I plunge my sword to the hilt into the face of the storm. Lightning crackles and squeals all around me as I draw the blade downwards. It grinds against the clouds, and the shapes inside them, and then the clouds peel back like eyelids opening, drawing apart to reveal the crystal stairs and the claw of mirrors that was once the dais. The storm recoils further as I step through it with the others in my wake. Once we are through, the stormfront closes behind us and the sounds of battle fall away to be replaced by the song of the wind. By chanting, and whispers. By Sofika, screaming. It echoes from every one of the glass shards on the dais. A single word that resounds over and over and over again. A single name.

Ahri. Ahri. Ahri.

‘Sofi!’ Ravara yells, and she starts off up the steps with Zoric and Yumia following close behind. I follow after her, my Sisters beside me. Just four now, as there were on Ophelia VII. Ashava and Eugenia. Joti and Qi-Oh.

The moment I set foot on the crystal stairs, everything changes. Shapes move in the mirrored glassaic, hunched and toothed and clawed.

Horrors, just like those we saw on Ophelia VII.

They peel themselves out of the glassaic and begin to scream. To gibber and laugh. They retch up streams of warpfire that spill down the stairs and spill over us, too. My armour creaks under the pressure and the heat as I keep pushing forwards up the steps, even as the stairway loses its form, becoming a river of silver and flame. We wade upwards through molten metal and glass, surrounded by laughter. Claws cut furrows in my armour and my flesh beneath it. I answer with the edge of my sword, even as Ashava purges the creatures with a torrent of promethium. Qi-Oh lunges forward, swift even when slogging through liquid metal. Eugenia is reduced to using her shortblade and her fists, her face a mask of blood and dirt. Joti fires her bolter one-handed even as she lifts the banner clear of the silver and the smoke. Ahead of us, Ravara is a blur of swords and layered silver plate. The inquisitor is out ahead of the tide. Out ahead of her retinue, too.

‘Ravara!’ I shout.

She glances back at me, and I catch her amber eyes between the arcs of her swords. She has the exact same look in them as she did before, when she ran for the dais. She opens her mouth and speaks. The words are too distant to hear, but simple enough to read the shape of.

I’m sorry.