Thirty-Six || Atenacius' Domain

The path had been short when he had started along it, but with no other idea of what to do Rue had followed it to its apparent end, searching for any other signs of solid ground. While he hadn't found any immediately, he did find that the pathway did not actually end; when he approached the drop-off it started suddenly to build itself anew, chunks of concrete and stone forming up before him to extend the walkway. With no other recourse, he followed it as it extended out into the cosmos, and then as it started to twist slightly, and rise, until it became apparent that the path was leading him in a slow upward spiral.

At one point, curiosity got the best of him and he had to look down, to see if anything in the environment had changed. The stars were in different positions, the small spheres of planetoids were drifting past, the room he had emerged from had been swallowed entirely. And the path had crumbled behind him, leaving him a few dozen feet of walking space before it all fell off into nothing again. No going back.

Or perhaps there was. He realized quickly enough that the path was able to keep building itself because it consumed itself; was lay at the far end behind him fell away and then rose anew in front of him, interlocking at odd, broken patterns in order to form and uneven but effective route through the stars. He guessed that, if he turned and tried to return, the same thing would happen; the far end would break away and rebuild the path he was trying to follow. But there was no point testing the theory; he couldn't see beyond the nothing that lay before him, but he already knew that nothing lay behind.

He continued to climb.

He felt that he had been going for a long time, but knew that it couldn't have been as long as it felt. A combination of the unchanging environment and his roiling thoughts made it seem as though time were moving much more slowly than it actually was. He was trying very hard to shut down those thoughts, to focus on the ascent, on where he was going, on how he was going to leave, but – unsurprisingly – he was having a great deal of difficulty doing so. Always, his thoughts returned to the core of the moment.

I destroyed the Book.

He was having a lot of trouble getting past that.

Which he couldn't afford. He couldn't afford to be stymied by his thoughts and uncertainty, couldn't afford to lose himself, couldn't afford to be so–

–distracted.

He came to a sudden halt and turned his attention out to the abyss of space. He hadn't seen it from below, but now that he was level with it another platform came into view– a perfect and surprisingly wide square, utterly out of place compared to the crumbling composite walkway he found himself. The platform itself, however, had not been what caught his attention; it was seeing the flash of strawberry blond out of the corner of his eye.

He wheeled, surprise and fear fluttering in his chest. He darted to the edge of the platform, as close to the fall into oblivion as he dared to get, and shouted out across the void; "Mint!"

As soon as the name was off his tongue, he realized his mistake. His eyes adjusted, he focused, and he realized that the prone figure on the platform wore her hair much shorter, and her outfit – though a similar style – had a much heavier emphasis on white. Maya.

He tried to think. He came to a decision.

He continued along the walkway.

The curvature of the path would bring him closer to her if he kept going. There would be a point – if he was right, at least – where the path would swing just by the platform, but at an increased height. Hopefully it would just be a couple of feet, but as he continued walking the path, forcing it to form up beneath him, he realized that it would be much less convenient than that.

When he finally came to a stop, he was just alongside the platform, but about six feet too high.

He tried to think. If he jumped down to Maya's level, he didn't really have a way of hauling her up onto the platform itself. The alternative would be to try and move backwards, forcing the walkway to form beneath the platform, and maybe then he could drop them both down– but he wasn't sure how far a fall that would be, and even if it was only as bad as this one he didn't want to risk making that kind of descent while carrying the princess; her dead weight would throw him off, which could very well result in both of them being thrown clear off the path.

Rue wasn't ready to find out what happened if he fell. Not just yet.

He knelt down at the edge of the platform and leaned over. Then, deciding there was no point in not trying, he called out to her again. Properly, this time.

"Maya!"

He flinched. Did she stir? Twitch? He swore there was a response. He tried again.

"Princess Maya!"

Now he saw a definite response. A groan filtered through the still air around them; her shoulders twitched. She moved slightly, slumping off her side and onto her stomach, and then lay still again. At the least, her breathing had changed.

Once more, but this time he tried something a little different.

"Your Highness!"

He shouted the word from deeper in his throat, pitching his voice down and augmenting his accent slightly. Almost immediately Maya jerked awake, her eyes flying open and her head snapping up. She twisted herself around, pushed herself into a kneeling position, looked around desperately.

"Doll Master?" she asked. "Where...?"

"Up here," Rue said, returning to his normal timber. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, I–" He paused, then laughed hollowly. "I... didn't think that would work."

