They had come back downstairs to the glowing hearth where the meditating Tialax had been sitting. Now, however, they had vacated their spots by the fire. It was as if they knew the conversation that would be taking place here was for the ears of the few allies Ethan had brought with him.

  He stared into the flames as the party waited behind him, mute with fascination, eyes fixed on his feathered back.

  “I need to tell you all what I’m going to do once I make Kaedmon’s power mine.”

  He turned only when he’d finally resolved the idea in his mind – only once he’d twisted the words round his tongue.

  “Yawn,” Tara groaned, stretching out on one of the stone chairs. “We know what you’re gonna do. Kick ol Keaddy’s ass and then sit on his throne, bring hybrids and humans together by re-writing the Law. Done. Easy.”

  He glanced at Klax, who watched him with solemn quiet. And then – lastly – he made himself look at Fauna.

  From the look in the Hopla’s eyes, it was as though she already knew what he was going to say.

  But he knew that he still had to say it. They deserved – after all this time – to know. After all, they’d helped him get this far. In more ways than one.

  He’d seen this moment time and time again in his restless dreams over the past few months. Lamphrey’s Oneiromancy afforded him such visions – he couldn’t stop them coming. And out of all of them, this was the one he feared the most. He wished, even for a second, that this could just be another dream-sight – another display of the Lucid World that he could choose to ignore. But he knew better than that, now. He’d always have ended up here, no matter what course he chose to take.

  So he just swallowed his fear and told them:

  “When the time comes, I’m going to eliminate the cycle for good. I’ve decided that Kaedmon’s Law will not be rewritten. It will be destroyed. No Lightborn, no Archon, and no God to rule over Argwyll.”

  They listened, waiting for what was coming next.

  And then he gave them the punchline:

  “Which means – no more me.”

  At first, nobody said anything. They stared at him unblinkingly, lines of confusion creasing their faces.

  Predictably, it was Tara who spoke first:

  “What the Greycloak-burning fuck are you on about?”

  And it was Klax, predictably, who gave her an answer:

  “Ethan intends to sacrifice himself.”

  The Minxit gave a half-hearted chuckle, looking up at Ethan with disbelief shining in her eyes.

  “You’re joking – right?”

  Ethan met her question with a solemn nod.

  “No Gods and no rulers,” he said. “It’s the only way for this land to be truly free.”

  “Bullshit!” Tara roared, flying from her chair, claws out and ready to slash away his plan like it was some monstrous threat from their dungeon-delving days. “What do you mean, ‘free’? You gave us that freedom, Ethan! Without you, it all crumbles away. Without you, it – it was all for nothing!”

  “Did I, Tara?” Ethan asked. “Was it I who plucked your chains from you so many years ago when you rebelled against your former master?”

  “That was –“

  “Was it I who led your armies against the Greycloaks after Gyko’s death? Was it I who resisted – kept on resisting – even though it could have killed me?”

  Tara stuttered. Her ears twitched in frustration. She made an about turn to Klax, looking to him for support.

  “Tell him he’s a moron,” she said. “Well?”

  But the wolfman simply shrugged his shoulders and sighed, letting cold air play about his flaring nostrils.

  “Ethan is saying that freedom is not something that can be given,” he said. “We looked to him, but we took our freedom for ourselves. Now he wishes the rest of the world to do the same.”

  “And to do that,” Ethan added. “I have to solve the problem of the Cycle.”

  Tara looked between the two of them, frantically trying to grasp at some statement that would shut this entire conversation down.

  “I know that it’s not what you want, Tara,” Ethan said sadly. “But this isn’t about just us. It’s about all our brothers and sisters out there. It’s about a world that deserves a chance for stability.”

  Before Tara could stutter another word, Klax stepped forward and pressed his hand to her shoulder.

  “If this is your decision, then we deserve to know why,” he said. “Why will your destruction solve the problem of hate? Of Hybrid versus Human, of Archon versus Lightborn? Of one side versus another?”

  Ethan smiled softly to himself. Klax knew exactly what his intention was, even if he didn’t know the motivation behind it. It made sense – he’d fought this fight longer than most of them had. He’d already lost enough to know how moments like this felt.

  And that was the part that Ethan thought would have been easy to explain. But at this moment, really looking at all of them assembled together, each of them desperately looking to him for an answer as they had so many times before, he found that he needed to focus all his energy on grasping at the answer.

  “It’s funny,” he said – knowing it was an odd start. “But I think that no one knew I’d ever come to this decision. There’s seems to have been some division on the subject. Jun, for one, never knew I’d figure out this solution. I search her mind, her memories, but don’t feel that she’d want me telling you all this. I think she believed it would weaken my resolve. Which, in fairness, is a completely apt assessment. And Lamphrey – she tried to breadcrumb me to this realization, I think. All her little lectures about strength, about the dangers of leadership, they seemed loosely connected, somehow, even though I couldn’t place them. Possibly she feared that if she went too far, said too much, that she’d be influencing me to create a future that she wanted as opposed to one I chose for myself. And Arty,” he laughed. “I feel him, too. I can tell that he does want you to know this because – I think – he just wants to see the looks on your faces when you learn. He can be an ass. Even post-death.”

