They didn't make it far before the world twisted.
One moment, Kael and Lyra were running across a field of obsidian flowers. The next, reality folded in on itself like paper, and they were somewhere else entirely.
A throne room carved from shadow and starlight.
And sitting on the throne was the woman from Kael's kitchen. The Sorceress.
"Welcome," she said, her voice echoing with power. "I've been waiting for you to get this far."
Lyra immediately drew her blade, silver light crackling along its edge. "Let us go. Now."
"Why would I do that? You're exactly where I want you." The Sorceress stood, and the shadows moved with her like living things. "Though I must admit, Kael Ashford, you've exceeded my expectations. Two tower lords already swayed to your cause. Lord Azure whole again for the first time in millennia. You're quite the miracle worker."
"What do you want?" Kael demanded, his own power building in his hands.
"The same thing I've always wanted. To save my people." She stepped down from the throne, and Kael could see her more clearly now. She looked tired. Ancient. Like someone who'd been fighting for so long that she'd forgotten what peace felt like. "The Seventh Realm is dying, child. Every day, we fade a little more. In a century, maybe two, there will be nothing left but memories and ghosts."
"So you want me to be the seal. To bind myself to the realm forever."
"I want you to choose survival over pride. Yes." The Sorceress's eyes blazed green. "What's one life compared to an entire civilization? What's your freedom compared to the extinction of my people?"
"It's not just his life," Lyra said. "It's who he is. His soul. Everything that makes him Kael. You'd erase all of that just to buy your realm a few more centuries?"
"Yes." The Sorceress didn't flinch. "Without hesitation. Because the alternative is watching everyone I've ever loved slowly cease to exist."
Kael felt something shift in his understanding. The Sorceress wasn't a villain. She was just desperate. Desperate enough to sacrifice him without guilt, but desperate nonetheless.
"There has to be another way," he said.
"Does there?" She moved closer. "You've been to the Azure Tower. You've seen what the seal does to us. Fractures us. Breaks us. Reduces us to shadows of what we once were." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I had children once. Three beautiful daughters. They're gone now. Faded into nothing because the realm couldn't sustain them. How many more do I have to watch disappear before you understand?"
"I do understand," Kael said quietly. "But becoming the seal won't fix that. It'll just delay it. The Seventh Realm will still be cut off, still be dying. Just slower."
"Slower is better than now."
"Is it?" Lyra challenged. "Or is it just postponing the inevitable while destroying the one person who might actually be able to save you?"
The Sorceress's expression hardened. "You think he can save us? This boy who's been in our realm for less than a week? Who barely understands his own power?"
"I think he's already done more good than you have in three thousand years," Lyra shot back. "He gave Lord Azure back his self. He showed Lady Crimson a future worth believing in. What have you done except scheme and manipulate?"
"I've kept us alive!" The Sorceress's power exploded outward, and suddenly the throne room was filled with images—thousands of people, all fading, all dying slowly. "Every day I hold the fractures together. Every day I prevent the realm from collapsing completely. You call it scheming? I call it survival!"
Kael felt the weight of her words, the truth in them. She wasn't lying. She'd been holding an entire civilization together through sheer force of will.
"Then let me help," he said. "Not by becoming the seal. But by finding a real solution."
"There is no real solution. Your ancestors saw to that."
"Maybe. But maybe they were wrong. Maybe they missed something." Kael took a step forward, his power flaring. "Let me reach the Palace of Echoes. Let me find the records. If there's no other way, if the only solution really is the seal... then I'll come back. And I'll choose."
The Sorceress studied him, her ancient eyes searching for deception. "You'd really do it? You'd sacrifice yourself if it came to that?"
"If it's the only way to save both realms? Yes." Kael's voice was steady. "But I need to know it's the only way. I need to be sure."
For a long moment, silence hung between them. Then the Sorceress sighed, and it was the sound of someone carrying an impossible burden for far too long.
"You remind me of him," she said quietly. "Aldric Ashford. He had the same stubborn hope in his eyes. The same belief that there had to be a better answer." She turned away. "It broke him in the end. Knowing he'd made the wrong choice."
"Maybe I'll make a different one," Kael said.
"Maybe." She waved her hand, and the throne room began to dissolve. "Go. Find your answers. But know this, Kael Ashford—if you fail, if you return empty-handed, I will bind you to the seal myself. Your consent won't matter. Nothing will matter except survival."
"I understand."
"No, you don't. But you will."
The world snapped back to normal. Kael and Lyra found themselves exactly where they'd been before, in the field of obsidian flowers, as if no time had passed at all.
"What just happened?" Lyra asked, her blade still drawn.
"She let us go," Kael said, still processing the conversation. "She's giving us a chance."
"Why?"
"Because she's tired. And because somewhere deep down, she still hopes."
They continued their journey, but Kael couldn't shake the image of the Sorceress's face when she'd mentioned her daughters. The pain there. The loss.
He understood now why she was willing to sacrifice him. Not because she was evil, but because she'd already sacrificed so much. What was one more life compared to everything she'd already lost?
But he also understood something else. If he became the seal, if he let himself be erased to save the Seventh Realm, it wouldn't actually solve anything. It would just delay the problem. Hand it off to the next generation.
Someone had to break the cycle.
Someone had to find a better way.
And terrifyingly, that someone seemed to be him.
"Lyra," he said as they walked. "Tell me about the Heart of All Things. The real story. Not the legends."
She was quiet for a while. Then: "It was supposed to be a gift. Something created by the first realms to connect all existence. But power like that... it attracts corruption. People fought over it. Realms went to war. It started to twist everything it touched, turning beauty into nightmare."
"And my ancestor sealed it away along with your realm."
"Yes. Because the Heart was here, in the Seventh Realm. And the only way to lock it away was to lock everything away." She looked at him. "But the Heart is still here, Kael. Still sealed. Still waiting."
"What if that's the answer?" he asked. "What if we need to do what Aldric should have done three thousand years ago? Separate the Heart from the realm?"
"That's impossible. The seal isn't designed to separate them. It's designed to trap both forever."
"Then maybe we need to break the seal. Carefully. Precisely. And remove the Heart before the realm collapses."
Lyra stopped walking. "That's the most dangerous thing I've ever heard."
"I know."
"If you're wrong, if the Heart is released without control, it could destroy everything. All seven realms."
"I know that too."
"And you still want to try?"
Kael thought about his family. About Mira. About the people of the Seventh Realm slowly fading into nothing. About the Sorceress's lost daughters.
"Yes," he said. "Because the alternative is worse."
Lyra smiled then, fierce and proud. "Then let's go to the Palace of Echoes. Let's find the truth. And let's do the impossible."
They walked on, toward the center of the realm, toward answers or annihilation.
Behind them, unseen, the Sorceress watched through her scrying glass.
And for the first time in three thousand years, she allowed herself to hope.