There are no more words. Instead, I see Windy close her eyes and concentrate, lifting the fellapodil’s Core into the sky. The cerulean crystal begins to glow. As the seconds tick by, its brightness only intensifies.

  The other lead Pathwalkers move forwards one by one to lay their own hands on the glowing orb, its luminosity increasing until it becomes impossible to look at directly.

  The brightness starts to pulse, each pulse extending a finger of bright sky-blue glow into the sky. Squinting at the developing pillar, I notice that wispy shapes from around are starting to drift towards it, pulled into the lengthening finger and helping it grow further. As the pillar grows longer, its attractive pull seems to increase as the nebulous shapes join it in greater numbers, faster every moment that passes.

  The finger reaches higher and higher, seeming to aim for the clouds themselves. The brightness from the Core is ever more intense; for a moment, the area around us is once more lit as if it were still day.

  I hear quiet clicks and grunts murmur around me, samurans exclaiming at how high the pillar is reaching this year – apparently it is unusual. I look at the Pathwalkers – all but Windy are starting to show significant strain. Water-caller’s teeth are clenched tightly, her eyes squeezed shut. Air-shaper is beginning to look a little grey. Earth-mover, the leader of the red tribe, and Tree-whisperer, the leader of the green tribe are not much better off.

  The growth of the pillar slows and then stops. This close to the leaders, I can hear their quiet grunts of exertion. By this point, even Windy is starting to look a little drawn and I can sense the immense concentration she’s applying to this task. Her arms start to shake.

  The pulsing of the pillar abruptly reverses. Instead of pushing higher, it now descends. Quicker and quicker, the sky-high finger compresses into the Core, the brightness of the blue crystal only increasing impossibly further.

  Windy’s arms begin to fail; the other Pathwalkers are forced to help hold the Core up with her or risk her dropping it. But the pillar is almost entirely absorbed back into the Core, leaving an odd sort of reverse image. Where it was appears now to be a pillar of intense darkness, like every mote of light in the air has been stripped away. I frown as I see that it’s remarkably similar to what part of my Core space once looked like, after my mishap with Pure Energy.

  As the last of the impossibly-bright light sinks into the Core, the five Pathwalkers move as one, thrusting the Core into the water.

  A tidal wave of light explodes from the Core and flows through the pool around them. The wave continues, lighting up every foot submerged in this pool and then continuing down with the flow of the water to the next pool and then the next. I immediately know why Flying-blade’s village was so disappointed to be relegated to the bottom pool – this wave of light isn’t infinite and every samuran it touches absorbs a little of its power.

  The light creeps up my legs, its touch light and warm. I eye it with a hint of wariness – I don’t even know what this is. Then I look around at those who have been through this before. Joy, Tarra, Sticks, Flower, and Windy all look to be in a state of rapture, their heads tilted towards the sky, nothing but pleasure and excitement flowing down the links from them.

  I shrug as the light reaches my belly. Well, too late to be worried now. Instead, I turn my head to look at the sky too, the light creeping up in a warm wave to cover my chest, then my neck, and then finally my head.

  When my eyes are filled with nothing but brightness, I’m swept away into a dream.

  I’m back in my house, the house that I lived in when I was a child. We moved out when I was twelve – I never knew why. I look around at the kitchen, an odd feeling of unfamiliar familiarity going through me. I still remember where everything is, yet there’s also a sense that I don’t belong here. Not anymore.

  I look down at myself, finding my body to be that of a child once more. I’d half-expected it – everything looks the size I remember it to be.

  I slowly walk around the kitchen, opening the cupboards to check their contents. Inside is the same china I remember us having. The cup that broke when I dropped it as I was drying up. The plate that my father never liked. The ugly glasses that my parents were given as a wedding present by my grandparents and that they never dared get rid of. Not until we moved house and they were ‘accidentally’ smashed. The wobbly little bowl that I made at school and was so proud of, still in its place of honour designated by my mother.

  I wonder what I’m supposed to do here. I’m fully aware that it’s not real. But even dreams usually have things happening. And then I hear the creak of a door.

  I turn to look at the door and my breath catches in my throat. My mother is there, smiling widely at me. I take a moment to just drink in her features. Pictures and my memories really do not do her justice. Her smile is so much more beautiful when it’s in motion, the way her lips pull back from her slightly-crooked teeth – years on from orthodontist treatment which never fully set properly – the twinkle in her eyes that shifts and glistens in the light.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Markus, my son,” she says quietly, yet the words resound in my head like a bell. I’m moving before I realise it, my muscles shifting of their own accord to propel me around the table and into my mother’s embrace.