  He could tell that his meandering around the question was just causing them more confusion. But this was all he could do. He didn’t have any fancy speech prepared for this moment.

  “But – Jun,” Tara stammered. “She wanted us to have a champion, right? One that could rival Kaedmon’s Lightborn. That’s what she told you, wasn’t it? One of them had to win – Archon or Lightborn. Because this world needs a leader.”

  “And leaders are made by their strength of their convictions,” Klax agreed. “And the will to carry them out.”

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  “That’s what she thought before me,” Ethan nodded. “And then – she realized she was wrong.”

  At their perplexed faces, he turned to look sidelong at the burning hearth that was affording him little warmth in this moment.

  “I think Jun wanted the next Archon to be different,” he said. “I think that’s why this is the form that was selected for me. A form that let me see through the eyes of others – monster and human alike. I think Jun knew that the Archon who would succeed needed to understand the problem that ate at every being on Argwyll. Not just Hybrids, or just monsters. The other Archons were strong, they were fearless, and they were sworn to protect their people. But they never looked at what was on the other side. They never came to understand their enemy, or the fact that their enemy suffered the exact same flaw that they did. The exact same problem.”

  He could almost see Lamphrey’s face within the flames. She was behind his eyes, looking on. He could feel that the gasp of relief that escaped his own throat next was her relief, spilling out of him.

  “The problem is power,” he said. “Power that’s concentrated in the hands of the few. That’s what this has all been about. One God. One people. One faith. One side. One choice. The Greycloaks have ruled over Argwyll because Kaedmon gave them to power to carry out his will. In doing so, he created a faith and a world of worshippers to kneel before him. Jun’Ei created a society of Hybrids to oppose this order, believing that there would be no redemption for humankind. She too wasn’t immune to the problem of power. She saw part of herself in Hybrid-kind. She wanted her own people to triumph above all else. It was only after four failures that she knew she needed a different approach – she needed to let go and allow the Archon to see what she couldn’t see.”

  “Which is – what?” Tara snapped.

  “The fact that hatred blinds us,” he continued. “But we always manage to justify it somehow. Because we only have one set of eyes. We only have one perspective with which to view the world. Empathy’s impossible – it’s worth trying, don’t get me wrong – but it’s never guaranteed. Unless you really live the life of another, you can’t really know them. You can’t understand that there are no enemies. There’s just people – and we’re more alike than we’re capable of ever believing.”

  Tara’s mouth opened and then closed before any words tumbled out. She was now finally mulling over his words instead of anticipating them or her own counter-arguments. More than that, he fancied that she was looking at her own face reflected in the dagger that would have killed her former-master all over again.

  “You are different, Ethan,” Klax said – stepping forward with purpose, with feeling. “We’ve followed you all this time because we knew you were the right one to lead us to a new day. I – I have to agree with Tara. Without you, everything we’ve built will fall apart.”

  Ethan appreciated the sentiment. He did – but still, he had to tell his once-Lycae mentor the truth:

  “I’ve made plenty of mistakes along the way,” he said. “At times, I’ve concocted battle-plans that leave so much to chance that at the flip of a coin I could have gotten myself killed or worse. And when I first came here I had no qualms – absolutely none – about killing the members of my own species. Because they were a threat, right? Because seeing a little EXP ding in the side of my vision created a feedback loop of satisfaction that could override even the most self-righteous consciousness. It justified all the times I fantasized about killing guys who did me the slightest wrong in my previous life. So, I could tell you that I won’t follow the same path as Kaedmon or any other mortal who assumes the mantle of Godhood. But the truth is – I don’t know if that’s true. I know what I’ve seen in the future, and I know that there’s only one way I can stop it for sure. When it comes to the world, I’d rather bet on a certainty.”

  “I…understand.”

  Tara whirred on him.

  “What?”

  “Come on, Tara,” he whispered. “We’ve seen more of this world than any Hybrids ever have, now. We’ve seen the world that Jun always told us about. Can you really say that there’s anyone who doesn’t have at least a little pinch of greed in them? Could you be certain that Godhood wouldn’t end up corrupting you if you were put in Ethan’s position?”

  Tara’s gaze again shifted to the dagger in her sheath. Once again, she could see herself, ready to plunge the knife down.

  “There’s – there’s gotta be someone on our side,” she said. “If not you, who the hell else do we rely on?”

  “You, Tara!” Ethan suddenly exclaimed. “You! You’re the future. Kids like Mara are the future. You don’t need someone’s permission to live. You don’t need me to grant you the right to tread your own path.”

  He saw the gulp loosen in her throat, and now she began to look away, biting her lip, searching for some vision other than his calm face and gentle hand that he laid upon her shoulder.

