Alan woke up with fire running through his gut. Where am I? What time is it? He slapped both sides of his bed, then looked at the floor at his side. Last he remembered, Trish had fallen asleep sitting right there in the corner.

  Krchht!

  Lightning cracked across the sky of his throne room, illuminating a very red dawn in the skylight.

  I have to be sleeping, he thought, patting himself to make sure this was real. A strange hymn resounded from outside, sounding deep and far from the vast canyon beneath his gryphon throne room. It was there he came to terms; he couldn’t lie still any longer.

  “Trish!” he shouted, hearing only his echo come back to him from the next room. “Probably climbing, or practicing her shadow arts,” he scoffed, getting on his stitched jacket he’d bought from Token’s very first clothing shop and glancing out the window one last time.

  He’d seen the effects of his mood on the realm before, but this was ridiculous. No nightmare in his wildest dreams should cause a sky of deep red. As he scrambled out of his quarters with hazy vision and a fast-beating heart, he checked the left of his entranceway out of habit—the stone gryphon’s claw where Trish used to lay curled up like a puppy waiting for Alan to accept her.

  No sign of her.

  No sign of anyone.

  If there was any real danger, someone surely would’ve come to him.

  He peered over the vast ledge, exhaling a long breath of relief to see his first village still intact. But there, in the horizon, a familiar crimson fog spread all the way up to the sky like someone lit a flare. He knew that fog anywhere—Hyndole.

  But how?

  His heartbeat thundered in his ears.

  Have to sound the alarm… have to move…

  He tapped his coin pouch to make sure it was full, then flipped out the Five Pearls to orbit him. His Soul Collector lay strapped to his back—meaning he had his small army literally surrounding him. His mind and heart raced as he glared down the mountain with a different purpose now. White Saro triggered in his vision to identify all the easy slipstreams he could create on the way down. So, without another thought, he leapt.

  Grasping them and swinging hand over fist, the brisk air waking him as the sun rose in the distance, he considered how such a terrible fate came to be. Madam Mar’s tower should be his first stop. She would be the best to initiate a realm-wide broadcast, but the fog was growing, and he swore he glimpsed a blackened speck strutting forward.

  The gargoyle had come. An invasion was imminent.

  Itsy’s brother. Alan had humiliated him in front of his own god. Of course he would’ve tipped Hyndole off. It was easy. His sister conspired with a man building an alliance against him. Or Kablo… It could’ve been Kablo. He’d been made a fool too in front of Orevella. Perhaps even one of their own. Junos loyalists baked into his very own citizens.

  As hard as Alan tried to avoid it, he’d made enemies along the way. Many of them. And now the cold winds came to bite him in the face.

  The black silhouette was encroaching fast. It made every muscle in Alan’s body flex. He would kill this gargoyle if it was the last thing he did. For Ivana, and all the turmoil he’d already provoked. Thousands dead in Strangey. More traumatized in Brack. He wouldn’t stand for it anymore.

  The silhouette took to the sky, shedding his shadow.

  “It is good to be welcomed.” Hyndole beat his black wings, landing gingerly over the grass.

  Alan seethed. The smoky path from which the gargoyle came left a mountain crumbling to dust in the distance. An awful glimpse of what the future might hold. But a shred of hope came rushing from the sky. The mad Wizard soared on his icy sled, holding his hat.

  There was one problem—he should’ve been returning with an army by now.

  “Flint!” Alan called. “The Knights of Brack—”

  The Wizard morphed the sled into an icy slope, rushing down and spinning off the top of the ramp to land heroically at Alan’s side. “In a coma or worse, I’m afraid.”

  Kaw!

  The Fate Chaser gryphons circled overhead, giving Alan another glimmer of hope. They descended with windy flaps, dropping off Neesha and Itsy first.

  “The hand of Jaeger finally shows his face.” Elkire straightened. “You took one of ours. It will be good to pay you back.”

  “Oh how the desperate fall. So easy to trick, so easy to mold. Tell me, how well does Yineera’s story swim in your heads?” Hyndole’s smile split his stony face.

  “Where’s Trish?” Alan leaned to Itsy.

