The cold rips through me, clawing at my naked body and numbing my mind. I force myself to rise up, and walk on through the burning ice on my freezing feet, each step stinging. I still have all the Stones in my hands, and they dig into my exposed skin as I hold them as tight as I can, my fist raised to my chest. I walk a few steps. And then I take a few more steps. I force myself forwards. And forwards. And forwards still. I ignore the pain as I trudge through the snowy lands, hoping to make it to a settlement of some sort. I don’t know how long I walk for but I keep going on and on though my protesting body wants to curl up in on itself. 

I’m in Savela, so I concentrate on the Stones in my hand, and I ask them to transform me. I focus on channeling my power through the Stones, on connecting to the power that they have, to the power that we all have. And I focus all my energy towards my plea of transformation. I learned illusion magic from Arji. Many magic spells are still alive and well, kept in secret. I have to hide from the Empire. I have to make them think me dead. And it’s working. It’s all working. I feel my body changing, shifting, transforming into something new. I look down, and see blue skin instead of my original purple. I smile. 

All at once the world around me spins, and the next thing I know everything goes dark.

I wake up and I’m still cold but I’m less cold than before. I’m in some sort of dark room. There is warmth near my feet. I push myself up off the ground and see that there is a small fire there, in the middle of the little room I’ve found myself in, and I’m dressed in a light jacket and fur pants, with a worn-down quilt on top of me. The room smells faintly of smoke and I can hear the wind howling outside.

A little child with skin the colour of shadows on snow opens the rickety door, and the room floods with light. She’s wearing a light jacket and her cheeks are dark blue with cold. She has a baby in her arms, maybe nine months old, who is wrapped in a ratty blanket. She comes in and closes the door behind her. 

“Hi,” she whispers to me, smiling. 

“Hi,” I say back to her. 

“We found you naked and you were fainted. But you’re awake now. That’s good. You didn’t die.”

“So I didn’t. What’s your name, young one?”

“Kailee. And this is baby Abilee. What’s your’s?”

“My name is Ikkia. It’s an honour to meet you both.” 

“Thanks. It’s an honour too.”

“Thank you.” I smile at them, and baby Abilee coos at me, reaching a hand out.

“Where are you from?” Kailee asks. 

“Originally I’m from Anookia but I lived most of my life in the Home Planet.”

Her eyes go wide at hearing this. 

“I’m … what’s it like on there?”

“I don’t know what it’s like for the others, but for me it was very lonely. It’s a very big place with a lot of nice things, but you can’t enjoy any of it because you’re always thinking about what the Imperials want from you.”

“I’m sorry. That sucks. But you can live with us now. We’ll take care of you.” Her eyes are hopeful. The baby is crawling around on the floor. 

“Thank you so much for the offer, Kailee, but I’m afraid that I’ll have to go eventually. I have a mission to do.”

“Ooh, what kind of mission?”

“Do you promise not to tell anyone?”

“Why?”

“You’ll find out. But do you promise not to tell?”

“I promise.”

“I stole the World Stones, and now I’m going to return them to their rightful homes.” 

Her eyes go wide as as flying saucers and she doesn’t say anything for a long time. 

“You okay?” I ask her gently.

“Are those what you had inside of your hands when the grown-ups found you?”

“Yes. Do you know where they are?” The baby crawls to me and I pick her up. 

“Sure. They’re right over here!” She hands me the Stones from a corner of the room. 

“Thanks, Kailee. Do you want to hold them?”

“Oh of course!” I pass the stones to her. She looks at them in wonder. 

“They’re so normal,” she states.”

“They sure are. That’s good though. It will make them easier to hide.”

“I guess.”

“So what is the date today?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know what year it is at least?”

“6284.”

“Oh thanks. That means I’ve been away in the wastelands for less than a year.” I have to lie. To keep us all safe. 

“You were in the wastelands?” 

“I sure was. That’s how I got here.”

“Can I go into the wastelands too?”

“Maybe one day. But right now it’s too dangerous.”

“I’ll go get my friends.”

“You do that. I can’t wait to meet them.”

