In the chamber of the Monumentals, one lit candle remained.

The children behind the others, beings who had given up their humanity for immortality, had long since crumbled. Their sacrifices had been in vain. In some way, the Elders had known this would be a problem, so they had thrown numbers at it. They had petrified a small army of children, leaving nothing but their souls and voices alive in satues that were caricatures of their past bodies. The logic being that, the more of them they froze, the more were likely to survive to see the day when humanity repeated its greatest mistake.

One lit candle, and Ostrava of Boletaria stood before it.

"Hello?" he said.

The Monumental didn't answer.

"Are you there?"

Silence.

Biorr pushed past the prince, glared at the stone child, and shouted. "For the sake of Umbasa, we know ye ain't a statue! He's been out fer a week, now! Where in hell did she take him?"

"I am sorry," the Monumental said. "I do not know."

"Ye don't even know!?"

"I do not."

"So she just took him, the Champion that you chose, away from you, and from us, from everything, and you didn't even say anything?" Ostrava said. "You just assumed that she had a good reason?"

"I did not assume," the Monumental said. "If the Maiden does something, then she has a good reason for it, in every case."

Biorr growled. "That is a geddamn assumption!"

"I don't believe it is, and if you knew her as I do, you would agree."

"I'm confused on the power structure, here," Ostrava said. "Doesn't she follow your orders?"

"When she wants to."

"Yeah that's not following yer orders."

"Biorr, calm down."

"Oh I'm real calm," he said. "Y'know, given that the kingdom is filled wit'demons and there're only three of us left fightin'em and one of us saw fit to go off into a trance to reach enlightenment and that the only reason we're safe is that we're in a bloody interdimensional pocket that might get invaded at any time because the person who keeps it safe saw fit to go into the bloody trance with him."

Ostrava looked at the Knight, "Biorr, are you scared?"

Biorr's body was moving, but it wasn't shivering, his feet were idly tapping, and his arms were twitching. "Exact opposite, lad. I need to fight something."

Ostrava shook his head and looked back to the Monumental. "You still won't tell me what, exactly, the Maiden is, will you?"

"She was once a demon, a powerful one."

"We know that."

"The most powerful demon to ever live."

"Wait, what?" Ostrava said. "But what about-"

The Monumental said it without hesitation, its stone eyes unblinking. "More powerful than The Old One."

His hands formed out of the air, he saw the mass run down his arms and materialize as if existence were a new state coming over him. His body was transient, and tinted blue. Azure mist came off of him and floated off into the air, where it slowly dissipated into nothing.

What is this? He asked. What am I? But he found that as he moved his mouth, no sound emerged. He truly felt nothing, now, and his awareness of the world around him seemed to irradiate outward rather than forming straight ahead of him. He wasn't just a soul, now. He was a shadow.

"Thou wilt findest that thine body formeth from air. And no more than air shalt it seem to be."

She was there, in the darkness, which he realized was a forest filled with tall, healthy trees, late at night. The blue glow from his own body, if it could even be called that anymore, revealed them.

What did you do to me? He asked.

"I sadly understand thy suspicion, given all that hath taken place," she frowned. "Worry not. Thy corporeal form beith unharmed. We have left it behind to travel here."

Travel...where?

"To another time, another place, another world."

He looked around. The trees were too healthy. Too alive. This wasn't a Boletaria burned down by Demons, it was older than that.

We can travel through time? He asked without a voice.

"Yes. If the power of the Nexus and the eyestones allow it."

The Eyestones...the ones that let me travel to other worlds?

"And what beith a different time if not another world?" she said. "Every second beith another new one. They are born, and they die, the portraits of a moment...worlds."

He looked around the trees again. Despite his own glow, it was still too dark to see anything.

So where...when are we?

"Far back, at a place chosen at random...though I am not sure how much. We will probably have to go further. Closer times makith travel easier. Alas, too easy, they can catch us in their net."

She turned away and started walking through the woods, holding her staff out in front of her, tapping it on the trees.

Where are you going? He asked.

"Come."

Wait, what?

"We must find where we are. Come."

She was almost gone, but he saw the light of her staff through the trees and ran after it. His feet made no noise as he ran. They were hardly feet at all, however. His legs seemed to fade into nothing near his ankles, and only the faint outline of anything lower remained.

You shouldn't run off. What if I lose you?

"Thou wilt not. Thou hast eyes, doth thee not?"

