After a brief explanation of the plan, Rena took her place in the circle of Mythics on the portal's surface. 

She was fairly certain that none of them believed what she'd suggested was possible, but after Allegra brought up the fact that Rena had taken out the chaotics completely on her own, they'd listened. As some cheery fae had brought up, they were all going to die a whole lot slower deaths if they didn't do something anyway, so why not risk it and probably cut short the suffering with a quick death? 

Rena didn't care why they were sitting with her. The important thing was that they were doing it. They needed every mind possible to make this work. 

"Link the circle!" Rena called, taking Allegra's hand to her right and Kiou's to her left. It'd been the muses idea, the circle. To space out the Mythics capable of manipulating raw energy to ensure everyone was linked to the djinn. "Focus!" 

The djinn was well into his ritual why the time they were ready. It was longer than Rena recalled, but she supposed the portal hadn't been infected by a chaotic spectre back then. Incoherent words fell from his lips as the ley rose around him, crackling, pushing to escape as he kept it under his will. Slowly, it expanded, reaching around the outside of the circle and bringing one Mythic at a time into the circle. 

Allegra gasped as the djinn's ley reached her. Her fingers tightened on Rena's, skin trembling. Rena kept her grip and steadied herself, preparing to hold her mind free from the power of the djinn's lure. 

The ley crept over Allegra's wrist, climbing over their interlocked fingers and finding its way to Rena's body. 

She tensed as it climbed up her arm and engulfed her body. His ley hadn't changed. Still powerfully raw, still a blank canvas for his will, but Rena no longer felt hypnotised by it as she had been back at the temple. It was sweet, it was heady, but she could resist its pull.

One by one, new consciousnesses joined her inside the ley. Rena's vision slipped from the physical more than once. She caught glimpses of familiar things, the clouds of ley, the glow of crystal keys, but she also saw things she couldn't explain. Flickers of scenes long past. She saw herself through the eyes of others and more than once, caught herself disconnected from her own body to be regarding her own cross-legged form with awe, even resentment. 

The djinn closed the circle over the final Mythic. His voice echoed through their communal mind.

I'm about to connect us to the portal, he said, the words lacking their usual charisma. He was utterly focused on his task. There was no room for pride or hatred. Do not break the circle. This will not be pleasant. The spectre doesn't want us in there. 

The ley shifted. Where it had hovered, it was now tugging on Rena's consciousness, pulling her thoughts and her mind towards the centre of the circle, the heart of the portal where she'd crossed over once before. Rena didn't resist it, letting her essence separate from her body. The two came apart with ease, leaving her drifting in the ley, always drawn towards the centre. 

The other Mythics didn't come so easily. Several of them, particularly those of the giant and beast families struggled to let themselves go. Rena pulled herself back to them, coaxing them with the slightest charm to convince them it was safe, that they could relax. She told them nothing she didn't believe was true herself, but even so, as each reluctant Mythic listened to her, the guilt started to build. 

Yet they were still blocked. Still held out of the portal by something that resembled a dark, mystical plug. 

Rena found the djinn's essence, the brightest by far. Can you get in? 

The spectre's stronger in there, grunted the djinn as a wave of ley flooded off him. I don't know if I can get in there with pure force. He doesn't have limited resources, and we do. My ley isn't enough alone. 

Without hesitation for the consequences, Rena joined her strength to his. Let me help. 

The djinn's hold over the spell staggered with the sudden boost. You know, even I didn't realise the difference two more tails would make. Your strength matches my own, something I never thought I'd see from another Mythic. 

Just remember that when we finish fixing this portal, said Rena. 

Together, they pushed against the dark mass keeping them out. Little by little, it budged under their joined strength and the sheer force of the Mythic essences bearing down on it, demanding entry. 

Noooo! hissed the spectre's voice, everywhere and nowhere at once. It was the ley, yet it wasn't. Nooo, you ssshall not enter! This portal isss mine! 

Almost through, said the djinn. Once we're in, we'll need to be--

The dark mass swelled, regaining the ground they'd taken in the space of a heartbeat, but it didn't stop there. Its smooth surface bubbled, small at first but larger with every breath, and soon, its surface was covered in thin, spindly tendrils that reached through the ley, grabbing for any Mythic unlucky enough to be in range. 

Their efforts weren't enough. The spectre was still keeping them out. 

What do we do now? asked Rena. All the energy she'd given the djinn was gone, and whatever she had left was now keeping the tendrils at bay as the djinn kept the link open. We have to get in there, or it's over. 

One thing you should have learned about me by now, Rena, said the djinn, using her actual name for the first time she could recall. I always have a plan. 

The ley around them changed from a whitish blue to a deep, full gold. The only colour Rena had ever seen come close was the healing dust off a fae's wings. It was rare, and it took many fae to generate enough dust to perform one simple healing, but short of a unicorn's horn, it was the most powerful healing magic among Mythics. 

Apparently, she'd been wrong. This gold now, the djinn's ley, she was sure, made fae dust look like the old, primitive human method of putting leeches on wounds to suck out the bad stuff. 