  “Ah. You see, Alan. I had to rely on your kind heart in order for such a plan to work.” Hyndole strutted over the grass, his crimson mist killing everything it touched. “A godless realm has such small portals, you see. Impossible to march an army in undetected. That’s why I had you do it for me.” He drew one of Trish’s daggers and tossed it on the grass between them.

  “What did you do to her?” Alan’s vision inverted red, veins pulsing with Black.

  “Absolutely nothing.” Hyndole presented the dagger. “Better to ask, what did she do to you?”

  Alan’s eye twitched. The gargoyle was goading him, and he was helpless to resist.

  He lent himself to the trance, homing in completely on the dagger that he never got to fully inspect. The vision glowing to life was so overwhelming Alan forgot who he was. The blindness that blocked him before was now cleared. It showed Trish sleeping outside of Alan’s throne room in the middle of the night. Her face was lined with Beige Saro as she dove off the mountainside, shadow shifting in a way Alan had no idea she was capable of.

  The vision accelerated to the lodges housing all of Token’s citizens. Few were up, testing that their comrades were out cold while holding the pitchers of ale served that night. Poison. Or laced with sleep serum.

  They held the pitchers up upon seeing Trish eyeing them. Junos loyalists.

  No. Every part of Alan tensed, until the vision sped up to Trish approaching the oversized prison Alan had built for Sar’fidius’ captured forces. Trish entered like nothing was amiss, unlocking each of the magically infused cells with a key Alan had never created. Something gifted to her… by Hyndole.

  “It was you. Of course Jaeger would have planned something so maniacal.” Foretta laughed with her arms through the bars. “It’s about time.”

  Alan sprung back to the present, vibrations tickling his feet. An army marched from behind him… with Trish at the forefront.

  “You carried out your orders excellently, my dear.” Hyndole took a bow to Trish leading the three hundred Cerrain warriors and the prince by her side.

  “What do we do with him?” She shoved Lucius forward.

  “Hm. Let the prince rot in his shackles. When all is over, if a knife hasn’t found his neck, we’ll bring him to Jaeger. I’m sure a particular caliber of torture will be reserved for him.”

  “Very well.” Trish shoved Lucius into one of the Knights’ grasp. The Beige sand trickling up and down her face reminded Alan of that vision he saw long ago—of the Wizard Hishaya coaxing Savros to love her. Deceiving him with persuasive Saro.

  “You planted her in the Royal Horde.” Alan clenched his fists to the point his knuckles whitened.

  “But of course. Do you think I would let my newest allies operate without eyes and ears? Did you think I overlooked where you’d roam?” He laughed. “Jaeger has had an eye on you since you spawned in Strangey Town, Alan. We tried to warn you—to give you a haven out of this universe—”

  “You attempted to pull me under, Hyndole. To freeze my soul forever in endless blackness.”

  “Oh, I don’t think it would be so bad. Better than having us slay your loved ones with our scouts on Earth.”

  Every vein on Alan’s arms pulsed. The fire he’d woken up with blasted from his heart as an inferno powering his entire body. Black dread and instinctive Red swirled the same as it did against Foretta the first time.

  “You forced our hand, Alan. I have to give credit where is due, however. If not for a weak spot for an old lover, it would’ve taken far too long to figure out you had a realm of your own. And if not for that bleeding heart, I wouldn’t have had an army to conquer it with.”

  Alan dug into his pouch and flipped out all of his coins with one flick of his wrist. The ground quaked with his minions’ angry appearance.

  Yogi cracked his knuckles. “Noble Alan. I am happy to fight this army a second time.”

  “You will certainly fall if you engage, humble Borai,” Hyndole assured. “And what’s this? My old Patrolgod. Gardstrife. I thought it was you charging at me in Strangey Town. But amid the chaos, I couldn’t be sure. Now I see crystal clear… You fight for the wrong side, guardian.”

  Gardstrife’s trepidation lasted for all but a moment before he sharpened his blade-arms. “You have changed for the worse, former keeper. I am ashamed to ever have protected you.”

  Hyndole hooted. “It is better to be a guard in a budding kingdom than a scattered set of armor on the battlefield. Come back to me. Take your rightful place at my side and repent for your abandonment.”

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  “Your memory is hazy, former keeper. Though I once harbored great honor marching by your side, you traded me for scrap once you donned your wings. It pains me to see such a great and terrible fall of a once-powerful hand.” Gardstrife’s eyes blinked a solemn blue.

