Falling.

  Yet again, Lucy was falling at terminal velocity through open air, the high-altitude winds slamming into her face and crashing over her body as if to whisk her away out of the realm of existence. It was all too familiar now, except for one major difference.

  Her entire body was wracked with pain.

  It exploded and spread through all the nerves of her being, spider-webbing across every inch of her skin while the air hurtling past her opened it up and made everything worse, like salt being blown into a lattice of fresh wounds.

  “Urk…!”

  Lucy convulsed wildly, her mind reeling with such force she was sure her brain was rattling in her skull.

  It hurts it hurts it hurts

  The words seared white-hot in her mind, engulfing every space of thought. But as her eyes, teared-up from the wind and from the excruciating sensations coursing through her, pointed their gaze down at the empty reaches of sky beneath her, her mind zeroed in on the fact that if she didn’t act now, she would be in far more pain in just a few seconds.

  Instinctively, she pictured cloud nets appearing beneath her, and they appeared as she willed them too—but far, far too slow. The red roof and white walls of the King’s castle were approaching her at breakneck speed, so the full second gap between each net’s formation was an agonizing eternity of wasted time.

  Lucy grit her teeth, not just from the pain that continued to seize her. Why did she have to go through this ridiculous and dangerous song and dance again? There had been a reason for it—of course the King had given a detailed explanation of it in so many words—but that didn’t negate Lucy’s frustration for having such an absurd situation become routine.

  I’m gonna make it all end!

  The words were faint but startlingly clear, a distant crash of thunder from another world that ignited a fire in Lucy’s soul. It burned through every nerve and fibre, overriding the screeching pain as her temper boiled to its breaking point, urging her to scream out:

  “STOP!”

  She didn’t recognize her voice, the hoarse ear-splitting command erupting through all the far reaches of the sky, the raspy growl that it faded with carrying the crackling sound of the fires of absolution. The world reeled and shook in response, a servant quaking in subservience to the divine command of his queen.

  Lucy not only stopped falling, but her head-first dive was lifted and carefully rotated so that she was upright—and floating. She was there, high above the entirety of the world that existed entirely unto herself, looking down at everything else with nothing to support her except for her own power. Never, in her life, had she expected to feel so totally in control, almost omnipotent.

  But this was a fleeting moment, for the debilitating pain tore through her once again and made her clutch her stomach, bending over in pain. With her last bit of conscious effort, she willed herself to be set down before the fluttering technicolor mass of the King and his robes, where she conjured a cloud platform to firmly receive her feet just as she was in danger of losing balance. She fell to her knees, arms wrapped around her stomach and squeezing as if to slow profuse bleeding from a massive wound. But, so far as she could see and actually physically feel, there was no wound there, nor anywhere else on her body, despite how all her senses were screaming with utmost discomfort.

  “Congratulations on further improving your landing method from the previous return.”

  The King’s voice, ever so calm and coolly neutral, hit Lucy’s ears from every direction like ice water being poured over her. It made her sick, the way he stood there and talked to her despite how she was clearly in excruciating pain. Was complimenting her on yet another landing really so important to him? Was he that betrothed to his duty to facilitating Dream Knight procedures? The mistrust and suspicion she felt toward him before venturing into the last Dream resurfaced in her mind, greater than ever before.

  But despite those thoughts casting a long shadow over her mind, they couldn’t hold a candle to the pressing, primal sensations that overtook her and made her almost want to tear her body apart.

  “Why…does it hurt so much…?”

  In stark contrast to her defiantly loud command from only moments ago, Lucy barely managed to eke the words out. She panted, her chest heaving, sweat running down her face and coating her skin as another layer beneath her armour. Every breath she took, every slight shift of her arms and legs, every angling of her neck, all of it made the millions of non-existent cuts on her body burn and sear through her nerves, such that she was caught between wanting to sob uncontrollably and scream out in pure anger as to why it refused to stop.

  “It is understandable that you would be surprised and confused,” said the King, still as unperturbed as before, but now having the slightest decency to look down and gaze into Lucy’s pained face—or at least, appear to do so, with his blank face. “Your conscious is likely blocking out concrete memories of it, which is a common response to trauma, especially in the recent moments that follow it. To put it shortly, the pain you experience is the result of lingering sensations from your cessation within a Dream.”

  “Cessation…within a Dream?”

  His words were flowery and purple, typical of his King-speak, but the words remained in Lucy’s mind with frightening clarity, standing above obsidian black waters with their reflection—their true meaning—lit perfectly by ghastly moonlight.

  Lucy had died in that last Dream.

  Her self-admission was so chilling that it almost made her body go numb and counteract all the pain, but it was still there, gnawing at her like millions of man-eating insects as the realization fully dawned on her.

