Ever since they had first defeated the Zlohiel by locking them away in the Gate, Elora had been the one tasked to defend it. She lived forever. Giving her the task was far easier than changing people every fifty or so years. They'd eventually grow tired of the job. Immortality had been one of the many gifts her father had given her when he created her.

Every couple of decades she would move it to a new part of the realm. All she had to do was gather it with her magic and take it with her as she flew. It weighed next to nothing. No one else would ever know where she put it, mostly because she never told anyone about it. She was surprised people even knew about the Gate and the Key.

As for the Key, she allowed the kings and queens of Veridun to deal with it. They would transport the powerful chunk of wood between each other every few years. She would follow them, unseen and unheard, and watch the transfer until she was satisfied the Key was safe.

Sometimes, very rarely, the Key had not been placed in safe hands. Someone would attempt to steal it, especially in the first few years after the war when there were still sympathisers for the Zlohiel. She would then have to assassinate both the person who attempted to steal the Key and the ruler who hadn't protected it properly.

She had assassinated a great many people over the years, and she wished she didn't have to. She wished that people would just keep the Key safe. If King Wyndel had survived the attack she would have had to kill him as well.

Even though she had created the Gate and the Key she didn't know where the Zlohiel were. At first, she thought they had just been sent to another part of the realm that hadn't been discovered at the time. But as the years passed and there was no sign of them, Elora had eventually figured out that the Gate led to another realm, one they had created themselves. She didn't know what kind of realm it was though.

She couldn't say she didn't picture it like this. It was what she had hoped, a place where they suffered for their evil. She just didn't expect the end up in it. How she had gotten there, she still did not know, her father hadn't told her that yet.

Nowhere, he had said, the realm was called Nowhere. Named by the evil that lived there. It was a fitting title from what she had already seen. It was just blackness and death and fire and nothingness. Nothing could survive there. She was surprised there were any Zlohiel coming out of the Gate.

"How am I here?" she asked her father, trying to ignore the pained cries around her.

I brought you here. Only your spirit. Your body is still sleeping, still with those friends of yours. I took you back in time, not too far, but enough for you to see.

"See what?" she snapped, her voice quiet.

Why they are the way they are.

"They were like this long before I locked them away."

He scoffed, and Elora couldn't help but find it patronising. They are worse now, my daughter. You've angered them with your actions.

"They were going to destroy the realm! You told me to deal with them! I did what you asked!"

And now they are back, worse than before. Because of you.

There was a blinding flash of light and Elora winced, throwing an arm in front of her face to cover her eyes. Nothing else around her seemed to notice, even though it would have been completely obvious.

"They cannot see you, my daughter. They cannot see either of us," a familiar voice said. Nyal, but not quite. When the light finally faded away and she took her arm from her face all she could see was Nyal. He stood right in front of her, a frown on his face and his body rigid. "This form is more comforting to you, is it not?"

Her father, she realised. He had taken Nyals' body so that they could have a proper conversation. "Yes," she muttered, glaring at him.

"Good," her father said in Nyal's voice, with Nyal's face. "Walk with me." He offered his arm, a show of politeness Elora didn't even know he had. She grabbed it and together they walked as if it were through a beautiful garden and not a dead realm filled with monsters.

"I still don't understand why I am here, father," she said, wincing at a particularly loud roar.

"You are here to see what you have done, and how you can stop it," Yararanje told her.

Elora frowned, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Father, you told me you would not help. You told me I had to fix it myself. Why come and help me now?"

"Because you have given up," her father snapped, contorting Nyal's face into an unfamiliar expression of rage. "I made you to save my creations and get rid of my sister's mistake, and all you can do is wallow and sulk. You made a mistake, but you can fix it. Quit feeling guilty and hopeless and actually do something!"

She winced, taking a step away from him. Her words only made her feel worse, guilty for being guilty. "I've destroyed the realm, father," she said, unable to meet his gaze. "I do not know what to do. How can I fix this?"

