Brilliant white light seared into Noah’s eyes with enough intensity to bring tears welling up. The world spun around him, sending streaks blurring through his watery vision. His stomach flopped up into his throat and then down into his feet.

There was nothing with which to find purchase. Around him was only air and darkness and piercing, sterile light. He was a mote of dust in a sea of angry stars.

Confusion assailed his senses. It muddled with the pain filling every single part of his being and hammered against his remaining thoughts in a siege.

He’d been running. The Barrier had fallen, and the Night’s Shadow had been freed. Rank 7 mages from outside the empire had showed up to fight back against it. Then his thoughts grew muddier and distant. Each one came harder than the last.

Noah didn’t have much else to do here. All he could do was watch the world flash by him in blades of bright white and swathes of shadow. There had been a woman. He remembered that. She’d pointed at the Night’s Shadow. Commanded it to kneel.

And it had.

She’d torn the monster right out of the sky and sent it crashing down to the earth below. There had been an enormous shockwave, and everyone—

Noah’s eyes snapped wide open.

The ground slammed into his chest. It knocked the air from his, lungs, but he barely even noticed. He’d been caught in the wall of dust and pressure along with Moxie and all the others. That was his last memory.

He shoved himself to his feet.

Are they okay? Where am I? What happened to—

Noah locked in place as his thoughts finally filtered into line. The shadows around him were almost familiar, but the bright light spilling across everything had made it difficult to recognize.

This was his soul.

And it was riddled with cracks so massive that they no longer even looked like cracks. The darkness had become islands within a sea of endless white light. That certainly explained the immense pain and confusion… but it didn’t explain why he was here in the first place.

I shouldn’t have access to my soul right now. I should be in a new body. What happened? I need to get out of here.

Something prickled against the back of his neck. Something almost familiar.

Noah spun.

Standing behind him was a woman.

She wore delicate, flowing robes of milky white. Her sleeves hung so low that they nearly brushed the ground, and a semi-translucent veil fell over her face as if she’d gotten waylaid on the way to her own marriage.

Robes of translucent pink silk twisted around her body like a river of flowing cloth. They never quite touched her body, instead suspended in the air just above her skin in an endless dance.

Rising up behind the woman was a ring of shimmering pink gemstones. Each individual one burned with poorly contained power, and fractals of pearly energy swirled through the area within the circle with such intensity that it felt like her mere existence was giving birth to new runes.

Noah’s eyes went wide.

Is that—

Even without his domain, Noah realized that the woman before him wasn’t Renewal. But he didn’t need his domain to recognize this power. Even though she wasn’t Renewal herself, there was no doubt as to who this woman’s power came from.

And Noah recognized more than that.

This was the woman that had forced the Night’s Shadow to the ground with a single command.

And now, for some reason, she was in his mind.

It wasn’t hard to put two and two together.

“Let me out,” Noah said. “I need to get out.”

The woman observed him silently. It was impossible to make her thoughts out from behind the veil covering her face.

“Don’t you have a giant monster to be fighting right now?” Noah asked, clenching his teeth as a wave of pain slammed into him and nearly tore the words from his lips. “I — I need to check on them. That wave. It — agh, shit! Let me out.”

“They are alive,” the woman said. Her voice rang through Noah’s skull like the chime of a church bell — which was particularly annoying when his skull felt like someone was putting it under siege. He winced again.

No thanks to you. Why are you swinging the damn Night’s Shadow around like a toy when there are people around? At least tell everyone to leave first!

“I’ll be verifying that myself,” Noah said through clenched teeth. He could barely even speak through the pain. “Not that I’m opposed to a good talk, but is now really the time? You have better things to be doing.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Be at peace. This is nothing more than a small sliver of my will. My attention is upon the Night’s Shadow. I will not allow it to best me,” the woman replied. “Nor will I allow for you to leave this place at this time. Why is your soul leaking energy reminiscent of my Mistress?”

Oh, shit.

Noah couldn’t help his eyes from flicking up to his Master Runes. But, to his surprise, there was nothing there. Nothing but burning white surrounding tiny patches of darkness. His runes were all missing.

They weren’t gone. Even through the fog and the pain, he could feel them. But they weren’t here.

Is this a different layer of my soul? Then this woman… she can feel the power from the Fragment of Renewal because of all the damage I took, but she doesn’t actually know what I have.

“She told me to come here,” the woman said. “Are you the reason why? What interest do you hold to her? What interest do those who travel with you hold?”

Noah’s eyes went thin.

“My students have nothing to do with you or this. And I’m not answering any questions until all of them are safe. Let me out of here. If you’re still fighting the Night’s Shadow, then being anywhere nearby is basically asking for death.”

“You would give me a command?” the woman asked. “You have witnessed my power.”

“And yet you’re standing in my mind asking me questions,” Noah said. “That means you want me alive. Let me out. I’d imagine someone of your strength would be able to easily track me down again later. I’ve got too much shit left to do today to deal with this.”

The woman tilted her head to the side.

“Your soul is tattered. Torn to shreds. Your memories leak out like dripping water, Noah Vines.”

