Trapped in the Gyre

The Sage hangs weightless, pinned between everywhere and nowhere. Her arms ensnared by the weft and weave of the cosmos, cords of light that bind the four kingdoms together, and her to this place. Her eyes are shut, her breaths even and deep. Scintillating light all around her, and a formless darkness circling like blood spilled in a whirlpool. Hours of stillness -- the light, the darkness, the empty everything -- things she feels and senses, but not what she sees. Beneath silver eyelids her eyes flit wildly, walking paths within her own mind, treading the infinite maze of memories.
First, she returns to the vault beneath Andarud. Lamruil. Young, very young, a child of this era. His skin a glistening purple, his face a mass of tendrils, his eyes alien and calculating. For Athalor's sake -- no, for Athalor's argument -- she'd stayed her hand. But how could she forget the skies of dream rupturing like broken skin, the chitinous din of thousands of thirsty beaks and frenzied proboscises, that she only scarecely survived mere months ago? Had the others already forgotten?
That path leads her to that day, when Garnet and Athalor tried to get her killed, fearful for their own lives. Young, very young, children of this era. Before her mind's eye the students that saved her come into focus. They are still out there, armed with the scant knowledge she's transferred thus far -- but beyond them the oily tar of a bloody river, a cold and hateful shadow waiting for her. She cannot walk that way. She turns her back, and returns to the vaults of Andarud.
Hadarai stands beside his brother, arcane light shimmering upon their deft hands, tearing apart every spell the Sage invokes before the incantation even passes her lips. Foolish, she whispers to herself. Foolish to challenge two great abjurers at once. The stalemate lasts until one spell breaks through her own defenses, casting her out of Andarud -- directly into the Gyre. Each thread and tangled cord of its harmony stings and numbs her body as she falls out of the world, caught at its very edge in a web of folded realities.
Her eyes fly open -- it's time. Carefully loosening her joints, she takes her time making the delicate gestures and sibilant syllables of third circle magic. Layer by layer she weaves a tapestry of thought around her own mind, then ties it with a final word of power. The mind blank is renewed. Darkness flows around her and past her, seething with malevolent hatred, but she feels nothing. Without his frozen body or scepter, the Herald can only harm her mind.
Back to the paths of memory -- one foot standing beneath Andarud in the moment before she plunged into the gyre, the other upon the shaking stones of dream as the sky boils with flesh and blood. All doubt is gone. Lamruil is a part of that thing, that great hunger, and with every passing day It grows closer. It urges Athalor to feast on the blood it craves, and grows stronger. This close to the hungry dark she can almost feel the infinite space just out of reach, and the trail of blood leading It to the Four Kingdoms. He is its Herald. Athalor his prodigy.
Lastly, her mind reaches the end of its wandering path. Ahead is a door that cannot be opened. On the other side...the answer to a question she asks herself now. Two lives bound together by blood and fate. One too far gone to save -- but Athalor? Is it too late for him? To save us from this parasite, does Athalor need to die?
Hours pass. Memories flow within her. She opens her eyes to renew the Mind Blank. There is no sun or moon to tell her the time. As long as she remains here, the Herald harms no others -- but the longer she remains here, the more time Lamruil has, and the closer that thing gets. The Sun. The Moon.
It is not in the nature of Luminias' children to worship, nor to serve. They remember the Dawn, when they shaped reality more easily than the titans themselves. It is not in their nature to pray. But as time passes on, as the Herald's patience matches her own, as no sign of help appears, The Sage bows her head. Perhaps it is not a prayer, but the invocation of a promise. Her voice echoes in the twisting gyre for the first time since she arrives, a single word, a word that shines with light and echoes with hope.
"Realta."