I say Corminar found a bottle of wine.

  What I really mean is that certain parts of the recently fractured Cult of Ascendancy gave wine an almost religious significance. Wine was the drink of the gods, that which should be gifted to them, that which should be kept on hand in case the prophet should return to them. The recently healed Corminar had spotted it in the hands of a cultist—held as if about to be used as a weapon against their now dead leader—and chosen to relieve them of it.

  The ranger stuck an arrowhead in the cork and then wrenched it out. I could only assume he’d made sure not to use a poison-coated arrow.

  With the flick of his hand, Corminar gestured the seven of us over to the edge of the platform, where he sat with his legs hanging over the edge, hundreds of feet above the ground.

  ‘Is safe?’ Arzak asked.

  Corminar took a big swig of wine, then gestured to me and Raelas. ‘There is no longer the mist of illusion, and we have two worldbenders among our number. I am sure they will catch us should we fall.’

  Val shrugged, then joined the elf at his side, hanging her legs over the edge too. Corminar handed her the bottle, and she swigged from it just as greedily as the elf had. They shared their love for alcohol.

  Wait, so do I. I hurried over to join them, and Val handed me the bottle. It was good wine. Dry, just as I liked it, but smooth. I didn’t have the vocabulary to describe it more than that—did it have notes of berries, perhaps?—so I instead handed it off to Raelas as she joined us. Soon, it was only Arzak who remained standing away from the edge, her fear of heights still controlling her, but we could forgive her a little fear just this once.

  Lambkin, at the end of our line, offered the bottle to Arzak, who creeped over to the edge timidly, stretching her arm out as far as possible so she wouldn’t need to get near us.

  As I stared forward at the long shadows stretching east, I closed my eyes. Nobody said a word for a few minutes, each of us enjoying the respite, the view, maybe even one another’s company, though I suspect they were enjoying the wine first and foremost.

  ‘You didn’t kill him,’ Val said at last. ‘Yusef, you let the cultists take him down.’

  I shrugged. ‘Don’t see there was any other way. We were all weak from his illusions. We needed them.’

  Maybe it was the wine talking, or the world-shatteringly impressive view in front of us, but what Val said next surprised me. It wasn’t just the words, but the way she said them, too. ‘I’m sorry, Styk. I’m really, really, well and truly sorry. You shouldn’t forgive me, that’s—’

  ‘But I have.’

  ‘Yeah, you have, haven’t you? Cos you’re better than me.’

  ‘Val, don’t. Don’t think I’m better than you—I’ve messed up so many times in the past. Got people killed. Hurt people I care about, sometimes even intentionally. You messed up, sure. I’m not pretending you didn’t. But we’ve all been through some stuff, and we all carry it with us. And what I saw back there…’ I gestured back onto the platform, where I saw her younger self’s encounters with Niamh.

  ‘Still,’ Val said, reaching over to hold my hand. ‘You forgave me, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure you don’t regret it.’ She, very hesitantly, put her head down to rest on my shoulder, only letting it settle when I didn’t recoil. And then, when I didn’t, she squeezed my hand, too.

  We sat like that for a while, even Arzak eventually beating out her fear of heights to join us. The landscape before us turned from yellow, to blue, to black, as the sun set behind the mountains. And up here, at the top of this tower, the wind grew bitter.

  Lambkin was the first to pull himself back from the edge and stand. ‘I suppose we better be going. Check in on the kids—the minder will be relieved to see us, I reckon.’

  Tokas, using Lambkin’s hand to pull herself back to her feet, shot the man a dirty look. But then she smiled; she knew he didn’t mean it. We watched them leave through the portal I’d left open.

  Next, it was Raelas’s turn to stand, perhaps sensing that she was now the odd one out.

  ‘So,’ Val said, turning to look up at the woman, ‘you coming with us?’

  The tiefling immediately became very rigid, apparently stunned by this extended olive branch.

  ‘We could use all the help we could get,’ Val pressed.

  But, just like Tokas, Raelas shook her head. ‘I appreciate the offer and all, but you already have a worldbender. And one far stronger than me, at that. I’ll help you, sure, but I’m not gonna join you. I think, after all of this… I think I’ve got to find my own place in the world. Not as a team, but as me. As Raelas. Besides, you’ve exposed the Players with what you did here, haven’t you? You’re gonna need someone to go around spreading the word.’

  Raelas stepped towards the saved portal back to Coldharbour, then paused at the threshold. She looked over her shoulder and blew me a kiss, this act making it Val’s turn to go rigid. ‘Be good, handsome.’

  And with that, she was gone.

  I felt Val’s wrath before I saw it.

  ‘I hate that woman,’ the witch said.

