Falling was the most universal expression of domineering force. It was gravity’s way of telling Lucy that every part of her was subject to its command, that it could and would make her descend and lose control of herself at any and every opportunity it got.

  So when Lucy opened her eyes to see the white-and-red of the castle’s rooftop fast approaching, her mind was already hurtling to a single purpose:

  To stop gravity.

  Her body, arms straight like a diver as she tore down through the open air head-first, was chillingly numb. Her fingers tingled from the blood rushing away from them as her heart beat like a factory press during overtime. It was an involuntary reaction, one imposed by her by the rapidly-growing shape of the castle’s hard rooftop that threatened to pulverize her if she continued falling as demanded.

  But against the frigid cold making her shiver, Lucy stopped her chattering teeth, gritting them together, as she directed the entire force of her being, set in motion physically and mentally, toward a single sharp purpose like the pointed end of a blade:

  Stop.

  It did not happen. It refused to happen. But still she threw that demand of her own into the world, intuitively battering down every constraint, every unseen chain that held her as the fabric of reality decreed that she must fall to her doom.

  At the edges of her eyes turned to tunnel vision, there was a familiar expanse of open air right at the centre of the castle, accompanied by a wavering shimmer of technicolor robes: the King. Mere seconds from now, were Lucy to continue her descent, she would pass the audience chamber and be lost to the world below.

  Stop!

  That request, that desire, that infinite reaching out to a state of being that wasn’t failure and submission—exploded out in every direction across the sky and billowed out across the entire world like smoke from a mushroom cloud. Every piece of matter was obliterated, all the atoms making up the fabric of Lucy’s Final Dream were seized and rearranged into a new configuration, an entire new state of being that paid no heed to how it contradicted whatever came before.

  And, when that metaphorical cloud of smoke lifted, Lucy was left floating upside down in the audience chamber.

  With her momentum completely stopped.

  “A most unexpected entrance, but one deserving of much praise.”

  The King’s voice forced itself into her ears from every direction as usual, but seeing him upside-down made this far more disorienting than usual.

  Lucy scrambled to get herself upright again, but a cutting realization told her that if that were to happen right now, she might end up falling again. So firstly, she willed a cloud platform to appear beneath her. Once she saw soft, pillowing white spread out, she then scooped her arms forward while kicking her legs, as if she were swimming. To her surprise, this actually rotated her body perfectly without any difficulty, and in seconds she landed on the solid cloud ground with a light plop.

  Panting as she caught her breath and reoriented her bearings, Lucy looked down at herself, bringing her left arm up in front of her eyes. She flexed it, stretched it out, then grabbed it with her other hand and steadily applied pressure. In all cases, she felt none of the sharp, shooting pain she had grown accustomed to in Kenneth’s Dream. Although she couldn’t see it through her Higher Reflection’s chain-mail, it was clear that her left arm had been healed, just as Ricardo had said.

  Ricardo…

  The name left a dull and bitter taste in her mouth, amplified when she also thought back to Keilani. But at the same time, Diana’s name refused to leave her as well. This sent her mind whirling back to their last exchange, which had led Lucy to seethe with anger as she was falling out of Kenneth’s Dream and back into her own. That same anger had remained even while she was falling and in danger of crash landing thousands of feet below.

  And, somehow, she had re-routed that anger into a way to make her fall stop altogether.

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  “How…” Lucy said, looking up at the King. She was embarrassed by how faint and weak her voice sounded, and also a smidge annoyed, so she cleared her throat and said: “How did I stop my fall like that?”

  “As I have explained previously,” said the King in his eternally patient voice, “you need not use only the Axis of Ideation to devise a method for your safe descent. Of the other two Axes, there is one that best suits a rejection of the force of gravity.”

  “Rebellion…” Lucy spoke the word cautiously as if it were the name of an apocryphal spell. “But…that’s strange, isn’t it? I’ve never really used it before, and it’s my weakest alignment. So how did things turn out exactly as I wanted?”

