It took longer for Nico, Prince of Bhunarza, to fall asleep than his companion. He was slightly unsure of this strange girl. She was not like any others he had met before. Tara Hartridge had been nearly unaffected by the explaination of his title, focusing more on the fact that the realm he had grown up in did not exist rather than that he was the prince of it. Her only reaction to the revelation had been to look away in embarassment, then take a second look at him. At least she was readable. Nico had learned early in his life to read faces, and while a few people could disguise their emotions well, Tara was as legible as an open book.

The more he thought of it, the more Nico realized that Tara was both right and wrong about her assumption of Bhunarza not existing. It was said that the Abyss was another world entirely, a realm not attached to any land on Bhunarza’s maps. Why shouldn’t that be true? And why shouldn’t there be other realms accessible to the Abyss as well?

As it turned out, the idea was easier accepted by Tara than by himself, as he found out when he presented the idea to the brown-haired girl when the sky was lighter. According to her, people had been speculating on the existence of “parallel universes” for years – in her world. The Abyss was proof that such men, often viewed as slightly insane by their peers, were right.

Over the next few cycles of light and darkness that could be called days, Tara and Nico wandered. Aside from hunting the occasional chimaeric mammal that the Abyss had as its native wildlife, they had really nothing to do but talk, and as such learned much about each other. Nico learned that his companion had been orphaned at a young age and taken in by her cousins, though she had never been told why. He told Tara why it was impossible for him to earn the throne of Bhunarza: his older sister, Aurelia, was in line to become the next Queen. If she died while he was in the Abyss, his younger brother, Roark, would be King. At first, he wondered if she was going to be put out at that, but she seemed happier that he wasn’t going to be King.

He was liking her more and more.

A strange thing happened on the third day. Nico awoke to Tara shaking his shoulder. She had an excited grin on her face. “Come and see what I found by the fire!” she said excitedly.

Nico sat up, shook his head, and moved to the ashes of the fire they had set by the crystal they had holed up next to for the night. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to rain in the Abyss, or he would have been worried about precipitation.

Right next to the fire was an egg. It was no bird’s egg, however. In fact, it was about the size of a fist. It was dark crimson, and gleamed in the fire like an oversized garnet. Tara held it up triumphantly.

“This isn’t a bird’s egg. Cool, huh?” she asked Nico. Nico took a closer look.

“This looks like a dragon’s egg,” he said slowly. He rubbed his chin with his hand. “How did that get here?” Tara looked at it with eyes as big as saucers. Right. There aren’t any dragons where she comes from, Nico remembered.

“I’m going to keep it,” Tara announced. “It may be a dragon, but it doesn’t deserve to be abandoned. And besides, I’ve always wanted a pet of my own.”

Nico sighed. Well, he knew a little about dragonology and raising dragons. The basics, nothing more. “Dragons take a lot of attention, Tara,” he warned. “They are not like cats and dogs.”

“It can’t be that much different from raising a pet,” she shot back. “And besides, you don’t have any responsibility for it.” A good point, one that Nico couldn’t argue with. They made a sling out of Nico’s hat and bits of fabric cut from his tunic. The little red egg had its own heat, but most dragon eggs required some kind of incubation, so Nico assumed that some warmth would be required.

There was one other reason Nico was nervous, something he didn’t mention because he wasn’t sure how Tara would react: many times, people across history had reported finding dragons’ eggs mysteriously after waking up. Without exception, those people had become Lea.

Were the Teil watching them? Had they given this egg to test the responsibility that carefree Tara would feel towards this egg?

One more strange thing happened that very same day. Dark had snuck up on the two once again. The blue crystals sticking out of the forest floor became visible now, and that meant one thing was forefront in both Nico and Tara’s minds: the feeders. Not dangerous during the day, they would soon be out in full force.

Just before they reached the relative safety of a crystal, Nico and Tara found their way blocked by a pair of the beasts. Inky black and slightly ferretlike in shape, they bared their teeth. The lantern eyes, the only parts of them that let off any light, glinted. Nico heard a growl of frustration from Tara as he drew his sword, but he didn’t get to fight at all. In the blink of an eye, the feeders were flattened, turned to streaks of black oil on the ground.

