It could have been the middle of the day or night for all I knew, trapped in my mirrored prison, Felstrife working me to the bone. The duels I had once found so intriguing now pained me just as much as the deluge of cards ever did, my mind feeling like it was splitting in twain, especially whenever I strong-armed the memory into looking aside, unearthing moments of the lich's past.

Sensing that I might soon break or become little more than a gibbering fool, I was forced to take refuge in the shelter of Esmi's card – a trick of mine I had happened upon some time ago. By focusing entirely on that precious memory of mine, I was able to escape the workings of the cursed helmet I wore and breathe easier for the first time in what had to be hours.

This won't help you level, I told myself, as I hid in a tucked away portion of my mind, nor will it give you the answers you seek about Felstrife.

It did, however, let me look into Esmi's perfect brown eyes. I had heard my brothers go on about how striking irises of blue were, or the exotic thrill of green, but there was a soft warmth to brown I infinitely preferred. How very much I missed those knowing looks she had given me, full of compassion, excitement, or sometimes mischief. I longed to see them again with an ache deeper than any Felstrife could administer, not this image that for all its seeming reality only stared back at me flatly.

This is why you must rally, a hard, yet lovesick part of me said. To set things right. Esmi would have done no less for you. This wasn't just idle talk. Esmi had saved me when I had been bleeding out in my room, Ticosi's dagger buried in my gut. Just a moment longer, another part of me pleaded. My memory of Esmi may not have been her in truth, but it was the closest I possessed and my sanctuary in this infernal place.

With an effort, I dismissed her card, finding myself standing within a twisted cavern that emanated a strange purplish light. Facing me, and thus Felstrife, was a child-sized demon with bumpy red skin. They quickly summoned a series of cards that were only Commons but possessed a worthwhile synergy.

With a Nether Blade coating each hand and their damage up to at least 10, the red demon charged forward, flanked by their two Imp Souls. Unfortunately for them, the lich stopped the summoner's attack with a single Spell, which also froze the red demon in place for their trouble.

Felstrife blocked the damage from Souls with a card from hand and then speared the small summoner through the chest with a great shaft of ice, easily killing the demon after they had inflicted so much damage onto themselves.

Observing the brutal exchange solidified a thought that had been flitting along the edges of my mind ever since Afi had visited us: I was glad that House Erlun's champion had refused to deliver my request to Hull. My friend was obviously much better equipped than this lowly demon, but only my enemies should suffer for my wants, not my allies. If Esmi were to live again but Hull die in the process, I would regret the trade for the rest of my days. It had been a moment of weakness and desperation that had made me ask after my friend's help, ill-desired traits that clung to me like Mort's rash. The realization should have come to me sooner, but it was a small relief now that Hull wouldn't get mixed up in this hell-pit due to my actions.

A woman's scream yanked me from my thoughts and the memory, the sound coming not from the odd cavern where Felstrife picked through the dead demon's cards but somewhere beyond it. My eyes blinked open to the candlelight of the ballroom, placing my awareness back in my body – an undesirable location since it grew ever more uncomfortable and pain ridden by the day. Felstrife was hovering over me, what I would have once found uncomfortably close, but her attention was fixed to the side, so I followed her gaze. It was Justine the lich was looking at, the former guard clutching at her throat.

"I felt hands on me," the larger woman stuttered, "Twins protect me I did." She still walked as she spoke, in tight circles that only underscored her obviously agitated state.

Was Justine about to elevate before me? Or was this an attempt at a distraction from Azure? I didn't see the Secret Keeper as I furtively glanced side-to-side, but I had also watched Azure melt into the air, so my inability to find them was hardly a guarantee of their absence. It was also possible that Justine was simply mistaken. It was no secret that all of us captives were gradually coming undone, not just from the constant labor but also because we knew that should we level, we would likely die by someone's hand.

Felstrife seemed to be thinking along the same lines as me because she didn't immediately leave my side. "Come closer," she hissed, gesturing with a clawed hand. The lich also had some Death and Water Source hovering above the thin strands of hair that still clung to her skull. She used them to summon a pair of Spectres along with the Mythic whom I remembered. This last one stood eerily still once they formed, seeming to watch all directions at once, even though they kept their head slightly bowed.

I could see why Felstrife had chosen to summon these instead of the monstrous Ice Wrym she had used against me, or even the Legendary Lich, since this duo was much better at incapacitating an opposing summoner.