  “Conquest was always inevitable, Gardstrife. That is what a Patrolgod is summoned for. To guard kingdoms.” Hyndole clenched his fist.

  “Had it not been for noble Alan, I would never have been able to partake in the adventure of a hero. I am glad you discarded me, former keeper. Now I harbor a different purpose,” his celestial voice carried.

  Foretta’s forces mobilized at their backs. When Alan turned to see a half-moon of troops surrounding them—weapons returned and equipped—he nearly cracked a tooth from clenching so hard. How could Trish have been so devious?

  “It was nice to spend time together one last time, Alan. You’re better than I ever remembered.” Trish smiled facetiously at the head of the army.

  Neesha eyed Alan with disdain. “How I follow a leader with such poor judgement, I will never know.”

  “She’s lying, Neesha!” Alan shouted.

  “That’s right, little Stone Chaser.” Trish bent like she was talking to a toddler. “The better woman wins.”

  “Hyndole is controlling her with Beige,” Alan said loudly.

  “Is he, though?” Trish took a step forward. “How much can a Beige user really sway?”

  “Plenty.” Alan looked her dead in the eye. “Even you don’t have the darkness to poison an entire realm.”

  “Poison?” Trish furrowed her brow. “Do you think Jaeger foolish enough to waste perfectly good troops? They sleep only to wake headless, without a leader to guide them. They’ll have no choice but to convert to the Red Pact and beg for Junos’ forgiveness.”

  “Good Stalker. I knew you were capable,” Hyndole’s voice blared.

  “It’s all coming back to me, Alan,” Trish said. “I remember waking up in Hozzod. I remember being whisked straight to Jaeger. He promised me power and more. What better way to exist in the afterlife than on the winning side?”

  Alan growled, sizing up his enemy. Fighting Hyndole was like fighting an army. Flint and the others could take a hundred out… but the truth was, Foretta’s troops were bested because Token got the jump on her. Now that the tables had turned and the numbers were stacked against them, winning was next to impossible.

  “Do you see it yet, Alan? Or does your clairvoyance betray you?” Hyndole flapped his mighty wings. “There’s no instance where you prevail. My suggestion? Bend now and take your chances in Jaeger’s chains.”

  “We’re ready to fight by your side, great Alan. To the death.” Elkire gripped his spear.

  “Aho, Alan. We had many more years of friendship to share.” Flint twirled Willypop in his hand. “Though such is the horrors of war. I have no tears left to cry.”

  Itsy grabbed what looked like two ribcage bones from her belt and enhanced them to the size of hammers.

  “Neesha!” Foretta called. “Get out of that dead man’s grasp. Garden for the Red Pact and let me avenge your death again and again, until the end of time.”

  Neesha shrugged Alan out of the way, then pushed past Flint to face her sister. She hugged her stone tight. “You fail to learn the lessons of war, big sister. Even in death.”

  “And you never reaped the glory of it.” Foretta clenched her fist. “There’s none better. But alas, our fates still intertwine. Now is the hour. Come stand behind your family. Mother awaits in the Fel Wrath.”

  Alan used the moment to analyze the best way out of the situation. He was on his home turf, outnumbered… so that meant War Titles would be a good starting point for harnessing power. What was more, even though he didn’t have replenishing Saro, he felt an endless surge of darkness. Keeping his minions powered would be a cake walk.

  Your friends will die if you engage, he told himself. Then again, if he surrendered, their fate would be worse.

  Once satisfied that his War Title supercharged him, he switched to God Merchant to best manage his minions, holding his Forbidden Merchant Title close to the chest for a quick swap when he found an opening. Shoving memories of Orevella’s knitting power into the Pearls orbiting him seemed like the most potent choice, and the crazed whips of the Virath he defeated to get home would help too.

  He was strapped and ready to die. “Friends. If you want to flee, I’ll portal you out now. I won’t hold it against you.”

  They all looked at one another, then bent harder into ready stance.

  “Never,” Elkire said.

  “It would take a thousand frogs to pry me away from my Token family,” Flint yelled. “And even then, it wouldn’t be enough. Aha!”

  Neesha scoffed. “I’ve chosen my side, even if Itsy’s right and I did pick an idiot.”

