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In the end, it was Liraz who prompted the discovery. Akiva could not speak properly or freely in front of Karou; instead, his guilt (and longing) welled inside and blocked his throat when he looked at her. He choked down so many words he wanted to say to her that few others escaped. It had been nearly a week and still he could not bring himself to speak to her. Whether he was afraid of what he might find out... He didn't delude himself into thinking he wasn't.

Liraz's eyes slid to Akiva's before she let loose a loaded question. "I haven't seen that Kirin around… What happened to him?" Akiva's chest clenched, remembering the form of Madrigal in all its grace and lithe beauty. "We saw him fighting Jael when he was captured." It was true, he hadn't seen the Kirin anywhere. Where once he had risked his life – betraying himself to Jael in the process – to save that chimaera, he hadn't spared a thought for him since "joining" with Karou.

He sat at a table with her – along with Liraz, Issa, Ten, and the Wolf – for a "captains' meeting" of sorts. It was night, the safest time to meet when others were hopefully sleeping instead of spying. There had been a lull in their talk of strategy and statistics, and Liraz had filled it with this. A most innocuous question that led to a most conspicuous answer. The only answer that made sense of the situation between Karou, the Wolf, and himself.

Akiva watched Karou's face closely for her reaction, but what he saw was far more surprising than he could have imagined. First, she froze, and her eyes swung to meet Thaigo's. And in them, Akiva saw fear, guilt, and such secrets as should have been confusing but only made everything fall into place for him. Akiva followed Karou's gaze to Thiago. Well, whom he had thought was Thaigo.

The Wolf's face betrayed everything. Where once Thaigo was a study in confident control, Thaigo's features now masked nothing. And Akiva saw the secrets there, too, but before Thaigo looked toward Karou, Akiva saw him grimace from the corner of his eye. Thiago closed his, he sighed a short burst of breath as if it had been knocked from him, and then he seemed to need to gather himself. Akiva felt the shift in his emotions as clearly as if he were hearing music; the White Wolf did not spare regret for dead soldiers. However, this person did. This person lamented the Kirin in a very deep, heartfelt way. This span of moments divulged everything.

Akiva knew then something of what had occurred – Karou had somehow put the Kirin's soul into Thaigo's body. Images of the past week rushed at Akiva and he saw how uncharacteristic the Wolf had been. Akiva had attributed it to the unthinkable – that Karou had actually bonded, come to an understanding, with him. But of course, not even the fate of the chimaera would have assuaged Thaigo's hatred and humiliation nor led Karou to forget her own execution. How she and the Kirin had pulled it off, he almost didn't need to know. Only that Thiago no longer existed. The person who instigated the destruction of all Akiva held dear was gone.

This Thiago was giving some kind of response to Liraz's inquiry, but Akiva couldn't hear it over the roar in his ears. Another image from a previous time confronted and consumed him: the sight of Karou and the Kirin laying side by side in her bed. All the remembered intimate looks and hesitant touches that Karou tried to hide between herself and Thiago over the days past were like physical blows reigning down upon him. And at this, he excused himself. He stumbled back from the table, drawing Karou's dark gaze, but he ignored her. He ignored everything in his attempt to get away. He needed to calm the sea inside him, breathe, find his head, his control, an understanding... Anything. He needed peace, away from Karou and her relationship with the Kirin/White Wolf.

Relationship.

It was clear that they had one. How could he blame her? A chimaera of her own species, of course she would be drawn to him. He... Akiva's heart tore into a thousand burning pieces at the thought... He, the Kirin, would have been a good match for Karou. Akiva imagined a world where the seraphim never found the Kirin caves. Akiva imagined Karou - Madrigal - growing up in the mountains and finding love, growing close, to the handsome, graceful Kirin he had seen fight back against an immense team of Dominion. The warrior had been brave, talented, strong, loyal... The embers of Akiva's heart turned to ice. What did he have to offer Karou but vengeance and mutilated love? Pathetic attempts at mercy? A broken, twisted dream of peace? Not even peace, just an end to violence and killing; he didn't know how to create or - hysterically - maintain peace.

There was someone out there better for Karou than he himself.

Accepting that she could be happier with someone else, that she would share her smiles, her laughter, her light with someone who could make her happier… Akiva had thought his heart had broken, had died before… but the despair he felt now brought him to his knees.

