Eluvie tracked the disaster's progress by the sounds she heard. While she vacillated between calm control and outright panic, the sound of crashing objects grew in frequency until they sounded like the most terrifying rainstorm in existence. Then, all at once, they ceased. Somehow, perhaps miraculously, nothing collided with the building she was in.

  She waited for almost an hour after the last of the sounds disappeared. Then, realizing that nothing would happen on the planet without her involvement, she climbed out of hiding. The world was so dark that no amount of squinting could help her see. She was forced to navigate out of the building by touch and sound.

  Being outside was little better than being inside. She had an impression of open space, but she did not know how much of that came from her imagination. She also quickly realized that she had no sense of direction. Ideally, she would attempt to walk toward the portal and see if it would work. Or perhaps she could check that the caches were undamaged. But if she began walking, she knew that she would very quickly become lost. And being lost in the darkness was a nightmare she had no plans of exploring.

  So, what do I do?

  It was taking all of her energy to keep her panic at bay. She was the only person left on an entire planet. It might be possible to revive the others, or it might not. The whole world was dark. If that was not resolved, even the humans still alive might not live for long. And all this was mostly - if not entirely - her fault.

  A light caught her eyes. She caught her breath, hoping that it had not been summoned by her imagination. But no, it was still there. It was too far away to understand, but it stood out clearly in the sea of darkness.

  She debated her choices for only an instant. After all, a choice between standing in darkness or walking toward the only light in the landscape was no choice at all. Perhaps the strange man - Ettelvwi - had finally arrived. Or perhaps it was only a burning building. Either way, it would give her someone to speak with or a tool with which to light her path.

  The walk was long. For what was probably the third time, she cursed the spaciousness of the Illrum's home. What should have been a few minutes' walk turned into half an hour. Perhaps it was even longer; she was forced to take several breaks along the way.

  The light never faltered.

  Eventually, she grew close enough that she could see its source. It was clearly a person. Relief gave her strength and she found herself almost running. The man was glowing, but the glow decreased in intensity as she approached until she was right beside him and there was only enough of a glow to see him.

  Eluvie came to a halt right before him, only then aware that she had been running. She stood still, breathing hard and not knowing what to say or do.

  He gave her a weak smile. "Forgive me for not coming to you," he said. "I had to check the cache first. And retrieve what I could from Arra's memories."

  Eluvie looked around the area, perplexed. The building that used to house the cache was a pile of rubble behind him. Beside him was a pile of orbs. She recognized them as seeds. Each orb was a pale, lifeless gray. Yet, the man sat with his legs tucked under him, showing little sign of distress. He looked unhappy but, unlike her, not frantic.

  "Are they all dead?" Eluvie motioned to the orbs.

  He nodded.

  Her panic rose a tiny bit. "What about the other caches?"

  "They were all broken."

  Eluvie had to take a moment to verify that she had heard that correctly.

  "Then," she stuttered, "the evacuees, and the seeds they took…"

  "Definitely dead as well."

  They remained still, one sitting, one standing, while Eluvie searched for words that were not utterly inadequate compared to the situation.

  "Why are you so calm?" Her voice came out as an unintentional whisper. She lacked the strength to properly force out the words.

  He took an exhausted breath and stretched his body a little. "This is the second apocalypse of my life," he tilted his head in thought, "or the second and a half, depending on how you count. You learn to deal with it. Are you hungry?"

  "No."

  When he jerked at her voice, Eluvie realized that she had been more forceful than she had intended.

  "I am not hungry," she said in a more even tone. "What I want - " her voice shook, "what I want is for you to fix this."

  He went very still as he watched her. His eyes were like an open door, displaying everything that he felt: grief, pity, and exhaustion the most prominent.

  "I'm sorry," he said finally. "I'm not capable enough to be everything I could be. It's taking all of my strength to maintain this form and remain upright. Even taking you to the kitchen might be too much work." He stared at the empty space beside her head. "Sometimes, you do everything that you can and it's not enough."

  He stared up at the blackness where the sky used to be. "If it helps, Arra is alive."

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  Eluvie started. She stared up, following his gaze but saw nothing of note.

  "I didn't realize that it wasn't obvious," Ettelvwi said. "When Illrum die, their bodies dissipate. If Arra were dead, most of this landscape - the parts that are still linked to him - would be gone. I suspect that he tried to protect you, since you were the only human here. That's why you have air to breathe, and something to stand on."

  To Eluvie, that small victory felt like no victory at all.

  "There has to be something…" she said.

  "Eluvie," he said.

  His tone gave her pause. "What?"

  "There's only the two of us here. Arra is conscious. There's no need to pretend."

  He sounded so reasonable that Eluvie was taken aback. She searched her mind, trying to determine if she had even an inkling of what he was saying, but she found nothing.

