Gorm grunted. How did one make a plan to combat something on the scale of gods and demons and destiny?

If the old berserker had a destiny, if there was some grand purpose in his life, it needed to show up soon. Niln had told him the scriptures would show him the signs, and signs couldn’t get much clearer than this. But his old friend had also said that he’d know what to do when the time came, and here at the intersection of now and never, Gorm couldn’t fathom what to do.

“This is just like him!” Jynn ranted. “This is typical Detarr Ur’Mayan at his finest!”

“An apocalyptic battle with the source of all evil is typical of your father?” Laruna asked dryly.

“The secrecy!” Jynn snarled. “He knew that Johan didn’t defeat Mannon in Az’Anon’s lair, or somehow deduced that Johan and Mannon had entered a dark pact. And he could have warned us, or the kingdom, or anyone else. But no! Instead he set out to kill Johan himself and everyone on Arth in the process. The man would literally rather destroy the world than open up to his own son! He never told me…”

Jynn trailed off, lost in a new thought.

Destroy the world. The phrase stuck with Gorm. He recalled that Mannon said the world was exactly as he wanted it, that he owned it. To defeat him would be to… to overthrow the ruler of the world. It might tear down the kingdom. It would mean revenge for the Sten. Niln’s scriptures attributed all of those goals to the Dark Prince.

And suddenly Gorm realized why the scriptures never talked about the Seventh Hero of Destiny and the Dark Prince fighting. They never were meant to fight. The Dark Prince was destined to strike down the king, sunder the powers that led the kingdom. The Seventh Hero was to save the good people of Arth and stop evil from triumphing. Since the crowned King of Andarun was currently an ancient entity made of oily goop and hate, their goals were one and the same.

“It’s the same person!” Gorm exclaimed.

“Well, maybe I’m a little like him,” Jynn said. “But I⁠—”

“Not what I mean, and not important,” the Dwarf barked. “I’ve got a plan! I just need to get to the plaza.”

“That might be a problem,” Laruna shouted, looking over her shoulder.

Gorm glanced back and into a nightmare. The hallway behind him ended abruptly in a coal-colored mass of snarling faces. Luminescent green oozed from innumerable gashes in Mannon’s oily membrane. Mercurial tendrils covered in sharp thorns whipped from the Felfather’s bulk and clung to the stones. They dragged the shapeless malice through the hall in bursts of fluid motion, like ink dripping across a parchment.

“Go!” screamed Gorm, looking forward. The door to the Great Vault was just ahead, illuminated by the receding torchlight of the fleeing heroes ahead of them.

“I can hold him here,” Jynn breathed as they stepped through the entrance.

Gorm shot him a sideways, “What?”

“Help me close it!” The wizard stopped running and leaned against the heavy iron door to the vault, straining to push it shut. “I can hold him—” He stumbled as Gorm shoved the door shut with one hand.

“Metal and stone ain’t going to hold him!” Gorm gestured angrily at the door.

“Wards will buy you time,” said Jynn, already weaving. Magic danced from the tips of his gloved hand and the end of the Wyrmwood Staff as he waved them over the portal. “You won’t make it to the plaza if someone doesn’t slow Mannon down. Just go.”

“But—” Laruna began, but she was cut off when several inhuman mouths screamed from within the vault.

Gorm grimaced. “Ye sure?”

“Yes.” Jynn kept weaving, sorcerous runes dancing from his fingertips and melting into the door like snowflakes. He turned from his work to call over his shoulder. “And Laruna?”

The pyromancer looked at Jynn uncertainly.

“I always loved you,” the archmage said, then turned back to the door as if to leave it at that.

“Gods,” Laruna growled, rolling her eyes as she turned back to Jynn. “Go on, Gorm. We’ll hold him here.”

Gorm only paused for a moment, then nodded. “Thank ye.” They wouldn’t have made it this far had it not been for Heraldin and Gaist’s sacrifices, and it would take more than even that to get to the Pinnacle. A party wipe and the fate of the world hung in the balance as he raced up the stairs.

“You have some sense of timing, Jynn Ur’Mayan,” Laruna said as Gorm’s footfalls receded. “Now? After all the times you passed this conversation by, now you want to talk?”

Jynn’s lips curled up in a small, sad smile. “Well, it⁠—”

The wall shuddered as Mannon collided against the door. Jynn’s runes flared with aquamarine light under the impact, but the spell held and the door remained shut.