Under the trees and the two moons, Nitid and Ellai, Akiva wept. For so long, he defined himself by his love for Madrigal, for Karou, and now to know that might not be him rocked his very being. Though a warrior, his soul had ignited in love and dreams of peace, made thinkable only because they came from her lips. His sobs seemed like a living thing yanked out of him with rusty hooks. On the scaffold she had looked to him with love, but he would never again be comforted by her.

"Akiva?" That voice, so hesitant where once he knew every timber of it. How had Karou come to be here? He did not turn to see her; he kept his back to her, his wings curled around his pain protecting him from her.

"Please go away…" He couldn't bring himself to say her name. It was not his to whisper. Maybe it never had been.

"No, I won't." A pause. "What's wrong?"

Why did she care… How could he answer that? Over the past days, she had done her best to avoid his gaze and his company. She haunted the Kirin caves, diverting Akiva's attention and peace of mind.

"I don't blame you - I never would. I'm grateful that you're working with us despite everything. I can never atone for what I did or what you've lost, and I won't begrudge you this happiness." It was all true. If she could still find love, if there were still pieces of her big enough that she could give to someone else, he would be… happy for her. He knew his own shattered heart would never belong to someone else.

"Happiness?"

The word snapped his head around like a sharp slap. Her eyes were dark and large with incredulity, and it was the most emotion he'd seen from her.

"Happiness…" She repeated with more heat. Though his body stayed turned toward her, as if he were a satellite caught in the gravity of her, Akiva looked away and closed his eyes. Of course, she'd never truly be happy again. Never, because of him.

"No," she begun and his heart sunk. "No, I don't know if I'll ever be happy again. But I can atone for my sins… like you are.

"You have done something unforgiveable, but that hasn't stopped you from doing everything in your power to make the world – worlds – a better place now, while I… well, hopefully it's never too late to start."

She didn't hate him? Akiva felt the air inside him shift. It was a small thing, her regard for him, and her words were carefully vacant of anything he could mistake as something more, but they brushed away a little of the ash. The wasteland of his soul would never again prosper, but he could feel her esteem of him driving away the scent of death that lingered. Words pressed against his lips, a thousand disbelieving ideas danced on his tongue.

"Karou, you taught me how to hope. I would be completely empty but for the hope you gave me."

He watched as Karou's mouth first opened in surprise and then formed a small, sad smile. Were all of her emotions mixed with mordancy? How had he missed this? "Hope." She sighed. "Akiva, you don't need any hope I could give you - you are brave. You have been courageous in starting this thing, and it is your strength that feeds your hope. Not me." She closed her eyes, clenching something behind their creases. "Akiva, why did you leave the meeting?"

Ah, he had almost forgotten in light of other, more astonishing revelations. The Wolf, the Kirin, Karou, and her regard. Against his will, a cold iron fist clasped his tepid heart.

"I don't need to know how it came about," he started slowly, then saw Karou tentatively, almost absentmindedly, touch her healing lips. What did that mean? He took a deep breath to steel himself, "but I'm glad the Wolf is gone. The Kirin is… a much better choice."

He watched as she accepted his knowledge. "Ziri struggles with it," she responded after a moment, ignoring his double-meaning. "I- he knows it's necessary, as do I, and he is… he is learning how to adopt Thaigo's personality," Karou grimaced and her body, exposing her restlessness, began to pace, "fortunately and unfortunately. Our alliance would never work without the other chimaera believing they're following Thaigo's wishes."

She took a step toward him. "Akiva, I just need to make sure – you'll keep this secret, right? Otherwise we could never pull this off."

Akiva shuddered. I would never betray your trust, were the words that lept immediately to his mind, causing him to gag. No matter the truth of it now, he had already betrayed her in the worst way.

"Yes, Karou, I will keep this secret. And I will do what I can to help protect it." His words seemed to affect her. Akiva held his breath and time slowed: the tension left her face, smoothing the lines between her brows, at the corners of her eyes and mouth. He took in how the light of the moons made her hair shine. She bit her lip as she looked down, but he could feel a smile, a true smile, in the air around her. It materialized in his mind, sketched from the hundreds she had once directed at him. He hadn't seen such a smile since they broke the wishbone. Why, why did the weight of that one mistake sour and haunt every moment he spent with her?

"Thank you, Akiva," she said, meeting his eyes and tipping her head slightly in acknowledgement. She stepped toward him again but paused, and gave another small smile that matched the first in its sincerity. "I know being around each other is difficult, but I'm glad we're working together in this. Maybe… maybe this could be the beginning of healing," she said softly before turning and leaving him under the requiem trees and the two moons of Eretz and a peace of mind and heart that he didn't think he could ever let himself feel again.

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