The Skull King ignored the fiery display and spread Kree’s arms wide as he slowly glided forward. All the time, his black gaze remained fixed on Jake. “Do you so easily doom those you love? …”

Jake glanced back at Marika.

“Not those here …” An arm pointed toward the archway. “Those lost to you so long ago …”

Jake understood. The Skull King was talking about his parents.

A hand curled open, reaching toward Jake. “Give me the stone … and I will swear you an oath.”

“What sort of oath?”

“Jake, don’t listen to him,” Marika warned, her voice strained.

He raised a palm toward her—mimicking his mother’s gesture from a moment ago—and stepped closer to hear what Kalverum Rex had to offer.

“With the alchemy of the mirror, all the world’s paths will be open. Give me the stone, and I will let you walk the first path … to bring all your family home … to escape forever the horrors of these lands.”

“You … you can do that?” Jake asked, taking another step forward.

“I can … and more.”

Jake hesitated as the fury inside him blew out.

All of this could be over.

“But refuse and you shall know suffering like no other … I will start with the Roman who I hold up in the barge.”

He pictured his friend. “Pindor is aboard your ship?”

“And many others …”

So the rebellion had been quashed. His friend and the others were prisoners again. He lifted the sapphire crystal. If he gave up the stones and walked away, he’d get what he wanted … in addition, his friends would live. It seemed an easy choice. He thought of his mother, his father, even Kady.

He wiped the tears from his cheeks.

The Skull King moved closer, only steps away now, his hand out. “The time of tears can be over.”

Jake stared down at his damp palm. “But sometimes tears are good. They let you know your true heart.” He glanced up to that fiery eye. “That, and they’re very salty.”

He switched the crystal to his tear-stained hand, dropped to a knee, and slammed the stone to the floor.

“No!” he shouted.

Jake had wanted the Skull King as close as possible. With such potent alchemy running through Kree, he wanted the timestone’s full power to strike the demon.

With the salt of his tears fueling the crystal, the energy blasted forth and rippled across the stone floor, turning old scarred blocks into shiny polished surfaces, reversing time’s damages. The arrow beside the blue sapphire had pointed to the left, pointing backward in time.

The Skull King turned to flee, but Kree made for a poor puppet. Somewhere inside, the master of the Blood of Ka must have panicked. Inwardly, the two stumbled over each other and crashed to the floor—just as the wave hit them.

The pair struggled up, twisting toward Jake.

As he watched, Kree’s features smoothed, growing younger. The black eye on his forehead shone with a hatred that scorched across the distance.