  But how had she died? The last thing she could clearly remember was were the Dreamer’s hazel eyes, lit ablaze while the rest of her face was bathed in shadow, a subconscious darkness, and then that same Dreamer had picked Lucy up and thrown her through the wall and back into the maze of darkness. Lucy hadn’t been able to move, because of that curse the Dreamer had placed on her, likely without even consciously intending to, and so Lucy had been unable to do anything when the blank darkness shook with rumbling and roaring and the incessant whirring.

  That was it.

  The System had been right there, easily catching up to its victim now that she had been physically unable to run away. And of course, once it was within point-blank range of Lucy, its monstrously hulking mass clearly defined in presence despite the complete lack of vision, that enormous maw of spikes and blades had thrust forward to catch Lucy, and then…and then…

  “Urk…!”

  Lucy wretched, her body convulsing again, as she doubled over and coughed out with violent force. Nothing came out, but the dryness of her vomiting made it all the more painful, her stomach and her lungs burning with the sensation.

  She didn’t want to remember. She cursed herself for even wanting to know in the first place.

  But what she had always feared about the condition of perishing within a Dream had turned out to be true. She had experienced the full moment of her death in all the sensory detail, the level of detail that no living being should ever have to carry with them. It was sick and terrible, even more so that the wardens of Dreams like the King took it as mere fact when it occurred and acted like the Dream Knight’s return afterwards was just that: a return to normalcy, to business as usual.

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  Lucy’s head stung with a new, lower, aching pain at the thought, remembering more of the Dreamer and what she had seen in her memories. But in thinking this, another question surfaced.

  “Does that mean I’ll never be able to go back to that Dream?”

  The King responded without skipping a beat. “Indeed, that is correct. Within the narrative of that Dream, your legacy is that of one of the Dream Knights who ultimately failed to rescue the Dreamer. The Dream marches on, but you are barred from re-entering and attempting another rescue.”

  Lucy said nothing. She already knew what the answer was going to be, but she needed the King’s words—as doubtful as they were in her mind—in order to let the reality sink in.

  She had failed.

  She expected her reaction to this to be a sinking feeling, a careful grip on her heart that slowly yanked it down into the drowning depths of despair. But instead, what coursed through Lucy’s veins was the hot, biting sensation of exasperation.

  How could she have failed?

  The memory descended upon her with almighty presence like the first heat of the morning sun raging overhead. Lucy had been so close. She had seen exactly what she needed to know about the Dreamer’s life, the pivotal experiences that had led her down the path of seeking total annihilation. And Lucy had felt it, so earnestly within her heart, that she could still feel the tightness in her chest and the moisture that had ran down her cheeks just before giving that broken girl an embrace.

  How could it have gone south after all that? She had been able to stick through Cole’s temper and distrust, helping him to understand the true nature of his brother’s arm and how to rescue himself. And she had used her own patience and willingness to embrace one close, both physically and emotionally, in order to calm down a sobbing Kenneth who would have made the queen unstoppable. In those Dreams, her empathy as a Knight of Understanding had been crucial to her survival and eventual success, as well as the rescue of the one who needed it most. But in that last Dream, Lucy’s attempt to understand, at the deepest, most sincere level, had made her fail and pay the ultimate price. How could that be possible? Or rather, how was it that fate was so cruel as to have that be her downfall right after two straight instances of her being in her own element?

  Lucy wiped at her cheeks, only now registering that she been crying. Wiping at them more profusely, loathing once again showing weakness before the King she no longer trusted, Lucy looked out over the boundless sky. It was in this very sky that she had seen the reflection of the Knight of Understanding, the facsimile of the path she was adamant about following until the end. She sighed. She had firmly believed, right down to her core, that her patience and compassion were as infinite as the far blue reaches before her, and that no matter how far she was beaten down, she could summon within herself that full sky’s worth of believing in herself, and in others, to lift her up and fly over any hurdle in her path. For the sky was eternally patient and observant, and no matter what went on below, it would always be there.

  But Lucy had just fallen to someone who shattered the sky like glass. And it all happened because Lucy was looking into her eyes too deeply, making her vulnerable to the Dreamer’s sudden seizing of influence. It made Lucy grit her teeth, just thinking back on how fully and absolutely the Dreamer had taken control of her—and how Lucy had been unable to lift a finger against it. If only she could have broken through that domineering spell, like when the queen’s enchanting eyes had been interrupted by Diana.

  Diana…

  The Dream Knight who took pleasure in making every interaction confrontational. The one who did not hesitate to murder a baker couple in cold blood, right in front of a child, no less. It still made Lucy’s blood boil, even though she so desperately wanted her ability to resist, break through, to rebel. But how could Lucy ever bring herself to revel in the wanton destruction that Diana and likely other Knights of Rebellion so readily basked in?

  “I saw your smile.”

  The wind stopped, the air going stale. The clouds halted their lackadaisical drifting through the sky. And the sun shone a little dimmer, as Lucy drew a sharp breath with wide eyes. She wanted to discount the Dreamer’s words as a mere fabrication, a twisting of the facts to rile Lucy up as she so seemed to enjoy. But with Lucy here by herself now, without the Dreamer’s abrasive attitude immediately putting her on the defensive, Lucy could look back at that moment, after her violent demolition of that boy-turned-machine, and see things more clearly.