“Hurry!” Nico shouted after a brief moment of surprise. Both raced to the shelter of the glowing crystal, Tara carefully clutching the egg in its makeshift sling. When their backs were against the crystal, they looked at each other in confusion.

“What just happened?” Tara wondered aloud.

“To the feeders? I don’t know,” Nico replied. Tara had an odd look on her face.

“I-” she hesited for a moment. “I think it was me, Nico,” Tara confessed. Nico was confused, and he knitted his eyebrows.

“When the feeders blocked our path, I was angry. I just wanted those things to die, you know?” she asked. “Right before those feeders died, I felt something go off in my head, like a switch flipped. And then, bam!” She slapped the ground with her hand for emphasis, looking at him. “I’m gonna see if I can do it again.” She turned back, looking outwards to the darkness that threatened them.

Sure enough, feeders appeared in time. A surprised cry of victory erupted from Tara’s lips as a couple of feeders were flattened. “Did you see that?! Did you see that?!” she gasped, grinning at Nico. “I can give these things a taste of what might happen if they come near enough to us. Hahaha!” she laughed aloud, obviously exhilerated at her sudden ability to kill off the pests.

It was obvious to Nico that whatever strange ability she possessed was magic. Innate magic was unheard of in a normal person, and while it might be amazing to someone like Tara, who had no prior exposure to magic, Nico had grown up in a world where magic was something gained after years of study. Innate magic was dangerous. He said so, but she just gave him a slightly disapproving look and given him a saying of her people in return: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.” The message was clear: Tara was too excited by her own powers to listen to reason.

Through nearly constant experimenting, Tara quickly discovered that the strange powers had something to do with a telekinetic aura she was capable of creating around herself. She could sense it instinctively, as if she possessed several additional arms. The energy had it’s ebbs and flows, lashing out if she pushed too hard.

To put it simply, Tara was sudddenly very dangerous.

It took about a week for the dragon egg to hatch. Tara kept a sharp eye on it. The garnet-like egg gained a crack that slowly grew over time. She grew excited as the cracks grew wider, but that in turn made her even more careful. She handled that red-orange egg as if it were glass, taking off the sling when she used her powers to avoid harming it somehow. She listened to some of Nico’s advice, namely that which said that her powers were dangerous as long as they did not know how she had gotten the innate magic.

On the seventh day, Tara was waiting at the place where she and Nico had made camp when she noticed that the egg was wiggling around. Carefully, Tara leaned over the egg, watching and hardly able to bear the wait, what with her anticipation. Suddenly, the egg fell apart. In the center of the shattered pieces of the shell, a little dragon sat. It wasn’t quite like how she imagined it. The dragon had no wings, for one thing, but Nico had told her that dragons lack wings as hatchlings, so she was not overly worried about that.

As the reptile slowly uncurled, she could not imagine how the people of Medieval times had ever been able to picture something so cute becoming so fearsome. It had four long legs and a tail that was about as long as its body. Lithe and slender as a willow, it was bright neon orange in color. The hatchling looked up at her and opened its eyes. Immediately, Tara loved it, like she would love a kitten.

“Well, aren’t you handsome?” she asked with a smile.

She proudly showed off the hatchling to Nico when he returned with some animal in tow that he had killed. Before it was a full day old, the thing ate about twice it’s weight. She thought that Nico liked it too, though the hatchling didn’t take a shine to Nico at first. Preferred to bite his fingers, probably thinking they were food.

The hatchling was so adventurous, Tara called it Spyro, after a fictional dragon character. When asked why she thought that the hatchling was a “he,” Tara replied that she wasn’t sure; it was for the same reason that people always call dogs “he,” even if that dog is a female.

And it soon became clear that Spyro was infatuated by his mistress. Should she get angry (which was rare), Spyro would come slinking back dragging his long tail, head down like a little puppy. Tara could never be angry for long, of course. Holding something against any creature, intelligent or otherwise, just wasn’t in Tara’s nature.

And really, who couldn’t love the fun-loving creature? Spyro never tired of posing as an object for his mistress to practice her telekinetic powers on. He loved to be lofted up into the air, making delighted squealing noises that were barely heard over the accompanying giggling from Tara herself. She enjoyed “training sessions” as much as her hatchling! When Spyro was about three days old, Tara and Nico’s lives took a turn for the strange yet again.