  I breathe deeply. She even smells like my mother. I hadn’t realised how much I ached to smell her scent until now. Her arms encircle me in a hold that’s just on the wrong side of too-tight, yet after having lost her, they can never be tight enough.

  “Mum,” I croak, tears rising in my own eyes. I bury my head into her shoulder to hide them. “I’m sorry.”

  I hadn’t realised what I was going to say until I said it. But I won’t take the words back when I mean them so strongly. Despite all the therapy, despite all the times I told myself I wasn’t at fault, it seems that at my heart, I still felt that I was. I’ve been aching for thirteen years to say them and even if this is just a dream, it feels far more real than any other dream I’ve had. “I killed you. I’m sorry!”

  Mum makes a small sound I instantly recognise as disapproval and I pull back, afraid that she’s going to push me away and wanting to avoid that. Certainly when I’ve confessed in dreams before, she’s got angry with me at this point, or blamed me, or disavowed me as her son. This time, she just clings onto me tighter.

  I resist the pull for a long moment, and then give into it. If she’s not going to push me away, I have no reason to want to escape this embrace – I’ve been yearning for it for too long.

  “You didn’t kill me,” she tells me sternly. “No,” she says as I immediately try to interject. “Listen to me now.” I subside – instincts are hard-lost it appears. “You were a child. You made a child’s choices. The cause of my death was that drunk driver. No more, no less. And I want you to finally realise that,” she instructs me firmly. “You have been sabotaging yourself and your relationships for years, never letting anyone too close for fear that they will leave you or that you will fail them as you believed you failed me. No more. Promise me, my son,” she commands.

  I pull away slightly so I can look up at her face. She’s not angry, but she’s definitely determined – I recognise that expression. Even dad knew not to argue with her when she looked like that.

  “I know that I should have made more of an effort with dad. And Lucy…I ran away from her emotionally,” I admit. And the reasons are probably exactly as mum is saying. “But I’ve been trying to get past that,” I add, recalling my relationships with Bastet, River, Lathani, Kalanthia, Sirocco, Fenrir, Catch, and the others.

  “You have,” she agrees, “and I’m proud of you for that. I’m proud too for how you are shaping yourself, and not only letting the world shape you. But I want you to put down the burden of my death, and your father’s death – you were not to blame for that either – and finally start to live life to its fullest.”

  I gaze at her thoughtfully, my eyes tracing restlessly over every line on her face. She isn’t exhausted – that’s a difference. I don’t remember her ever not being exhausted. It makes her all the more beautiful.

  “Mum, is this…real?” I dare to ask. Her face takes on an amused and mysterious air.

  “Real…loses its meaning after a certain event. Everything is real which conversely means that nothing is.” I send her a look which makes her break out into laughter. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed hearing her laugh either until now.

  It’s not a beautiful sound, but it’s one that immediately reminds me of evenings playing board games together, or a comedy on the television, or going out to the theatre and just having a good time together as a family. “It’s as real as you make it,” she says finally as her chuckles slow down. “Internalise my words and it becomes real. Dismiss them and it is but a dream.”

  I close my eyes as I contemplate that. It makes sense, I realise. Even more in the world of magic which I now inhabit. Now I can form fire, move earth, battle souls, transform my body, and build Bonds just with my mind, thoughts becoming reality is far more realistic than I might have thought it on Earth.

  Maybe it’s time to put down this burden once and for all.

  Opening my eyes, I find that I’m now towering above my mother, at least a head taller than she is. I never saw her from this viewpoint – she was long dead by the time I gained my full height. But now, having acknowledged her words, having accepted them, I find that I have a new viewpoint on…everything.

  “Thank you,” I tell her, heartfelt. She looks up and unhesitantly gives me another almost-too-hard hug.

  “You’ll make me proud,” she tells me. “You already have.”

  “I love you,” I tell her as the dream falls apart. Her smile is the last thing to disappear.

  I don’t wake up immediately. Instead, I seem to drift in a sea of glowing whiteness. I’m not alarmed – something tells me that this is expected, and that I will wake up soon.

  A voice resonates through me, feeling like it emerges from the mists themselves, its rumble that of an earthquake, its sound that of thunder.

  “For releasing a long-held burden which chained your mind and shackled your willpower, you have received the following bonuses: six points in Wisdom and five points in Willpower. Beware: a burden once laid down can be picked up again, accidentally or intentionally.”

  I wake up. Although I know I still have so much responsibility – the leader of a village, the controller of so many Bonds, and that I’ve only made it halfway through this year of survival, with unknown expectations waiting for me in the next world….for the first time in what feels like forever, I feel free.