She twisted herself to face him, her eyes widening slightly. He somewhat expected her to move away from him, or throw out a reactionary blast of magic, but much to Maya's credit she bristled, then visibly forced herself to relax. Not completely, though; her body language was contracted and stiff, her eyes narrow.

"What's going on?" she demanded.

Rue shrugged.

"Where are we?"

"I don't know."

"What–" She stopped suddenly. Her narrow gaze, previously raking sharp across him, suddenly melted, and her whole expression softened. "What... happened to you?"

"What happened to... oh." He reached up and ran a hand down his forehead. Trails of dried blood traced their way down his face. He hadn't even realized how much of a mess he must have looked. "I-it's nothing."

"That looks like significantly more than nothing," Maya said.

"Then it's fine," Rue said. He leaned as far as he could over the side of the pathway and extended his hand. "Come over to this side. I think you can reach me..."

Maya hesitated, her gaze darting to the surroundings. Seeing that there was no other apparent way of leaving – nothing short of hurling herself off the platform, at least – she finally conceded and walked toward him. When she was close enough, she reached up as far as she could, he reached down, and they managed to grab each other's arms.

Rue could already tell this was going to end poorly.

"You're... you're Mint's sister, right?" he asked. "A-and scion of East Heaven. Do you have some magic in there that might help? Some kind of..." He ran through the possibilities of what he had seen Mint do, and some of the things he had seen other mages do. "Wind redirection, I think? Buoy yourself a little bit?"

Maya did not respond immediately. She hesitated, her gaze flicking off into nothingness for a moment. "I– technically, yes," she said. "I'm afraid some of my magic is a bit... rusty, though."

Rue steadied himself as best he could and reached down with his other arm. "Just give it a try," he said. "Anything that can help."

Maya nodded and closed her eyes. He could feel her concentrating, sense her magic extending out into the ether, drawing up bits of wind as best she could and slowly weaving them into a cushion around herself. The process was almost painfully slow, particularly in contrast to Mint's almost manic magic flourishes, but after several seconds he recognized that Maya's weight didn't bear down so hard on him. He adjusted himself, trying to get more balance and leverage, and started to pull.

It wasn't a significant help, but it was enough; he managed to pull Maya far enough up that she could use her free hand to grip the edge of the walkway. She started to haul herself over the edge, Rue still helping to pull her up, and after a bit of effort Maya finally had her upper body over the edge and could manage to drag herself the rest of the way out. Rue released his grip and staggered back a few paces, forcing his breathing to calm down..

"Are you all right?" he asked.

Maya was just now pulling herself to her feet and re-adjusting her clothes. "Yes," she said. "Yes, none the worse for the wear... um..." She hesitated, biting her lip. "Th-thank you."

Silence settled between them. Rue looked further up, the way the path seemed to be curving.

"You destroyed the Book," she said.

Rue was a few seconds late to responding. "Yes."

"You cleaved it in two. Like it was nothing."

Involuntarily, his hand rose to his forehead, rubbing the skin around his crystal. It was still sore to the touch, and he could feel flakes of dried blood coming away under his thumb. He winced and closed his eyes. "I wouldn't say nothing," he murmured.

Suddenly he felt somebody next to him, then in front of him. He opened his eyes and jolted slightly in surprise to find Maya standing before him. She was removing one of her gloves and concentrating.

He must have looked ready to raise an objection. Before he could articulate anything, Maya raised her hand, cutting off his words.

"Don't move," she said. "I know a bit about healing. Hold still."

His eyes slowly turned to the glove resting in her hand. She concentrated, and he felt the moisture in the air draw away, leaving an uncomfortable dryness in its wake while the fabric of the glove turned damp. Wither another moment – and a different spell – the water on the glove started to glow gently, casting an odd silvery light behind itself. She raised the makeshift cloth and pressed it against his forehead.

Rue fought off his instinct to pull away and managed, with effort, to remain still. Maya held her glove against his forehead for several seconds, her eyes closed and her head tilted down, and then pulled back. She looked down at the glove, pulled a face, and simply pitched it over the side of the platform. Within seconds it was swallowed by the night.

Rue reached for his forehead and ran his hand across it. A pleasantly warm sensation had been left in Maya's wake, and he felt immediately that her spell had worked; his skin was no longer tender, the edges around the crystal no longer frayed and dripping. She had even, with her movement, cleaned most of the blood off of his face.