Tara was floating in a dark green void, suspended in nothingness. In front of her was a being, glowing so brightly she could make out no sure features, though Tara was certain it was female. Bright strands of light shot out like ropes, wrapping around her body. There was a sudden pain on the inside of Tara’s wrist, like she had touched a hot surface and burned herself by accident.

The being smiled, as if in satisfaction. Then, a vision flashed in front of her eyes. A dark silhouette with glowing orange eyes, standing in front of a portal much like the one she had entered the Abyss through. The portal and the silhouette were situated in the twilight of the Abyss, against a cliffside surrounded by what looked like ruins.

“Stop the Daemon who would upset Time. Do not fail me.” Tara knew instinctively that it was the creature in front of her who was the source of this vision, and the voice. Its voice was a deep, mellow alto that, despite its dulcet tones, held an unmistakable vein of iron.

Tara’s eyes flashed open. “Gah!!” She let out a small cry and bolted into a sitting position. Spyro jumped away, equally surprised, then moved forward, letting out a small worried whistle. “I’m alright, Spyro . . . I think,” Tara said, shaken by the sheer suddenness of the experience. Tara looked over at Nico. His dark eyes were wide and worried.

“I knew it, I knew it, I knew it,” he muttered under his breath.

“Knew what?” Tara asked. “What just happened?”

“Sometimes, the Teil will give dragon eggs to people as a test, to see if the person is responsible enough.” He looked grim as he rolled up his sleeve, revealing a tattoo of a stylized eye on the inside of his forearm. “I’m willing to bet that Spyro was a gift from them.”

Tara looked at the inside of her wrist. “My tattoo is different,” she remarked. Instead of a stylized eye, hers was a crescent moon with what looked like clock hands attached to it.

“We’ve been made Lea by different Teil, then,” Nico said softly.

“Wait a minute,” Tara interrupted. “Tell me about the Teil.”

“The Teil are godlike beings that keep the balance in the universe. They are four in number: Koronazé, Valladia, Thurondur, and Arba, gods of the sun, moon, stars, and light respectively. They can grant ordinary people magical abilities. Those people are called Lea. Every Lea recieves a task to complete before the tattoo that marks them changes color, in the form of a vision of the future. That task is called a Burden. If a Lea discovers his powers and completes his Burden, he will become an Aura Lea, a warrior of the elements,” Nico explained. Tara chose to ignore the wording, knowing that in Nico’s world, it was the men who stepped onto the battlefield. Not out of any belief of inherent weakness, as the men of her world had so long believed, but out of the belief that there were some things more suited to men than women, and vice versa.

“The vision I had!” Tara exclaimed. “So that explains what my Burden is. What happens if we don’t fulfill the visions?”

“We become a mindless monster, an Ur Lea.” The way Nico talked about it, not completing a Burden sounded like a fate worse than death to Tara. She shivered at the thought.

“Did you get a Burden?” she asked.

“I saw an image of you facing a daemon. A voice told me to protect you, because you are important to the Teil,” he recalled, looking ever so slightly embarrassed and more than a little defensive. “You?”

“I saw a dark man standing in front of a portal like the one I came through. A woman said that the man wanted to upset time, and that I have to stop it,” Tara said, the gears in her head turning as she mulled over her vision. “Not much of a lead, is it?”

“No,” he agreed. “Was this ‘dark man’ more of a black silhouette?”

“Yes,” Tara confirmed, a little taken aback. “How did you know?”

“That is the daemon I saw,” Nico replied. “So we are obviously supposed to stay together. But what are our powers? How long has it been since we were Marked?”

Tara instinctively knew the answer to his question. “Not long. Five minutes, ten seconds and counting.” She automatically covered her mouth with her hands, eyes wide.

Nico glanced at her with new respect shining in his eyes. “Time, one of the elements that helps define the world around us. Valladia doesn’t often Claim a Lea, much less grant that kind of elemental power.”

“Nice,” Tara grumbled, not sure if she really meant it. Teleketic limbs were hard enough to figure out, without being able to manipulate time as well! Tara wistfully wondered if she would ever be able to live a normal life.

Nico’s biggest suspicion about Spyro’s origins, that he was nothing more than a test of Tara’s ability to take responsibility for things, had come true. There was no longer any question of whether or not the Teil knew they were here; Nico and his companion were Lea, and the price of not carrying their Burden through was high.

