In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Sanctum, there was little cheer or fanfare.

The Hybrids of the city were lowered back into the ruins of their home by the Drytchlings. Malak led the effort, despite the sneers and snarls he got for his trouble.

Light shone on the blasted remnants of the once-great city that had stood for centuries as a challenge to human rule on Argwyll. The streets were now piles of rubble, strewn with the bodies of the dead. The tunnels and their sophisticated defenses were smashed, and what little resistance the Greycloak forces that remained in their bowels had quickly died with the Lightborn's defeat. It was reported that the individual Greys who had come with Arty had simply laid down their arms and surrendered, feeling the demise of their Lord and knowing that the victory they had once been promised was now forever out of sight. Some of them were slain by the charmed beasts of Mara, and others were taken as prisoners to be brought before the Archon and dealt with as he saw fit.

In the city of Sanctum proper there was no great joy. The people had cheered to see their Archon triumphant, and then had realized that this was a pyrrhic victory the likes of which none of them could have expected.

Those who weren't consumed by grief as they saw what had become of everything they had built were filled with anger. And Ethan was more than willing to oblige them, to an extent.

His first act after his proclamation of victory was to drag the Lightborn into the center of the city and show him to the Hybrids. Artorious, his wings curled up and crisping, his pale skin now blackened with exposure to the molten core of Argwyll, dared not even look at them. He threw up his arms and curled up, refusing to lay his eyes upon anyone.

"I give you the Lightborn," Ethan told them, greeting their cries for vengeance with a roar that shook the skeletal frames of their buildings. "As you can see, he's had better days!"

Fauna, Klax, and Tara watched the gritty display of their enemy squirming. It was almost impossible to believe that the creature writhing on the ground in the middle of their empty city had really caused all the death and destruction they had seen.

Mara crept close to her teacher to watch the scene unfold. But she did not clutch at her skirt.

"See how he squirms under your gazes!" Ethan barked from his position atop the tallest spire that still stood in the city. "You have my word, Hybrids of Sanctum, that he will never touch another hair of your heads. His days of conquering in the name of humanity are over. You are looking at the last Lightborn! Of that, I will make sure!"

As he crowd then cheered him on, Fauna had to wonder what exactly Ethan meant by that. Nobody was cognizant enough right now to ask the questions that were quickly filling her mind: was he going to slay Artorious? If not, what would the fate of the Lightborn be?

And equally, how had Ethan clenched this victory? The Lightborn wasn't just beaten – he was drained. It was as though someone had yanked his powers right out of him.

Lamphrey had spoken of a choice, the Hopla thought. Ethan…what choice did you make down there?

"But I ask you now, to put thoughts of vengeance from your minds," Ethan carried on, his voice traveling to all corners of Sanctum – even to the smallest crevices and cracks in the vacant tunnels where those Hybrids paralyzed with fear and loss had been hiding all this time.

"I know it's tough – I know you want to see nothing more than retribution for his genocide. But I ask you to leave him, and such retribution, to me. I ask you to give me your anger and let me deliver it upon the world that has kept you groveling down here for as long as you have. I ask you to trust me, Hybrids of Sanctum."

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The faces of the Hybrids – Hopla, Lycae, Minxit, Dixit and Ratmen – all looked upon their leader as though he had asked them a question with the most obvious answer in the world.

And yet still, he needed to ask it.

"Will you place your trust in me?" he asked from atop his perch. "And let me carry your dreams to the farthest reaches of this land?"

The people didn't even falter.

Together they punched the air and cried out that they would follow him without question. And of all the chaotic sounds of battle that had reigned in their underground world that day, the last was the sound of their victory chorus.

Even Mara was affected by it all. Watching from behind Fauna's skirt, the child let out a weary sigh – one that caused her minotaur servants to take note of her sagging little body.

Mr Ethan…has done it.

Fauna looked down to see her slowly collapse to her knees, her face contorted in a sad, detached smile.

He…we…won…

The girl's exhaustion coupled with grief finally took hold of her. She let herself fall, and Fauna watched her drop into Borlor's quick hands.

"There, there, little lass," the weary Dixit said. "I got ya."

He looked up at Fauna who gave him a nod of thanks.

"I'll take care of her," he offered. "After all, she was one of our greatest wee defenders."

Fauna let the Dixit take her away, watching in silence as Fraxx joined his voice to the chorus of Ethan's crowd.

"I really wish you could've seen this, sis," Fauna murmured to Lamphrey again. She'd remained with the Tialax on the ground since the descent of the Hybrids who had made it to the surface, and now Klax and Tara finally joined her.

Klax had the Greycloak boy in a headlock. He'd knocked him out after it was discovered that he wouldn't stop screaming.

"Shoulda' just let me ice the little guy," Tara grumbled. But both her companions knew that this was a tepid threat. In truth, as she sat herself down next to Fauna and took in the sight of the city below, the Hopla could sense that, for the first time in a long while, Tara was relieved.

For a while, none of them said a thing. They watched as Ethan barked the rest of his Mandate to the people – that they would focus their efforts now on rebuilding Sanctum, that he would decide on the Lightborn's punishment, and that he would organize a delegation to the surface world where they would take the now vacant city of Lucent for themselves.

"Vacant…" Fauna whispered.

"Yeah," Tara sighed. "Means he did what he had to do. Cleared it of the Greys and their peeps. Now, it'll be ours for the taking."

"If we even want it."

Klax and Tara glanced in Fauna's direction, seeing that she was completely captivated now by Lamphrey's glazed over eyes. The Tialax had died in her arms, and her blood was still on her hands.

Slowly, Klax bent down and closed their fallen sister's eyes.

"She was a woman of prophecy," he said. "Just like Jun was. She no doubt saw that this was to be her fate – to die here, for our sake."

"No," Fauna replied, surprising herself with just how much power she put behind that word. "No – she, she said before she died that she'd chosen this. That saving Mara was securing the future."

The Hopla ran a shaking hand over the Oneiromancer's scaled face.

"She was always looking two steps ahead," she said. "But in the end, she decided to stop her looking. She decided to act so that the future was bright."

"And it will be, now, sis," Tara offered, clutching Fauna's shoulder with her sticky hand. "After all, you heard what the big guy said."

They stood together on the ridge just overlooking Sanctum city proper, each of them sticking close, knowing that now the world was about to change in ways they'd never even really imagined it would. Knowing, too, how much it had cost them all. They'd bought hope for Hybrids everywhere. They'd won Westerweald. But whether the price was worth it, none of them could truly know.

"It ssssems that our Lord comesss to graccce ussss," Frax said, throat even more hoarse than usual due to his joining in the victory chant.

The three Hybrids that had found the Archon so long ago in the forest of Grenbelm watched as he glided towards them from the distance, coming to hover lightly before he halted at the edge of the ridge that they were sitting on.

For a few seconds, nobody knew what to say. Frax dropped to a bow, glancing at the others as he did so, noticing that they were simply staring at the three-headed, awesome monster that had come to see them with expressions that he couldn't quite read on their faces.

Finally, to nobody's surprise, it was Fauna who spoke first:

"I knew you'd come back."

Ethan could barely even look at her. Like a boy who'd run away from home, he was expecting at least a little anger for the way he'd left them back in Haylock's castle. But, as usual, the people of this world just kept on surprising him.

There was little he could say to justify any of this. There was little he could say to them that they wouldn't see through.

So, instead, he just said exactly what he needed to say:

"I'm just sorry it took me this long. And that this isn't over yet. Not by a long shot."

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