She brings in a small group of children dressed in clothes that are somewhat warm even though they’re worn out. They’re all so tiny. So young. So sweet. So heartbreaking. They have nothing to look forwards to in their lives except years and years of pain. But hopefully we can change that together. I answer all of their infinite questions and I try to give them the love that had always been denied to me. They seem enraptured in my story. In their eyes I can see the dawning of hope. That’s beautiful. Beyond beautiful. They deserve to have all the hope in the world. And they deserve to have futures filled with true justice. 

———

I am sitting in a small room crowded with ten other people, including two babies being passed around from person to person. I have Savela’s Stone in my hand. I am handing it to the person beside me so that they can hold it and get a good look at it, and pass it to someone else. 

“Hide this. Pass it on to all your people. Don’t let the Empire know what it is.” I keep my voice soft so that it won’t be heard beyond the confines of the room. 

“Thank you for doing this,” a darker blue teenaged girl by the name of Addalfi tells me. “I can’t … I can’t describe how much this means to me. How much hope you’ve given me.” Her voice is bright and jubilant. But there is a hint of secretive darkness inside of it as well. A hint of glory-darkness. 

“Yes,” and older man, Falay speaks out, “it’s glorious, what happened. I can’t believe it.” He is worn out from a long life of work, of pain, of too much work and of too much pain. But there is something youthful in his voice and his face and his eyes. Something that feels like a bird taking its first tentative, faltering flight. 

“I can’t believe it either,” a man in his twenties, named Anaray, speaks. “I still don’t believe it. I don’t believe it will be enough to stop them.” Melancholy. What I feel emanating from him is melancholy. His eyes are haunted. His tone is haunted. I can tell that he has lived through something that has taken his fighting spirit.  

“What do you mean?” a young child named Laia asks. “Why won’t it be enough?” Their words are tentative. Hope and fear mixed into them in equal parts. They are asking because they are terrified. And because they have faith. 

“Because,” Anaray starts, “the Empire is so powerful. We might have the World Stones, we might be able to channel our magic, but the Empire still has so much energy, they have so much technology, they have so many soldiers and weapons and wealth. How will we be able to go against them?”

The room is quiet while everyone takes in his words, letting them soak through their minds. I can see that the light in peoples’ eyes is fading. Ever so slightly, but still fading. It hurts my heart to see this. My people deserve hope. They deserve hope. And after all I’ve done and all I’ve risked to give them hope, I won’t let it be taken away. Not so easily. Not by their own doubts and fears. 

“The Empire is strong, I definitely agree with that,” I begin, “but we are stronger. We have more power than them. They may have so much power. They may be able to keep us down. Temporarily. For now. But we have more power than them and we can defeat them.” My voice rings confident and clear out throughout the room, and some of the children smile. 

“How do we have more power than them?” a young boy named Coltay asks. I can tell by the way he speaks these words that he believes me. That’s good. I need as many people on my side as I can get. 

“Because, we have a burning, raging power inside of us. All of us, we have this power. A power that is forged in pain and love and love and pain. We have something inside of us, something inside all of us, which is much bigger than anything that the Empire has. It’s stronger than anything the Empire can do. It’s stronger than all the stars in the galaxy put together and it is all the stars in the galaxy put together.”

“How do you know this?” the man asks, longing laced into his words. Everyone looks at me expectantly but their eyes seem as if they understand. 

“Because, when I was in the void I experienced it all. I was put face to face with it all and I learned about the power that we have. It’s a secret, mystical power but it’s inside all of us. It has always been inside all of us. I’m sure you all have felt it before. I’m sure you know of it too, even if you don’t know that you know of it.”

“I know, I feel it,” a little girl named Marilee pipes in, “I feel it all the time.”

“I feel it too,” an woman in her thirties named Hailee agrees, “it’s beautiful, it’s magnificent, and it’s ours. We have a power inside of ourselves that it stronger than all their force. It’s beyond magic. It’s beyond reason. Beyond everything.”

“Exactly,” I say, “you feel it. I’m sure you all feel it. What does it feel like?”

We all talk about that for a long time. We talk about the people’s experiences, and the secret power that underlies theses experiences. We talk about the emotions that we have all felt, and the tangible sources of these emotions as well as the mystical sources of them. We discuss the small ways we have been able to help each other and resist the power of the Empire, and the ways that these are a prelude to larger, more victorious forms of resistance. We talk about how everything we are is a form of resistance, and how we know, we just know that we were meant to resist and we were meant to one day win. 

