When Emrick awoke, the sun was rising. The clouds were different shades of pale pinks and oranges and for a moment, he smiled at it. Then he froze, eyes wide and breathing laboured because the sky was clear, there wasn't a forest anymore and he was moving, bumping up and down with every breath.

Underneath him was a board, the hard surface digging into his back. His armour was gone, as were his weapons, as was the stone. But the stone had shattered, he remembered that much, but he couldn't remember anything else. His head ached, his muscles burned, but he couldn't just lie there to be carried by people he could barely see. He had to do something, had to move.

Ignoring the pain that flared up and his blurry vision, Emrick rolled. For whatever reason, he wasn't restrained and he dropped to the ground with a thud, his head swimming. The board clattered to the ground next to him and he climbed to his feet. He needed to find his sword if he was going to live.

But everything was swimming and his limbs felt like water. Standing hurt and made him dizzy and he knew he wasn't going to last long. "Please," he gasped but it felt like he was trying to breathe underwater. Everything blurred, the sky, the snow around him, the shining grey of armour he couldn't recognise until he fell backwards.

He didn't land in the snow but in someone's arms. They lowered him slowly to the ground, where he groaned and struggled weakly against them. "Emrick," they said but he had no idea how they knew his name. "Emrick, you need to stay calm. You're with friends, you don't need to worry."

Who were they, the people around him? The voice was familiar, but he couldn't place it. Part of him wanted to believe it was Isiah, that he had somehow made it back to him, but the words weren't something Isiah would say. The fact that he recognised the voice in any way was enough for him to stop struggling and allow those around him to put him back on the board again.

"Who?" he said, his voice weak and feeble. Something had happened, but he didn't understand what or where he was.

The faint sound of metal reached his ears and between one blink and the next, a familiar blurry face filled his vision. "It's me, Benj," the face said, muffled but clear enough for him to understand.

Emrick blinked again, slow, the slight movement only making his head hurt more. "How?"

"We found you during the night, unconscious and surrounded by dead bodies," the Prince explained and Emrick was finally able to take in who else he was with. Benj's companion, the archer, as well as Orvo, who had been the one to catch him when he fell. "We still don't know what happened, but Orvo ran back to get a board from the hut to carry you. You've been sleeping for hours."

None of it made sense. They shouldn't have rescued him, they needed to keep moving, but they had anyway. He owed them his life. "Thank you," he whispered as the archer and the other man lifted his board again.

"Try not to speak too much, you should rest," Benj ordered as they started walking again.

But now that he was awake, he wasn't getting back to sleep. "No," he grumbled and tilted his head to look at the Prince. There was a bag on his back and it clanked as he walked. That was where Emrick's armour had gone. "Where are we going?"

"You said you needed to go to Liman, didn't you?" Benj asked. "So we're going to take you there."

"But Ziya..."

"I think getting you to Rina and the Beast is more important, don't you?" Benj replied, raising an eyebrow at him. Ever so slowly, his vision was clearing, but his head still pounded, a muffled voice whispering to him. He couldn't understand a word it said and it was easier not to focus on it, doing so only made him hurt more.

He groaned. "His name is Isiah," he said, lifting his hands towards the sky just to see if he could do it.

"Whatever it is," Benj said with a wave of his hand. "Either way, you need to get to them, so we'll help you. Ziya can wait until it's all over."

"Thank you," he whispered and closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn't sleep, but he needed to rest his eyes. Everything still hurt more than it ever had before, even after the attack at Huton, but from what he remembered, none of the soldiers that had attacked him had hurt him that badly. The worst they had done was shatter the fear stone.

Even though he had remembered it earlier, he finally registered what it meant. The stone was gone, smashed into pieces in the snow. How was he supposed to open the door with Isiah without the stone? How were they supposed to do anything? He'd ruined everything. Because of him, the realm would die, all because he'd lost the stone. He'd been so stupid to let it fall from his grasp.

"The stone," he gasped as the pounding in his head worsened. He grabbed at his head and curled into a ball on the board, groaning with pain. Like someone hitting him in the head with a hammer, his head throbbed. "Do you have the pieces of the stone?"

"What stone?" Benj asked.

He laughed and stopped for a moment only to laugh again. His throat stung as the laughter grew more and more high-pitched, more and more hysterical. It was completely gone, giving them no hope of winning. He couldn't open the door, couldn't give Isiah back the stone so he could master it. Ishin was going to win, all because of him.

"Emrick?" Orvo said and it was strange to hear him say his real name. "Emrick? What's wrong?" But his head continued to pound so much that he couldn't reply. All he could do was groan and clutch himself as it got worse and worse and worse.

Tears ran down his cheeks and it was all he could do to stop himself from rolling off the board again. All of them stared down at him, trying to figure out what was going on. They were speaking, but the words came out as silence, the pounding in his head far louder than what they were saying.

Between one second and the next, the pounding stopped and was replaced by the muffled voice he'd heard earlier, clearer than before. Losing his family, not being accepted as who they are, killing, being unable to help people, freezing to death, mermaids. It was Askarune's voice, whispering in his mind the same way the stone had, telling him the fears of those around him. Heights, spiders, losing the war.

How did he know? He shouldn't know. The stone was gone, there couldn't be any way he could still hear Askarune's voice in his mind, but it was still there. It had been destroyed, but he had still felt the power in the air. He remembered it, feeling it move towards him, swarm within him like a storm. Then he'd been gone, unconscious as the stone's power became his.

