In one moment, Leona was celebrating the emergence of her magic powers alongside her friend. Now, she was sinking to the depths of the Dread Sea, faster than an anvil falls through a cloud. She looked up through a ceiling of darkness at the dot of Tusund, who soon became a speck, then nothing at all. The world was falling away from her. She watched as the Moon Shadow Inn shrunk and the entire Emerald Coast became nothing more than a thin line. Without the crushing weight of her soul, she would have thought that it was not her sinking but the world that was rising away.

  The Overseer herself must have found Leona’s sin of using dark magic so egregious that she deserved to be banished to the depths of the sea. Leona could not comprehend it. A familiar prickle of fear caught her attention. She had never felt it in a dream before. This was something real.

  Leona snapped her wings open. The hallow darkness then felt suffocating against her body. She flapped her wings, but the harder she tried, the more the darkness stuck to her. Still, she refused to give up. Shadows were clinging to her wings like tar, but she clawed through them and pushed her wings relentlessly.

  Something bright was growing in the sight above her. Thinking it was the moon light against the surface of the sea, she made one final effort to rise.

  Thunk.

  Leona’s head impacted into a sandy pit. The ceiling reoriented itself to become the ground and Leona flopped out of her headstand. She lay in the sand that gave off a pale glow, similar to her own scales. Aching soreness stretched out from her unfurled wings and pain stung at her head. Though the headache, Leona could not tell the pain from the greatest danger she had ever sensed. A spiky sensation crawled from her head to her tail. It was like cacti rolling over her scales.

  Then the sensation was gone.

  Yellow, red, blue, and green corals gave off a delicate bioluminescent light. Deep sea cliffs rose on all sides of Leona’s crash site. Arches were carved into the walls of the pit. Out from under the arches, thousands of moonlit eyes stared at the fallen draconian.

  It looked like a giant arena. Symbols of the the Overseer’s eye were carved into columns in the stone, then retroactively gouged out and crossed over. Black liquid poured out from them, pooling where the cliffs met the sand. Leona imagined that this abyss might be the only place in the world where even the Overseer would be blind.

  Voices that resounded like a church choir projected down into the arena.

  “Little Shadow, How Was Your Life?”

  It was beautiful and haunting. Had an angels come to deliver Leona from the abyss, or were they here to judge her? Her head ached. Leona sat up and continued to look into the black sky.

  The sound of a sword being drawn echoed throughout the area. The moon-lit eyes of the spectators were shuddering with fear. All at once, energy burst forth from a gigantic blade. The shock wave, rattled Leona’s bones.

  Akyr Lev would burn down his futile forge at the sight of the perfect sword. It looked like a melted stained glass window. It stabbed through an overseeing eye, brilliant and blue with platinum eyelashes that formed the quillons and guard. The rainbow speckled light that emanated from the blade lit up a man’s smile twisted in glee.

  “Why are you afraid?” The man asked. He flew down into the area, landing at the other end, away from Leona. His vast wings were made of blue magic tears. He looked like a human who had stolen pieces off an angel. Many of the shadows in the arena had already fled or were hiding their glowing eyes.

  The man had wavy white hair and shiny purple eyes that occasionally burned red. He wore elegant purple robes and was covered in silver and gold talismans. Small dragons of every color manifested around him, forming rings by eating their tails. He raised his sword, resting or preparing to strike, Leona could not tell.

  There was no way out of this place, and in her soon to be shattered hope she asked for help.

  “I am Leona. Would you be willing to help me fly back to Twilight Town?”

  “Haha—no,” his laugh was smooth, handsome, but fake. “Leona Lev, have you not heard the stories?” At Leona’s silence, he tilted his head in genuine confusion. Then he seemed offended. “So you don’t know who I am? Well then, let me make this simple for you.”

  He threw open his wings that blazed with the radiant power of his soul. The dragons twisted in the air around him, sweeping up prismatic energy into an overwhelming surge of color. The shadows in the arena shrieked, their smoldering forms outlined against the harsh light. Leona blocked it out with her own wings, but she still saw him shinning like the sun through her scales.

  “I am Ozceron Markar. I AM THE APEX OF THE WORLD!”

  The earth quaked and rippled out from the man. A shock-wave sent Leona crashing into the arena walls. Some thing, or many things within her crunched at the impact. Cracks spread behind her back and across the arena. More dark liquid spewed from the stone eyes. The liquid rushed over Leona washing her from the wall. She fell to the bottom where the liquid began pooling over her. There was no way to peal herself away from the walls. Her body was broken and no longer moved how she wanted it to. In an attempt to reach out one final time, the dark liquid swept over her.

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  Leona didn’t believe it. She didn’t even want to think it.

  Death.

  She had fallen into it.