“It doesn’t seem we’ll get another chance,” the wizard finished.

Laruna joined him at the wall, adding her own weaves to the wards he’d set over the door. The portal reverberated and flashed again as Mannon heaved his unholy bulk against the doorway. “I wish things had been different,” she said.

“I wish I had been,” sighed Jynn, still weaving. “I should have told you, Laruna. I should have said many things long ago. I’ve always hidden things from you; my heritage, my omnimancy, my feelings—I always had some excuse for why sharing my life with you wasn’t necessary. And yet I’d get so angry when my father kept things from me, and I’d take every secret as a rejection.”

“The wards won’t hold long,” said Laruna. Mannon slammed against the vault door again, rattling the walls and bringing powdered mortar and stones raining down from the ceiling. A couple of runes flared and flickered out.

“It’s easy to spot your parents’ flaws. It’s much harder to avoid inheriting them,” said Jynn, replacing the lost runes. “I should have told you I loved you. I should have fought to keep you. I should have done so many things differently. But I’m grateful I still have a chance to fix one of my mistakes.”

He smiled at her. “You make me want to be a better person.”

Tears like diamonds gleamed at the corner of her eye. “All of my happiest memories are with you.”

The omnimancer turned his attention back to the groaning doorway. “I’m glad that in the end, I let you know how I feel.”

The wards on the door flickered and sizzled like roaches in a lightning trap. Iron and stone groaned under the massive pressure of Mannon’s will. Black and green ooze burbled between the stones of the wall, shorting out more enchanted wards in bursts of amber sparks.

“This isn’t how to do it!” Laruna said.

“Delaying Mannon or talking about my—” Jynn began, leaning on the Wyrmwood Staff as he stood.

But he didn’t get to finish. Laruna grabbed him and pulled him into her, pressing her lips against his so forcibly that he couldn’t have resisted if he wanted to. The pyromancer wrapped one arm around Jynn, pulling him closer, and she intertwined the fingers of her other hand with those on the omnimancer’s skeletal hand. Jynn felt the warmth and the heat rising in him, threatening to overtake him.

And then she began to channel.

If Laruna’s wrath was a bonfire, her love was like a sun. Flames poured from the hand that held Jynn’s, burning away the wizard’s glove and exposing the skeletal digits underneath. The fire bloomed and engulfed both the mages, and yet still more magic flowed through the pyromancer, burning, urgent, all-consuming. Jynn felt noctomantic power surge through the Wyrmwood Staff, the artifact desperately working to prevent the tide of unrestrained solamancy from overwhelming its master. Tears filled his eyes, though he couldn’t tell if they were from joy or agony as the sorcery threatened to pull him apart.

Laruna pressed her body even closer to his and moved her hand from his fingers to clutch his wrist. “Weave,” she murmured, without taking her mouth from his.

“Mmmpth,” agreed Jynn. He had a vague idea of what to cast, but it was almost impossible to craft a spell while distracted by the heat of Laruna’s sorcery and the softness of her lips. A memory of his father’s work crystallized amidst the heat and fire, and he began to work it into the rising spell. His fingers danced and his hand rose, weaving threads of shadow from the staff into a matrix of the pyromancer’s flames. Still embracing her, still locked in a kiss, he lifted their hands to focus the weaves. The threads of magic above them wove into a complex structure that bent the magic around itself and amplified it into a cyclone of flame and darkness.

A plume of fire and molten stone erupted from the grounds of the Palace of Andarun, transforming the eastern tearoom and surrounding garden into a pillar of light and heat. It rose high over the palace, an obelisk of flame that towered over the city and drew frightened screams as far away as the Base and the Riverdowns.

Duine Poldo only paused long enough to glance at the conflagration rising from the palace. He couldn’t tell whether the blaze boded well or ill for Gorm and his companions, but his eyes kept flitting back to the slate where the Wood Gnomes tracked the stock transfer in white chalk. The meter indicated they were just over two-thirds done.

His eyes met Feista Hrurk’s across the trading floor. Their efforts to move an entire economy a step sideways would be for naught after the palace quest was complete, and their time was growing short. Gorm and his party had their part to do; those on the Wall had to do theirs. “Faster!” Duine cried, attacking his paperwork with renewed vigor as Mrs. Hrurk began to drum louder. “This is our moment! It’s now or never!”