But he was [Fated] again.
And even though he had actually managed to forget it, his intuition had been almost as fearsome as Cassie's, back when he had been connected to the great tapestry of fate.
Well, no surprise. After witnessing what [Fated] really looked like, Sunny knew that a myriad of Strings of Fate were tied to him. His intuition was simply a subtle way in which he was able to perceive the vibrations of those Strings.
"So, what then? Do we just..."
He did not finish the sentence.
Because his intuition was telling him that something was coming.
Nephis must have felt something, as well, because she suddenly looked around with a slight frown.
Some distance away, Ananke raised her head and studied the sky.
Then, she glanced down at the waters of the Estuary Lake.
"My lord..."
As Sunny and Nephis rose to their feet, the water rippled.
And then, it became perfectly still.
So still, in fact, that the entire Estuary Lake suddenly looked like a colossal mirror, with their reflections staring back at them from its surface.
Sunny remained motionless for a moment, then suddenly yelled:
“Get back!"
Grabbing Nephis across the stomach, he dashed back, toward where Ananke was standing with a tense expression.
In the next moment, something gargantuan broke the surface of the water.
It was the bow of a titanic ship.
A seemingly endless expanse of its hull rolled past them as the ship continued to rise vertically from the lake, towering above it like a colossal mountain.
"The... the Night Garden?"
The Night Garden was a good dozen kilometers in length from bow to stern, so when it stood vertically like that, it was higher than the highest mountain on Earth. It was so immense, in fact, that Sunny was not able to see its tip soon, no matter how much he craned his neck.
What was the Night Garden doing here?! Finally escaping the Estuary Lake entirely, the titanic ship remained still for a few long seconds, rising into the sky like the trunk of a gargantuan tree.
Then, it tilted slowly and began to fall.
Its bottom was swiftly descending, bringing it to a horizontal position, parallel to the surface of the lake.
...Watching a mountain fall on you was not for the faint of heart.
Sunny, Nephis, and Ananke stood there, frozen, as the titanic ship righted itself. Eventually, it came to a rest in front of them, hovering a few dozen meters above the surface of the lake.
Sunny shook off his astonishment and prepared himself for the worst.
The Night Garden had the power to travel great distances, but Jet was not strong enough to bring it all the way to the heart of the Nightmare Desert, inside the Tomb of Ariel. Which meant that someone else ruled Rime's ship now...
And since Jet was not one to relinquish her Citadel voluntarily, that could not mean anything good.
“Quite a remarkable sight, isn't it?"
Hearing a familiar voice, Sunny flinched and looked around.
Only, of course, he should have been looking down. Because at some point, a fourth reflection appeared on the surface of the water near theirs.
Sunny scowled.
“Mordret? What the hell are you doing here? No, wait...”
Was it Mordret? The man looked the same, but somehow, he felt different.
Looking back at him from the surface of the lake, Mordret shrugged.
"Sadly, waiting is not an option. You see... Song of the Fallen asked me to deliver a message to you."
He pointed to the titanic ship behind him and smiled darkly.
"She says that it's time to return.”