He lowered his hand.

"Thanks," he said.

"It's simply reciprocation," Maya said stiffly. She regarded him carefully, her head tilted just slightly to the side. "That... crystal. Is that what damaged you?" Her eyes widened slightly. "Is that what damaged the Book?"

He nodded.

"That's... remarkable."

"I'm not terribly ecstatic about it right now," Rue admitted.

"No," Maya said. "But still, for something to have such an effect on a Relic..." She looked at him curiously for a moment. "Do you have any idea what's happened?"

"I–" He had been about to say that he did not, but that was a bit of a lie. "Whatever's happening is almost certainly in response to the Book being... damaged." He looked around. "But I don't know anything else that's going on."

Maya considered.

"You... you used the Book," Rue said. It was not an accusation, just a statement of fact. "You'd probably have a better idea than I would."

"Not much," Maya admitted. "But perhaps something of a theory." Her eyes briefly fell to the ground, her expression twisted in thought. She looked up. "The Book is an extraordinarily powerful artifact, but also fickle. Using it requires training and care, or else it has a tendency to refuse certain users, or perform poorly in their hands. No other Relic exhibits this tendency–"

Rue interrupted her briefly, pointing to the pathway. "Can we continue walking?" he asked.

Maya looked over her shoulder. "There doesn't seem to be much more to look forward to," she said slowly.

"Just walk with me," Rue said. "You'll see."

He started down the path, Maya following not far behind him, and it was not a minute later that they had reached the point where the walkway responded to them again. The end behind them crumbled and re-formed beneath their feet, continuing the corkscrew ascent. Maya let out a little "Oh!" of surprise.

"I've been following this since a little way down," Rue said. "I think it's leading..." He sighed and shook his head in frustration. "Somewhere, anyway." He allowed a stretch of silence, seeing if Maya would have another comment; when she did not speak up, he did so instead. "You were saying?"

"Sorry," she said quickly. "The– the Book. Yes."

He nodded, indicating for her to continue.

"The Book of Cosmos has an unusual proclivity for exhibiting what seems to be its own will over its wielders, unlike other Relics that have been collected by the kingdom. There is some debate that this is simply a consequence of its innate power, and that many people simply don't have the ability to control it. But there is a less– orthodox– school of thought, specifically regarding where the Book gains its power. They say it tied itself to the cosmos, and the magic that flows thereof, but nobody's really certain if such an abstract concept could actually be used as a magic locus. I myself don't believe so."

"What do you think?"

"That the cosmos is symbolic," Maya said. "Atenacius had a predisposition toward celestial phenomena, there are vast records of his work detailing the movement of stars and planets–"

"Atenacius?" Rue asked. He racked his brain for where he had heard it before, and recalled the conversation he and Mint had shared the previous morning. "The last Aeon?"

Maya nodded. "He created the Book."

"Okay. Carry on."

She cleared her throat. "Right. Well. He had a fixation with the cosmos; he associated himself with it all across his work, especially from later in his life. What some of us believe is that the locus of the Book's magic doesn't come from an actual celestial force. It comes from Atenacius."

Rue considered the statement for a few seconds and found that he couldn't quite make sense of it. "How do you mean?" he said. "Atenacius died centuries ago."

"He did," Maya said. "Suicide, they say, and under very queer conditions. His body was found surrounded by a host of alchemical notes and glyphs and odd enchantments and the Book itself. The theory goes that Atenacius' last act was an elaborate bit of magic that disconnected his soul from his body and allowed him to weave it into the essence of the Book."

Rue was silent again. His eyes were trained upward, resting on an odd patch of darkness overhead. He didn't know if that was where the walkway was specifically leading them, but he was certain they would at the least cross right by it before too long.

"So," Rue began slowly, "you believe the Book's magic comes from Atenacius' soul."

Maya fidgeted. "It sounds absurd," she said, "but as somebody who has used the Book, I refuse to believe it was constructed like any normal Relic. Its powers are tied to moods and likes. It's possible to force the Book to behave in a certain way, but rarely does it respond well. If it dislikes an individual it will simply refuse to answer to their commands."

"No, that's– that's not absurd," Rue said. "I can believe that." He clasped his hands behind his back. "So what does that mean for us, right now?"

