Alcede shrugged. “Eh, it should be fine. Just gotta put some mana into it and...” When he looked to Lyse, he quickly trailed off and his smile transformed into a look of fright. “Miss Lyse! Get over here!”
“Huh?” Alcede wasn’t looking at Lyse; he was looking past her. When she glanced over her shoulder to see why, the very sight made her gulp...for the clones, who’d been so docile before, were now shuffling toward her with outstretched arms. “Wha—!”
“Lyse! Run!” Sidis shouted.
Lyse readily obliged. There wasn’t much distance between her and the clone army. They were practically clawing at her by the time she tried to break free of them.
What in the gods’ names is happening?! Did I get thrown into a game of tag or something?!
Lyse had little idea what was going on, but she wasn’t about to let herself be overrun. She deftly eluded the clones’ grasp, slid to the edge of the ritual site, and chucked the glowing boulder into the middle of the spell circle with a grunt.
It was then that she gasped in terror. Oh no! What if it’s so big that it ruins the formulae when it hits the ground?! As she panicked, the white stone landed squarely in the center of the ring with a thud, and instantaneously, the spell circle began glowing as the stored mana dispersed into it.
“Get back!” called Alcede.
Lyse heeded his command and retreated toward the villa. The magic was firing up and would soon reignite the Light. They couldn’t afford to stay so close to it any longer. Fortunately, as the boulder activated the circle, the clones calmed down once again and let Lyse be.
“Are you okay, Lyse?” Sidis rushed over to her and embraced her.
“I’m fine. Let’s hurry away from here.”
As the white stone dissolved, the spell circle grew brighter and brighter. Once the crystal was entirely gone, an intense light flooded the area. Sidis turned away from the dazzling brilliance and buried Lyse in his chest, shielding her from the rays.
“All right!” Egbert shouted. Though Lyse couldn’t see him, she knew his voice. Then, shortly after his exclamation, the blinding flash was gone.
“Excuse me?” Sidis said, turning immediately to behold the new Light.
Lyse pulled away from him and turned toward the spell circle herself. “Huh...?”
The new Light of Origin stood as wide as it had before, but it didn’t even reach the roof of the villa in height. Everyone watched in quiet shock as a ball of light whistled up into the sky before popping and dispersing midair.
“What was that? Fireworks?” Sidis was baffled by the phenomenon. Lyse was too.
“Any ideas why it’s like this, Alcede?” Egbert asked.
The duke shook his head. “I tried my supposed improvements to the formulae on the small-scale version, but I guess they didn’t work here.”
“You mean they did before?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have employed them here and now otherwise, but, well...” Alcede seemed to lose the rest of his sentence. The Light now looked nothing like it had before.
“Does it need more mana?” Sidis suggested.
“That might be it. I think we can still make a few edits to the spell circle if we take it down right now,” replied Alcede.
“We were prepared for this to take a day or two anyway, so let’s take our time and get things right,” insisted Egbert.
Hearing the emperor’s words brought to mind memories Lyse had rediscovered the other day. They’d gone through all the proper steps to recreate the Light, but the original Light was the product of a magical miscalculation that had overloaded the pillar and sent it towering into the heavens above.
“Hmm... So what are we missing?” she mumbled to herself.
They were lacking a key element of the equation—whatever it was that had overloaded the magic. Lyse ran through the whole process in her head again. What else was there besides scribbling out the formulae and dumping in some mana? Sidis stepped toward the circle with the white crystal spear in hand, and just then, everything clicked for Lyse.
“Um, hold on!” she cried out.
Sidis, with the spear already raised overhead, lowered it immediately. “What’s wrong, Lyse?”
“I think I’ve figured out what we’re missing.” Sidis, Egbert, and Alcede walked up to her as she continued, “Duke Alcede, do you have any black stone?”
“Not a whole lot, but here,” he said as he dug a handful of black pebbles out from his pocket. “I had a stash for protection just in case anything happens. His Majesty should be carrying some as well.”
“Could you please share them with me and Lord Sidis, then go hide inside the villa?”
“Sure thing. I don’t have anything else up my sleeve, but it sounds like you do, Miss Lyse, so let’s give it a shot.”
Lyse gratefully took the stones from Alcede and turned to her fiancé. “Lord Sidis, come with me to the spell circle. Bring those rocks with you too, please.”
“Okay. What shall we do after that?”
“When our ancestors poured their mana into the circle, they wished for bountiful lands so that their children and children’s children would never go hungry.” They were exiles who’d fled from another country and settled in the once-barren lands that became Razanate. They hadn’t just poured their magic into the spell, but all their hopes and dreams into the creation of the Light of Origin. “The Light was originally to bless the land with fertility, but things didn’t quite go as planned.”
