Once, when I was no more than eight and the sisters of the church still found me precocious, I ran into the church to pray. Jaesa Morningale had just thrown mud at me from a bridge, and when I cried, she and all the other girls laughed and pointed. I went to the church to ask Glis'Merinda to smite them, to conjure up a storm that would tear their houses up by the root. Sister Samantha found me before I could start making demands of the gods. She listened to my complaints for a time and helped wash the mud out of my orange curls. She hummed as she loosened the tangles; I can still remember the tune.

When I had calmed enough to sit still, she put me to work reading the gospels, pointing out stories she thought I might find amusing. Rarely did I ever find anything interesting inside those crusty books, but it was always so hard to stay stubborn. The sister praised me as I read in a way my mother never did. Then, when I found words I couldn't understand, I looked up to find the woman gone.

I discovered her in her small, private chambers attached to the church, mumbling her prayers to a clay statue set out on her bed cover. As a child, seeing the finely molded clay standing on an ocean of green wool, all I could see were the fine features of the elven man there, the way his eyes carried an aspect that looked almost beyond the clay itself, the way his smile whispered that things would be set right in the end. It was the first time that I ever saw Exeter.

Sister Samantha found me standing in her doorway, one of the gospel texts held tight to my chest as I looked on. Fear flashed across the woman's face for a brief moment; a little girl had discovered her sacrilege, discovered that she had carved a depiction of the father god, not something human hands were allowed to do. But that fear passed. She beckoned me in, had me kneel beside her as she explained stories of the great and powerful Exeter, told me about his love for the world, about his love for all of its creatures. People always swore by his name, but I don't remember ever recalling someone speaking so tenderly about such a lofty existence, as if the depiction sitting slightly slanted on her bed was not just a god but a man as well. Sister Samantha loved Exeter, loved him with all of her heart. I'd shake her from that if I could, but I don't even know if I have the heart.

"Exeter." The word slips from my lips.

The effervescent music floating through the marble hall of hanging gossamer and casual lust seems almost to dim in the echo of my voice. Several eyes belonging to those angelic beings lounging on and with each other throughout the cushioned room break away from their partners, turning ponderously to where I kneel on the cold floor.

Though my flesh is different somehow, made of an almost shining gold, vibrant lines of crimson cutting through like the trails of ships on the ocean, slowly shifting, I feel my whole self is within the room. This is my third self, my soul made manifest in physical form. I feel the texture of the marble brushing against my naked knees, feel the very air move over me as if it were playful fingers rather than an invisible finger. Even the light, I feel where it touches upon me, feel its absence in the shadows cast over the back of my legs. Everything is more real here, more solid, distinct, and, somehow, I can feel the weight of the god's eyes upon me like a physical force pushing me toward the floor.

I kneel before the god of gods, naked and confused, my literal soul set bare before his penetrating stare, and I feel fear. Exeter appears as a young man, the epitome of the elven kin, his features sharp and beautiful, his hair so dark that a hint of stars seems to float within. But there is an agedness in his eyes, a power and wisdom that has watched millennia pass and civilizations fall, an immortal passivity that strikes me in counterpoint, just a girl, mortal and fragile.

Exeter shifts in his seat, pulling his body erect to sit in the very pose of majesty. The light cascading in scintillating rainbow throughout the chamber catches the diamonds of his crown, and the blinding refraction strikes me with both its brilliance and scope. Each of the diamonds in his crown is as large as a robin's egg, the head that supports the symbol of divine right larger than that of a giant. But something else strikes me as well as I gaze upon Exeter's crown; I can feel my circlet of gold resting upon my head. Not entirely naked then.

As if by noticing the crown on my head, I feel it begin to itch, as if the ring of gold on my head were shrinking, digging into my golden skin. My head falls forward, my fingers flexing at my side as I withstand the sudden pain. The crown tugs me forward, bending me, but it does not pull toward Exeter. Instead, it is drawn toward his throne of magic and glass, as if something about the object calls out to the crown.

"Good," the word rings through the chamber, the music in the single syllable replacing soft melody drifting through the air. The voice is both a whisper in my ear and the undefinable dictate of a higher being. "You know at least the first thing about absence."

"You, you are Exeter," I say, daring another glance up toward the giant seated upon his throne of cascading light. All of the figures in the room pay rapt attention now, their eyes boring into me. "I am just…"

"Human," Exeter finishes for me. "You are just human." The lord of gods sniffs, frowning upon his throne. "I can smell your blood on the air; your very soul displays the taint of your origins. Tell me, shadowkin, why do you approach the Throne of Magic?"

"I don't know how I ended up here," I say, keeping my head low. There is a menace in the god's words that sets my soul shivering. "I have been trapped, trapped for a long time. I didn't think that I would ever escape. I still haven't; I can still sense myself there, trapped inside the coffin of blades, my blood dripping from my wounds. Somehow, I came to be here, at least this part of me." Steeling myself, I chance another glance up, our two gazes meeting. "Can you please help me? I think I am going to die."

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In a movement somehow ponderously slow, yet so inevitable that no time passes as he shifts, Exeter leans forward, using the arms of his throne for support as he leverages himself to his feet. A shadow spreads out before him, falling over me as he draws himself up to his full height. I am just an ant beneath this being, likely even less. I have to squint to gaze up at him, the cold reach of his shadow somehow blinding to my eyes. A dark silhouette as large as a mountain looks down at me, cold, almost shapeless in the way that it drifts.