Well, yes. But eyes don't work like that. You can't see everything.

She said quietly, "Thou canst see some things. I can see nothing."

Why, though? He asked. Who put that wax on your face? Why?

"Hopefully, here, thou wilt findest thy answer."

Really?

She nodded solemnly, "that beith the goal, yes."

She was finally going to give him answers. His anger toward her continued to fade away, and all the feelings remanifested themselves as a temporary loyalty. She was the only chance of he had of getting a solid base, of something to stand on. He had to trust her, he had to. As he watched her, her rod got caught on a trunk. She didn't stop walking, and almost crashed in a tree. He stepped in front of her.

Wait, he said.

She stopped.

Be more careful. The woods are thick, too much for a rod.

"I apologize," she whispered. And did he hear shame in her voice? "I am accustomed to the Nexus, which I know by heart."

It's fine. Just...can you take my hand?

She nodded silently. Her arm came slowly upward, not even in his direction, and her fingers stretched out. They prodded at the darkness in desperation. He realized, then, for the first time, what it was like to be her. The world around her was chaotic and confusing. Thousands of sounds and textures that she had to guess at or imagine the source of in order to make any sense of anything. In his current form, he had neither sound, nor texture. She had no idea where he was, even when he was right next to her.

I'm here. He reached for her. His fingers partially went through hers, but some solidity held them together. Here.

"Thank you," she said.

He nodded, remembered that she couldn't see it, and then said, you're welcome.

They traveled between the trees, faster than before. The forest grew thicker, and then thinned out, and they heard noises in the distance.

What is that? He asked.

"The voices of women, screaming...not in fear, in joy," she sniffed. "I smell smoke."

What happens if they see us? He asked. Will we change the future?

"We will change a future...but not our own," she said. "Remember. There be many worlds."

I understand...we should try to look at them, then.

She nodded. "It could tell us when or where we are."

When they emerged from the woods, they saw an encampment next to a river. He was shocked, at first, to see women dancing, many of them naked. Light from a camfire cascaded over their bodies. They wore heavy masks...demon masks, and acted out scenes amongst eachother that weren't erotic at all, but terrifying.

"What dost thou see?" she asked.

Er...

"Be they witches? They sound much like witches."

Er...

"They are nude, correct, with demon masks?"

Yes. They are.

"Ah, yes. Witches. I do not know why thee ist troubled in saying so."

Just then, one of the women removed her mask, and he saw her face. A familiar face.

Yuria.

"Stop!"

He turned, and saw that he had already been walking forward. Her fingers pulled him back to the forest.

Why? You said we could talk to them.

"Not for the reason thou desirest," she said with a worried frown.

It's Yuria. It's Yuria.

"Yuria hath died. There beith no more of her and if thou were to meetst her in the past, it would not helpith thee. It would makith for the opposite, if anything."

He stopped, and turned toward the naked witch smiling at her sisters. She was so much younger. Perhaps not even out of her teens yet. The Maiden was right. Talking to her would just open the wound again, and pour salt in it. He didn't need that. He needed to let go.

Why didn't you bring her back? He asked, because he couldn't cry.

"Only a few, rare mortals have ever been granted the gift I granted to thee. And-"

It's not a gift! He turned to her. Don't call it that!

"Then why dost thou wish it for her?" The Maiden asked. "Why dost thou wish for her to suffer as thee hast?"

He didn't say anything. He gave one last look to the teenage Yuria. She had been so young. She smiled as one of the other witches draped a robe over her, and laughed at something another had said. The fire turned vibrant colors with whatever demonic magic they had conjured, and he couldn't help but be afraid of seeing the mistakes she had made so long ago.

"I am sorry, yet again." The Maiden said. "This isth the way it must be."

Let's just go, he said, and didn't want to have to be saying it to her. But there was no one else there.

"We shall travel on, then," she said. "Reachest out to me yet again."

Wait, what? he asked.

"We know now that there isth Yuria in this time, yes? Then we are not far back enough, and must go further."

Right, he said. He gave one last look to Yuria. Right.

He reached out to her, even as he didn't look away, and they were gone.

The forest was gone, and now they solidified into a small town.

His gaze shot around the environment. Small buildings, poorly built. It was a farming settlement. Not a town, but a village.

And it was empty.

"What dost thou see?"She asked.

I'm sorry, he said, remembering her blindness. It's a small village, it's vacated. I don't know why.

"There are many reasons it may be," she said. "What isth that noise?"