Nico’s father, King Ignis of Bhunarza, had told him once of a time when the King himself saw an Ur Lea. The once-Elven creature had been Claimed by Koronazé, why no one knew. The Elf had been unable to complete her Burden, and when her Mark had turned completely yellow, a black oily substance had spread out of the Mark, covering first her arm and then her entire body. Once that had happened, it was only a short time before the Elfmaid had transformed into a grotesque Ur Lea. With elongated limbs, a short, stocky body completely covered in gray scales and the mind of an animal, the monster had to be put down before it could cause any damage. It had still caused enough damage to the Well of Souls in Chrysalia, land of the Fae, that the dead walked the nighttime hours for months on end, and set in motion the events that would comprise the Fall of Chrysalia.

The fate to become Ur Lea was worse than death, a fate Nico wanted to avoid if at all possible. He wondered how powerful this daemon was and what was so special about Tara, that she seemed to be the only one powerful enough to defeat the daemon. Her strange brand of mental power, perhaps? Maybe, the daemon had something to do with her innate magical abilities. There were tales of daemons going among humans in disguise and leaving unwanted children in their wake.

In a world like Tara’s where magic was something only found in fairy tales, it would be fairly easy for a daemon to pass as human.

Nico soon learned what his own powers as a Lea of Thurondur were: “pyrokinetics,” as Tara called them. He discovered them after a feeder got too close – fire leaped from his hands and seared the feeder, but left his own skin untouched. He also found that he could shape this fire, turning it into a flaming sword as solid as his own but twice as damaging in its path, or a ball which he threw from his hands.

Tara’s abilities were more passive than his own. She soon found that besides being able to sense the passage of time, she could shift into another timestream where time flowed slower. It gave the illusion that she could move far faster than an ordinary person, even if it wasn’t useful. She could even see time as a kind of light, invisible to Nico’s eyes. Something she noticed about the Abyss was that the shores of time did not seem to touch it. This only confirmed tales of the timeless nature of the Abyss.

How long has it been since I last heard your horrible jokes, Roark? Aurelia, has our father died? Are you Queen of Bhunarza now?

Every moment that Nico was away from his home was another tiny prick in his heart. He suspected Tara knew his homesickness, though it did not seem to affect her happy-go-lucky attitude. Her positivity was what kept him focused on their goal – that, and the Sword of Damocles that was his Mark. Over time, some of the curves in the eye-shaped tattoo had faded from black to red, two on top and one on bottom. All three of the curvy lines of Tara’s tattoo had turned blue.

Even in the time-untouched twilit forests of the Abyss, it was clear to Nico that he and his companion were running out of exactly that: time.

If they came out of this Aura Lea, Nico would never pressure another person to do something in a hurry ever again! He could see quite well why the visions of the future and the magical powers that came with them were called Burdens!

They decided to keep an eye out for the shadowy ruins in Tara’s vision. It would be fairly easy to protect Tara – or so he thought. It seemed that almost as soon as they became Lea, the girl became a monster magnet. Feeders gathered in larger numbers every night. The Abyss was becoming more active against the wanderers, the light of the glowing crystals less safe, the monsters bigger and more dangerous, as if the very presence of people on a holy mission made the area around them unsafe. Nico slipped very well into the role of protector, though Tara was in no way a damsel-in-distress.

But finally, they found it: the place in Tara’s vision. Crumbling walls of stone, looking like they had been blasted away by some explosion. Dark and forbidding, they rose out of the ground as if they had grown there, with the cliffside forming one of the walls of the tower. A doorway beckoned to them, inviting the knight and girl into the gloom.

“Should we go in?” Nico wondered, staring up at the tower.

“This is the place in my vision. This is my Burden, Nico. I have to,” Tara replied. She cast a mischievious glance at him. “Or are you scared?” she teased, and walked right in.

There was a stairway spiraling upwards. The room inside the crumbling tower was almost completely dark, due to the absence of light already present in the Abyss. Tara and Nico could barely see in the darkness, but made their way through the tower and up the steps almost completely by feel alone.

The top of the tower was flat and featureless, save for a raised platform in the center, which had a small little circle of pillars holding up a domed ceiling. Part of the dome had fallen apart, leaving rubble on the ground. A portal leading from the Abyss to another world hovered beneath it. Tara gasped with excitement and pointed wordlessly to it. Nico nodded. Both knew what this meant: a way out.

