Psst. It's back.

RECAP: Sianna and the others have been sent on a mission to Ayodite by Dracarr's wizard. They are to retrieve The Eye of Artemis that the wizard thinks will help stop the Magus invasion. He has also revealed that the Magus were released by a necromancer that is slowly stealing Death's own power, and this is also something the wizard believes he can stop with Sianna's help.

Once in Ayodite, the group encounters several fantastical places such as a corpse, floating islands, and, currently, a Nayichi tribe at the bottom of a giant, broken tree. In order to navigate the magickal lands, they had to escape a Lich King by dying and though they were separated a few times, Sianna and the others eventually regrouped. They are finally at their destination and ready to retrieve the eye and their bodies so they may return back to life and back to Dracarr to deliver peace from Magus threats.

27.

Feasting on Prayers

The world around her hushed. Sianna gaped at the albino snake. She saw her reflection in its ruby eyes, an image of herself bathed in blood, and for a moment she didn't exist. The silence faded away as a buzzing swarmed her head and her thoughts. A fevered pitched, it seemed to speak words.

"Welcome back."

Sianna recoiled and everything returned. Kota's wails rolled over her skin and penetrated her brain.

"Ser?" Reth stared at her with concern shinning in his eyes.

She licked her lips. "Reth, did you hear a voice?"

A twitch on his right eyebrow. "No, ser. Only Kota's cries."

She dared to look at the serpent again. It had not moved as if made of stone but the corpse crown on its head twisted and pulsed with flesh that was dead and bark that was alive.

"It's worse than we thought," Kota said. She kneeled in front of the snake's mouth. Sianna thought she looked more like an offering than someone in mourning.

There was a pensive quietness before Aldermeck spoke. "We need to continue, Kota."

She turned to them, her orange eyes outlined with magenta tears. "I can't go up there with you."

"But you need the eye to lif' your banishmen'!" Iari said.

"And how convenient it's so close to your home." Deneck smiled. "Or maybe it's just an ironic oversight on your part."

Kota's leer churned like a liquid sun.

"I don't care. I just want to remember how it feels to breathe." Lycin lifted the Nayichi to her feet. Yokir hissed at him but it was Kota's hand and not Calera's imposing presence that silenced him. Lycin ignored it all. "Hurry up and tell us what to do now."

Kota pulled away. "Vivor will take you, but..." She gazed at the snake and the grotesque vegetation on its head. "I didn't know it had been so bad. It's draining faster than I thought."

Sianna opened her mouth to spit words at Kota's irritating vagueness, but Yokir came to her rescue. "It's Death's power that is draining. Vivor can't eat from both prayers of life and death and so the elder had to feed it with her own demise. It was that or Vivor would start feasting on our own from the tribe." He laced his hands with Kota. "In her sacrifice Elder Mair saved us."

"So Vivor is the snake?" Sianna asked.

"Yes." Kota said.

"And it's going to take us up to get the eye?"

"Yes."

"And up is where this Lovox's Prayer place is supposed to be? Up this tree?"

"You could say that."

Sianna sighed. "Of course."

"It's okay, Sianna. I 'ave wha' we need right here. I can do it." Iari held up the wizard's necklace.

Deneck patted Iari on the head as he walked up to the motionless serpent that had watched them with silent scarlet slits. "I trust you, our little enthusiastic user. But how do we get on this thing?"

The giant reptile poked its tongue out, a thin and slick river of black. It latched around Deneck's waist like a thick belt. He gasped in surprise as Vivor placed him on top of its head. Deneck's distraught was replaced with disgust as he noticed the corpse tree next to him.

"The view from up here is not really that great," he said.

"Are you alright?" Aldermeck asked.

"As alright as I can be after a snake carried me with its tongue."

Sianna shivered. She was beyond ready to get her soul-or whatever it was-back and return to her world. Her life. A life without Magus looming around every town. A life with quiet routine that demanded the very least of her. A spark of excitement surged through her, but there was also something else.

She glanced at Reth.

With the Magus gone, what would happen to the Rhokin? To Reth? The idea of him gone settled like a stone in her stomach, and she suddenly didn't want to think about that anymore. It helped when Lycin's loud complaining drew her away from the thought.

