“Brave heart, Roland.”
Light, all around. The light of a full moon, pearl and silver. A radiant embrace, carrying Roland and his companions…
To the sky.
A song filled the pillar of light, a song Roland was still learning, but knew he would become intimately familiar with in time.
The chorus of the Second Quartet.
Zexal, electric pulse of motion, heartbeat of the world.
Huill, the first artist, gifting to humanity the many expressions of imagination that give life such meaning.
ChronoLogy, the twins of time and space, governing the passage of time in all its complexity, and its mysterious interactions with the physicality of the world.
Luna. Lord of the Second Quartet, Lady of Light, embodying light in its fullest sense, not just visual but internal. The light of life. The light of hope. Light to carry beyond physical perception and logical boundaries, inspiring a greater dream of what could be.
We begin at the end. The Lord of the Second Quartet starts us on this journey.
Roland couldn’t ignore the rumbling in his heart — and was trying not to laugh about it. Jurall seethed over Maestro Brahe’s assessment that the Lord of the Second Quartet was “actually useful,” “unlike” Jurall.
Fret not, Jurall. I don’t share the Maestro’s opinion. Let’s look forward to meeting Luna, rather than going in with bitter preconceptions.
There was a shift in the light, and a thrill of anticipation ran through Roland’s heart.
This is it.
The First Quartet went silent, a collective held breath. Tsubasa’s hand was in Roland’s, and he felt the same excitement from her.
The song rose, then went suddenly quiet. Weightlessness became groundedness, Roland’s feet settling on a solid floor. The veil of light parted, and vanished, and Roland gazed in awe at his entrance to a brand new world.
An observatory.
That’s what it felt like to Roland, though he knew this place was more than that. Grand arched windows gave gorgeous views of a serene starlit sky outside, stars seeming close enough to touch, and no land in sight, only endless, dark oceans, glittering with the light of stars. Inside the observatory, all was circles, spheres, and layers.
“Is this…” Erika started in a hushed voice.
Roland nodded. “Luna’s Canon.”
His first thought was to discern the trials, to be wary. It would surely be a task to gain access to Luna’s Cloister, no matter how inviting the space seemed.
But Shureen sang gently within him.
“The Second Quartet is not like the First. You have already conquered a great Trial to be here.”
There was a whisper that followed, soft cloth brushing against the stairs. Roland looked up and couldn’t believe his eyes.
The moon was coming down, heaven descending from her lofty heights to greet the earth. Luna glided down the stairs on soft, gentle footfalls, a gown of moonlight trailing behind her. Her hair was a cascade of pale golden starlight over porcelain shoulders, her eyes at once gold and silver, sunlight and moonlight living as one in her gaze.
Luna stopped before them, and Roland was transfixed. By her otherworldly beauty, by the aura of magic that rolled off her as a wave, by the face that she would deign to meet them outside her Cloister…
And by her size.
Luna was unmistakably powerful beyond reckoning. She was also not much taller than Roland, perhaps only five-foot-six. She was a Fantasian, Lord of the Second Quartet, and yet she seemed strangely… human.
“Welcome, Summoner,” Luna said, and Roland was startled further. She spoke! There was a musicality in her voice, a song as an undercurrent to her elegant speech, but she didn’t sing directly like that First Quartet. Her gaze searched his eyes, piercing through him. “You have questions.”
That’s… quite the understatement.
But Roland realized there really was only one place to start. “We begin at the end.”
“Correct,” Luna said. “Such has always been the Summoner’s Path. To traverse a world of light, you need light to guide you.”
“Then… I form a Pact with you first?” Roland stared, amazed at this turn of events.
But Luna shook her head. A gentle movement. “Your entry to my Cloister, and the Pact we shall form, lies after you meet with the others in my Quartet. I give you direction. You form the Pacts, then return to me to complete the Quartet.”
“Excuse me,” Erika said meekly, taking a small step forward. “I know you are part of the Summoner’s journey, but since you’re outside your Cloister, I wonder… well… may I ask a question?”
Luna inclined her head. “You may.”
“We have so many questions about what comes next,” Erika said. “Will you just guide us to the next Canon? Or… can you help us make more sense of what we’ve faced? What we have yet to face?” She faltered, then, but her face showed plain her dismay.
“Fret not, children of New Elysia,” Luna said, and the twins stared at her intently. “You shall return home. Your journey walks a road directly towards the world you left behind. There, horrors stir, disturbing Zexal and more besides —” Luna turned her attention to Roland, “you, Summoner, and your companions, must quell these horrors, and make right what has been set so wickedly to wrong. But you will not trek directly to New Elysia. You will first meet Huill, and then ChronoLogy, in part.”
“In part?” Roland asked.
There was a flicker in Luna’s face, a slight darkening of her glow. “You have been warned already that time has gone askew. Time and Space both are interwoven, and what havoc has been wrought upon them has been visited most cruelly upon ChronoLogy. Huill and I have so far resisted the effects of the evil that is spreading — but it is spreading. You have the tools. You have the ingenuity. You have the ability. If you wish to mend the broken heart of our world, this is your first step. Mend what has been broken here among the stars.”
