Table of Contents

“What will you do now?” Luana asked me. 

Though the morning was bright, and the sky over the mountain shone in sapphire blue, a dark cloud had passed over me. I had done what I had intended upon traveling to the island; I had gazed into the Dreaming Eye, and through the help of its creator goddess I had caught the briefest glimpse of my beloved. True to the word of the first hero, the god of Phyreios, Khalim was unharmed, but he no longer remained in the place in the realm of the dead where I thought I would one day find him. He had set off, alone, across a strange, unknown country. 

How foolish I was, to think that he would simply stay and await rescue. My Khalim was many things, but patient was not one of them. He must have hated that pale, dead city. It had nothing that he loved in its meager confines; no living beings, no open sky, no growing things. Once, he had told me that he had never been alone. Torr’s realm must have been terrifying in its stark loneliness.