I stared at the black door ahead of me. I tried to look around and see where I was, but that didn’t seem possible. I just stared at the black door, the heartbeat inside ringing around me. The sound continued to grow louder until the door opened and it stopped altogether, the world around me going completely black.

Streaks of color flashed across my vision. I tried to focus in on them to get a better sense of what I was seeing, but I could. All I could see were four different colored streaks charging down from the sky towards something ahead of me. From left to right, the streaks were purple, pink, blue, and green. They continued to fly, growing smaller and smaller until they finally reached their target where a massive wave of white light shot in to the sky from their impact. The wave of light grew larger as it drew closer to me. When it reached me, I shot awake, sweating and panting.

My eyes darted around the room, my mind briefly lapsing on where I was. After scouring the room, I remembered that I had gone to sleep in the workshop in the basement of the Terranova house. I noticed the blanket draped around my body. Apparently, what I had seen when I woke up the night before wasn’t a dream like I thought. I continued to receive extremely mixed signals from Dameria. It was clear she cared for Viktor, but her level of anger towards him seemed excessive even after what he had told me about her.

Viktor was blinded by anger to question it either, but at least he was far less consumed by his emotions than his mother was. It was a little concerning to see him like this. He was usually so calm and collected. He was the greatest voice of optimism in the group. He kept us going during many of the bad times.

Speaking of Viktor, it would probably be a good idea if I went and woke him up. I noticed the light streaming through from upstairs, so it was clear that it was morning now, despite the fact it was still mostly dark in the workshop.

I walked over to Viktor at the table he had fallen asleep at. The blanket was still draped over him and there was a puddle of drool underneath him on the table. The pieces of golem scattered around the workshop all glowed faintly due to the mystwood they were constructed from.

I beamed as my eyes darted between each piece of the golem. The fact that he had been able to do all of this in such a short amount of time was truly amazing and I couldn’t have been more proud of him.

I tried to gently nudge him and whisper in his ear to get him to wake up, but he was fast asleep. I didn’t want to hurt him or anything, but I did really need for him to wake up now. Eventually, I decided the easiest solution was creating a rain cloud above him. It quickly began to pour on top of him and within a few seconds he was not only wide awake, but completely soaked.

“Son of a-! What…” he said as he jolted awake. He looked up before staring at me, narrowing his eyes. “There are easier ways to wake me up…”

I snapped my fingers and the seal disappeared along with the cloud hovering above the now drenched earth apprentice. After stretching out a bit, Viktor switched back on the lights and got to work inspecting each of the golem pieces that he had created the day before.

While he was doing so, a voice called from upstairs, “Viktor! Avien! Breakfast!”

I smiled at Viktor, but he seemed a little less excited at the prospect of the meal than I was. I walked over to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “We should get some breakfast. Then, you can finish your inspection.”

“But I-“

“Nope. Let’s go,” I said as I dragged him up the stairs.

Waiting for us at the top were several miniature mountains of fluffy golden pancakes. I could see Cynthia and Gabriel sitting at the table in the dining room. Amelia was currently cleaning up the dishes from cooking. When we stepped in to the kitchen, she smiled. “Boys! Good morning!”

I smiled. “Good morning, Mrs. Amelia.”

When she saw Viktor, she gave him an inquisitive look. “Viktor, dear, you’re all wet. What happened…?”

I laughed nervously. “I may have… slightly created a rain cloud about his head to wake him up…”

She laughed slightly before giving me a look that I couldn’t quite place. “I see, you’re a wind apprentice… I couldn’t quite peg you. I didn’t think the jacket had any meaning, but I see it does now…”

I thought for a moment before deciding to answer. “Well… actually, I’m the son of Strataros…”

She didn’t seem all that taken aback by my statement and just shrugged, returning to cleaning. “I wasn’t aware he had another child. Though, I suppose if anyone were to break that pact… it would be him…”

I nodded. “Yeah…” I didn’t know why, but she made a good point there.

“Anyway, there’s plenty of pancakes for you both. The plates are already out and the pancake dressing is over there,” she said, pointing to a spot at the edge of the counter.

I eyed the strange substance. I thought it would just be syrup, but it seemed more like dark water with strange white specks floating around inside it. I grabbed a plate and placed three pancakes on it. Curious about the substance, I decided to pour it on to the stack. Viktor and I say down across from each other at the table.

We both began to dig in to our food and I quickly found that the pancake dressing was extremely different from syrup. It was still somewhat sweet like syrup, but it tasted closer to chocolate with hints of cinnamon and vanilla mixed it.

When I looked over at Viktor, he seemed a little confused, almost like he was analyzing the pancakes. When he looked up briefly, he saw I was looking at him inquisitively. “Huh?”

“You having fun staring in to the soul of those pancakes?”

He looked confused for a second before realizing what I was talking about. “Oh yeah. I was just a little confused. Momma usually makes breakfast.”

“Momma left really early this morning,” Gabriel responded from the other end of the table.

Viktor poked his head to the side to address him. “Where did she go?”

Gabriel shrugged. “I dunno. Last I saw, she was walking out in to the forest,” he said, pointing to the forest behind us.

Viktor looked back at me. I just shrugged at him. “Maybe she wanted to get some last-minute training in before you two fought.”

“Maybe…”

With that, we returned to eating in silence. I quickly devoured the stack of pancakes I had in front of me.

I looked up and saw that Viktor had also finished his pancakes, so we returned the plates to the kitchen and headed back down in to the workshop. I once again took a seat at the far corner of the table where Viktor’s golem pieces were. He returned to his inspection of the pieces, occasionally taking a second to adjust something before setting it aside with the rest of the good pieces.

After about half an hour, everything was good to go. Viktor packed all of the pieces in to a large wooden chest and we headed out of the house. Since Dameria had last been seen behind the house, it was probably where she was, so we decided to start our search for her there.

The trees in this part of the forest were a little less dense then in some of the other parts that we had been in, but even so, it would be a little hard to have a good battle here without taking out a few hundred trees. Granted, for the two of them, they might do that on purpose to use as weapons.

We trudged through the forest for some time, hoping to find some sign of something. For what felt like forever, the only sounds around us were the wind and the sounds from creatures I could only hope to guess at. However, that auditory monotony was broken when footsteps came from behind us.

When we turned around, we were both pretty surprised.

“Misra?” Viktor exclaimed as she caught up to us.