His laughter cut off with a sharp hiccup. "The stone," he whispered again as he unfolded to lie straight once more.

Benj was still staring down at him with wide eyes and mouth. "What stone, Emrick? What are you talking about?" he asked. They had stopped but they needed to keep moving. He knew what had happened now, he understood how they were supposed to master each stone.

"I am the stone," he whispered and laughed again, slowly drifting into sobs. He was the stone and the stone was him. But what did that mean? How could Isiah master the stone if it was him? There was so much that didn't make sense, but he couldn't argue against it.

"What does that mean?" Benj asked.

"The stone was my power, they broke it when they attacked me," he explained, his voice like a whisper. "Isiah needed it to open the doors. I thought it was gone, but I am the stone now, I can still help him."

"I don't know what any of that means," Benj replied, shrugging and shaking his head. "But I'm happy for you. How are you feeling?"

Nothing hurt anymore. He felt fine, healthy, uninjured. "Fine," he muttered and blinked in confusion. "I think I can walk. Nothing hurts."

All three of those around him shared wary looks as Orvo bent over him. "Emrick, you couldn't even move ten minutes ago, are you sure?" he asked.

"I'm sure."

"Well, I don't see why not. I couldn't even figure out what was wrong with you in the first place," Orvo said, waving a hand at him in exasperation. He looked exhausted, but there were a great many reasons for it.

The archer was kind enough to lower the board to the ground before he tried to stand. Orvo and Benj stood at either side of him, ready for him to fall again, but with the pain gone, he felt stable. It was as if it had never been there in the first place, as if the stone had always been with him.

"I feel better, you don't need to worry," he said and took the first few steps across the snow. It was freezing, the only thing stopping the frostbite was the thick coat he wore, one that wasn't his. He shivered and wrapped his arms around his torso. He hadn't noticed the cold in his pain, but it felt like the most obvious thing in the realm.

Despite it, he could walk easily, could even run and jump and spin as if he was fighting. All the while, Askarune's voice in his head whispered the fears of the people around him. When he had held the stone, it had been easy to ignore the voice but it was a part of him like his own thoughts and he couldn't ignore it anymore.

When he turned, the archer held out his sword and Emrick took it gratefully. "Your name," he said. "What is it?"

"Skyt," the archer said and gave him a short bow. Benj's second in command from Maeve. He hadn't recognised their face, but once he heard their name, he remembered the few moments he had seen them.

"Thank you all for helping me, you didn't need to," Emrick said as he put his sword back in its sheath and took the bag of armour from Benj. They could have easily left him to die in the snow, but they'd saved him and were going out of their way to take him back to Isiah and Rina.

"We're only returning the favour," Benj replied. "I'd say the debt has been repaid." Emrick hadn't even known there'd been a debt, but he wasn't going to protest.

With the board left to the side of the road, the small group continued. As far as Emrick was aware, they were still behind enemy lines, but at least they were well on the way to Liman and at least the breaking of the stone hadn't resulted in a complete failure. There was no way Isiah could use it unless he was supposed to use him as some kind of instrument, but at least the door could still be opened.

There was one thing he needed to test. The voice was still in his head, but without the stone, how could he manifest his powers? The power that had once ebbed and flowed around him was gone, but not completely. It was within him, all he had to do was find it.

The group was silent as they walked, giving him the perfect opportunity to think. It had been easier when the stone was exactly that and he didn't have time to learn how to use it all over again. It was bad enough that he would have to explain to Isiah what had happened. Would he be angry with him? Disappointed? They hadn't known each other long enough for him to be sure of how he would react.

Seeing as the magic was still intact, it wouldn't be so bad, but if he couldn't figure out how that magic worked, maybe it would be. He still had a few days before he reached Liman; that was enough time to work it all out, hopefully. The first thing he had to do was try it.

Even though he couldn't feel it in the air around him, he focused his mind on grabbing ahold of the power he had once used as if it would be that simple. The second he did, the whispering turned to yelling and it took all his effort to push it away. He couldn't show any of his companions their worst fears, that wasn't fair on them. He had to manifest something small, something like a spider.

Then there was one there in his hands as if it had always been there. Skyt, who walked next to him, gasped and jumped away, their hand rising to their chest. Then it was a snake curling around his wrist, then a small version of a mermaid, hissing and spitting in his palm. It was so easy, so simple to conjure things in his hands. All he had to do was think about it and then it was there.

In the snow before him, he conjured up a monster from his childhood stories with one eye and razor-sharp teeth. His companions cried out in fear and he made it disappear, laughing at how easy it was and how real it looked.

"What was that?" Orvo asked, his voice trembling.

"My power," Emrick answered, turning to grin at them. He was so much stronger than he had been before the stone had shattered. It was the true power of the stone, how it was supposed to be used. The stone was only a way of practicing, like a wooden sword during training. What he had flowing through his mind and his blood was a real sword, the real power. With it, he could do anything he wanted.

He should practice manifesting the worst fears to make sure he could kill if necessary but he doubted any of those around him would want to be willing subjects to that. It had been bad enough when he'd accidentally used it on Isiah. But at least he still had his powers and they were so much easier to use than they ever had been before.

The person who had shattered it was dead with the other soldiers, but he wished he could thank them properly with his powers. Instead, he could focus on doing what needed to be done, getting to Isiah, opening the final door and getting the last stone. After that, they could figure out how he was supposed to help Ziya master the power of fear, even if he had to be used as an instrument to do it. Anything to save the realm from Harudan and Ishin.