Her feet touched down on the field for the first time as she stepped through the aether gate. Beldia hadn’t known what to expect, none of them had. But what she saw was breathtaking.

  A lush field of copper, bronze, and golden grass swayed in the wind. The meadow stretched for miles, trees with pale lavender bark and azure leaves blended with the sky above. There was no sun, no single point of light. Instead, brilliant illumination poured in from every direction.

  Beldia laughed, unable to hold back her excitement. She raised her hand, chanted softly, and pushed her aether outward. Threads of light shimmered in front of her, and she pulled. A rainbow composed of every hue that existed, and some that didn’t, leapt from her palm and shot into the horizon.

  As the most talented light mage alive, Beldia could do such things easily. But here, the aether was so pure that it stunned her.

  She turned her head to Arnan who stood next to her. He was smiling more than any of them, his face more dazzling than even the little rainbow she had just created.

  It turned out that he was right, after all. She hadn't been sure, she had been terrified of the chance that they were wrong, and that the gate would have brought them directly to their death instead. Arnan was right though, and now they were all here.

  "They are at it again already," Ingdras called out from her left.

  The man, dressed in his blue robes flowing out like a living river, stepped forward and raised his own hand as he winked at the two of them.

  The ring on his finger, set with a sapphire, glowed and his aether pulsed strongly. An endless stream of crystal-pure liquid erupted from his palm. Within seconds, a new lake was born. Beldia imagined the water mage would have waited at least a day before he began terraforming this world to suit his needs, but the flow of the oceans and the rivers waited for no one.

  “They even promised to hold off,” Belinos said with a grin in her direction. He flicked his long red hair from his face and looked to Ingdras. Belinos’ golden-tan skin glowed beneath the strange light of this new realm, but for the God of Fire, it wasn’t enough.

  He raised both hands and chanted. A sphere of searing golden flame formed between his palms, then soared into the sky and vanished into the distance. It would burn there, slowly, for years, until one day, it would become a sun in its own right.

  “I guess we’re starting already?” Irianna sang out, a half whisper, half hurricane in the same breath.

  “No time like the present,” Eripo said.

  “Indeed,” Estreus added, and the three cast together—Air, Earth, and Darkness marking their claim on the realm.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Then, last to move, was Arnan. The final one to add his touch to the new reality. Despite Belinos having nearly a foot of height on the man, Arnan stood taller than all of them.

  Beldia looked at him with joy on her face and a burning in her heart as the man lifted his hand. She peered at him with longing, her whole body burning with the urge to say what she felt, what she always felt for the last seven centuries. But she couldn't, not now.

  She looked at him this way for the last time. Because she knew what was coming.

  “Wait, friend,” Belinos called, striding toward Arnan. “We have a gift for you. For bringing us here. For believing in us.”

  Arnan smiled at the six of them. "You don't have to, you all know that."

  "We do though, we really do." Belinos said, and his face hardened. Aether flared in his hand.

  Behind him, the others readied their power. Even Beldia opened her core gate, preparing her Celestial-stage spell. She couldn’t stop the tears in her eyes, even if Arnan couldn’t see them through the blinding light of their combined sixth-stage might.

  Arnan, the God of Magic looked at his friends, one by one, as they shaped their spells. His expression grew grim. When his eyes met Beldia’s, she felt his sorrow crash into her like a heaven tribulation.

  But it was too late to turn back. Estreus and Belinos had been right when they’d come to her a year ago.

  “Once Arnan gets us through the gate, if he even can, we have to act,” Belinos had said. “In the Ascendant Land, he’ll become stronger than we can match.”

  Beldia stared at him. At the time, she had seen that his face looked like that of a frightened child. Maybe it wasn’t an act.

  “It has to be then,” Estreus had added, and rested a hand on her shoulder. “You know his plans. If we wait, we’ll never catch up. We’ll remove him from the board and grow stronger ourselves.”

  She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. These were her closest friends. For centuries, they’d lived, fought, and laughed together. These were men she trusted with her life. And they were asking her to betray the man she loved, the man they knew she loved.

  She had stepped back, needing air. Her hands twisted in her gown, and her legs nearly gave out.

  “It’s this or we lose everything,” Estreus said.

  “I know,” Beldia whispered, as tears fell then, and again now, as she helped end the man she loved. “I know.”

  All six spells were released at once.

  The power of celestial-stage magic was devastating for any world it was cast upon, able to crack smaller moons down to their core, or wipe out entire continents. Six such spells slammed into Arnan simultaneously. His hands were already up in front of him by this point, aimed straight at the threat. The aether around his body condensed, warped, and collapsed in a prism of shards and cracks that racked the fabric of space.

  With glowing azure eyes the God of Magic began dismantling the spells posed against him. Beldia saw each of their spells fall, one by one. All the while Arnan's eyes glowed, and his mouth released a yell of rage and defiance, and betrayal.

  They wouldn't be able to defeat him, not like this. But they all knew that to begin with, which is why this wasn't their full plan. It was just getting them the time they needed.

  Estreus stepped forward at this point, his hand pulling an object from his robes. He held it aimed directly at Arnan just as the man was finishing the dismantling of their magic.

  Estreus squeezed, sending his aether into the object and causing it to flash with light for just a moment. It was the same moment Arnan finished his work, clearing the area in front of him. Just in time to see what Estreus was holding; to see what their plan actually was.

  "No!" Arnan yelled, his eyes wide with a fury that Beldia had never seen in him before.

  It was too late. The object pulsed, sending a wave out at Arnan that he could not stop. Reality itself shifted, stretched, and folded in ways that made Beldia dizzy. It all happened at once, in a single instant, and then it was done.

  Arnan, was gone.