My hand, small and trembling, broke the surface of the starlit pool.
The moment of contact was nothing like Kael's. There was no surge of light, no violent torrent of information. There was only a gentle, insistent pull. It felt like a hand reaching out from the depths to take mine. The stars in the pool swirled, rising to meet me, and the cold stone floor of the Nexus dissolved beneath my feet.
I was no longer in the library.
The air was hot and dry, filled with the familiar scent of sun-baked silica and desert blossoms. Above me, two suns—one gold, one white—burned in a cloudless, turquoise sky. Beneath my bare feet was the fine, golden sand of the Expanse. I was home. The feeling was so overwhelming, so absolute, that a sob of pure joy escaped my lips.
This was no mere memory. I could feel the deep, resonant chorus of the Sandsong all around me, a million voices singing in perfect, powerful harmony. It flowed into me, replenishing the parts of my soul that had been chipped away by the cold and fear of this other world. I felt strong. Whole.
My question—How do I get home?—was answered by the simple reality of my being there. This is home. This is where you belong.
I laughed, tears streaming down my face, and began to run, letting the warm sand stream through my toes. But as I ran, I felt a single, dissonant note in the perfect symphony of the Sandsong. It was a thin, sharp, unnatural thread of sound, like a wire pulled too tight. It snagged at my spirit, a discordant hum in the otherwise perfect music.
Curious, I focused on it, tracing it back to its source. The thread stretched out from me, a shimmering, ugly line of purple-black energy, cutting through the golden reality of my world. It was the tether the Magi had used to pull me through. The path.
Instinctively, I followed it. The vision around me shifted. The golden sands grew darker, the sky grew bruised and overcast. The thread led not to an open plain, but to a shimmering cage of black energy, standing stark and wrong in the middle of my desert. Inside it, I could see shapes moving—Magi, waiting for me. The path home was real, but it was a trap. A lure on a line, and I was the fish.
Just as despair began to cloud my vision, the perspective shifted again. I saw the thread from a different angle. I saw my own Sandsong, a current of golden light, flowing beside the Magi's dark tether. And the truth bloomed in my mind, a seed of knowledge planted by the Nexus.
The path was their creation, but the energy to walk it had to be my own. If I tried to return now, my weak power would be no match for their trap. But if my song was strong enough... if it could overwhelm the discordant note of their magic... I could not just walk the path. I could remake it. I could sever their control and turn their trap into my door.
The vision dissolved. I was back on the cold floor of the Nexus, gasping for air, the tears of joy now mingled with tears of terror and understanding. The emotional whiplash left me weak and trembling, and I collapsed back into Kael's waiting arms.
"Iris? What did you see?" he asked, his voice gentle.
Through ragged breaths, I told him everything. The perfect, painful beauty of my home. The dissonant thread. The waiting cage. And the final, terrible, hopeful truth: that the path existed, but it was a path I had to seize, not one I could simply walk.
He listened intently, his expression growing more grim and more resolute with every word. When I finished, he was silent for a long moment, the only sound the faint hum of the Nexus.
"So, there it is," he said softly. "The two answers are one. My answer told us the weapon is your kind of magic. Your answer tells you the only way home is to wield that weapon with enough strength to shatter their chains."
He looked me in the eyes, and for the first time, I saw us not as a weary mage and a lost girl, but as partners in an impossible quest. "You cannot go home by running, Iris. The only way back for you is through them."
My heart felt heavy, but it was a solid weight, no longer hollow with fear. The vagueness of our flight was gone, replaced by a terrifyingly clear purpose. My personal quest and Kael's grand one were intertwined. To free his world, he needed my power. To free myself, I needed to make my power absolute.
We looked away from the Nexus, our questions answered, and gazed at the vast, silent library that surrounded us. It was no longer just a shelter or a destination. It was an armory. A training ground. A school.
"The Magi's power is control," I said, a new resolve hardening my voice. "The Nexus said my power is different. I need to know how it's different. I need to understand it. I need to learn."
Kael nodded, a slow, determined fire kindling in his eyes. "Then that is our new question for the Library. Not 'how do we win,' but 'how do we learn'."
We were no longer just running. We were preparing to fight back.