For my third wish! came the djinn's voice, sending shivers down Rena's spine. I wish for that which stops us from entering the heartland portal to shrivel up and wither away! 

The world changed. 

There was no other way to describe it. One moment the world was a certain way, and the next, it had bent its own existence to meet the djinn's wish. What was, was no more. 

The dark mass shrank in on itself, sucked down into the vortex of the portal as the ley lost its gold colouring. The next thing Rena knew, and she, with the other Mythic essences in various stages of panic, were pulled down after it, straight into the depths of the heart portal itself. 

The sensation was the same as the first time Rena had entered the portal, but there was a strained undercurrent beneath it that made her uneasy, that told her something was very, very wrong. Unlike last time, her mind was still crisp, still clear. She was coherent, and she could distinguish the individual voices within the ley, the voices that weren't of any Mythic she knew. Voices too ethereal, too numerous to be of a physical plane. 

The kitsune has returned! 

The memories we savoured? The experiences we shared? 

Yes, yes! She has returned, and she has brought more! Many, many more! 

Rena relived her own recent memories, the ones she'd created since healing Nazine's key. Each one was taken by the grasp of many minds, all separate yet within one entity as they drank in the details and swelled. 

Yes, yes! She has understood! You see? 

It wasn't just her own memories she relived, either. Between her own, she caught glimpses of others. 

She saw through the eyes of a boy with white hair in a robe of ever-changing colours standing before the portal, looking at someone dressed as a cardinal who was angry. She saw the cardinal lash out, heard the threats, saw another Mythic, a fae woman step in when pain flashed across the memory. The next few moments were a blur of colour and wings that ended with the fae on the ground and a broken key in the hands of the cardinal. 

The image changed to a scorched field. No longer was she the boy with white hair but a man with tanned skin partially covered in scales and claws instead of fingernails. The bite of rejection was lodged deep in her chest as she glanced back over her shoulder, catching sight of torn, leathery wings and a small village on the horizon. 

Until just like the first, the barren field vanished. She was alone in a bedroom, sitting with hands folded on her lap, watching places and people that she'd never seen. She saw her best friend die at the mouth of a ghost-like Mythic. She watched as a kitsune on her table split into two, following both paths of her crossroads. One where the kitsune stayed and the darkness reaching for the heart succeeded. One where the kitsune acted, and that darkness was challenged. Neither easy. Neither clear. Grief rose in her throat as Brianna appeared in the doorway, calling her to dinner. 

Scenes continued to flash past through Rena's mind. The joy of a first run on all four legs, tail streaming behind her. The feeling of flight the first time the Order had allowed the use of their wings. 

Heartbreak. Loss. Joy. Pride. Human emotions in the minds of Mythics. Each one filled in another piece of the ley, another hole that'd been left to fray for too long. And as the holes of chaos shrank, the undercurrent Rena had noticed at the beginning rose closer to the surface, forced upwards as its hiding places in the chaotic ley vanished one by one. 

The ley was no longer starving, no longer needing to consume itself to survive. It was far from being whole, but neither was it disintegrating at its edges. It was stronger, and it would hold, for now at least. 

We have been sated, for now. We must reflect. We must learn. 

In one final rush, Rena felt the ley push her from the portal, her essence rejoin with her body once more. 

She opened her eyes, still gripping the hands of Allegra and Kiou on either side of her. Though not every Mythic was upright, they clung to each other with dogged determination, keeping the circle intact right up until the djinn retracted his essence and gave the word to release.

Rena fell forward on her hands, barely able to believe it. Her idea had worked better than she ever could have hoped. The chaotics in the centre were back to their regular size, and when she looked for their ley, there was no hint of the darkness left within them. 

Except one. 

A raging scream that cut through to Rena's core tore from the spectre's mouth, swollen and hollow. Its dark, sunken eyes raked over the circle of Mythics until they came to lock on Rena. 

"Yooooou!" it screamed. The taunting hiss was gone, burned away by an ancient fury. "Yoooou, YOU HAVE RUINED EVERYTHING!"

Rena got to her feet, finding her legs strong in the wake of her shaking body. The portal had taken a lot out of her. "I didn't ruin anything, spectre. You need to separate yourself from the portal. You've been corrupted by the chaos. You--"

"You think the chaosss did this?" it screeched. "Foolisssh, so foolisssh. There are other powersss in this world, other powersss I have tasssted and drained, and the portal was the first ssstep to unlocking them! You have ruined everything, and you will all pay, starting with you, the one who first denied me a soul!" 

*+*+*+*

A/N - This is more of a 'part one' of the chapter because I *REALLY* need to get to sleep and I won't have time to update in the next day or two, sorry! One of those weekends where everything decides to happen at once, blah. 

This chapter felt kinda flimsy to write, and I'm sorry if it comes off that way to read. I've been over it a few times and I'm not really sure how to fix it, so eh. Here ya go. xD 

Next update in a few days <3