Nobody remembered the dream we were in. Finn looked at me with surprise and curiosity, but he didn’t say anything, which I was thankful for.

  “Does everyone feel all right?” Maverick asked as he rubbed the back of his neck and looked around. “Damn, we were out the whole night…”

  “Whatever those creatures were, they’re gone now,” Zephyr added. “They must have been the ones who put us to sleep. Or perhaps it was the fog they led us into.”

  “We should check that nothing got stolen.” Marge quickly felt her pockets. It wasn’t like we had brought much anyway. Just some snacks and water. And the map, which Zephyr immediately pulled out of his pocket.

  “I don’t like what happened,” Maverick began. “We don’t know if someone did something to us in our sleep.”

  “Well, there’s no point in worrying about it. If someone did do something, I’m sure we’ll find out sooner rather than later,” I said.

  We continued down the path. It wasn’t long before an elderly man stood near a bridge and waved at us. He eagerly said something about expecting us and led the way forward. I wasn’t surprised when everyone was more eager to trust him than the fluffy bunnies. Hmph!

  We made it across most of the bridge and came to a halt. The island suddenly… ended. There was nothing but thick clouds in front of us. The old man turned to us and chuckled. “You have nothing to fear! The clouds are perfectly stable, I assure you.” We let him cross first and collectively gasped when he didn’t sink through. Sure, the cloud sank a little when he stepped on it, but similar to the way I’ve seen snow sink in movies.

  Deciding it was safe, I took the next step. Calm down, Ella. My heart began to race a little—this had not been what I expected. It was like stepping on something that wasn’t fully there, like the air itself was holding me up. Was it strange to also compare it to a ball pit? Probably.

  While I was getting used to my steps, Maverick grabbed me by my arm and dragged me away. What was his— Oh. Everyone else was way ahead of me. Oops…

  I couldn’t help but smile when we arrived at the village. Everything was so… whimsical. There wasn’t any grass, but water poured down from who knows how many yards or miles above us. I tried to find the source of it, but it was too high. The houses were so vibrant and colorful, but I couldn’t make out their material. When nobody was looking, I decided to touch one.

  Was that cloth? How would that protect them from the rain? Does it rain up here? What about the wind? I had so many questions! Even though there wasn’t grass, there were still plants either sprouting from the clouds or floating around. They gave a whole other meaning to “air plants"…

  “The Falor Ghula is this way!” The elderly man eagerly ran towards north of the village. He was in great shape for someone of his age…

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted, much to everyone’s surprise. “We heard that there was a matching mural to the one in the west. Could we go there first?”

  The man gave a curious smile before speaking, “I suppose we could go there first. Here I was thinking you’d be eager to save us when we’re in imminent danger—the Falor Ghula rapidly approaches—death could greet us at any second—but we can stop and smell the caputs first.”

  Was he trying to guilt-trip us out of this mural? Well, I wasn’t going to argue with him. He mumbled and whined all the way there about how he was “too old” for this, and his health wasn’t what it used to be. Sure, old man. I’m sure you could out-sprint any of us any day.

  “Why are you so eager to see the mural?” Maverick asked quietly.

  “I just think we should have all the facts before completing our mission here, no?” I answered as confidently as I could, but it didn’t matter. That answer wasn’t something I’d normally say. He eyed me suspiciously, but didn’t object.

  The old man led us to the east of the village. To my surprise, there was an island made of rock. Tall circular pillars surrounded the perimeter, and a giant plaque was positioned in the middle. Of course, I couldn’t make out what was on it from over here.

  “This island predates the capital,” the man began. “The rock came from the surface but was raised here by Her Imperial Majesty herself some time ago.”

  Was it intentional? Was there something about the mural she didn’t want anyone else seeing? Well, whatever the case, I wasn’t going to let that stop us.

  We carefully made our way over, not wanting to accidentally fall transitioning from cloud to solid ground. Or what I hoped was solid. It was a giant floating rock.

  The mural depicted some sort of war. “This is The Great War,” Zephyr said.

  “The what?” I turned to him in confusion.

  “The Great War. Remember? I told you about it after… a certain incident at the manor. The war that split Etheria?”

  “Ah, right.” It started coming back to me.

  “This is Alina.” He pointed to a lady battling a giant… blob. The next panel showed the continent splitting into five pieces, as well as Alina disappearing. The panel after that showed a different woman sobbing as several monsters surrounded her. In the last panel, the monsters were missing, but the woman had a sinister grin, and some sort of magic appeared in her hand.

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Is that supposed to be Her Impressionable Majesty?” Marge squinted at the mural.

  “Imperial, but I would assume so,” Zephyr answered.

  Right, I needed to use my Talent on the mural. I took a deep breath and held my hand out. Show me this mural’s memories!

  Time around me stood still. Marge’s mouth was wide open, and a bug was mere centimeters away. I seemed to still be able to move and was going to swat it away when the visions flooded me one after another.

  A woman with light hair—the color I couldn’t tell due to all of the visions being sepia—created the mural. A girl next to her with long, dark hair extended her hand to the mural. Suddenly, a new vision appeared before me. It was clearly Avaline. She was battling many monsters and was out of breath. Yet, with each monster she defeated, the ether they left behind seemed to flow back to her?

  The vision changed again, and this time I witnessed her fighting the Falor Ghula from the mural we saw at the other village. She used spectacular light to defeat it, and once it was, the ether returned to her the same way the monsters' had. This time, her body shook and convulsed, as if being possessed by something. Her laughter deafened me as she set the field in front of her on fire before immediately dousing it with water. She used element after element, never tiring.