"If I'm correct," Maya said, "then this... situation, here, may be resolved by locating Atenacius himself. If he is still bound to the Book – if he is the cause of this magic – then we may be able to reason with him and find a means of exiting here."

"That's more of a plan than I had."

"As I've gathered it, your plan was to walk forward until something happened to change that."

"I'm using the word 'plan' very generously."

Maya managed a laugh. It was a weak sound, but at least she was trying.

"What are your intentions here, Princess?" Rue asked.

"How do you mean?"

"In town. Defending the Relic."

"Exactly that," she said. "Defending the Relic. Doll Master has informed me of its importance and its power, and my duty as a scion of East Heaven to keep such power from falling into the wrong hands." She frowned slightly. "Although given this recent turn of events I may have to reconsider this advice."

"You weren't in town earlier then, were you? Today, I mean."

"In town?"

"Carona. Actual Carona, not the ruins."

"Not in the least."

"Hm."

"What of you, then?" she asked. "To what end are you pursuing the Relic? To destroy it?"

Rue blinked. "What?"

"You've irreparably damaged the Book," Maya said.

"That was an accident. I– I didn't know I could do this."

"How could you not?"

"I've never exactly gotten into a fight with a Relic before. This is all pretty new."

"Then... what does bring you to pursue the Relic?"

"I lost somebody. I want to bring her back."

Maya briefly closed her eyes. "This is the person you spoke of," she said, "to Doll Master. The woman you say he killed?"

"He killed her," Rue said simply. "It's not just something I say."

Maya hummed in the back of her throat. "I would find that difficult to believe," she said, "had he not just signed his resignation notice by attempting to knock me unconscious." She rubbed the back of her head, wincing slightly. "It's good he pulled his punch, otherwise we'd not be talking right now."

"We also wouldn't be out in space," Rue added.

"True."

They were closing in on the black square now, and Rue could see that it was probably the shadow of another platform, one substantially larger than what he had found Maya on. Looking even further up, he could see additional platforms blotting out the stars. He wasn't sure of their size – they were too far away for him to see as anything more than a lack of stars, anyway – but it seemed clear the path was going to take them ever upward.

But this huge platform was something to look into.

"Who are you, exactly?" Maya asked. "Doll Master seems to recognize you–"

"We did have a bit of a altercation, once," Rue said.

Maya thought. "Involving your– your deceased friend," she said.

"Yes."

"If– if I may. When was that?"

"Nearly three years ago."

Maya started, but quickly composed herself. "When you say altercation, you mean... some manner of verbal confrontation, of course. Or... something similar."

"I don't."

"You fought him?"

Rue nodded.

Now Maya flinched again, but did not try to hide it. "I don't believe that," she said. "Doll Master is a... he can be severe, and zealous, but he would not fight a child!"

"I wasn't a child."

"You weren't– how old are you?"

"Fifteen. Sixteen. Something in there, I think."

"Maybe not a child then, but three years ago you would only be-"

"Fifteen. Sixteen. Something in there."

Maya stopped speaking, letting his words sink in. For several seconds, Rue said nothing. The platform was almost eye level with them.

"I'm... sorry?" Maya said.

Rue didn't respond. He threw his hand out to his side, and she nearly ran into his arm before she realized she should stop walking. He cast a quick glance to her, indicated that she should remain quiet, and pointed up to the platform. There was a voice there, filtering thin and empty through the vastness of space, but they had finally come close enough to properly hear it. It was male, crackling and ancient, spewing gibberish.

Rue started up the rest of the walkway. A few seconds later, they had reached a point that they could see over the platform. Sure enough, somebody was there; a thin, spindly, wizened old man. Silvered hair fell thin but long from his head, and from his face, his lengthy mustache trailing down almost to his torso, his beard cascading nearly to the floor. He was draped in robes, a thick, rich indigo the color of night, speckled with little flecks of gemstone that twinkled as he moved.

"Is that...?" Rue began.

"Atenacius," Maya finished. "That seems quite likely, yes."

Rue frowned and moved, forcing the walkway up to the point that it passed just by the platform. The path continued further ahead, spiraling up and away, but he stepped off there and took a few tentative paces onto the platform. Maya moved in behind him. The platform was massive, and strangely textured; it felt almost like hard leather, and possessed a rolling, bumpy topography utterly unlike anything they had thus far come across.

The old man was turned in their general direction, hurling his voice into the void behind them, but either they were too far away or he simply didn't care to acknowledge them.

Maya's shoulders fell.