"I'm not going to have that thing touch me. Calera!" He didn't even look at her when he gave the order.

She hopped to the top of Vivor's head and lifted Lycin to her side with one of her opaque arms. Aldermeck added her own colorful prompting to get Calera to do the same with her and the rest. Reth was the only one who made the jump himself. Vivor was quiet and still, but Sianna felt like he was aware.

"How lucky I was the only one to receive a tongue ride," Deneck said once they all stood on top of Vivor's scaly skull.

They were all forced to huddle under the elder's tree. Its limbs of bark and blood pulsed with an uncanny heat that made Sianna's skin crawl and her stomach churn. She focused on Kota and Yokir.

"We will wait for you down here. It shouldn't take long. Hopefully," Kota said.

"You are entering the shared shine of the oldest gods that have existed even before our worlds. Please be mindful of what's around you. While Death may not fully be there because of the necromancer's thievery, Life's presence is well and full up there." The way Yokir said "Death" and "Life" made Sianna guess the gods had names he either couldn't or wouldn't pronounce.

"Old gods? Necromancer?" Lycin asked.

Sianna could've killed Yokir. And Lycin.

As if reading her thoughts, Lycin grinned at her. "We are really are going to have a nice, long conversation when we get back, Sianna dear."

She grunted and a phantom headache hovered behind her forehead.

"Again, please be mindful," Yokir said. "We have kept watch of the gate since Ayodite's creation and do not let others in so easily. Have not for centuries. This...we are sacrificing a lot."

"Yes, yes. We get it. Sacred and all that." Lycin waved away Yokir's words.

"You might also want to hang on." He smiled with the lips of blooming purple flower petals.

Vivor's head rose.

Gasps and curses as everyone jerked around with the sharp movement. Each Rhokin grabbed ahold of their sers and held them with precise balance. Reth had both Sianna and Iari. As Vivor ascended, it uncurled from the trunk of the massive broken tree trunk with the sound of an ever-approaching avalanche. Bark pieces the size of boulders and houses slid off Vivor's river of scales and fell to the endless below. Occasionally, its black tongue would taste the air and it would shift to the side, looping through upheaved roots or around fallen stakes that jutted between the vegetation like towers.

Then the clouds appeared.

If Sianna had her sense of taste, sense of living, she would've known the flavor of the sky, the feel of the frozen air in her lungs, the sensation of a dry throat from her knotted-up nerves. But she could hear the screeches. See the hovering silhouettes of bird-like creatures through the fog of the clouds and against the ever extending sky.

The beings were sometimes only yards from Sianna and the rest. They swarmed in pairs she discovered as she scrutinized them with wary eyes and with her left hand on her sword hilt. One, usually the largest of the two, resembled an overgrown raven. The plumage was smooth and shimmered like following ink, its tail three trailing drops. A silver eye rolled on its chest in the crazed way a bird would jerk its head. The partner was an iridescent pearl, webbed wings gleaming waves of impossible colors. When it opened its polished, glass break, a single violet eye peered at the world.

Sianna stiffened when one of the lighter birds swooped down before them. Its exposed belly rippling with tiny rainbows like veins. Reth glanced at her with concern but said nothing. Lycin, as always, let his irritation verbalize.

"How much longer is this going to take? Those birds look like scavengers. They are eyeing us with hunger," he said.

Deneck snorted. "Eyeing."

"I think we're almos' there," Irai said with his sweet smile. "Jus' trust me, Lycin."

Lycin gave the boy a curious look. "Fine. It's hard to say no to a puppy."

"Especially one that can set you on fire," Deneck added.

Iari's eyes widened. "I wouldn' wan' to set anyone on fire."

"You say that now."

"Are you bored, Deneck? Or do you just want to set a bad example?" Aldermeck said.

He grinned. "Mostly bored, Meryl. This ride is rather mundane."

"Mundane?" Sianna and Lycin's synchronized word was said in the equal tone of disbelief.

"In comparison, don't you think?"

"I do see your point, Deneck," Reth said, his silver eyes following the thinning group of birds.

Deneck's grin widened. "I knew you'd be on my side, Reth."

He gave a small smile of his own, and there was something in it that caught Sianna's attention and not because of the rare sight.