  Itsy clapped her bone weapons together. “Can’t wait to make good use of these. I knew it’d be fun to come with you, Alan. I just knew it.”

  Alan let the surge of comradery flow through him. Even if he was crushed that Trish chose darkness… that she wasn’t strong enough to resist… he wouldn’t let it destroy him. She didn’t hold that kind of power over him anymore. Not even close.

  He drew his Soul Collector and swiped out Afarus—the only one who could contend with Hyndole.

  “This man discarded his humanity long ago, Alan. You must do the same to survive.” Afarus drew his long sword, inhaling Alan’s Saro to materialize himself to full.

  “I’ll do anything to preserve the realm. This is the only path.”

  “I’m afraid your perseverance won’t be enough this day.”

  Alan looked at him, refusing to let his fervor fall.

  “When I’m exhausted, call forth Durghowler. He rummages deep inside the blade, following that pet of his to new depths.”

  “What the hell are you saying?”

  “Call upon him in your darkest moment. This time, I don’t think the forger will disappoint.”

  Alan noticed the town around him start to rot. All the hard work and meticulous planning to erect shops and homes was becoming undone by Hyndole’s fog.

  “As a reward for my detective work, I will rule over this realm myself.” Hyndole wrapped his wings around himself like a bat. “It will be a stable for all my collected minions, and a chamber for all of my war prisoners. All the realms that fail to kneel.”

  “Afarus and I will take the gargoyle. Hendra and Ufanda, you come with us too. The rest of you, hold off that army. Neesha. I know you’re upset, but keep them alive for me. Please.”

  “Until my last breath.” Neesha shoved the stone into the sleeve on her back.

  “General Sans! Send them to their deaths!”

  Alan’s clairvoyant Blue merged his intentions with Afarus’. They were in lockstep from all of their past training and would be again in this impending threat. The gargoyle was nothing they hadn’t handled before. They’d best him the same as in the battle of Strangey Town.

  Swords raised, paths chartered, they dashed into blurs at the same moment Hendra raised her hammer with Ufanda draped around its head.

  The thunder of Foretta’s rushing troops was met by an opposing roar of Flint’s icy river.

  “For the realm! For Token!” Flint blared, giving Alan goosebumps.

  As Alan rounded the gargoyle, he glimpsed a misty tidal wave spawning midair, clawing its way down on the dark army. Rival Wizards worked to contain the massive force—holding their quavering staffs up to hold the wave in place.

  We can do this.

  We can fucking do this.

  Alan curved his sword, ready to slice Hyndole in half. Seeing an opportunity, he went against his initial plan and Title swapped to War Merchant of Patterns in hopes his and Afarus’ succinct strike would activate a power he’d never known.

  Fss!

  Fss!

  Clang!

  Hyndole whipped one stone wing to catch both intersecting blades, sending Alan skidding off course and Afarus fading from existence. But it didn’t matter… Alan’s instincts were right. Red and Blue Saro bolstered around his body like a flame.

  He concentrated hard on his past—dodging a punch from a thug. Tackling a thief in the shop. His moments of pure instinct and courage came barreling forward with this newfound well of energy. When Hendra descended her long-stem hammer, Alan and Afarus rushed again in unison.

  Whoosh!

  The Red winds from Hyndole’s wings fought the momentum of Hendra’s hammer, reducing her strike to a useless whimper. Amid the resistance of Ufanda flapping in the wind, she pushed the hammer as hard as she could to be the prevailing force.

  They were stuck in a slowly colliding course—like two meteors on a path to explode. Whoever let go first would be in for a world of hurt.

  Alan dashed opposite Afarus, both blades teeming with variant Saro. “Rrra!” He spun into a whirling propeller, knowing he could break Hyndole’s stone shell—knowing his enemy was too preoccupied to defend.

  Two seconds before impact, Alan could sense all the cracks within the stone. He could find one and tear the gargoyle in two, once and for all.

  One second… Afarus’ rival force spinning in to meet him was a harmony he’d never known. Alan wasn’t dizzy from his rotations. On the contrary, he never saw so clearly.

  As they were about to connect, as they were about to topple the invader… Hyndole’s eyes blackened.

  His stone wings glowed red. And when he spread them, horrific faces growled on the inside of each of them. Farante Del Sol’s warped face was one of them.