“Then you should know this is a bad time,” Noah said. His fingernails dug into the beds of his palms as he fought to keep his mind from drifting away. “I have people to get to safety. I’m not sitting around and chatting while they’re in danger.”

“And what do you think you will accomplish with your soul in this state?” the woman asked. “You should be dead. Soon, you will be. I don’t know what manner of being you are, but no soul can survive damage like this. The Night’s Shadow has warped you.”

I think you’d be surprised as to just how much damage my soul can survive. This is bad… but the Fragment of Renewal will get me patched up over a few days. Maybe a week or two.

“I’ll accomplish what I can,” Noah replied. “At the bare minimum, I won’t be dead weight.”

The woman was silent for a moment. “You are the reason the barrier fell. You and those children.”

“What? Now that’s just not true. I—”

“Your memories are everywhere but your own mind,” the woman said. “To save you, Garina decided to bring down the barrier. She believes your life is worth more than those of the Rank 7s who will die today in the fight against the Night’s Shadow.”

Noah’s lips thinned. “That was Father’s fault.”

“Yes. The one who escaped Garina,” the woman said, distaste in her voice. “I see it. Your memories are quite pungent. I do not like you, Noah Vines. You are distasteful. You… you stole. From the Mistress herself.”

Goddamn it. Could my memories maybe stop doing that? Don’t need to be sharing my life story with random scary women. Especially this one.

“If you don’t like me, then I’ve got a great idea. Let me out of here. Would hate to make your day worse with my presence.”

The woman reached up to the veil covering her face. She lifted it gently, moving it back over her head.

A wave of uneasiness passed through Noah as he caught his first glimpse of her features. The woman’s face was like that of a porcelain doll. It was perfectly smooth and had a glossy, ceramic luster to it that would have been beautiful if it wasn’t so unsettling. She was striking in all the ways a human could have ever hoped to be and a few that they never could have.

But, in comparison to Renewal, the woman was nothing more than a pale shadow.

“You find me distasteful,” the woman said, her lips curling into the faintest hint of a grin.

“No. I find you holding me hostage in my own mind while my students are in danger distasteful. I don’t give a shit about you,” Noah said. He paused for a moment. “No offense.”

“The damage to your soul makes your words leave before your mind can process them,” the woman said. Her grin turned into a fully fledged smile, but there was nothing comforting within it. “You are a smudge upon my Mistress’ power. Something about you disgusts me, Noah Vines. But today… I will help you.”

Noah blinked. “What?”

The woman shifted. She appeared before him, so fast that Noah didn’t even realize she’d moved until she was only a foot away from him, her finger pressed into his forehead.

A trilling note sang through Noah’s soul.

And then the white light was gone.

Just like that, the pain stopped. It evaporated like a puddle of water in the scorching desert sun. There was no brilliant display of power. All the damage simply… vanished, and all that remained was the proper darkness of his soul. He was whole once more.

“It is not permanent,” the woman said.

“Huh?” Noah asked intelligently.

“You have my Mistress’ rune,” the woman said. “As such, I will not repair you. The idea of aiding a thief to such a degree fills me with disgust. But I will hold you together for a little longer. You will complete your mission. It will take me time to defeat the Night’s Shadow if I wish to avoid too many casualties. You will finish by then, and then I will allow your soul to revert to what it was.”

“My mission?” Noah’s eyes narrowed. “Something tells me you’re not talking about my students. I’m not your lapdog.”

“Nor would I allow you into my lap,” the woman said distastefully. “Your children will be fine. But you, Noah Vines, will finish what you started. Garina will help you. Kill the worm of a man who started this.”

“You want me to kill Father? I’d have done that for free.”

“Then I expect you will not allow him to escape a second time.” The woman studied him for a moment before speaking again. “I like peaches.”

Noah stared at her, wondering if he’d misheard something.

“What?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all.” She lowered her veil back over her face and turned her back on him. “Should you defeat Father, I suspect you will find me again. Just do not make that meeting too soon. You have an hour, cockroach. Kill your prey before then.”

Then she was gone, and Noah’s soul was falling.

His eyes snapped open in his real body, only to find Garina standing over him. She wasn’t alone. Standing beside her, a cocky grin on his lips, was Jalen.

“Good to see you’re awake,” Jalen said. “We’ve got a body to catch.”

“None of your students are injured,” Garina said, ignoring Jalen entirely as she predicted Noah’s question before he could ask it. She grabbed him by the shoulders, lifting him into the air and plopping him down on his feet. “Are you in fighting shape?”

“Yes,” Noah said, shaking his surprise at seeing Jalen off as reality re-asserted itself. “I’m—”

“Doesn’t matter. Father is trying to cut me off from his trail,” Garina said. “If we are to catch him, we must go. Now. Are you prepared?”

Noah’s questions died on his lips. He didn’t know where his students were, but Garina had said they were safe. She wouldn’t lie — and nobody was safe as long as Father remained alive. He wasn’t the type to leave witnesses. Noah nodded, his hands clenching into fists.

“Yeah. Let’s go finish the job and kill the bastard.”