  It was just a normal day.

  She wanted to believe that she had never left home. It hadn’t been so long ago. It could still be possible to wake up. She would see the sun through her window and smell Mom’s cooking. She would spend time with Dad in the shop and stop playing at being a soldier. She would stop hoping to be a mage when the magic kills.

  Through what little sensations other than pain she had left, she felt pressure on her hand. Someone was pulling her out. She prayed that it was not Ozceron.

  The dark liquid pulled away from Leona and she was met with the sight of dozens of moon-lit eyes. The Voidlings were helping her, and Ozceron hated it.

  “Get away you worthless vermin!” He teleported right into the crowd and with the length of his blade he speared six Voidlings at a time.

  In less than a second, they all dissipated. Leona was left alone, coated in pain.

  Clearing the way, Ozceron swung his gold soled boot into Leona’s chest. She spun through the air and landed like a draconian rug at the arena’s center. Leona’s head was buried in the sand. Ozceron’s radiant blade rested over her neck like a guillotine.

  “Finally. Time to reclaim my life and show my world what magnificence they have forgotten,” Ozceron sung.

  Through the stabbing pains, Leona willed herself to focus.

  She could hear Ozceron breathing. When he raised his sword to swing, he took a deep breath in. It was Leona’s last chance to live a little longer. She drove her tail into the sand, finding wonder in the fact it still worked, and pushed her body to the side.

  Ozceron’s blade slammed into the earth. Lines of fire scattered from the impact and a shock-wave passed under the sand. The arena shook. Particles of sand exploded into the air, melting into glass. The same glass clattered and smashed against the walls.

  Ozceron growled, but without hesitation, prepared his blade for another revolution.

  Leona looked past Ozceron to the eye on his blade. With her final shaking breath she addressed it.

  “Mother, are you watching?”

  The eye on the glass sword shut and so did Leona's.

  ~ ~ ~

  When Ozceron threw down his killing blow, the sword shuddered in the air above the draconian. Emerging from the dark sky, a thick gold chain with hooks had wrapped around the sword and held it back. Six other chains shot out from the abyss. Two hooks pierced through Ozceron’s wings, shooting glass shards thorough the air. The other chains wrapped around his flinching limbs. Blood pooled in the sand below him.

  “Oz, we made a deal,” a male voice boomed from the direction of the sky chains.

  “It’s not your turn,” rasped the voice of a woman.

  Five shadows of different sizes clung to the cliffs above the arena. The chains ran out from them into Ozceron. They had moon-lit eyes like the other shadows, and together they were capable of rivaling Ozceron.

  The women spoke again. “When we rolled dice, we agreed that Quinn would go first.”

  Ozceron’s eyes burned like balls of bloody fire. He attempted to free himself from the chains, but each forceful effort produced a field around the links that burned red against his pale flesh. “What do I care, for a stupid game? I deserve this. Let me finish what I started,” he spat. “Let me kill her!”

  The male shadow ignored Ozceron’s protest, saying, “go forth Quinn. Reclaim your life.”

  One of the smaller shadows leaped off the cliff wall and floated down into the arena. The young human woman landed with a dainty grace. Quinn was dressed in a simple blue dress with purple laces. In the light that reflected off of the pale sand, her moon-lit eyes turned gold. All of the shadows that cloaked her were banished not counting her short black hair. She wore a kind smile.

  Quinn looked up to her shadow friends with uncertainty. “I’m not sure about this guys. I lived a full life already. I’m satisfied with that, honest.”

  “LIAR!” All the shadows called her out, even Ozceron writhing on the arena floor.

  She balled up her fists and shouted, “shut up! I loved my life! I am at peace in this place! I don’t expect any of you to understand what it means to be content!”

  “You were complacent,” Ozceron hissed. The shadows above were dragging his chains up the wall towards the largest arch. There, a group of Voidlings locked him onto his own throne. “Let me remind you liar, that if you are not willing to act, I will.”

  Quinn shrugged and replied, “whatever. I’ll live again, I guess. However—if I’m doing this, I want it to be fair.” She pointed at the mess of the draconian behind her. “I like an easy duel, but this is wrong. You take the fun out of it.”

  “There’s not much fun to be had at the top. Go and undo my fine work.” Ozceron shook his head, disapproving.

  The woman still cloaked in shadows loomed above Ozceron’s throne. Her hands, small as a dolls, picked glass out of his hair. “That was nothing to you,” she said to him sweetly. “If you were less of a show boat, you’d be out the Voidlands already. Those of us back-stabbed and abandoned here would be thinking of ways to kill if you ever return.”

  “I’d do no different for you,” Ozceron said, smiling at her. “Now, go on and take my blood in the sand. It will heal the little shadow. Then, we can watch Quinn fight.”