What felt like an hour-or maybe it was a day, a week, Sianna couldn't tell-the flying creatures and even the clouds disappeared. They had finally reached the top of what was left of the country wide tree Vivor had been wrapped around. It slithered between pieces of broken bark that framed it like mountains. Vivor's head dipped and hovered past the poking shards and stopped. There was only darkness below them.

A bolt of panic seized Sianna's body. Her stomach filled with lead, her mind blanked. A clawed hand dug and twisted inside her chest and her breath left her. She didn't physically feel any of it, but the shadow touch was there, a revenant that followed and existed to show there was still fear after death. She squeezed Reth's arm, but before he could even react, Vivor, with a swift flick of its head, deposited them all into the void.

They fell, but there was no flapping of fabric or whirling of the hair. In fact, Sianna's clothes were drawn close to her body and her locks pushed down on her skull. The sensation promised a fall on land, but there was no denying the wind told Sianna she was falling upward.

Yet the darkness was getting closer.

Shivering.

Petrifying.

Suffocating.

Gasping.

Bursting.

The light was extraordinary. Golden in the middle, it pulsed out in gentle waves, rippling out like a hot white blooming flower of air. It was a nebula of multi-colored sparks that held eggs of heartbeats and fire. It was a weaving vine thick with blood that birthed chatoyant jewels and twigs of gold. It was a waterfall hiding creatures behind its foamy screen that drank with their mouths open to the rush.

Sianna's feet found solid ground in a world where everything was and wasn't. The elements gathered together to form a scenery Sianna recognized. Three hills manifested, one in front of two, smaller twins. Framing the bigger mound was a pair of trees bent like knees, their full branches of leaves serving as the joints. In the golden sky thin clouds swirled, hair in the wind. From the bottom of the hill a white figure sprouted. Slim like a lily bud. Another emerged followed by another and more until seven bulbs swayed in the wind.

"Come on. The eye is over there," Iari said, calm and pleased by everything around him. The faith he had in the necklace was concerning.

"Is it in one of those things?" Aldermeck asked.

"I think so."

They made their way to the white figures that were the size of people. Each one was rooted to the ground by a single green stalk. By some coincidence or force of the land, they paired off with one of the blubs, seven for seven.

"Now what?" Sianna said.

Iari studied the mass in front of him. "I'm no' sure. Bu' it's here."

The white buds all quivered and opened. Arms reached into the air and heads lifted and rolled. Hair grew and torsos stretched until half bodies poked from the white petals, half birthed creatures that were ghostly, nude versions of the counterparts that faced them.

Sianna stared at her snowy twin. Her white shoulders had the tips of scars that Sianna knew ran down her back. Other marks marred her arms. Only this replica didn't receive them from training and fighting as Sianna had.

Golden tears gathered underneath the double's closed eyelids that seeped like sap. Because it was sap, Sianna realized. The plants were all crying honey colored tears that ran down their necks, trapped in the hollow between collar bones or were forced into a single stream as they slid between breasts.

"You know. I really like the preview your double is giving me here," Lycin said as he leaned over to Sianna.

She hit him.

"At least in death your punches don't hurt."

"They will soon."

"Are you really that more muscular than me, Reth?" Deneck asked. He stood next to him, scrutinizing the flower version of Reth.

Sianna glimpsed Calera peek over Lycin's shoulder to see what Deneck was talking about.

"It is not that Reth is that more muscular than you. It is that you are getting old, Deneck." Aldermeck joined their Reth viewing party.

"But, ser," Reth said to Aldmermeck, "Deneck's arms are bigger than mine."

"But it's the broad chest and shoulders you have that drive women wild."

"Yes, they are pretty broad, Reth." Deneck nodded.

Reth titled his head a fraction of an inch. "Thank you, Deneck. Though I still think you have the better arms."

Lycin sighed and walked away, throwing his words over his shoulder as he did. "Of course. Nevermind that my arms and chest are nice and broad too."

"Oh? Is that what you tell Calera to whisper in your ear at night?" Sianna said.

He stopped. "Why? Would you rather whisper it to me instead?"

"I'd rather-" Sianna frowned when she saw Iari behind Lycin. "Iari?"