Egbert gasped. “That’s right! We’re not really getting this right unless we go overboard too.”
Lyse nodded in agreement.
“That’s far too dangerous, Lyse. Allow me to handle it,” Sidis insisted.
“No,” she firmly objected. “I believe I am the most resistant to the Light. After all, I’m the one who passed it on to you. It might be weaker secondhand.”
“But...” Sidis wanted to protest, but he knew Lyse was right.
“What about Seren?” Alcede asked.
“I doubt he feels as protective of the empire. Moreover, I doubt that his recently induced bout of melancholy makes him suitable for the task,” she explained.
“Okay then, Sidis, stay with Lyse and keep her safe,” ordered Egbert.
“Understood,” the prince agreed, his concern hardening into determination.
Lyse and Sidis approached the not-quite-complete beam that was still throwing fireworks into the afternoon sky. This would be beautiful at night, Lyse thought as she looked up. If they waited until nightfall, however, it would cause an immense headache. Everyone across the continent would be able to see the Light behaving oddly once the sun went down. That said, its newly reduced size was the entire reason Lyse was able to approach it so calmly now. She and Sidis were safely able to walk up to the pillar with the protection of the black stones they were carrying.
“So, what exactly is the plan, Lyse?” he asked.
“Do you remember how we could generate a similar light with the white stones around us? My plan is to cast them into the Light while offering our wishes and prayers.”
“I see. We’re going to overload it with mana from the outside. And so the black stones are just for our protection?”
“Precisely.”
The Light of Origin wouldn’t truly be the Light of Origin without being immense and powerful. Getting it to that state, however, was a potentially risky endeavor even for Lyse and Sidis, bearers of the Light. They would be right next to the pillar when it happened, hence the black stones to keep them safe.
Sidis grasped his beloved’s hand as they stood before the Light. “Lyse, once you throw the stones into the pillar, promise me you’ll flee as quickly as possible. Or rather...” Sidis paused to kiss the back of her hand. “I’ll be here to whisk you away. No more being swallowed up by the Light.”
“That sounds good to me,” she replied with a smile, bringing one to his face as well.
“So, what shall we pray for?”
“I think the same thing our ancestors did when they first made the Light.”
Lyse believed it was most prudent to replicate the circumstances of the Light’s creation as closely as possible. Sidis agreed. The couple thus looked into each other’s eyes and began gathering the white stones by their feet.
I pray that the empire’s land shall become bountiful. Lyse pictured the pillar stretching up into the sky as she imbued the crystals with her Light. That was better than the alternative, even if something was lacking, causing it to be weaker than before. Before long, small rays of light shone from her clenched fist.
“What the...?”
The next thing Lyse knew, the clones were staring at both her and Sidis’s hands. There was something awfully unsettling about the size of the audience, even if they were just clones. However, stare was all they did.
“L-Let’s just ignore them,” Sidis suggested, and so they began hurling crystals into the small pillar. It grew taller in the process, but it was still a far cry from its former glory.
“It seems like this may take some time, but at least it’s getting bigger...”
“I don’t know how much we’ll accomplish even if we keep at this for a day or two.”
As the couple continued tossing crystals into the Light, the clones merrily sauntered toward it before jumping right in. Each time one of them did, there was a metallic clang as fragments of light fell to the ground and the shards of white stone piled up. One by one, all the Egberts, Serens, Sidises, and Lyses disappeared into the pillar.
“My Lyses...” Sidis whimpered as his fiancée’s clones vanished too.
Lyse fought back laughter. When she held her hand out to catch one of the falling white shards, she heard the whispers of somebody’s inner voice. “Soar to the skies, O pillar of light... Protect our children and their children too...”
“Lyse!”
Sidis lifted her into his arms as she stood there dumbstruck and ran toward the villa. She was powerless in the moment, but the muscles in her back tensed up as she felt the strong pressure of mana bearing down on her. Egbert and Alcede threw the doors open for them with nary a moment to spare, then closed them with a slam just as quickly. When they banged shut, Lyse felt a breeze blow over her. She then felt naught but the pressure of gravity on her. She scarcely even paid any mind to the screeching explosion outside, for that almost felt normal now.
The four of them looked at each other before Sidis gingerly creaked the door open. “Ah...”
“Back to its former glory,” mumbled the emperor.
A radiant pillar now stood in the atrium, towering up into the sky just like it always had. The beauty and familiarity of the sight soothed the very depths of Lyse’s heart.