“Do you know what this was built for?” a deep voice asked them. It seemed to come from everywhere, yet came from nowhere, as they could not see the source.

“This tower was built when the universe was still young. It was intended to be a testing ground for potential Aura Lea, a place they could enter freely and train others. This tower was the place where this world could connect to thousands of other realms,” the Voice continued. “But the daemons invaded it. Turned it into the world of twilight that it is today. The majority of the energies used to create the portal was taken away when the Aura Lea fled to their worlds. Only one more use can be made of it before the portal will disappear forever.”

As the Voice continued his narration, it grew less echoey and more real to Tara’s ears, and a black mist suddenly rose over the turrets of the tower and coalesced into the dark shape of a tall man with glowing orange eyes. The daemon from both Tara and Nico’s visions. The creature that Tara had to destroy in order to keep from becoming an Ur Lea.

“I know this, because I was the leader of the army that attacked this place. I was one of those who helped turn it into the Abyss,” it announced proudly. “And the Abyss won’t be the last world I subvert to the cause of the Dark Lord.”

Suddenly, dozens of feeders converged on the area, the familiar fox-and-weasel crosses that Nico had seen so often every time darkness fell, and a lithe, winged variant that looked a little reptilian.

Nico narrowed his eyes and stepped forward in front of Tara, assuming a fighting stance and forming a pair of fire swords in his hands. Flame trailed through the air in glowing fans as he slashed them through the air, a warning to feeders to cared to move closer.

“Tara, you can protect yourself against the feeders, can you?” he asked.

“Of course I can,” Tara replied with some annoyance detectable in her voice, promptly turning a couple feeders that dared to look her in the eye to smears of black oil. “You just focus on the daemon, and I’ll watch your back. Stay back, Spyro,” she said to the dragon hatchling. “This isn’t a place for you.” Glumly, the orange dragon turned back.

“No,” Nico said softly. “I’ll be fine. You destroy the portal. You’re too important to risk in this fight.”

“Aah, but you don’t understand, little Lea,” the daemon spoke. “That portal can’t be closed by a mere mortal like you. And you are not going to fight here. Not today.” Suddenly, the daemon vanished. Nico realized he had been talking to an illusion a split second before points of ice touched the back of his neck. The daemon had been behind him all along!

He felt as if he had been tossed into the icy waters of the North Sea in the middle of winter. Cold, hollow, and numb, unable to move. The firey sword constructs in his hands dissipated. The daemon laughed, a deep, evil chuckle that, had he not been so cold already, would have sent chills down his spine. Nico’s vision began to darken at the edges.

“My prince, you are blind to the very nature of your charge,” said the daemon softly. “Did the goddess not say to ‘protect the Daemonchild’? You only paid attention to the words ‘protect her,’ and I must admit, you have done quite well. You weren’t protecting her for the gods, you were protecting her for me as well.” Nico’s eyes would have widened, if he had been able to move a muscle, not so much in surprise as in denial. It chuckled again.

“Thank you for helping me to continue my plans, Lea,” it continued. The daemon got no farther, however, because a hot flush of anger drove away the cold paralysis pinning Nico’s body in place. He suddenly spun around and hurled a burst of flame at the daemon. Nico was so close, he couldn’t miss. But the daemon was quick, and Nico had to still fight the residual sluggishness in his muscles, so the flames only grazed the dark figure. Suddenly, it was as if a giant hand had swiped Nico off of his feet, tossing him into the hard stone of the cliffside. Dazed, Nico half-opened his eyes in anticipation of an impending death.

But the daemon wasn’t moving towards him. In fact, it was backing up, shielding its eyes from the bright light extending towards him. The feeders were backing away too.

Nico was lifted up and righted as if by a pair of invisible hands, surrounded by a bright rainbow glow. Just before white engulfed him completely, Nico caught a glimpse of Tara’s confident smile.

“You did it, Nico! You did . . .” The last thing he heard was his companion’s jubilant shout before he descended into darkness.