  “Hello, Alan.” He cackled, ceasing Alan’s momentum and turning his insides to stone. “Jaeger repurposed me into something greater. My god of gods. Now die!”

  Both faces shrieked like sirens, wiping the Saro clean off Alan’s blade and sending him into a backward tumble.

  With fangs out and smile wide, Hyndole spun and extended one wing into a razor-sharp edge that tore Ufanda in half and cut deep into Hendra’s second face.

  “No!” Alan’s vision swam, watching tattered pieces of Ufanda teeter to the ground. With the last of his sense, he reached to coin her. “No!” Alan screamed again when Farante’s face vacuumed the minion into Hyndole’s wing.

  In a flash of quick thought, Alan snapped his finger and burst a Pearl into Hyndole’s left wing, summoning stored lightning that struck the wing out of focus.

  As her tattered gown whirled into a tarnished coin in Alan’s grasp, his line of sight was overwhelmed with a boom! Hyndole landed feet from him, appearing taller than he ever did.

  “Foolish Merchant. I have been imbued by Jaeger. There is no stopping me now.”

  Each heartbeat was a lightning bolt to the gut. That streak wiped the Saro out of him. All that budding energy his Title awarded… gone, in a flash.

  Chngg!

  Gardstrife disobeyed his orders and clashed hard with Hyndole’s wing. Blade-arms crossed, face expressionless. “You have become everything you vowed to destroy,” Gardstrife’s celestial voice resonated.

  “Strife.” Alan smiled weakly.

  The fissure left by the Patrolgod’s strike exploded them both back, leaving Hyndole to spin with his wings defensively held up as he quickly became locked in a dance with Afarus.

  “Alan, you must learn to dim your Saro against depleting attacks,” Afarus yelled, shifting like a ball of wind to avoid Hyndole’s lightning-fast attacks.

  Hyndole spun, sending a disc of Black Saro curving right into Gardstrife. The sound of crunching armor made Alan wince, the smell of oil and leaking Saro singeing his nose. He crawled forward, trying to reach his metal friend, but he was still nearly paralyzed.

  So he did the next best thing. The Pearls circling his back like a halo… he commanded another one out. The outer shell dissolved into a mote of essence that curled and spun into a knitted version of Alan—one with a black cape and fearsome ornate armor. He drew a claymore not fit for his frame and joined the clash.

  Immediately, Alan drew a mental connection to his puppet, understanding a fraction of what Orevella must’ve been managing. He could still sense Afarus’ movements from the ground, doing his best to match and rekindle the Saro Hyndole had smashed out of him.

  With each clang, a surge of rage empowered Alan. Trish’s betrayal. Neesha’s anguish. Remembering Flint’s Strangey Town message—on death’s door pleading for a friend. It was all replaying and tracing into an even grimmer reality.

  Clng!

  Tshh!

  Alan’s puppet and Afarus struck gracefully… only to be bested by a gargoyle twice their mass and speed.

  Whoosh!

  Hyndole took flight. But Alan’s minions didn’t give up—they followed to the sky with crisscross strikes all the way to the clouds.

  Boom!

  He backhanded the puppet to yarn and gripped Afarus by the neck.

  “You are a shadow of yourself, old Bladesman.”

  Alan smashed the ground and rose fully flexed—limbs shivering. With another snap of his fingers, he sent two orbs spiraling toward them, which cracked open into massive Virath silhouettes that twirled in the sky—as long as clouds.

  The beasts exhaled noxious gas and roped sappy slime around Hyndole’s arms.

  “Afarus!” Alan lifted his sword for him to return. “You’ve done all you can.”

  “That’s right, shadow. You are nothing,” Hyndole seethed, existing within the fumes like he was born within them. When Alan tried to call him back, a waft of Black Saro held his spirit in place, making both Afarus and Alan panic. “And I have transcended.” He grasped harder.

  “Afarus! Return!” Alan belted, holding the sword higher.

  “You thought your friends immortal, didn’t you, Alan?” Hyndole snickered. “Allow me to be a great reminder of how a real reaper sways.”

  “Gousa, I’ll see you again, my love,” Afarus said, grasping at something off in the distance, his long arm-wraps fluttering in the wind. “Finally.”

  Alan bent to jump, but before he could muster his strength, a visceral snap made his body go limp.