  Back there, in the coiling darkness and standing atop the mechanical remains of an entity who used to be a human child, Lucy had grinned. She had grinned wide, ear-to-ear, because it had felt so right.

  And perhaps, looking back at all the other inexplicable moments of contrasting thoughts and feelings that had momentarily seized her, perhaps this was what Lucy had truly wanted all along.

  “No…”

  Lucy hung her head, bringing her hand to her forehead. This wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. She was a Knight of Understanding, one who—

  “Quit taking the easy way out, little girl. You’re not in a damned fairy tale.”

  Before, those words had incited anger directed out at Diana, but now they incited the same anger directed inwards. Maybe Lucy had been foolish all along to cling to such childish ideals, and until now she had just been lucky. Now, though, she had seen and viscerally felt the consequences of her own naivete, from the way her skin still throbbed with echoes of being torn apart.

  But…

  She looked up at the sky, at a large cloud passing overhead, and recalled how she had willed these same clouds to write out those final words to Thomas, her mother, and Kathy. In fact, she could see them so clearly again, but the more the anger welled up within her, the more those words and the faces of her loved ones faded as if abandoning her.

  “Wait!” she called out, thrusting her outstretched hand toward the vestiges of those words and faces. “I…I…I’m not gonna let them take you away from me!”

  Her voice had that same low heaviness to it as when she had screamed at the world for her descent to stop.

  “Ser Lucy…”

  The King’s voice was uncharacteristically expressive this time, his uneven tone betraying a sense of unease—or even outright fear. His gaze was pointed slightly downward, toward Lucy’s right hand, and Lucy followed his gaze.

  There, in the same hand she had always held her Ideal with, was an ink-black aura rising out of her balled fist like smoke. Lucy had seen this before, just recently, and she wracked her brain to remember. In a moment, she knew what it was:

  The same shadow of subconscious that had obscured the Dreamer’s face right before the end.

  Lucy knew she was supposed to feel afraid, just like the King. She wanted to be in alarm, to panic and ask the King what this was. But instead, her body was shivering—no, that wasn’t the right word. She was shaking, almost bouncing up and down on her knees, as butterflies flew through her stomach and her skin crawled with an exciting electricity.

  She was overcome with glee.

  “Ser Lucy,” called the King, raising his hand defensively, “what are you—”

  He was cut short as Lucy grunted and heaved up with her right hand. The dark aura had stretched out some distance into the sky, disappearing into the blue as if it were a fishing line bobbing with its hook and bait obscured below, and now when Lucy yanked it back up, her catch had surfaced with it.

  The shimmering crystalline structure of the Alignment Grid.

  “Ser Lucy!” The King called, floating over to her side. The alarm and urgency in his voice was brand new, but it only fulled Lucy’s glee, hearing his calm finally broken. “This…this is not within protocol. As you did not rescue the Dreamer, you are not permitted to update—”

  “Who cares about protocol?” Lucy spat. It was completely unlike her, but in the annals of truth, it was something she had wanted to say deep down ever since her previous return to her Final Dream. She had wanted so desperately to break out of the collective unconscious’s chains and defy the rules that limited her, and now, through some ruthless manipulation of her subconscious and unconscious that she still didn’t comprehend but happily accepted, she could defy the terms of this contract that the collective unconscious had saddled her with.

  “Gracious Lucy, the magnanimous Dream Knight, will you please tell me what it is you intend to do?”

  Lucy ignored him. It was refreshing to have him on the back foot for once, entirely unable to read her. She walked over to the Alignment Grid, commanding the small, pitiful cloud platforms to spring up immediately beneath her feet, which took slow, confident strides.

  Once she was before the three Axes, she stared silently for a moment, then reached and pulled the alignment orb for Understanding. It did not give, as if it had been glued to its position, but then Lucy wrapped her fist around it more tightly, the swirl of dark aura gathering and thickening—and then the orb was loose, coming off so that she could take it away and hold it in her palm.

  An audible gasp sounded from the King.

  Ignoring him again, Lucy reached out to the alignment orb of Rebellion and repeated the same process. She now had the alignment orbs for these two Axes in her hands, and without any hesitation, she re-positioned them, the orbs slotting in as nicely as any other alignment update.

  Ideation: 5

  Understanding: 5

  Rebellion: 15

  “What…” the King’s voice rung out in every direction, hollow and stifling, like a weak, dying breeze. “What have you done?”

  Lucy smiled, turned around, and conjured another platform at her feet to take a step. Her first step, upon crossing this ever-looming threshold, the dark aura swirling before her face, distorting her grin as she announced:

  “I’ve become who I was always meant to be. From now on, I am Lucy Lockhart, the Knight of Rebellion.”