As Justine walked over, I caught Geb's eye, and he gave me an almost imperceptible nod. While I no longer wished to put anyone else in harm's way, those who were already trapped with me had little left to lose.

"I think I might level," Justine was saying. "It's like a piece of food is lodged deep in my throat."

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Hearing her describe herself thus, I felt inside, finding that tightness in my chest that had been with me since the other day. Come on, I told it – and the Twins, if they were listening. There was nothing in this world I wanted more than to save Esmi, and to do that I needed to elevate. I tried pushing at the sensation like I did Felstrife's memories, but while the sensation seemed more noticeable than the day prior, it didn't shift. It was like my soul was on a precipice, waiting to decide if it should jump or not. What could be holding it back? Surely I had seen more than enough cards and duels by now, so that was unlikely to be the stoppage. It couldn't be my old fears, could it? There was a very real possibility that Felstrife would take my upper Rare abilities as soon as they formed instead of waiting for me to reach Epic beyond it, and for all I knew, that process could leave me a husk, as dead as Esmi currently was. But I knew that, had accepted it. There should be no fear left to feel, especially not after what I had endured. And yet, now that I was looking for it, there it was, a quavering part of myself that still wished to run and hide – the coward in me. Oh, how I loathed that such a thing could still be mine, but this time instead of trying to push it down or cover it up, I addressed it head on. If that is my Fate, so be it. I will not stay as I am. My only path is forward. For Esmi, or not at all.

It was like a Source Explosion happened in my chest, the nugget of pressure that had been building releasing in a rush that left my body tingling and extended beyond even that, the wooden chair Geb sat in rattling and the wall mirror behind me vibrated in its mounting.

Felstrife crooned in delight, a sound I didn't even know she could make, but then, despite the nearness of the lich and her summons, there were hands on my throat. I had a full deck of cards in my Mind Home, but if the Artifact helmet stopped me from summoning them, did it also block their protection to my person? Was I about to be another of Azure's victims?

"Geb," I managed to say, as the fingers tightened and twisted,

The old man huffed out a sharp breath, and suddenly the pressure on my neck ceased. In our sporadic chats, when I wasn't immersed in memory or planning Esmi's resurrection, I had learned that Geb's Soul ability was to harden the air, knotting it in some way. The ability didn't have much range, which was why we always sat close now, and it didn't last long, but a moment was all that was needed for Felstrife's summons to reach Azure: a Spectre stretched an arm out, touching the Secret Keeper, and Sliver stabbed their sword forward, directly above my head from where I sat on the floor, and I heard a grunt from behind me.

I turned around, and while the design of the helmet hampered my peripheral vision, there was no mistaking Azure's voluminous robes or silver-etched mask. I expected cards to be shedding from where the Mythic's sword came in contact with the Secret Keeper's stomach, but instead the fabric there darkened, growing wet.

They're bleeding, it took me an elongated moment to realize because such a thing made little sense. Why would someone of Azure's position and stature have an empty Mind Home?

Felstrife was there now too, and she ripped the mask from the Secret Keeper's face. Behind it was a young man, probably my age, which also struck me as wrong.

"Who are you?" Felstrife demanded of them, but Azure only groaned as he slipped farther down the blade. "Speak."

The Secret Keeper let out a rasping laugh, and positioned on the floor right below him, I saw a shocking thing: he had no tongue. He's just like his Hands, I realized. But we had conversed, on more than one occasion, in fact. How could it be –

"You have done well for the cause, Bremen," the exact voice I remembered of Azure's said, but it came from the mask Felstrife held, not the tongue-clipped boy. "Rest now." Bremen's eyes fluttered and he let out a rattled breath before he ceased to move, still spitted on the Mythic's blade. My attention and Felstrife's, though, were largely on the mask. She lifted it slightly, to better inspect it, I imagined. "And you, lich," Azure said, sounding as if they were standing right there in the room with us, "do not think you have won. I have many Hands, and they will not rest until Treledyne's riches have been returned."

I didn't particularly care to be referred to in such a way, and I also wondered why the Secret Keeper would bother to divulge this information. Was there an advantage to keeping Felstrife and her minions on high alert? Perhaps that let Azure and their Hands travel the other parts of the Palace more freely.

When no other words were forthcoming, I dared to ask. "Is it an Artifact?"