But he was gawking at something that was perched on top of the hill. Its shadow cast over the land and silenced the debate between Deneck and Reth's body. It took a second for Sianna to recognize the figure, but she remembered. It had been in the skies during their time on the floating islands, a shimmering element of water and fire that had danced through the floating earth. What was before them was a smaller version, something that said much about its size considering it coiled around the entire hill and still spilled over, but Sianna didn't doubt it was the same entitiy. Only now she could see its face. A hollow and black gap that mirrored the earth around it.

"It's there," Iari whispered, but in the stillness of it all his voice carried like a boom.

A harsh wind blew, whispered words against Sianna's ears.

"Humans. And others that are but aren't," the gale said.

She shook her head.

"You all heard that, right?" Lycin asked.

"Yes!" Sianna heard her neck crack in how quickly she turned to him. The relief was great as she saw everyone nod or grumble a confirmation. They had all heard it too.

"You," the breeze said as the creature in front of them stirred. It leaned toward Iari, its head shirking until it reached him. "Where did you get that necklace?"

He clutched it. "I 'ad a wizard give it to me to find The Eye of Artemis. We need it to protect our kingdom from the magickal creatures attackin' it an' for Kota to lift her banishmen'."

"Don't forget to mention the necromancer, Iari. I'm sure this creature should know of all our details for being here." Lycin teased. And how he could during this situation Sianna didn't know.

Iari reddened and glanced at the ground but his resolve returned. "Please. If you 'ave the eye, can we 'ave it? We'll be able to return it. I think."

The entity pulled away from him, its shrunken neck slithering through the Rhokin. It paused at each one for a second before facing Sianna. "And you?"

She flinched. Her face was a bowled image in the god's head, giving the impression it had her face. "What about me?"

A gale lifted their clothes and wiped their hair across their skulls. Sianna closed her eyes and when she opened them, everything was dead. The twin trees were broken with spiny black branches, and the hills were heaps of dirt. The sky was a stormy gray with an ominous black swirl in the middle.

Three statues embedded the dirt in different angles. They reminded Sianna of the saints found in the Silent Chapels. However, the colors on these figures were a blood red, a diseased green, and a suffocating black, the hues deep and penetrating. All eyes on the faces were closed with mouths open in disgust or horror. Sianna couldn't tell.

"Now what the hell is happening?" she mumbled under her breath.

"I don't believe it is anything good, ser," Reth said.

She followed his gaze and saw the sky's shadowy vortex was growing, darkening, reaching a blackness so deep it boggled her mind to stare at it. The whirlpool's tendrils extended, straightened, and four curtains of wings draped over them. A set of long necks erupted from the black body and that was when Sianna recognized her second god of the day. It was the dragon shadow she had seen eat the stars, the light, the life of everything around it. Now, it hovered, each pulse of its wings draining the world of color. The statues bled their colors dry and even the dead trees and dirt were stripped of what little vibrancy they had left. Only grayness was left, shapeless and dull.

The dragon swooped like an arching black blade. They split in half to avoid the snaps of the horned skulls. The whirlwind of the beast spinning to face them for another dive attack threw knives of air at Sianna's body, and it hurt. She was compressed, the vibration of everything and everyone around her amplified. The Rhokin's breathing was thunder in her ears and speech was like sheets of rain. Sianna felt like she was lost in a raincloud.

"Ser, stand back." Reth said and joined Calera and Deneck as the three form a small assault line against their foe.

Aldermeck grabbed Sianna's arm. Lycin's was in her other hand. "Iari!" She called to him on the other side of the gray landscape. "Come! We have to stay out of their way."

"But I can 'elp!" he said.

Her glare told him otherwise. "They can handle it."

He gave the dragon another look before he caught up with them. The four huddled together and gaped at the battle they hoped would end soon. The beast was in midair. One head faced the Rhokin below it and the other leered at Sianna. The endless, deep darkness sucking her in, instilling the notion its hidden eyes lanced only her.

"Do you think you can bring it down, Calera?" Deneck asked.

She nodded and her pair of arms zoomed at the dragon. They grew in size, one giant hand poised to strangle each of the long necks. Except the fingers phased through the dark like it was smoke. Calera guided the hands back and again they passed through doing nothing but creating swirls of black fog. Her gasp was sharp.

