“He’s a control freak losing control,” I correct. “Nyssa isn’t a shadow he can direct. She’s the sun, and he’s afraid he’ll burn.”
“He pushes too hard.”
“He does. And she pushes back harder.”
“For now,” Voren says. He starts walking in the direction the others went. “We should ensure they haven’t destroyed the rest of the realm.”
“Or each other,” I mutter, jogging to catch up. “My money is on Nyssa.”
We walk in silence for a few moments, and then we both stop and look around. “Where did they go?”
The corridor doesn’t just end; it simply stops existing. One second, there is a path of marble and shadow; the next, there is a wall of impenetrable grey fog that looks like it would hold a grudge if I poked it.
“She’s slammed the door,” I say, staring at the nothingness. “Metaphorically speaking.”
Voren reaches out, his hand hovering inches from the mist. Frost blooms in the air, but the fog doesn’t retreat. It swallows the cold without flinching. “She is asserting control,” he states, his voice flat. “She wanted to be alone. The realm obeyed.”
“She wanted to be away from Dreven,” I say, turning to the left, but there is nothing there. “So where did he go? Did he end up in the same place as her?”
“Or did she send him somewhere else?”
“Good point,” I mutter, turning back to him, only to find a wall of fog instead. I sigh, eyes closed before opening them again with great effort. “I’m starting to feel like Nyssa. Fuck this.”
I poke the wall of grey. It yields slightly under my finger, dense and cold, then springs back into place.
“Voren?” I call out.
The silence is heavy. It presses against my eardrums. I spin in a circle, but the world is just a grey sphere now.
“Right,” I mutter. “Solitary confinement. My favourite.”
I conjure a sphere of chaotic energy in my palm. The red-gold sparks hiss, hungry for something to destabilise. I toss it casuallyat the barrier. Instead of blowing a hole through the mist, the energy sizzles and vanishes. The fog simply eats it.
“Okay,” I say, lowering my hand. “She blocked a god. That’s new.”
I start walking. Directions are useless here, but standing still makes me itch. The floor is smooth obsidian, reflecting nothing.
Dreven pushed her. He always pushes. He thinks control is the only way to survive. He forgets that Nyssa hates control. Now she has separated us with a thought.
I keep my pace steady, searching for a flaw in the construct. If Nyssa created this isolation to get space, there must be a way to break it. I am Chaos. I find the cracks. That is my nature.
A ripple disturbs the grey to my left. It isn’t Voren or Dreven. It’s a flicker of movement, low to the ground.
I summon a blade of crackling energy.
The fog parts.
It isn’t a monster.
It’s the God of Ambivalence, crouched on the obsidian floor like a toad.
“What are you doing down there?”
He looks up, eyes shifting from grey to beige. “Existing. Waiting. It seemed safer than standing up.”
“Where is everyone else?”
He shrugs. One shoulder goes up, then the other, then he gives up halfway through. “Gone. The Queen wanted silence. She made walls.”
