From his soulspace, he removed Genesis, his newly crafted Soulsmithing hammer. It was two-headed and small enough to fit in one hand, with one head tinged red and the other blue. Made to bind his powers together and focus them on creation, Genesis was intended to advance his Soulsmithing to the next level.

[He struggles within himself,] Dross whispered. [A man at war. An internal battlefield. This pleases me.]

He waved a hand behind him. “I’ll be right back!” Even Ozriel couldn’t invade a stronghold like this. “I can’t bring you out of there!” For a moment, she considered ordering him to stop. Because of the manacles, he would have to obey her. But she didn’t. “I have faith in you,” Ozriel said. He overtook some of the original transports and emerged int

She appeared in the middle of a war on the deck of Redmoon Hall, a Netherworld of flashing blood madra. Shadows roared in the shape of monsters, slamming into one another as half-liquid nightmare creatures. Crimson aura blazed everywhere. Above it all, the

[Our enemies have centuries if not millennia of experience we don’t, and they have spent that time building up resources. Any of them could crush us, either personally or with a command to their organizations. This is the fragility of advancing so quickly.] “I understand, so if you could speed this up…” [We hang under the cloud of doom, and yet we

As one, thousands of different mechanisms triggered stealth. They created decoys of divergent futures, manipulated probability to make themselves less prone to chance discovery, wiped themselves from minds and awareness, dispersed energy signatures…they employed every method to hide and disguise themselves.

[You’d be surprised how little of their time humans really use,] Dross responded. [You waste so much of it eating. Bathing. Sleeping. Lindon’s dreams are much more productive with me lurking in the depths of his mind.]

Lindon ignored the one Everwood assignment and scanned through. He was familiar with the targets, but he had intentionally stopped himself from thinking about them until this moment so his will didn’t touch Fate.

Mercy’s mother was sheathed in a violet dress and wore silver chains in her hair and around her neck, all set with amethysts. Her hair drifted like part of the shadows, and she tapped black lips with fingernails of purple crystal as she walked.