"I see it." Exeter's voice comes as a soft sound next to my ear, even as I stare up at the dark silhouette softly drifting in a directionless wind, a black form without definite shape but with infinite depth. "A considerable talent to cross the barriers of the firmament so young. There you are, just as you say, entombed within rust and blood, yet you hold both hope and despair in check. Alone, you might have been an anomaly, but too many such prodigious talents have shown themselves in the current age. If only you had not been born human."

"Please," I beg. My words puff into mist before my eyes, the depths of Exeter's shadow freezing them. "I'll do anything. Please, don't let me go back to there."

"Hear me, human, for I shall tell you the same as I told your brother before I hurled him into Hell." Exeter's words shake the fabric of reality. "I will bear no human to approach any throne over which I have influence. You approach the Throne of Magic looking to steal from its power, looking to steal from my power. This shall not come to pass; not now, not ever. Were it not for the forbearance I am forced to show to the supplicants to the thrones, I would smite you where you kneel to rid my world of one more whose blood is so closely tainted by the shadow. But, I need not, as circumstance shall do that for me."

"Please!" I scream, but the cry comes out dry and thin. It feels as if my throat is frozen, my vocal cords unable to vibrate to form the sounds that will save me. Fresh tears slip from my eyes, freezing on my cheeks. "I can't go back."

"But you will." The shadow that is Exeter begins to move once more, a foot as big as a barn raising to hover above me. "Return to the void, shadowkin. Die there in obscurity and save the world from your story."

The heel of the god descends toward me. I scream, throwing my hands up to protect myself, but no power that I know of could do anything to stop the dispassionate stamp of Exeter. There is an instant of pain, a feeling of my soul being bent and flattened. Then, nothing, just the void, just as he promised.

Darkness, I am forever to be a friend to nothingness. I feel myself adrift, a world of complete lack surrounding me. My physical body shakes within the confines of my prison of swords, each small involuntary movement driving the points of the blades fractionally deeper. Even my mental body strains inside my soulscape, the fullness of my will devoted to forcing the energies pouring forth from my soul to continue circulating. The channels are robust now, but they are near their limits. In every second that passes, more and more power slips through the walls of the pathways, spilling out into the world around me, lost. It won't be too much longer before I can't hold onto any of the energy, no matter how many times I reinforce the walls of the channels.

They feel so distant, so detached. Am I still them, those two women fighting for all they are worth to keep a single life going on, to keep us from dying?

Nothingness stretches out all around me, yet without life, I can still see myself. I am just me, just a girl dressed in dirtied and bloody clothes, the illusion of golden flesh broken. The cold remains, a chill snaking into me, sinking into my bones. This is where I will be when it happens, floating through a vast emptiness, my final moments spent totally and utterly alone.

I don't know how long I drift, curled in on myself, trying to keep from weeping as reality slowly begins to settle in on me. I am so tired. It is hard to even remember what sleep feels like. The me here, the me in the void, wants to let go now, wants to put down this burden and let it all finally end. Don't I deserve that much? Don't I deserve to sleep?

"There you are, mistress," Galea says, somehow not appearing in the dark around me, just being there. I can see her perfectly. No, I can see her better than ever, each of her golden scales seeming to stand out against the contrast of utter nothingness. "You disappeared. Or, maybe I should say, that I did."

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"Sorry for what, mistress?"

"I…I couldn't save us. I can't save us. We are going to die down here, and there is nothing I can do about it. I spoke to Exeter; I spoke to the god of gods, and he told me to die and be forgotten. No one is coming to save us. No one."

Words fail me. I cling to myself, my body shaking as tears spill freely, leaving a trail of glittering light spinning in the void behind me. I have no clue how long I have been trapped down here; it feels like forever. I let go, at least this part of me does, sobbing into my arms. The other two continue, my body and mind fighting back against the collapse, but I can't. My cries echo through the vacant world, bouncing off of the nothing, taunting me with their childish whine.

Something slips into my arms, a ball of warmth that stops my crying dead. I blink through the tears, looking down to find Galea having slipped into my arms. I feel her, really feel her. For the first time in what seems like forever, there is warmth, there is someone else to touch.

The spirit looks up at me, sadness and fear both in her eyes, reflecting my own. She doesn't say anything, just nuzzles into my chest, holding onto me as we both see the end finally approaching. Then, Galea starts to hum, a song from long ago, a nursery tune that I have nearly forgotten. I realize that I am clinging too tightly to her, holding onto this small spirit like she is a lifeline in a storm, but I have nothing else. Galea hums to me a song as we drift through the black, hums it to me the same way my mother once did when I was sick, what feels like an eternity ago.

There is no time in the dark, no direction. As long as she keeps the song going, I can't take that final step. I can't let down my last guards to allow the final darkness to rush in. I can't kill this memory.

I don't know if I sleep; it almost feels like sleep as I exist solely inside the song. At some point, I become aware of a light in the dark, a mote of radiance out in the ink. We drift toward it, as if carried interminably towards the light like a raft on the river. As we reach it, as the brilliance begins to wash over me and banish the cold, I feel a kernel of hope blossom in my chest. It is a dangerous thing to take another chance on hope, but I am willing to try it one last time. If not for me, then for this beautiful life in my arms.

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