Gil isn’t sure what Tem­ple Jaruna is talk­ing about, but he fol­lows the mys­tic any­way down the twist­ing sand tun­nel. It’s hard to tell, because the ground is any­thing but flat, but it feels like the tun­nel is slop­ing upwards.

Finally, the sand gives way to a harder rock sur­face. The tun­nel widens into a small cav­ern. In the can­dle­light, Gil can make out other tun­nels branch­ing off.

Jaruna stops in the mid­dle of the cav­ern, and takes his bow off his back. He hands the can­dle to his sis­ter. Then he draws an arrow and nocks it.

The mys­tic just sighs and points his bow up at the ceil­ing. He begins to glow vio­let.

The mys­tic has to close his eyes while sum­mon­ing the dawn astra’s energy. Gil tries to fig­ure out where he’s point­ing the bow—a faint patch of dark gray in the black­ness of the ceil­ing.

Gil watches closely this time as the mys­tic warps up the cav­ern shaft. It is as though the air itself moves and dis­torts around the mystic’s glow­ing body, fun­nel­ing its mat­ter into the now-familiar arc of light. Gil won­ders what it feels like to van­ish and reap­pear some­where else.

The old man deftly dodges a rope lad­der that drops sud­denly from the ceil­ing. It had nearly smacked him on his head.

He tugs it, mak­ing sure it’s taught. He looks at Gil.

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