  The King’s robes fluttered between cool bluish hues to deep reddish tints as he cocked his head slightly to one side in thoughtfulness. “It is a puzzling outcome indeed. Within the realm of slumber, circumstantial state reigns supreme, so the simplest explanation would be that your present state of existence at the time of your return momentarily overcame limitations. To have done so in such a directed manner toward a clearly defined goal is possible, if exceedingly rare. However…”

  Lucy, her heart still pumping at an irregular pace, couldn’t take the way the King’s voice ominously faded away. “However? What else could it be?”

  The King remained silent, and the clouds passing overhead appeared to slow their wandering ever so slightly. His face, though empty, gave the air of observation, inspecting Lucy right down to her soul. Then at last, he said: “Although Dream Knights are afforded the freedom to decide on their Primary Axis, in many a case there is one particular Axis that one is inherently aligned with. In almost every case, it is the Axis a Dream Knight is immediately drawn toward, so there is no need for further consideration. But there are cases where a Dream Knight’s ‘natural alignment,’ as we may call it, are not immediately apparent, at least on a conscious level.”

  “So you’re saying the Axis of Understanding might not be the right Primary for me?” The words left Lucy’s mouth with prickly hesitation. It had never crossed her mind even once that this was even a possibility. From the moment she’d seen that stalwart Knight of Understanding in the mirror’s reflection, it had seemed so right. But now, it was as though a fortified glass within herself had suddenly been shattered.

  “The possibility exists,” said the King. “However, from my careful observation, I could see that the Axis of Understanding was the only one of the three Axes that resonated with you on a deeper level. I trust that to be true in your eyes, as well?”

  “That’s…” Lucy was about to say “that’s right,” but stopped short. As much as she held onto her Ideal’s handle with unyielding firmness, sure as the sky that her choice of Primary Axis took into account her truest, purest inclinations, Lucy couldn’t discard the memory of her hand moving on its own toward a certain other alignment marble, or the way a voice in her mind spoke phrases that were well within the realm of a certain other Axis.

  Clouds passed over the sun, dimming the world and casting it into a slight but definite chill as Lucy also recalled what state she had been in mere moments ago. The ravenous impulse to push back against gravity, and the sharp thrill of realizing that she had, even if temporarily, nullified its hold on her. The fire that had swelled up within her soul as she was passing through Dreams, the burning desire to crush Diana when next they met and prove wrong every single claim she was making.

  Oh, how terrific that would feel.

  “Ser Lucy?”

  The King’s questioning voice was accompanied by the sun breaking through the cloud with blinding brilliance that made Lucy shield her eyes with her arm. Once she recovered and brought her arm back down, she met the King’s inscrutable lack of a face, his absent expression betrayed by how he was leaning forward. Even he, the manifestation of Lucy’s dreaming subconscious, could not peer into this unexplainable domain of Lucy’s mind. This filled her with uneasiness, but at the same time it provided her a sense of glee, that she could keep from him this secret freedom. Her fingers danced along the handle of her Ideal’s handle, the energy moving them chaotic and unbridled.

  “What you said is true,” Lucy said with a smile. “The Axis of Understanding is where I always knew I belonged.”

  “I see.” The King’s chest and shoulders rose, then a rush like wind blew in all directions, and Lucy realized that, for the first time since they had met, the King was letting out a sigh. “It is a relief to have you reaffirm that claim.”

  Lucy frowned, staring at him. While his words were outwardly reassuring, the very fact of what he said had implications that didn’t sit right with her. For all of the King’s affable deference to her choices and free will, he sounded as though there was a certain path he was intent on pushing Lucy towards. When she realized this, Lucy considered, for the first time and with mounting anxiousness, that perhaps the King wasn’t totally on her side.

  Every Dream Knight was a Dreamer, one who could be saved from their Final Dream. That was what Ricardo had told her on the endless road in Kenneth’s memories of the past. And Ricardo himself had to face his own endless road and his wandering father, who bound him to an eternal struggle in his own Final Dream. For the equivalent dilemma in Lucy’s Final Dream, could the King be connected to it, or even be the centre of it all? And this naturally raised a highly pertinent question that had been gnawing at the back of Lucy’s mind for some time, even more so as she stared at his complete lack of a recognizable face.

  “Your Majesty,” Lucy said, fighting to keep her body from going stiff and maintain a neutral tone in her voice, “if you don’t mind me asking…Who are you, exactly?”