Her father said nothing as they walked past a pair of angry vampires on the verge of an argument. They were almost a metre away and yet they went unseen. One launched at the other, knocking them even closer, and they still went unnoticed.

Yararanje sighed. "My sister is dreadfully upset," he started. "Her creations are destructive. Their actions are completely out of her hands. She loves Veridun, we helped each other make it, neither of us want to see it destroyed. But she cannot bring herself to kill her creations, her children if you will, she cares for them too much."

"And what about you, father?" she asked, growing irritated with what he was saying. She understood Zeteliorem's reasons for not helping, but her father still confused her.

"Don't interrupt, I'm getting to that," Yararanje snapped. "I made you so that I wouldn't have to deal with this. I gave you the powers to destroy them if you tried hard enough. I made Veridun and the rest of this world to watch, to practice, to see what worked and what didn't. I told myself I wouldn't interfere, especially after you, because I want to see where you will go," he paused to look over at her, but all she did was glare. "I do not want it destroyed, I want to see what can happen. You all have so much potential. That's why I brought you here."

"We're just entertainment for you, is that it?" Elora demanded. "You stand above us all and watch us like a play, but you'll boo at us, at me, if it doesn't go the way you want it. You'll boo and complain and insult, but you won't do anything to fix it, you won't rewrite it or step in to help when we struggle!"

"I'm stepping in now, aren't I?" was all her father said, watching as a harpy flew overhead.

"No, you're not!" she growled, a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she could only assume was a shame. Shame at being Yararanje's daughter. "You've pulled me away from where I need to be to tell me stories about an aunt I've never met and that you only care about your own creations when they do something they don't like. What kind of a god are you, father?" She spat the word like it was poison in her mouth.

Her father growled, a sound she had never heard Nyal's voice make, a little like an angry dog. He said nothing for a long while as if he were thinking through his words carefully. Part of her was feeling quite smug, having finally silenced him, if only for a while.

"How are you going to help me, hmm?" she asked, sick of the silence. "Are you actually going to do anything, or are you going to keep telling me stories and hope that I read between the lines? Because I would much rather you tell me what in Veridun I need to know!"

He raised his eyebrows at her. "There are many things you need to know," Yararanje said like it was the simplest thing in the world. Before Elora could open her mouth to reply, the world blurred and spun, like she had been thrown through the air. She let out a little grown at the dizzying feeling, unsure of what was going on.

The world stopped spinning almost as suddenly as it had started. She stepped backwards, trying to regain her balance. A quick shake of her head and she was fine, looking around to see what had happened.

Her father had transported them somewhere else in Nowhere. A field of prickly black grass stretched out as far as she could see, climbing over hills and down a faraway valley. The sky was still dark like it was cloudy. It seemed to be permanent. She could barely see, even with her ability to see in the dark.

All across the field, she could see monsters, Zlohiel, standing in rows before a hill. Their backs were facing her and her father, but she was sure that even if they were looking, they would not be seen. Her eyes drifted between the monsters, seeing dragons in both forms, vampires, a gryphon, and a chimaera. They all faced the same thing, something high on a hill.

The Gate looked exactly the same in Nowhere as it did in Veridun, even the tiny gap in the middle where the Key originated from. After they had made it, they found the little chunk of wood on the ground. At first, they had thought the Gate wouldn't work without it, but testing by placing the wood back in the Key showed that it did. They had seen the blackened field, but that had been all of Nowhere that her and Corpius and the others had seen.

Other creatures stood near the Gate, one being a fully formed dragon. As she watched it slowly morphed back into the form of a person. The male dragon stood tall, towering over everything. The tallest living thing she had seen. Gaizma laughed, blowing fire through pink lips. She shuddered, old memories of war resurfacing.