  She was overflowing with ether. Her laughs grew deeper and deeper, the sickening joy on her face only growing. Yet, her smile faltered when she held out her hand, and a spark of light fizzled out. She tried again and again, yet the outcome never changed.

  My vision returned to normal, and time resumed for what felt like everyone except me.

  Each time we defeat a Falor Ghula, its ether is going back to Avaline.

  What have we done?

  Finn’s expression became alarmed, having most likely read my mind. “We need to go.” His voice was serious and commanding, drawing everyone’s attention.

  “Why? What’s wrong?” Maverick asked, meeting the same level of concern.

  “We can talk later. We need to go. Now.”

  “But what about the Falor Ghula?!” the old man exclaimed. “Are you just going to abandon us?!”

  “Of course not—” Maverick was interrupted.

  “We’ll see,” Finn answered before storming off. We had to run to keep up with him.

  “Where are we going?!” Marge asked, flustered.

  “Away from the village. But don’t think that we’re safe even there,” Finn answered.

  We followed his hasty steps across the bridge leading back to the island we originally landed on. Even Aidan was out of breath from how fast we were walking.

  “Are you going to tell us what the hell is going on?” Maverick asked.

  “Ella used her Talent on the mural,” Finn explained.

  Everyone turned to me in shock. It would’ve been amusing to see their collective jaws drop if things weren’t so serious.

  “When did you learn to use that?” Maverick asked.

  “When we were asleep. Two Ethereals showed me how—” I was interrupted.

  “When we were asleep?!” Marge shouted. “When were you going to tell us that?!”

  “I-it didn’t seem like a good time, okay?!” I fumbled with my words. “We can talk about it later. Right now, we have to discuss the mural, or rather, what I saw. Each time we defeat a Falor Ghula, Avaline absorbs the ether, growing stronger and stronger. She lost the ability to lose light magic, likely from the chaos of receiving so much ether. That’s why she sent us to fight them! To make her stronger!”

  Everyone’s faces grew dark in horror.

  “We’ve been playing into her trap this whole time?!” Maverick shouted.

  “Another thing Ella forgot to mention,” Finn added, “Avaline isn’t an Ethereal.”

  “How do you know?” Zephyr asked.

  “Because the Ethereal Ella met had power over dreams. Much like Avaline.”

  “Then what is she?!” Aidan asked, his fists clenched at his sides. I could see the panic in his face—the wide eyes and narrowed eyebrows.

  “I don’t know—maybe a Royal? But that wouldn’t explain how she has the same power as an Ethereal.”

  “Could she have maybe gained this power from the accumulated ether?” Zephyr hypothesized.

  “We wouldn’t know anything about that.” Maverick bit his lip.

  “So, what do we do now?” Marge asked. “Do we just give up? I mean, if we defeat that Falor Ghula, it’s only going to make Avaline stronger!”

  “The Falor Ghula is too close to the village,” Zephyr said. “If we leave it, it will destroy the village in the next few weeks. We can’t just let everyone die.”

  “And it’s not like we can return home until after we defeat all four.” Maverick crossed his arms. “I hate to say it, but we take the last one out and pray Avaline doesn’t do anything nefarious with her newfound powers. We do our job and leave—”

  “T-this is Avaline we’re talking about!” Aidan shouted. “We can’t trust her! Not after… …We don’t know what she’s going to do with her magic, but I’m sure it won’t be good! We can save everyone now, but we have to go back and stop her—"

  “We don’t even know what she is, Aidan!” Maverick threw his hands up, exasperated. “She has the power of four beings that almost killed us—would have killed us had your light magic not awakened when it did! It would be like facing all four of them at once, plus base Avaline! We can’t handle that! None of us can! Not even together.”

  “We can’t just leave, Maverick!” Aidan’s voice grew desperate. “We screwed up! We need to fix it! Who knows what she’s capable of now—she could go after Meridia! We can’t just turn a blind eye!”

  “Aidan is right. I wouldn’t feel safe knowing that bitch is out there fully charged,” Marge added.

  “Even if it’s the right thing to do, that doesn’t mean that we suddenly have the means to do it,” Finn said, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. His foot tapped nervously.

  “We don’t have time to be arguing about this. We take out the Falor Ghula, and discuss this afterwards.”

  “Who’s to say that Avaline will even let us go home after all of this?” I asked. “I mean, she could be watching us right now. She could know that we know how powerful she is. She wouldn’t just… let us go, would she?”

  “I don’t know, Ella. I don’t know.” Maverick sighed through his nose as he glanced up at the sky.

  “Shouldn’t we come up with some sort of escape plan before we fight?” Marge asked.

  “Be my guest. It’s not like I can teleport us back to Meridia. You’re more than welcome to try riding a pegasus all the way back with nowhere to rest.”

  “To me, it sounds like we’re going to have to face Avaline no matter what…” I glanced down at my hands. My magic was finally starting to awaken more, but it would still be of little use to us if we fought Avaline. “Don’t sell yourself short, Ella. Your Talent could be the key to discovering her weakness, after all.” Thanks, I guess…

  “That might very well be the case, but I’d like to avoid it if at all possible.” Maverick crossed his arms. “To the Falor Ghula then?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded.

  We started walking back when something crossed my mind. “None of us are shocked that Avaline turned out to be evil, right?”

  “Nope.” It was a unanimous answer.