“Tae,” Amelia started. “Have we considered touching the walls with Eirexis?”

As if the fates had aligned and conspired to put Amelia and me in the same orbit, thinking the same things, I felt a smile take hold of my face. “Not until now, no,” I said.

I didn’t need anyone else’s input, at this point. As if guided by a remote, I straightened my back and walked over to the nearest wall. I had no clue as to how this faint possibility, this anemic idea, had wiggled its way through more than one mind, after all the time we’d spent down here, but it inspired frightful hope inside me. As if this move, right here, was our last. Our final option which, if it failed, would bring about our doom and the end of days, all rolled up into one devastating apocalypse.

Eirexis itself wasn’t glowing when pointed at any of the walls. It had only reacted to the painted arrow. This was a gamble, placing my faith in one slice of what-if, but it was sorely needed, in the absence of other, perhaps more viable, options.

I’d picked a wall that the arrow didn’t point to. I pressed Eirexis’s end against the stone, and the symbols lit up white. I held my breath, and we all heard the gears turning, somewhere beyond. There was something happening. Not to the wall, but to everything around us. The entire room was responding to what I’d just done, and my heart skipped more than a beat.

“Is he serious?” Amelia blurted. “He put an arrow on the floor in every room, pointing at a wall. And all you had to do this whole damn time was to press Eirexis against any wall in the room? Really?”

I nodded. “Not even the wall to which the arrow pointed.”

“What was the point of all this?!” Herakles shouted.

The Soul Crusher laughed. “It was simply a test of your psyche. When all else fails, what else have you got to lose, huh?”

“A lot of time in here, to begin with!” I replied, feeling my blood boil. He’d been messing with us this whole time. We’d been running from room to room, trying to follow Eirexis’s lead. “Why did Eirexis glow when pointed at the floor arrows then?”

“Oh, red herring,” the Soul Crusher replied. “I didn’t want you to rely on an object. I needed your brains squeezed properly.”

The ground shook. The floor wobbled, suddenly loose, startling us. I could barely stand, as the rumble swelled and thundered through what sounded like the entire maze that the Soul Crusher had built for us.

“Needless to say, we all hate you,” Varga said, pale and alarmed, unsteady and wobbling.

“Pretty sure this is not supposed to happen,” Raphael managed, his voice trembling with the floor, as he toppled over.

“Oh, but it’s absolutely necessary,” the Soul Crusher replied. “As for your frustrations regarding my games, puh-lease! Had Taeral not listened to his instinct, you’d all still be rotting here. Only despair and desolation bring out the best in people, and it doesn’t happen overnight. It’s about time you all learned that.”

A spine-tingling screech emerged from beneath as the floor simply… vanished. Blackness awaited blow, and gravity did not forgive us. We all dropped, shouting and screaming, through it. We hit something hard, but we did our best to land on our backs or shoulders to minimize the impact.

Seconds passed in heavy silence—except for the ringing in my ears. That persisted for the better part of what felt like a minute. We were out of the hexagonal room, for sure. We’d broken the pattern by randomly pressing Eirexis against one of the walls. How ridiculous, after all the time we’d spent following those blasted arrows. Fury boiled through my veins, and I embraced it. I deserved it. I didn’t stop it from raging inside me like wildfire.

“Is everybody okay?” I asked, grunting from the physical pain.

We’d fallen quite far. It was bound to hurt long after the landing. I wiggled my fingers and toes, thankful to still have feeling in them. I doubted I’d broken anything, but I couldn’t say the same about the others until I’d heard from them.

“Ugh… Yeah, I think,” Raphael replied. “Hold on… Amelia?”

I couldn’t see through the darkness where their voices came from, but I could hear them shuffling and moving against the floor, their bones cracking as they turned and stretched.

“Nothing broken,” Amelia said.

My hand tickled, thrilled to feel Eirexis in its grip. The last thing I needed was to lose one piece of Thieron while looking for the other. That would’ve been the epitome of slapstick irony. One by one, the rest of the crew signaled that they were okay, though I couldn’t even make out their silhouettes. Eira’s voice soothed and alarmed me at once.

“Tae, look over there,” she said, likely pointing somewhere.

Had I gone blind? The panic was quick to freeze in my joints and make my skin feel the wrath of a thousand needles. “Where?” I asked.

“Probably behind you, since you can’t see it now,” she replied.

“What? It doesn’t make any…” My voice trailed off as I turned around and saw it. Zetos.

It didn’t glow. It had no shine. And despite the pitch-black darkness, I could see it. Its arched blade reminded me of the moon’s curve. The metal was a peculiar off-white, with the faintest shimmer along the sharp edge.

There was a hole in the middle of the blade, halfway between the tip and the base. I figured that’s where Phyla had to go. Relief washed over me in honey-sweet waves as I ignored the weirdness of this entire vision, the difficulty of our moment in this strange abyss. We’d found it. Zetos. We’d finally found it.

“Congratulations, kids,” the Soul Crusher said. His voice sounded closer than ever. Compact and concentrated, as if he stood just inches away from me. “You finally… finally did it.”

“Bet you hate us right now,” Varga grumbled.

“Why would I?”

“We beat your puzzle,” Amelia replied.

“True. But you’re also setting me free, after I don’t even know how many millions of years,” the Soul Crusher said, and I could almost feel him smiling. I knew he crouched by my side, because I could feel him closer. “Now, Taeral, touch it. Claim it. And it’s yours.”

I reached out without a single shred of hesitation. Yes, it was mine, dammit. I’d earned it!

My fingers touched the blade, and a sea of white exploded from it, casting its light over everything. Warmth hugged me like a thousand plush blankets, and I caught a glimpse of two galaxies hidden between pale eyelids… the eyes of the Soul Crusher, smiling.

“It’s only going to get harder from here,” I heard him say.

But what did I care? The white light swallowed me whole, and my consciousness simmered away into a distant dream of my Fire Star. My parents and I, standing on the balcony, overlooking our beautiful land with its rolling hills and reddish dusk sky… All of it coming apart. Disintegrating.

Why did I experience such relief and numbness while my whole world burned? It didn’t make sense. And it didn’t matter, either. Blacking out had never felt so sweet.

Taeral

The rush of oxygen through my throat made me open my eyes.

Water. So much water…

I panicked, suddenly concerned I might drown. But I had my breathing mask back on. I was okay! And I wasn’t alone. The entire crew was here, though they were equally befuddled. Everything had been reset to the moment from which we’d been torn to solve the Soul Crusher’s puzzle. Amelia and Raphael… Eva and Varga… Lumi and Nethissis… Riza and Herakles… and Eira. All of us, back in the coral room, now white and glistening like a massive sculpture made of pearls and diamonds.

Our pulverizer weapons were back, too, affixed to our backpacks. I’d likely find the ammo inside, where I’d last seen it. It was as if everything had been reset.

Light danced through the dome-shaped chamber, breaking into trillions of color shards midway through the water. Our equipment was intact. Our weapons. My hands were… full. Glancing down, I saw them. Eirexis in my right hand. Zetos in my left.

“You did it,” Eira said, her voice delightfully tickling my ears.

My soul was enhanced, in a way. A connection I’d thought lost stirred in my heart. “Telluris Nuriya! Mom, are you there?” I called out.

“Taeral! Oh, Taeral, my baby!” Her voice echoed in my head. “I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!”

“Mom! So good to hear your voice,” I replied, a broad grin stretching beneath my breathing mask. “I got it. I got Zetos!”

She gasped and squealed with pure, unadulterated joy. “Come back to me, honey. Come back now!”