The barrier around the tear didn't stand a chance.

  The palace — no, the entire old capital — was just gone. One punch. Like watching a sugar cube hit boiling water.

  "Oops," I muttered, brushing imaginary dust off my knuckles.

  Then Almodey teleported directly to my side with the energy of someone who had been waiting a thousand years for something to be outraged about.

  "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" His skeletal form was vibrating. Actually vibrating. "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"

  "You didn't give me enough hints about the seal's location," I said. "So I destroyed everything."

  Almodey looked like he was going to die again. "You thought — vaporizing the entire capital was the — SOLUTION?!"

  "It worked, didn't it?"

  He opened his jaw. Closed it. Opened it again.

  Before he could find the words, something strange happened.

  The rubble started moving.

  Not collapsing further — moving back. Stones lifting, walls reassembling, the palace reforming piece by piece like someone had grabbed time by the collar and reversed it. The old capital was rebuilding itself in real time, returning to something that looked, impossibly, like it had before any of this happened.

  I raised an eyebrow.

  Almodey looked just as confused as me, which was somehow less reassuring than if he'd been smug about it.

  Then — four massive pillars of light erupted from the corners of the capital simultaneously, shooting straight up into the sky. They merged overhead in a single brilliant point. The ground shook. The palace doors swung open on their own.

  [System: Four figures detected approaching. Prepare for engagement.]

  I glanced at Almodey. He was doing a very bad job of pretending to understand what was happening.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Three figures descended from the light, moving toward us with the unhurried pace of people who had been waiting a long time and finally had somewhere to be. The fourth pillar's light folded quietly back into the ground — whatever it represented wasn't manifesting the same way.

  The first figure, hooded, spoke before landing.

  "Still up to your old tricks, Almodey?"

  Almodey's hollow eyes went wide. "Angelus…"

  Sage Angelus. Healing and protective magic, extraordinary talent in both. The kind of sage who'd accumulated wisdom through discipline, morality, and patience — all the virtues I found deeply irritating in large quantities.

  The second figure pulled back her hood and immediately knocked Almodey on the skull. Hard enough that I heard it.

  "How many times," Sage Amarok said, "do we have to bail you out before you get it through that thick head?" She had the grin of someone who'd been wanting to do that for centuries. Eyes a little too bright, energy a little too unhinged — she was the controversial one, the researcher into body transformation with an unhealthy fixation on the animal world.

  The third figure didn't wait for Almodey to recover.

  "You can't keep fixing things by breaking more things!" Sage Mechanus looked every bit the tinkerer — magical aptitude wired directly into mechanical genius — and he was scolding Almodey the way you scold someone who's borrowed your tools and returned them in pieces. "Stop shouldering everything alone, you old fool."

  Almodey tried to get a word in. Got talked over by all three simultaneously.

  I watched this unfold with my arms crossed.

  [System: The Seal on the Tear has been lifted.]

  The ground lurched.

  Miasma poured out of the space where the Seal had been — heavy, dark, the concentrated kind that had been building pressure for a thousand years and was now very enthusiastically catching up. Dark spawns began manifesting from every shadow, every crack in the reformed cobblestones. The creatures from before, but more of them, and angrier.

  "Great," I said. "More of these."

  "The miasma has regained its strength." Angelus raised his staff, the glow of protective magic already forming around it. "It's as if it senses that we're free from its hold."

  "You think?" I deadpanned.

  "It's already seeping toward the capital walls," Amarok said, scanning the horizon. The miasma was moving fast — not the slow leak of before, but an active push outward. "If it gets past the walls it'll taint the entire continent."

  "Then do something," I said, gesturing broadly at the situation.

  Mechanus cracked his knuckles. "You heard her."

  All four sages moved together — staffs raised, magic channeling, the combined weight of whatever power they'd been holding onto for a millennium finally having somewhere to go. Even Almodey, freshly scolded and still visibly rattled, fell into formation without argument.

  I stood to the side.

  Arms crossed. Watching.

  Look — they had it handled. Probably. And if they didn't, I was right here. But there was something almost satisfying about watching four legendary Sages who'd been soul-bound to a ruined capital for a thousand years finally get to do what they were supposed to do.

  "Yeah," I said, to no one in particular. "You've got this. I'll just be over here thinking about my life choices."

  The miasma pushed back.

  They pushed harder.

  I kept watching.