Noise, what...? But then he heard it. A drum beating.

The next thing they heard was the screaming.

"I believe I know what this is," she said. "Though I am not sure."

He finally saw the men in white robes approaching, beating the drums rhythmically as they walked. Behind them were other men in white, taller and stronger. They were practically dragging along a screaming woman, whom he could swear he'd seen before, though he didn't remember from where.

He relayed all of this to her, and she nodded.

"We still have not traveled far. This isth late in the reign of the Soul Arts, when women were pulledeth from their homes to sate cravings."

Wait...what? he asked, but as the crowd got closer he saw the bulge in the woman's stomach, she was obviously pregnant.

"Short of ten years, we have traveled," the Maiden simply reiterated to herself, and nodded.

What are they doing? He asked her.

"Gatheringeth souls," she said, and then. "We must step away. They canth see us."

They hid behind a building, and watched. He suspected what was about to happen, but he couldn't believe it, he needed to see.

The men in white pulled the struggling, screaming woman to the center of the town, where a small group of villagers was waiting. They threw her down to her knees. She begged, she pleaded, but nothing seemed to stop them. Finally, a man removed his glove and approached her. He looked down at her coldly, and then a light overtook his naked hand, and it flew to her uterus.

She screamed, and then crumpled, silently.

There was a pause, and the man's hand came back brighter, as if it were full, holding something that it hadn't had before. The fingers curled, and crushed the energy, cracking it open like a nut, and it flowed throughout the man's body.

Oh my god. He formed the words, but could comment nothing else. How could they do this...how could they...?

"Boletaria expendedeth the souls of the dead quickly," the Maiden said. "Within the decade, gone. So it becameth a question of the unborn versus the living. There beith always more children, they argued, and many make it not past their first year. Why makith a waste of them, when we beith starved for souls?"

It's dead, though. He said. They just killed her baby.

"No," the Maiden said. "Those without souls still liveth."

And he thought back to the Dreglings, to the soulless soliders whom had lost their minds, and mindlessly attacked. His lip curled as he realized, now, what this woman was fated to give birth to...if she was willing to let it grow inside of her.

As the men in white robes stepped away, he got a better look at her, and was convinced he had seen her before. Her face was crumpled in her hands, tears ran through her fingers, but when she looked up, he finally recognized her.

He was looking at the woman who would become Mephistopheles.

He said nothing, there was nothing to say.

"We must go on," the Maiden said. "Travel with me, again."

He said nothing, but allowed her to reach out to him, touch him, and carry him away through time and space.

The final image he saw was Mephistopheles, holding her bloated, empty stomach, and staring into the ground.

And then they were gone.

"Ready?" Mephistopheles asked, binding her robes so that they wouldn't get in her way.

No, Ornea wanted to say, but it came out as a gasp instead. All she could imagine was the feeling of Mephistopheles backhand against her cheek, and then being forced to do it, anyway.

"Yes," Vecelles said. Somehow always managing to be on point when she wasn't.

"Alright," Mephistopheles said. "Our opportunity is now. I assume you know of the Nexus?"

"Yes," Ornea said, happy to be able to answer in the affirmative.

"Normally, the only way in is through permission, either from the Candle Maiden, or from someone with a Nexial Binding. It was how Yurt got in...but the portals are open, now. They've been open for a week. I won't risk waiting any longer."

"There are people we need to kill," Vecelles repeated.

"Indeed," Mephistopheles said, and started walking out. "A Knight and a Prince."

They followed her as she walked through the corridors, hiding from demons along the way. In her darker moments, Ornea would wonder what happened once all those with the Soul Arts were dead, once all the knowledge had been erased, once the purge was complete. Would they be able to return the Old One to its slumber?

It didn't matter. It was most important that it couldn't come back. If the Soul Arts remained, this would just happen all over again.

In the middle of the square, she saw it, a sword stabbing in between the tiles, buried deeply into the ground, a faint blue glow emanated from it. That had to be it.

But Mephistopheles wasn't moving. Ornea looked over, and saw that she was staring at something.

"Lady Mephistopheles," Vecelles said.

She turned her head away from the bodies. They were the same as before. Burned black, but with feminine feature's still noticeable, a mother's arms wrapped around her son.

"I apologize," Mephistopheles said, with an unusual intonation. "Are we ready?

Ornea didn't hesitate this time, the words came out even before Vecelles', "Ready."

One by one, they vanished.