"It doesn't matter. Throw us up there!" Deneck ordered.

Another pair of arms manifested as Calera retracted the first set. She threw both Rhokin at the airborne creature. It drew back, using the wind from its wings to deter Reth and Deneck. A wall of crackling yellow appeared behind the two. It swirled with energy and glowed where Reth and Deneck's heels propelled them back to their foe. Two more electric footholds blinked in the gray sky that helped push Deneck to the top of one of the dragon's skull. Reth landed on its back.

The Rhokin were out of place against the abnormal black as if they would simply slip off it. Deneck's drawn blade, the smooth onyx color of Armadura, paled in comparison. Sianna saw it disappear into the head again and again, the motion rushed and frustrated with each stab. Reth's own dagger dragged across the beast's spine only for him to pause and stare at it.

"It doesn't bleed," Deneck said. "The sword doesn't do anything."

The dragon roared, twin cries that split Sianna in half. One of the neck's looped backward and jaws of silver snapped at Reth, a river of ink trying to swallow him. The other head thrashed in an attempt to shake Deneck off.

"What is this?" Lycin asked. His words were followed by the swipe of his sword cutting something.

A thick goop crawled up his legs from a forming puddle that was under their feet. It had climbed up to Sianna's thighs without her knowing. Aldermeck and Iari had the dark substance crawling up to their chests. It was the same color as the dragon, impenetrable and profound.

Sianna drew her sword and slashed at a tendril that emerged from the puddle. Countless inked limbs shot out at her. She cut the two in front of her in half and twisted to her right to stab a third that volleyed at her, but with her legs seized, her mobility was reduced. A vine grabbed her arms from behind and locked them together. The Armadura blade was a second spine against her back. The crawling darkness ate her chest and stopped at her neck.

"Sianna!" Aldermeck also had the black sludge up to her throat.

An eruption of flames flared through a group of tendrils. They withered and crumbled into dust that was funneled into the sky. Iari shot another wave of fire as he made his way to Lycin who battled with one arm. But he was overpowered by the time Iari reached him.

The user lifted his hand.

"Wait! How do I know you're not just going to roast me too?" Lycin asked.

Iari blinked. "I don't know."

"Then don't do it!"

A limp body scraping against rock and pebbles threw up a storm of gray dust. As it settled, Deneck came into view, half buried in the ground and wet with blood that was obviously his.

"Deneck!" Aldermeck struggled against her bindings. "Deneck, get up!"

He wasn't going to, if at all. Sianna saw bones slicing his thigh and shin. Threads of flesh clung to the shards as if trying to weave them back into the bloody flesh. He was breathing, but it was slow and painful as the bruise blooming across his left ribs showed.

"Iari, heal him! Please!" Aldermeck's crazed look settled on the boy.

The pool of darkness reached the Rhokin and began to eat his arm.

Iari shook his head. "It'll take too long to 'eal him while fightin' off those things. I need to 'elp Reth and Calera."

"Iari?" The fear in Aldermeck's voice shook through Sianna.

"I promise I'll come back for him!" He ran toward the dragon. "I'm the only one tha' can hurt it! Reth! Calera! Ge' away!"

The two Rhokin were dodging swipes from claws and fangs, the only thing they could do. Though they heard Iari, they had no time to question him. And Iari saw that. He stopped and put his hands on the ground. Something from his palms was burrowing under the dirt, racing toward the dragon. Two giant vines, green as life, broke through and latched around one of the creature's necks. They slammed the skull to the ground with an appalling crunch.

"I said go! Ge' away!" Iari's voice was a roar.

Reth and Calera froze. A blow connected with Calera and sent her flying, but before she landed, Reth caught her and the two tumbled through the dirt.

Sianna inhaled through her teeth. "Listen to him, Reth!"

He nodded and, carrying Calera, retreated.

Iari walked. Each of his steps summoned more vines. They flew at the beast, choking, clutching, tightening, pulling. It struggled with beating wings that rivaled hurricanes, but Iari's steps summoned more tendrils. Each one sturdier and stronger than the previous. They intertwined like a net against the thrashing beast.