"Of course," she murmured. "This may be complicated."

"How so?"

"I doubt he speaks modern English," she said. "He's– I think he's shouting in Aeonic." She twitched slightly, frowned to herself. "I wish I knew what he was saying..."

"No you don't," Rue said. "It's incredibly impolite." He listened for another few moments, arms folded, eyes closed. "I– I think he's calling me out."

"You understand him?"

"I do."

Maya paused. Her gaze flicked between Rue and Atenacius, and then settled back on Rue. "Who are you, exactly?" she asked.

"I'm going to talk to him," Rue said. He had already begun closing the distance between them and the old man when Maya suddenly jumped after him, catching him by the shoulder. He stopped and looked over to her.

"You didn't answer my question," she said quietly.

"I don't have an answer," Rue said, shrugging her hand away. "I don't know. But I do know that I don't want to be here much longer, and so far the only idea we have is to see if Atenacius can help us. Let me go."

He started walking again. Maya did not stop him, but she did follow, keeping a few feet between them.

Rue approached the man and realized quickly that he was not a man. Not exactly.

The man was phantasmagoria, ephemera shaped into the image of a human being. His skin was pale and thin and had the faintly grainy texture of paper; his hair was spun from starlight, rippling and shifting, fading and glowing as he moved. His robes were not simply the appearance of indigo night; they were night, strew with turning constellations and the flitting of comets. The man – Atenacius, undoubtably – was a reflection of the cosmos, celestial phenomena molded into human form.

Coldness settled in Rue's chest. He stopped several feet short of the man and tried to think. The man was still oblivious to him, but now Rue could see why; his face was upturned, screaming into the heavens, utterly oblivious to anything occurring on the makeshift earth at his feet. He had half-turned around by the time Rue arrived, and taken to shouting at a new hemisphere.

Even though Rue spoke the language, he was having a hard time parsing some of it. Atenacius was screaming and raging, his words blending together, the syntax twisting up in itself to form things that were technically sentences but meant nothing except as an abstract expression of fury. Rue could at least follow the general tack of Atenacius' ranting, however, and the content worried him.

"Artema!" Atenacius howled. "You coward! Continuing to hide yourself from me– you think I wouldn't recognize the taint of your magic? You think I don't remember your ghastly patterns? You haven't killed me yet! Come down and face me!"

Atenacius knew his name.

Which perhaps made some amount of sense. Rue had destroyed the Book; Atenacius might have been able to sense that, sense his identity, and then work out from there what he had done. Possibly. Rue had never been particularly certain about the particulars of magic, but given what Aeons were capable of it wasn't to be discounted.

Not that the thought left him feeling much better. Or explains anything else that the man was screaming.

Rue exhaled.

"Atenacius!" he called.

And Atenacius stopped.

The old man lowered his arms and half-turned, slowly at first, but when he caught sight of Rue he whipped fully around to face him, his night-robes shimmering and rising up behind him.

"You," Atenacius snarled.

Rue steeled himself. "Yes. I– please listen. What's happened here... I didn't intend for any of this."

Before he could even hope to form another sentence, Atenacius suddenly broke out into laughter– a sharp, barking, surprisingly powerful sound. Rue stopped cold, teeth gritted, waiting for Atenacius to stop. After a moment, he did, but Atenacius did not give Rue another chance to speak.

"Who do you imagine you're speaking to, Valen? I know you more than well enough to know how meaningless your apologies are."

Rue opened his mouth to speak. Words failed him. He gave up.

Behind him, Maya edged a little closer and leaned in to speak to him. "What's wrong?"

"He thinks Valen destroyed the Book. I think. He's not being terribly clear"

"Valen?" May furrowed her brow. "The... the Aeon who made the Relic here, yes?"

Rue nodded.

Atenacius shifted, withdrawing slightly, his eyes – two points of burning light, binary stars – narrowing.

"You have dragged the Princess into your madness," Atenacius growled. "What good does that do?"

"What?" Rue snapped his attention back to the Aeon, and quickly returned to speaking to him. "I haven't dragged anybody into this. What happened was an accident, I didn't mean to– we're just trying to leave. You're sovereign here, how do we–"

"Accident," Atenacius snorted. "The only accident I imagine you've committed is waiting this long to finish me. Haven't been able to drag yourself out of hiding? Or did you not realize where I'd been?"

"I– what?"