"....No," Felstrife answered me, staring down at the item. She then moved a boney digit along one of its many grooves. "But there is a lingering trace of power… a connection…"

A Soul Ability then, I reasoned. One that allowed Azure to communicate at a distance, surely a useful trait for someone in charge of secrets. And when Felstrife searched Bremen for a Soul card, finding only a few shards, my estimation of the Secret Keeper grew. Unless the robe was an Artifact, the ability to vanish into nothing was likely another ability of Azure's that they could use from a distance. Quite troubling really, since the Secret Keeper would prefer to see me dead than remain in Felstrife's clutches.

I brought a hand up to my neck. Despite Geb's intervention – for which I gave him a grateful nod – that had all been much too close for comfort. Particularly if the helmet was blocking the inherent defenses a full Mind Home offered.

"I need be able to access my deck," I told Felstrife. "For protection. You heard what… that person had to say." I almost said Azure but managed to stop myself. While I didn't particularly like being targeted by the Secret Keeper, I didn't want to give information about our forces to one such as the lich.

Her focus moved from the mask to me. "You cannot. Not while wearing that Artifact." She didn't bother to say that she wouldn't remove the helmet, and she didn't need to: without the helmet on, I wouldn't be able to receive the visions I need to level or continue to explore her memory for my deal with the necromancers. The truth was that I wanted the helmet to stay put just as much as she did.

"Modify it," I countered. "You were the one who made it, weren't you?"

Her attention was fully on me now, but her cold stillness didn't dissuade me. I had deduced that she was an artificer of some sort from the continued visions of the smith in the workroom I had seen – more than once now – but I reasoned that such an assumption about her talents could also be made from the simple fact that she had so many of them.

"There is no better way to keep me alive," I pressed.

"We shall see," Felstrife said, and I felt a glimmer of victory for getting her to admit that much. If I could have access to my deck again, it would be significantly easier for me to be successful in my plans. "But first," she hissed, lowering herself, "show me what you have become."

With all that had transpired in its aftermath, I had practically forgotten that I had elevated. Together we viewed my new Soul card, with a strange, shared eagerness, her from without and me from within.

I was truly High Gold now, with a new ability to my name. Scrying Eye, I mused. It seemed the Twins had taken into consideration the mechanism through which I had been seeing so many cards of late. Would Scrying Eye have the same daily limit as my Seersight did? I was tempted to try but held myself back for now.

"Excellent," Felstrife hissed. Her boney fingers held my chin, and her fetid breath blew into my face, bringing me out of myself. "Truly excellent," she repeated, her fingers tightening, and with that, I could feel her hunger like a palpable thing in the room with us. Would it overcome her? Epic was within my reach. I couldn't be stopped now.

"Felstr –" I started, but Justine surprised us all by letting out a sizable belch that rattled the floorboards nearly as much as my elevation had.

"Guess it was just a bit of indigestion," she said, fist held to her chest when she noticed us all staring at her. "Won't have second-helpings of the rat meat those wights dig up next time," she added, looking thoroughly embarrassed, and then she set off on her usual circuit of the room.

When Felstrife turned back to me she seemed calmer, less possessed by a voracious need. She stood, fingers tip-toeing over the helmet in what I could only hope were efforts to see my request fulfilled. We stayed that way for a time, neither of us talking, until a memory of my own I hadn't expected came to me. Make use of every opportunity, it whispered. Griff, my old trainer, who had used and abandoned me, living true to his saying. And yet, just because I had been hurt by it didn't mean that there wasn't value to his wisdom. How could I use this moment more than I already was? There had been something on my mind, though I had doubts Felstrife would answer.

"I saw you use a Legendary Water Soul in one of your duels," I said up to her, "which was different than the Legendary Death Soul you used against me." Possessing more than one Legendary wasn't impossible. Gerard had two thanks to his Soul ability, after all, or it could be part of her sideboard. However, from what I had learned from the duels, the cards were quite unalike, requiring entirely different builds to support them – one growth focused, the other a mix of swarm and mill – which was more than a simple sideboard could make effective.

I waited, not expecting much, and I began to believe she hadn't even heard me when more than a minute passed. And yet, when a part of the helmet buzzed briefly to life, she said, "I possess two Mind Homes."

The answer was so shocking, I immediately attempted to look up at her, but she hissed, forcing my head back in place. Almost too curious to dare ask, I said, "And how does one create two Mind Homes?"

This time she didn't answer no matter how long I waited, but at that point it hardly mattered. Now that I knew such a thing existed, I could search for answers in her memories, along with the final pieces to her lichdom.

"Whenever you have finished," I told her, a cold sense of satisfaction washing over me, "I'm ready to begin again."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.