  “Then, breathe deep.”

  She placed her scaled hand on his wooden chest and pushed, hard.

  “Release.”

  …

  The visions flashed by his eyes again, but it was too difficult to see its details. It was like water being poured into a sieve – he could see the faces of Malak and his druids, and feel the conflict brewing within the Fifth pillar, but he couldn’t make out the important things…the thing the consciousness behind his eyes wanted – no – needed him to see.

  But there was another set of eyes in the dream now. From on high, like a watchful bird, Lamphrey scanned the dream, her fingers threading their way through the memory to make it real.

  “Watch…” Ethan heard her say. “Listen…feel.”

  He did as she bid him. He saw Malak and the other druids arguing again, and then Malak shouting at him behind closed doors…he felt pity, fear, and then…revulsion.

  Malak had come to him and told him something. He’d told him something that was too terrible to even be considered.

  His own lips moved in the dream – lips composed of flesh, not oak.

  “But it’s – it’s too horrible!”

  The voice came from him, but it was certainly not his voice.

  “It is the will of the Grove,” the old druid said. “You know it to be true!”

  Ethan thrashed in the dream state. This self – this once-Host – it didn’t agree.

  “This is…too far,” his voice said. “It’s an abomination.”

  “This is what’s right!” Malak shouted back. “We can’t have progress without sacrifice! We – we can’t expect to just sit here and pray that nature will take care of itself without us. We were called here for a reason – and now I know what that reason is.”

  In his hands, Malak held what looked like an acorn – an acorn all too similar to the one he’d handed Ethan and asked him to drop into the Sentinel fountain.

  “It’s time,” the old druid said. “You know I speak the truth. You’re just…afraid. You think you’ll lose yourself but – and this I promise you – you won’t! This is a gift from the Albion. A gift from Argwyll itself!”

  Ethan felt himself shake his head. He said something else, but the dream was beginning to die. Even Lamphrey couldn’t keep it steady as an overwhelming sense of madness overtook him in the moment he struggled, trying to run – to escape the Grove – as Malak chased after him.

  When he caught him, Ethan gave a gasp of air. He felt his body change. He felt it morph. He felt his flesh dissolve away.

  But beyond the physical, he felt something far, far greater tear away at the core of his being:

  Betrayal.

  …

  “Ethan! Archon Ethan!’

  He woke with a start, as though waking up to a whole new dimension. It took him a few minutes to get his bearings, and to realize that the woman standing over him was an ally – and not the man he currently wanted to tear apart with his claws.

  He looked into Lamphrey’s eyes, trying to keep from shaking.

  “He…he…”

  The lizardwoman nodded once, having seen exactly what he had.

  And suddenly, everything started to make sense.

  “Gather the team,” Ethan said – his voice cold, calculated, and tinged with a new sense of vengeance. “We’re going to pay Malak a little visit.”