  ‘But you just offered for her to—’ I started, then shook my head. This wasn’t a conversation I needed to have; now was a time for celebration, not… whatever this was.

  And this left just the Slayers. The Slayers without Lore, at least.

  ‘We reckon Lore’s OK?’ Val asked, as though she’d read my mind.

  I saw a cloud of dust lift from the dark sands below, a group of riders charging for Elassos. Cultists from Zelas perhaps, not yet aware that it was too late to save their prophet. ‘He’s been through a lot,’ I answered. ‘Not much helped by any of us, I gotta say. We really need to learn to communicate better.’

  ‘Hm,’ Arzak agreed.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  ‘He’ll be OK, though, given time. Maybe we can figure out a way of getting Niamh’s curse removed? I think he’d like that.’

  ‘Would we not rather he learn to control it?’ Corminar asked.

  ‘I think that’s up to him.’

  Corminar nodded his agreement, but kept his eyes lingering on Val and me, the witch’s head still rested against my shoulder. ‘I must ask, have you two worked out this ridiculous argument now? We are stronger as a full team, and so I hope that you have.’

  ‘It’s not—’ Val started to say, but then she caught herself. Maybe she’d been about to claim that the argument wasn’t ridiculous, but then realised that she didn’t believe that. ‘We’re working on it,’ she eventually said, and then glanced up at me.

  I nodded back my reply, and in silence we stared across the desert once more. With a sigh, I brought myself back to my feet, taking care not to topple over the edge—something that was slightly more likely to happen with the equivalent of a glass of wine in me. ‘Come on, let’s get off this platform,’ I said, waving the team towards the portal back to Coldharbour.

  ‘More wine when we get there?’ Val asked.

  ‘Of course,’ replied the elf. ‘Provided that I am able to select the—’

  But he didn’t get to finish that sentence, because at that moment, the cultists we’d seen riding over from Zelas appeared on the platform. My initial instinct was to fight, and then to simply step through the portal and leave them behind. But then I noticed that it was Lillya—perhaps the friendliest of all the cultists—standing at the head of the pack.

  The orc stared down at the dead Yusef in the centre of the platform. ‘Oh,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, sorry,’ I replied. ‘If you were here to help him, then I’m afraid you’re like two hours too—’

  ‘No,’ Lillya said, cutting me off. Only then did I recognise the glimmer of urgency still in her eyes. Urgency that existed even after Yusef’s demise. ‘Something I need tell you.’

  ‘Perhaps it can wait?’ Corminar asked, eyeing the portal. ‘I have a thirst for northern Armadan wine, and it is a thirst not easily quenched.’

  ‘No, we—’

  ‘We’ve earned a rest,’ Val added, gesturing to the dead Yusef. ‘Let us celebrate for a bit first, before we get caught up in—’

  ‘No,’ Lillya said, forcefully now, cutting off even Val. ‘You not understand. It not over.’

  Val looked at the dead illusionist. ‘It looks pretty over.’

  Lillya ignored her, and raised a flimsy piece of parchment into the air, waving it at us. A letter. ‘Found in Tower of Hope. In Yusef’s room. Your fight isn’t over, there is—’

  ‘The Council?’ I asked. ‘If it’s the Council, then we know. We’re on it. But like Val said, we—’

  ‘Yusef in contact with person in Coldharbour,’ Lillya said, now speaking over me. Whatever this was, apparently it really couldn’t wait. ‘Someone he bought malae breeding programme from. Someone he gave lot of coin to, to fund research. It is someone who want to revive old tiefling tradition. You know one? Turn enemy strength against enemy. We need destroy malae before Coldharbour is lost.’

  I took an unconscious step backwards. I’d missed something. I’d known there were loose ends, questions we’d unearthed without any answers, but we’d been so focused on killing Yusef that I’d put them to one side. But we knew the malae breeders had been here before Yusef ever arrived. We knew there had been others involved in this dangerous industry. We’d just not realised they were right under our noses.

  I asked the question that I already knew the answer to. ‘This person in Coldharbour, that Yusef was dealing with, do you know their name?’

  ‘Alenna,’ Lillya replied.

  Lore’s visions of Alenna’s death hadn’t been an illusion. He really had foreseen it. We’d stumbled into the chain of events that may well have caused her to die, but in a much more real sense, it had been her own actions that would lead to her death. Her dances with demons, her drive to dissect the malae, to understand them, maybe even to use their power. Without Lore at her side, there would be nobody to protect her against her own mistakes. Nobody to protect her against the corruption.

  ‘I understand now,’ I said.

  Ability unlocked — Titan Husk

  Titan Husk (Worldbending) — Warp your flesh to totally withstand all physical damage effects, including fire, frost, lightning, poison, and corruption.

  As I ran for the portal, I locked in my ability choice. I was going to need it.