"You did a convincing bit of dying all those years ago," he continued, "but I never believed it. You were always too slippery– you wouldn't die that easily, you'd never allow it." Atenacius shifted again, one arm drifting out to his side. He clenched his fist, and a small cluster of stars disappeared. "Well, you have made a grave mistake, haven't you? Couldn't break my Book without being caught in its spell."

Again, Rue tried to form some kind of sentence; again, he choked on his half-formed words.

"What is it?" Maya hissed.

"I don't know," Rue said. "I– I think he might be mad."

"He has been doing an awful lot of shouting, yes."

"I mean insane. He– he seems to think–"

Rue felt the change in the air, the subtle extension of magic, and wheeled. He slammed into Maya, throwing them both back just as Atenacius swept his arm down.

The space where he had been standing was suddenly alight with tiny explosions, a quick series of pops and hisses as the stars Atenacius had scooped up exploded on contact with the ground. Rue flipped himself back to his feet, helped Maya back to hers, and they both turned to face Atenacius.

"What are you doing!" Rue yelled.

"Finishing off a bad bit of business," Atenacius snarled. "That's you, in case you didn't get it."

He reached back again, and this time arced his hand, dragging a flare from one of the nebula with him. It formed a brilliant scythe of light behind his fingers.

"And don't think you'll weasel out of this one, Artema. You're in my universe, now."

He arced his hand down, dragging the light scythe behind him.

Rue threw himself to the side. Maya did the same, leaping in the opposite direction. They both jumped back to their feet as Atenacius wound his arm back, a burning curve following his movement. Rue shot a quick glance across the platform, then dashed back the way he had just come from, toward Maya.

"Back to the path!"

Just behind him, Atenacius hurled the mass of flame and light from his hand, letting fly a screaming meteor. Rue shot a glance over his shoulder just in time to see the thing hit Maya.

He skidded to a stop and spun around.

"Maya!"

The light was fading. He tensed, his right hand hovering perilously close to the hilt of the Arc Edge, waiting for some sign of life, or movement, or anything–

And there was Maya. Still standing, her legs splayed and her arms held out in front of her, a thin, shining barrier standing between her and what had been the meteor. She pulled her arms down and the barrier vanished.

Rue turned upon Atenacius.

"She has nothing to do with this!"

Atenacius turned to face him.

"And that's terribly unfortunate," the Aeon breathed, "but if she must be hurt to see you dead, then so be it."

He launched forward, his whole celestial form suddenly melting into a singular length of stars and comet trails. Rue grabbed at the Arc Edge and yanked it off his back, lashing out at the onrushing figure. The blade blazed blue, and he put everything he had into it– into striking Atenacius. He felt the crystal burning, prickling against his skin. This time, he didn't fight it.

The blow cleaved clean through stardust, drawing behind it a trail of thick, blood-warm ink. In one fell strike, he had bisected Atenacius.

A second later he realized what he had done, and spun around, breathing heavily. The two halves of Atenacius' ethereal body lay behind him, crumbled and folded like cloth. He stared, staggered, and ran back toward Maya.

Maya was staring, too, her eyes wide, her jaw hanging open.

"You– you killed him."

"I know," Rue said, although he knew it only in the abstract; the actual reality of it had yet to sink in.

"Like nothing," Maya whispered. "You just–"

"I know!" Rue shouted. "Maya, we have to keep going!"

"How do we– how did you–"

He was about to start shouting a lot of unkind things at her – he was scared, he was cold, he didn't understand what was happening and he didn't want to, and her standing there slack-jawed was contributing nothing to his own attempt to run away – when he felt something in the magic behind him shift. He turned, forcing himself to do so slowly, and froze.

The two halves of Atenacius rose up. Between them, he felt more than saw a fine line of magic zipping back and forth, one side to the other and back again, knitting the two halves together. They drew close to one another, lined back up, pressed the edges together, and the little flit of magic drew taught, then snapped itself. Atenacius turned to face them, a strange, ragged grin spreading across his features.

"I told you, Valen. This is my demesne. Here, I am a god!"

"Maya!" Rue cried, spinning to face her. "Get to–"

No need to give her advice. She was already running fast as she could back to the walkway.

Rue shot a quick glance over his shoulder. Atenacius was reaching up, plucking stars from the sky. They formed again in his hand, a cluster of bright little bombs. He pulled his hand back.

Rue turned forward again and took off after Maya.