While Nico had been engaged with the daemon, Tara had been demolishing any feeder that dared look her way. Using the strange, inexplicable power she possessed, she had destroyed enough of the creatures that they were getting wary of her. Carefully, Tara began edging towards the portal. If she could get close enough, she could try to shut it down by attacking it. A grunt drew her attention to Nico and the daemon, just in time for her to see Nico tossed like a ragdoll into the cliffside. She felt a surge of anger and horror at the sight. How dare that daemon! How dare it! While she knew Nico would protect her – with his life if necessary – she did not want him to let that life go just yet.

Then, rainbows flooded the area. Whirling, Tara saw that the light was coming from Nico! It grew brighter and brighter, until it was lighting up the derelict temple as if it were high noon. “You did it, Nico! You did it!” Tara shouted joyfully as her friend briefly looked as if he were made from the light of the rainbow alone. The light faded, so her eyes had to readjust to the light level. When they did, Tara saw for the first time what happened when a Lea completed a Burden.

Glistening dimly in the semi-darkness was a crystal statue. The statue was in the shape of a person, a youth, and on closer inspection the boy was revealed to have Nico’s features. Crystal imprisoned his limbs, but his eyes were closed, as if in sleep.

“Thank you so much, Nico,” Tara whispered to the peaceful face. “How will I ever be able to repay you for helping me?”

“You can take him home,” the daemon’s voice echoed close behind me. “That portal leads straight to his world.”

“And why would you be so helpful?” Tara asked suspiciously, spinning around and placing her hands on her hips.

“I am a creature of magic, smoke, and shadow in the Abyss,” the daemon replied calmly. “I have to go through along with a creature of flesh and blood.”

“And why would I help you?” Tara demanded, not giving an inch.

“Because you are more special than you know,” it informed the girl. “Have you ever stopped to wonder where your powers over Chaos come from? Did Nico ever tell you what his Burden was? ‘Protect her. Protect the Daemonchild.’ That was his task to complete.” The Chaos daemon took a few steps closer. “You are not quite human, Tara Hartridge. You are the child of a daemon.”

Tara shook her head in denial. The daemon laughed out loud this time and took a few more steps towards her. “That is where your power comes from. Why you have innate magic. Because you already have a foot in this world. My world. If you would just take my hand, I could unlock your powers.” It was close enough for her to see a white circle against the orange, where its pupil and iris would have been in both eyes.

Tara looked at the hand it held outstretched. Could she do it? Accept the power of the daemon, and unlock her own natural powers in the process? The moment of indecision was all the daemon needed. Like lightning, it grabbed her wrist in a vicelike grip.

It was as if Tara had been filled with white-hot fire. She straightened abruptly, flinging her head back. She tried to scream, but only a choked sound came out of her open mouth. Tara’s brown eyes, black in the eternal twilight, rolled up into her head, forming eerie crescents. A pool of lava would feel like a cool spring compared to the fire burning through her at that moment. If there had been one nearby, Tara doubted she could have kept herself from jumping in.

Just as quickly as it came, the agony disappeared, leaving Tara on her hands and knees, gasping for breath. Her arms shook underneath her shoulders as she knelt at the daemon’s feet.

“Do you feel it? Do you feel the power of the Abyss, child of mine?” Tara did! She felt strong. It felt as if lightning coursed through Tara’s veins. She could run one thousand miles without stopping, lift a car, or punch through the stone underneath her hands and knees.

Wait a second. “What did . . . you call me?” Tara panted, standing up on shaky legs.

“Oops, my bad,” the daemon said, almost carelessly. “You must have wondered who your real father was, didn’t you? Oh, yes,” it assured her, “you heard right. Tara, I am your father. That man I used to get to your mother? He was only a vessel. He had his uses. He was no more important than any other person I have seen. Of course, he didn’t remember anything afterwards. I wonder what he would have done if he knew he nearly killed his brother when he dropped that match?”

So that was why her aunt hated her so much, and encouraged her cousins to spite her! Uncle Robert had seen Tara’s father possessed and the daemon made him believe that his own brother was trying to kill him! Tara felt a renewed sense of fury as she faced down the daemon that had ruined her life. She would not allow it to use another person again. She moved to the statue. She pictured the crystal lifting upwards, off of the ground and into the air. The invisible appendages centered on her body did just that. She could sense the entire statue as it slowly rose up. Tara smiled as a plan that might just work slid into her head.