Everyone has a chance to speak and everyone does speak, even the babies who cry and giggle and coo. Everyone has their thoughts voiced, their opinions voiced, their experiences and emotions voiced. Everyone listens to each other, learns from each other, grows from each other. Everyone has their doubts and fears addressed and soothed. Everyone kindles each other’s hope into burning flames of revolution. Flames that are borne of love. 

It’s the most glorious conversation that I have ever been a part of.

———

I am in a different neighbourhood now, in a hut that’s nestled beside a different power plant. My skin is still blue. I think I’ll keep it this way for all my travels. I’ll let people believe I’m a different person than I am, so that even if I do get caught, the Empire will have no reason to believe that I’m the same person that fell into the void with the World Stones. They’ll have no reason to believe that the World Stones survived the void. 

I am in another hut. All the huts on this planet are roughly the same, made of sheet metal stapled together, with thin strips of insulation between the inner and outer walls to keep out the cold. The insulation never does a very good job at keeping out the cold but it does do something and for that we are all grateful. All the huts are small, and, when the long work days are over, they are packed with people who try to soothe each other’s souls. 

Right now I am one of many people, young and less young, packed into the small space, a fire lit in the middle. We are passing around Savela’s World Stone. We are trying to channel our magic into it. 

The older people remember the chant, passed down from their elders, who passed it down from their elders, who passed it down from their elders who passed it down from their elders. The chant helps us to channel our magic. We whisper it quietly, secretly, so that there is no chance of the guards hearing us. And we pass around the Stone from person to person, so that everyone has an equal chance to hold it. 

“Universe, universe, take us please, Universe,” we chant, over and over again. 

I can feel the magic thrumming through me. I can feel it thrumming through all of us. This magic, it’s full of this energy the likes of which I’ve never felt before. The likes of which was always inside of me. And now, in the company of all the people here. I feel myself more strengthened than ever before. This channeling of magic is nothing like the harvesting of magic that the machines do. Instead of leaving you hurt and drained, it makes you feel empowered and whole. It gives you a sense of completeness, a sense of connection, and a sense of joy. Bright joy that is almost, almost too sweet to handle. 

It grows inside of me, grows inside all of us, and I can feel it strengthening, feel it strengthening all of us, feel it becoming insurmountable. The energy flows throughout my entire body, throughout my entire soul. Something builds up inside me, and I don’t know what, but it is at the same time so intimate that I know I have never been without it. 

All at once, my senses are flooded. In front of me is a flowing tundra, with a thousand miles of sky each and every way I turn. There are vast swathes of snow and ice blowing in the wind. Above me the sun blazes hot and around me the snow blazes bright, burning in the sunlight. It’s cold. It’s cold. But not a piercing sort of cold. This cold flows with energy, flows with freshness, and brings my whole body to life. A snow-white fox scurries. 

And the sun sets, and the sky is ablaze with all the colours of a wildfire. There is that deep electric blue of twilight. The blue that is not blue. The blue that is a promise of new beginnings, a promise secrets, a promise of forever birthed by pain. The twilight sets in and above me ravens fly, dark agaainst the darkness, full of an energy that is subtle and secret and sure. The shadows grow longer and longer, as the world becomes as darkened as a secret. 

The night sky stretches above me. The moons glow softly in the night. And the stars. Oh the stars. There are billions upon billions of them, all shining in the night. They overcome me. And in them I can see the stories of the people, the stories that have been passed down generation after generation after generation after generation. I can see the wildness that shines forth through us all. And I can see the glory of the gods. 

There is a river of light above me, dancing and moving in the nighttime, glowing green, shining blue, hints of yellow woven in to the ever-shifting fabric. The aurora, something I have only heard about in books but never experienced, is both subtle and brilliant at the same time. 

The dawn sets in and everything turns white again. The hills in the distance flow white, and there is so much life in the lands all around me, the spirit of life distilled into its most pure form. 

I drift out of the trance, and see the amazement of the people all around me. The Stone now is coated in ice, cold to the touch, like a geode encased in rock. 

“These were the lands, before the Empire came to them,” a woman whispers, “and these will be the lands of our planet again.”