Lumi roared into the the rain. She couldn’t hear her own voice , as it was drowned out by the torrential winds ripping at her shirt and through her hair. She kept yelling all the same, until her chest heaved and her breath was exhausted. And then she was quiet—no longer a lion, just a girl in a storm.

Takha peered up into the hazy orange dawn. His eyes traced concentric circle rings running around an otherwise seamless tower that stretched from the ground before him and up into the Sky. He pushed his gaze as far as he could. Images of the Ascended danced through his mind. He imagined they wore all white and glowed under a halo of sunlight. This imagery sprung into his mind like an echo. Of course, he did not really know. He could not. No one could, nor could anyone tell you what really waited for them in the Sky. But everyone wanted to get there and find out. The people in the Muck didn’t know anything else. Everyone born here was raised with an eye to the Sky. Ascension.

I still didn’t know what was going on. I remembered walking through night-markets in Shinjuku, eating fried octopus and watching neon lights ripple in the air over thousands of crowded locals and tourists alike. I remembered seeing a light, intense and enormous, then hearing screams and the pounding of feet on pavement. I remembered waking up in this room.

We walk in tandem along the riverfront, side by side by side. Our colours match: dark blue, grey, black trim. I’m wearing trousers, of course, as is Oliver. They are straight-legged, unlike the sagging bottoms they wear in North Dome. Mary sports a long skirt, but there is nothing the Protectorate can do to prevent her legs from being seen.

William grew restless and he struggled to focus on the drone of information buzzing from the talking head that floated in front of him, a holographic projection tasked with guiding him through the program. It was talking about the magician war again.

Izak woke up while falling from the sky, and he could not seize the wind to slow himself. He pulled at the threads of the air and commanded it to slow his descent, but it would not listen. So he fell, and kept falling, and the ground filled his vision until he saw nothing else but his impending death. It would come too soon for him. He’d only just graduated from the Trials. Years of hard work—of sweat and tears—would be wasted. In the fleeting seconds he had left, his mind filled with hatred—for the wind, and for its little masters who would not hear Izak’s call.

Charlie Storm didn’t know today would be his last among friends and family. Getting ready for school in the morning, Charlie went about the same routine as he did every day: he scoured his closet for his cleanest and freshest smelling clothes, threw them on, then ran to the kitchen, where he stuffed his mouth with a piece of peanut-butter smeared toast, all while listening to his favourite music—bagpipes—and humming along as best he could, which, he would be the first to tell you, was not very good.

Once a year, when the two moons of Aurfell align with its blue sun, the House of Light and Dark unites. It is the Transcendence. The world is shrouded in darkness before giving way to the light. It is a union of the First One’s children—a union of the gods—and it must be celebrated, for once, long ago, the Light and the Dark stood apart, two sides of the Everwar.

Fires burned from torches held high by the soldiers who’d survived the night. They stood at attention, sadness in their eyes, faces blackened and bloodied, bodies broken and scarred. But they lived. Those who lay atop the pyres did not.