  "Pretend about what?" She asked.

  "That you care," he said. "You don't feel grieved that the Illrum died. You feel relieved. It feels like a weight has been taken off your shoulders. There is no one to force you to return to Mirab, no one to force you through another trial. You no longer have to feel responsible for the survival of an entire race. All the toil you have endured for so long will never bother you again."

  Eluvie would have slapped him, but he was still sitting and therefore out of reach.

  "The only complication is your guilt," he said. "But even there you can rest easy. Arra forced you to take the trial so early. Everything you did during the trial was natural and straightforward. That you successfully brought humans here is a failing of the older Illrum. You even warned them about your complacency before your departure. No reasonable person can deny that you did your best and fulfilled your obligations. So, if I find a way to send you through the portal to a mostly habitable world, you will find a way to protect yourself through this crisis."

  There was no hint of malice or sarcasm in his tone, but Eluvie could not believe that he was being straightforward.

  "Do you always insult people with a straight face?" she asked.

  He tilted his head in the way that was beginning to grate on her. "Are you saying that I'm wrong?"

  "Of course you're wrong!"

  "Then what if I told you that you could save everyone by returning to Mirab and taking your trial all over again?"

  Eluvie's heart lurched. She clutched her chest, momentarily worried that she was having a heart attack, but her heart simply settled into a faster, more terrified rhythm.

  "There it is," he said.

  He didn't follow that with more words, so Eluvie was left standing there, searching for a way to both absolve herself and avoid a reality she would rather die than return to.

  "Calm down," he said after a while, sounding apologetic. "I was making a point. This is a terrible situation, but telling the truth, at least to yourself, will only make it better. You haven't done something shameful. You're just a tired, broken, and terrified person, much like myself. No one would want to live through that experience twice."

  "Is it true?" Eluvie asked. "If I pass the trial for Rauw, can we bring everyone back?"

  "No," he said flatly. "You need to pass at least three more trials to be useful in this situation."

  His answer did not comfort Eluvie. It terrified her. "Three trials?!"

  He tilted his head again and peered at her. "Don't tell me that you're actually considering it."

  "You have a tic," she said. "You tilt your head far too often."

  His eyes filled with awareness and he straightened himself, but he continued to watch her with surprise.

  "Of course I don't want to do it," she said. "I want to strangle you for even suggesting it. I want to go back in time to the moment before I asked that question and never ask it. I want to drop dead right now, rather than continue this conversation. But I don't seem to be able to manage any of those things, so what am I to do?"

  He gave his first genuine smile of the day. His whole face lit up. And his eyes, which had previously held so little life, seemed to fill with hope. Tears even seemed to be gathering in them. He blinked and the tears were gone, but the hope remained.

  "I see why Arra indulged you," he said.

  Eluvie watched him silently.

  "Most people would take the escape they've been given," he continued. "I can deliver you to a safe place. The human situation is difficult now, but they'll survive for a time. You can live a calm, mostly painless life."

  Eluvie was tempted by the offer, but not as tempted as she should have been. "But you've forgotten my guilt," she said. "I'll have to live the rest of my life knowing that I could have saved everyone but didn't. I would never be happy."

  "It would be better than torture," he said.

  She shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know. I haven't tried it."

  He barked a laugh.

  The fear in Eluvie's chest had not subsided. She needed him to do something, to either free or trap her with the words.

  "So, is it possible?" She asked again. "If I pass three trials, we can save them?"

  "If I said yes," he asked, "would you do it?"

  She wanted to tell him to answer her question first, but his warning about honesty had stuck. She needed to answer the question - at least for herself.

  "I would have to," she said. "I don't want to. I really, really, really don't want to. But I would have to try."

  Once again, his face lit up like the sky at midday. "Then we have a chance."

  She watched him suspiciously, waiting for him to elaborate.

  "If you have the desire to take the trials and the conviction to take them despite the cost to you, then I know a foolproof way to pass them."

  Eluvie did not like the sound of that. The words foolproof and trial seemed to contradict each other.

  "A foolproof way?"

  "For your specific situation," he said. "Because you've taken the trial before, you know the costs and you're not undertaking it out of selfishness. Basically, we can exclude the portion of the trial that checks for self-interest and that opens up some helpful avenues."

  "I don't understand a word of what you're saying."

  "Trust me," he said, his face the picture of earnestness. "You only have to say that you want to try. Do you want to try?"

  Eluvie watched him silently for a long time.

  "I don't even know you," she said. "Why would I put my life in your hands?"

  "How could it be worse than putting your life in your hands, person who failed her trial by accidentally committing genocide?"

  She scowled at him, but the look couldn't pierce his new, joy-filled armor.

  "Come on," he laughed, "we'll walk to the kitchen and I'll explain the plan."