He began to speak in a language that Elora hadn't heard for a very long time. It was a lot like the language spoken in Veridun, but older, so much older. Words she hadn't heard in recent times. An ancient dialect even she had stopped using as time went on and words evolved like the people themselves. That didn't stop her from recognising it.

"We will find a way out of here! The doorway will have a weakness!" he said. "That demigod isn't as strong as she thinks she is!" It went on like that for a while, every single creature roaring in agreement with Gaizma's words.

She looked to her father, eyes wide and questioning. It no longer made her as uneasy looking at Nyal's face, because she could tell that it was not him. Yararanje used it much differently to Nyal. "He may have only been in control of the dragons before you and your warlocks sent them away," Yararanje started, gesturing at the crowd in front of them. "But afterwards he took control of everything, his dragons kept every other being in line." That explained why the dragons were attacking the others when she arrived.

"When is this?" she asked him.

"Not long after you put them here, sometime after the first hundred years. It was a violent mess here before that."

"How do you know these things?"

"You created this in my realm, with my help. I can watch what goes on here, even if I can't control it," her father explained, falling silent for many minutes. The pair watched for a long time as Gaizma rallied his troops, promised them freedom that wouldn't come for a very long time. They seemed to believe him anyway. They cheered every time he finished a sentence, as though they were about to go to war.

"They don't make it out for a very long time though," she said over the top of Gaizma's bellowing.

"No," Yararanje said. "Gaizma's power wanes over time, but when the Gate opened..." He trailed off and once again the world began to spin, not as violent as the first time. When it stopped and everything came back into focus, she found herself standing in the exact same place.

She had to shield her eyes from the sudden onslaught of light coming from the Gate. When her eyes finally adjusted to the unbelievably bright light, she once again found herself staring at Gaizma. He was in his human form, laughing like he didn't believe what he was seeing, or something that he never expected to see in his life.

"Come, my followers, our time has come! We are free!" he cried cheerfully, thrusting his fists in the air. "We'll take back our world, destroy those who took it from us! It will all be ours again, I promise you!" With that, he wandered into the light. It seemed to stretch around his hulking figure, allowing him to fit through a space he normally couldn't.

The deafening roars of the countless monsters mashed together into an ugly symphony as they all rushed for the Gate. She knew what was happening on the other side, but she hadn't even thought about what was going on in Nowhere. They seemed so excited, so relieved, and yet, so angry with what had been done to them. Sending them to Nowhere had only seemed to make things worse.

"Why am I here?" she finally asked, still not understanding what the whole point of the trip was.

Yararanje sighed. "You needed to see what your actions have done. You need to see how dangerous it is now. You can still defeat them."

She whirled toward him. "How? You haven't even told me that yet," Elora snapped. "I thought that's what you brought me here to do!"

"If you would stay quiet for one minute, Elora," her father growled, making her jump away from him. "I would tell you that you are more than powerful enough to defeat the Zlohiel, you always have been. I made you that way, but it seems you haven't yet discovered your power." As if to emphasise his point, more screeches and roars echoed across the field. "It's not just you though. The Healer, the one who owns this face, you'll need him too. You can't defeat them on your own. You need a Healer to help you, and he's the only one who can. Even if I don't like him."

"So, what do I need to do?" she asked.

"You need to discover how powerful you really are, my dear daughter. I'm not surprised you haven't yet, you haven't been able to. The warlock is growing stronger too, eventually, you and he can defeat them. I promise you," her father explained.

"But you won't help us when we need you to, will you?"

"No, my dear," he said. "This is all you will get from me. It's more than enough. I shouldn't have even had to do this."

"Father-"

"No. You had best be getting back. The warlock and the... Other two, they need you." She tried to ignore the sneer her father gave her at the mention of Ragen and Mikhail. "Off you go. Listen to what I told you, don't lose hope again."

Before she could say anything, he reached up and touched his palm to her cheek. The world blurred again, but instead of coming back into focus, it faded to black. It was almost as quick as falling asleep.