She heard the daemon chuckle with renewed malicious intent. “You are already finding your power. Go on. Toss that statue. See how far you can throw it.”

So you think you’re my teacher now, huh? Tara thought to herself. Yeah, right. She turned and walked to the portal. Just an arm’s length away from the reflective black surface of the circle, she faced the daemon once more.

“You need me to get through this portal. I believe you. And that is why I think this will work,” Tara said primly. Taking a deep breath in, she let it out slowly, focusing on the sensation she had felt when she first lifted the statue. It rose up and began floating towards her. Her reflection in the portal rippled as it opened wide to let Nico’s statue through.

Just as she moved to go through, the daemon stopped her. “Not without me, ungrateful wretch!” it snarled. Tara sent a surge of magic towards him, imagining the daemon turned to smoke like many feeders. The monster that had the nerve to claim it owned her through blood was thrown backwards, all the way into the trees.

“Whoa,” Tara said, feeling slightly breathless. She had never felt this powerful before! A noise and sharp claws kneading her leg brought her back. Looking down, Tara saw her faithful little dragon hatchling right next to her foot.

“Let’s go, Spyro,” she said with a smile. Scooping up the orange hatchling, she jumped through the portal.

It was just like she remembered, the feeling of jumping into ice water. When the feeling left, Tara opened her eyes. A bright rainbow light was bathing the stones around her. She had just enough time to hug her dragon to her chest before she, too, sank into a deep darkness, deeper than anything she had ever experienced.

Briefly, she sensed another presence with her. Well done, my Aura Lea, the dulcet tones of Valladia whispered. But the quiet life you hope for is not to be. Do not worry, you are not alone, though the path you walk is a lonely one.

Suddenly, Tara was alone. Alone, with all of her thoughts.

Lighthouse Shrine of Ryloth, Bhunarza
Inside the Lighthouse of Ryloth, several more guards stood than usual. They had been added after the discovery of the statues, to guard the statues just in case anyone tried to do something to the sleeping Aura Lea. They slammed the butts of their spearpoints on the ground once to honor the distinguished visitor who would see the statues.

He was tall, almost six feet in height. A Sarkellian, he was light-skinned and dark-haired. He wore the robes of a master mage, and held himself with the regality of a king. In reality, he was a prince, second in line to rule the land they walked on. He walked next to a wizened old Knight of the Sacred Flame. This knight wore a gold medallion with two swords on one side and the words “Swordmaster of Bhunarza” on the other.

“They just appeared here, Swordmaster Yun?” the mage asked skeptically.

“Yes, Magus Swiftbreeze,” the Swordmaster replied. “Two Lea which we did not know about.” The old man sounded troubled at the thought of not knowing such a thing. An unknown Lea was often an Ur Lea, and Ur Lea meant destruction that few had the ability to combat.

The Air mage considered this as he moved through the hall and was led into the small room where the statues were kept. He paused for a moment to give his respect to the two statues. One was a youth of perhaps eighteen or twenty years of age, not much younger than he himself. The other was a girl of fewer years, in the full flowering of maidenhood. Her arms were outstretched. A dragon hatchling was caught in the crystal. From the way the Lea held it, the hatchling was hers.

The boy’s statue held his attention, however. That face . . . it looked so familiar. Too familiar. Another face, lost in the depths of time, came back to him, swimming upwards through the dark-haired man’s memory.

“Nico . . .” he said softly, saying the name as though a prayer. “This is my brother, Nico miya Bhunarza. I am sure of it. But he hasn’t changed at all . . . How?” the mage wondered aloud. It was a mystery he could ponder when his brother returned.

“A-Are you sure? It has been nearly ten years since you last saw him.” Swordmaster Yun hua Goldenstone moved forward, staring eagerly into the face of the young man he had lost so long ago, a face he always remembered as displaying so much maturity for such a young age. Magus Swiftbreeze didn’t answer, too far lost in thought himself. The mage laughed suddenly, talking to the statue as if it’s captive could hear him.

“You never liked telling secrets right away, did you, brother? I can play a game such as that again,” he said jovially. Roark miya Bhunarza, now known as Roark Swiftbreeze, had waited for nearly a decade to see his brother’s face again. He could wait however much longer it took for Nico to be released from his crystalline form.

It had been a long time. Too long. But not much longer.