  “No one should have the right to unmake the world,” he said. “No one should have the right to make that choice on behalf of tens of millions. None of the lives I’ve absorbed – the minds I’ve navigated – have convinced me otherwise. None of them alone could wear the mantle and not lead this world into devastation. It’s nothing but sheer hubris to believe that I could do any better. This world – and everyone in it - deserves the right to self-determination. Even if it costs me my life.”

  “But we chose you,” Tara whispered. “Now you’re telling us we have to lose you.”

  He wanted to look away – but he held her gaze.

  “Did you?” he chuckled half-heartedly. “Did you see the slob wasting away in his single bedroom apartment, playing video games, reading fantasy novels, and generally being as useless as he could possibly be for the world around him and think ‘yup, that’s my hero right there.’”

  He shifted his gaze to Klax, seeing the Lycae’s bowed head and understanding from his sniffling nose what emotions were welling up inside him right now. In a way, his demise meant the ‘real’ final demise of his once-Bonded. It was for that reason that he was hesitating.

  So Ethan took both their paws in his hands.

  “I don’t deserve your devotion,” he told them both. “I used to think I did. Oh, make no mistake about that. In my old life I used to think that a man like me deserved the unconditional love of the whole damn world. But that shit ain’t the truth. The truth is – if man wants love he should correct his flaws and maybe – maybe – he might be worthy of it. The truth is that all of you – and your world - saved me. Without you all I’d still be stuck in that apartment waiting for life to change. Believing that I deserved a better life. You gave me a life – a real life that mattered. Now, it’s time for me to give you yours.”

  He knew, in that moment, that someone else was looking at him. But he did not turn. Instead, he watched Tara’s cheeks flush and soft sigh escape her.

  “What the fuck’s an apartment?”

  “A kind of hell you’ll never see,” he replied with a smile.

  The catgirl wiped a stray tear from her face, looking to Klax, seeing the same sorrow painted on her features, and then turning back to Ethan in resignation.

  “What about Sys?” she asked. “You aren’t telling me you knew all about this?”

  …I knew. He told me first. I mean – I kinda have a say in it after all, don’t I? I’m technically part of Ethan, too.

  “And – you’re ok with this? Without Ethan, you’ll die too, right?”

  A smile stretched across Ethan’s face that was half his, half Sys’s – in the moment none of the Hybrids could truly tell whose smile was brightest.

  We came to – well, let’s say a little compromise.

  All eyes blinked.

  “I’m going to give Sys a body,” Ethan explained. “A real one that’s his. Sys will inherit the body of the Lightborn and act as a guardian of this world. A custodian of sorts. All the Skills of my Hosts will be gone, but he’ll still have symbolic value beyond anything else I’ll leave behind. He’ll be the ultimate assurance that no more tyrants will rise to subvert the new Law of freedom.”

  I get a whiff of treachery, and I’ll cut it down, Sys said – practically giddy at the thought. A pretty good deal, if you ask me. After all, I always had the notion that I’d make a much more handsome angel than our dear Archon here.

  Ethan reached back to touch the back of his head, rubbing it tenderly like he was praising an excitable puppy after years of loyal companionship.

  “He deserves his freedom just like everyone else does,” Ethan continued. “He’s worked for it, going up against the entire world, for the entire life of Argwyll itself. This is the only gift I can give him. I hope it’s enough.”

  So long as I get to crush some skulls, I’m game. Have to admit, I’ve gotten rather fond of being overpowered for once. It’ll be interesting to start all over again as this world’s defender. No more revolutions for little old me.

  Tara and Klax shared a knowing look between them. They had only one more question to share.

  “You could have told us,” Tara said. “You could’ve – I don’t know! – prepared us for something like this.”

  “I know,” Ethan said. “And for that, I’m sorry. But if I had told you, would you have done anything different? Could you honestly say that any of your choices would have been altered from knowing what I planned? You can think I’m an asshole if you like,” he added. “I wanted to tell you all. But during our little drinking session on the Southern mountains, I found that I couldn’t. I didn’t want our last memories to be full of pain. We’ve had enough of that to last us a lifetime, right?”

  He watched her shake her head, done with talking, done with thinking.

  “You are an asshole,” she hissed. “And the worst part is that you’re an asshole for the right reasons.”

  She gave him a light punch in his chest and then relaxing her hand into a caress that told him she knew that this decision was just as painful for him as it was for them.

  “Fuck,” she spat. “You’ve got me acting like Fauna.”

  Everyone’s eyes then fluttered to the one member of the team who had said nothing. Fauna the Hopla had stood, her grip tightening on her staff with every minute she’d been listening to the conversation, face practically unreadable. Now, only when she felt the eyes of her friends upon her, did she walk briskly over to Ethan and raise her hand.

  Her eyes came up – covered in tears.

  And her hand came down to slap Ethan across his face.

  “SELFISH FOOL!” she screamed.