Iari yelled. A rush of wind formed above the dragon, a writhing sphere of turbulent blades whirling together. He brought his arms down and the daggered gale slammed on the black wings. Two of them broke off with the splintering notes of multiple trees falling over. Smoke spewed from the wounds before the smashed wings disintegrated.

He stopped in front of one of the captured heads. He inhaled, his body lifting with the motion, launching his arms with a breath he didn't need. A waterfall of fire descended on the horned skull until the blaze consumed it all within its heat. The flames curved around Iari, leaving him unharmed but charring everything else in its path. In front of the other head, a bubbling sprout gushed. Water spewed from an invisible well, drawing into itself like a whirlpool. It grew with a foaming rush and engulfed the skull within its waves. As one dragon's head burned, this one drowned.

"Iari," Sianna whispered.

The darkness that held her and the others captive drained and ebbed away like evaporating bubbles. Aldermeck pulled her feet free, a wet noise following her movements.

"Deneck!" She was by his side and Reth on the other.

He groaned. "Am I dead? It feels like I'm dead."

"No. You are only broken in some parts here and there." She swept his black hair from his forehead.

"Deneck." Reth stared at him with his eyebrows furrowed and his lips slightly parted. He hesitated to touch him, settling on kneeling by his side.

An earthquake drummed Sianna's brain in her skull. When her bearings returned, she saw the dragon was a cloud of black mist. It drained into the sky leaving behind a giant and lush field of green. Vibrant colors and saplings with babe leaves poked through the blades. However, it was all dying as quickly as it was blooming.

Iari ran to them, sparing no awe to the scene. "I'm sorry! I'm comin'! Hold on, Deneck!"

Sianna watched as Iari healed him. Deneck sat up to a hug from Aldermeck and a smile from Reth. Iari turned his attention to the unconscious Calera and healed whatever injuries he could. She was met by a nod from Lycin, but her eyes skid to Reth and then to her hands.

"Thank you for catching me," she said to him.

Reth's nod was slow.

"Um. Sianna?" Iari said. "I'm sorry."

She frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, it's 'cause you usually ge' all mad when I use my magick, an' it was a lot tha' I used and, um, I jus' wanted to say I'm sorry."

It took a few seconds for her to absorb what he was saying. She still hadn't even caught up with the fact that a death dragon had almost killed-No, reaped.-them. That there is a creature, maybe more, out there the Rhokin can't fight. But Iari could. With his magick.

"Iari!" She snarled.

He shrunk. "And there it is."

"You!" She released it all with a slump of her shoulders. "You saved us. Nice job there."

He gaped at her, something that always made him appear younger. "Sianna?"

"Go away before I yell at you."

Iari grinned.

The wind picked up and whistled in Sianna's ears. "How enlightening."

The ribbon creature which she now knew was the god of life sat on Iari's green plain. Its presence invigorated what had died, the vegetation spreading like waves of water.

"I will do you two favors and then this will no longer be any of my concern."

"What was your concern to begin with?" Sianna asked, surprised she found it in her.

The god shifted, setting off an explosion of color across its body. "I kept this safe."

A star twinkled in front of them. It was almost invisible against the brightening sky. The light it emitted dyed itself light pink, then lilac, and finally settled on a rich purple.

"What is that?" Sianna asked.

"It's the eye," Iari said as he cupped his hands around it.

For something that was called The Eye of Artemis it didn't look like an eye. In fact, it was a simple rock that Sianna wouldn't have spared a glance. Its only defining feature was its eggplant color.

"Is this what you all came here looking for?" Lycin grabbed the stone from Iari and held it between his finger and thumb.

"Hey!" Iari snatched it back and pocketed it in his satchel he miraculously still had.

Aldermeck peered at the god. "You-"

"Et'tune." the wind howled. "It is my name in the way you can pronounce it. Address me with it."

She set her jaw before spitting the word out. "Et'tune. You said you had two favors for us. I am assuming giving us the eye was one of them?"

"You are correct."

"Then what is the other?"

Et'tune stood on four legs and flapped thin white wings. A crown of horns that nursed blooming flowers circled its lizard head, and a long and thin tail shimmered around its thick body. Sianna blinked. Again. No, she wasn't wrong. Et'tune had transformed into an prismatic dragon that appeared to be moving even when still.

It drew its head back and a crisp green fire fell upon them.