Roland could see it still in his mind’s eye, the shattered crystal at the core of Aîrchal. The things he and his friends had seen since then, the impossible power Lacie wielded, enough to lay a Dragon low, had made him question the feasibility of his promise. Could he — could they, he and his companions, mere humans that they were, ever hope to fit the world’s broken pieces back together?
But Luna looked at him with complete confidence, her voice radiating a hope that he could trust in.
“I should amend my statement,” Luna said, and Roland almost thought he heard a chuckle, glimpsed a faint smile on her lips. “You do have the tools necessary for the task ahead — but not the tools to progress to your destination. This world, my world, is not one fit for your grounded feet to walk. Tell me — what do you see when you look beyond these walls?” She turned and gestured towards the grand windows that gave such a marvelous view of the starry sea beyond.
“A sea of stars,” Tsubasa said, breathless with wonder.
“An ocean of light,” Muirrach said.
“And you, Summoner?” Luna asked, casting a sidelong glance at him.
Roland studied the view longer before answering, knowing there must be more than he could see. But in the end, he said, “The same. A voyage lies before us, it seems.”
“So it seems,” Luna said. She turned back to them. “The ocean is illusion. Beyond these walls, there are scattered stars, and beings and halls of light. But besides the Canons, the Cúplach, and New Elysia, there is no ground on which to stand, no sea on which to sail. Between these scattered lights, there is only dark, cold void. You call our world the Sky-Sphere, but it is not the sky, not as you know it. You are beyond the bounds of your realms, now. And while the sky seems endless to you, it, too, has its own boundaries. Were you to step beyond my door as you are now, you would drift helplessly in the emptiness, the breath stolen from your lungs, the warmth frozen from your veins. It would be a haunting, lonely end.”
Roland stared, trying and failing to grasp the reality of what she said. What he could see outside was beautiful, marvelous, and full. He couldn’t see the emptiness of which she spoke.
And it frightened him.
Muirrach broke the silence. “How do we proceed, then?”
“With my blessing,” Luna said. She held out her hand, palm upward, and in a twinkling, five little stars appeared, floating in the air above her palm.
No, not stars.
Earrings.
Five silver earrings danced above her hand, each the shape of a star nested in a crescent moon. “Wear these,” Luna said. “They will mark you as guests in this realm, opening up the lanes between, so you can travel where you need to go.”
As they each took an earring, Roland for a moment panicked. He didn’t have his ears pierced, and hadn’t ever planned to do so.
“They’re clip-ons,” Tsubasa said, noticing Roland’s trepidation. She demonstrated, clipping hers to her right earlobe so it dangled lightly, shimmering as it caught the light.
“Oh, like this,” Enrique said, clipping his on and then helping his sister. They both remarked on how well they fit alongside their white feather ear ornaments, Erika excitedly looking at herself in a mirror. Roland clipped his to his left ear, and found it less intrusive than he’d expected. It was light, and comforting, as if his ear had been missing something until now. Muirrach, after conferring with Luna about his lack of protruding ears, clipped his to the collar of his shirt, where she assured him it would have the same effect.
“Travel towards the Twins, as straight as you can,” Luna said. “The lanes will wind to and fro, but keep your path ever moving towards the moons. You will meet Huill and ChronoLogy along the way, but you will also find rest at friendly stars, and many of the people of light will be kind and welcoming. But visitors upon the lanes always invite shadows. They shall attempt to prey upon your fears and anxieties.” She fixed Roland with a meaningful gaze. “You have already faced yourself, Summoner. Do not lose what you fought so hard to win.”
“I won’t,” Roland said, and he felt again that tiny spark of conviction that had lit within him during his Trial in Aula Fantasia. He still had so much to learn, so many questions to answer, so far to grow.
But he knew what he was fighting for. He knew who he was, and who he wanted to be.
“It really isn’t an ocean out there, huh?” Tsubasa asked, slowly approaching the nearest window. Roland felt the same curiosity, the same disbelief. He still thought he saw waves, currents, a constant rolling tide of starry sea. “Just cold, desolate abyss… that sounds so lonely. So cruel.”
“It is anathema to your kind,” Luna said. “But this world was not made for you. Hence you are visitors. There will places for you, though, among the stars. It is not all cold and perilous.”
“Brave heart, Roland. The world is not all cold and perilous.”
The words of Alystair resonated in Roland’s memory, and filled his heart with hope. How true he had found them to be, since beginning this journey.
“With that, I leave you,” Luna said. She turned, gesturing towards stairs leading down. “Descend, step out the door, and save this world.”
Roland was full of questions, longing to spend much more time with Luna. But as she made for the ascending stair, beginning to leave, she cast him a glance, and he saw then the promise of the future.
I will return. And when I do, you and I will get to truly understand one another.
When Erika and Enrique both moved to pursue, to ask Luna questions, Roland directed them towards the descending stair. “We’ll return,” he said. “Before then, New Elysia awaits our arrival.”
That arrested their attention. Together, Roland and his companions descended through the observatory, approached the doors, and pushed them open.
A world of light and darkness, of beauty and emptiness, awaited them. And there, in the distance, the twin moons loomed like circular mountains. Roland eyed the shadow between them — hidden in that darkness lay New Elysia. The secrets of Zexal, of Songbird, of the twins and their parents and Reunion, lay there waiting.
Roland breathed deep the cold air of this new world, and then led the way, taking his first step on the road of light.