Many thanks to BeaconHill and GlassGirlCeci for betareading.

Resplendent 12.4

The barracks door creaked faintly as I opened it. The room was dark, its grey curtains drawn closed against the evening. The bunks lay empty, neatly made, all save one.

Sophia lay in her bed near the corner, her deep green blankets gently rising and falling in rhythm with her slow breathing. Her face just barely peered out from under the covers. Even in sleep, her brow was slightly furrowed, her lips turned down in a pensive frown.

I carefully shut the door behind me and padded inside, my bare feet nearly silent on the carpet. My bunk was on the opposite side of the room from Sophia's—a relic from the beginning, when she and I had been one short step from bitter enemies. I accepted the feeling of disappointment, the wish that I could be closer, could comfort myself with her presence as I drifted off, and walked over to my bunk without a sound.

She stirred as I slid under the covers. Her green eyes opened, a mere glint in the half-light slipping in between the drapes. "Taylor?"

"I'm sorry," I murmured. "I didn't mean to wake you."

She smiled blearily at me. "It's fine," she said. "Get your stuff done?"

"For now," I said. "There's more to do tomorrow."

Her smile shrank slightly. "You deserve some time off."

"No rest for the wicked, I'm afraid."

"Why not? What'll happen if you take a day for yourself? What's going to explode if you let other people handle things for twenty-four hours?"

I stared at her for a moment. "I don't want to be idle," I said. "I wouldn't know what to do."

"Do something you want to do," she suggested. "When was the last time you forged something? You used to enjoy that."

"The Nine were the last." I swallowed as I remembered that conversation. "You were there."

"You haven't made anything in a month?"

"Nothing. There was never time."

She sat up. "There's time now," she said. "Or, well, tomorrow. You need to take some time for yourself, Taylor."

"I am. I'm sleeping, aren't I?"

She met my eyes across the room and held my gaze. Then, after a beat, she sighed and lay back down. "I can't make you do anything," she said. "But I'm worried about you."

"I'm… I'm okay."

She watched me for a moment, then sighed and closed her eyes. "Okay. Take care of yourself?"

"I will," I promised.

She let out a soft breath. "Good night," she mumbled.

"Good night."

And maybe she had a point, I admitted to myself as I lay back against the pillow. There were no balls in the air for the moment—none, at least, that were in danger of falling immediately. Eidolon's clones had left the Bay, and the entire PRT would be actively looking for them. There were no active operations by villains in the city. I could reach outward, of course, as I had with Nilbog.

And before I dealt with any more villains, there was something else to deal with. Dad was still in an induced coma. For the past month, I'd been trying not to think about him. There was a mess of emotions attached to that which I hadn't wanted to deal with. It wasn't fair—not to him, and not even to me. I needed to finally face up to everything that had happened.

But Sophia was right. I was tired. So, though I would face my wrongdoing, it wouldn't be tomorrow. Tomorrow, I would rest. The next day, I would face my father.

As my eyes slid shut, my thoughts drifted to my forge downstairs. It would be nice to build something again, I thought, even as thought drifted away. Something new.

When I awoke, Sophia was gone. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood up. I stretched out, reaching my arms above my head and arching my back luxuriously, reveling in the effect of a full night's rest. The light slipping in through the space between the drapes was bright, now—the light of midmorning.

I threw open the curtains. Brockton Bay bustled noisily below. The barracks were several stories up, and down below a clamor of cars and pedestrians went about their daily business, living their daily lives. The sun shone from the eastern sky, setting the glass of the skyscrapers alight, a dragon's hoard of glimmering motes.

Today was a new day.

As I emerged from the barracks, I nearly ran into Sophia. "Oh, you're up!" she said, blinking at me. "I was just coming back to wake you." She held out a plate loaded with eggs, sausage, and a slice of toast with jam. "Breakfast is closed, but I thought you might not want to wait for lunch."

I stared down at the plate for a moment, then looked back up at her.

She flushed slightly. "You taking it or not?"

"Thanks, Sophia." I took the plate. It wasn't of any especial quality, just the PRT cafeteria. That didn't matter.

I forced myself to stop hiding from what I knew. I had tried to manipulate Sophia using these very feelings, not four weeks ago. Somehow, amidst the slow growth of the bitter girl she had once been into the determined young woman she had become, against the backdrop of my decline from blissfully ignorant human to the monster I had always been, she had found me… what? Worthy of her affection?

For a moment I considered trying to dissuade her, to let her down gently, to make her understand that I could never be what she wanted me to be. I wasn't human; I lacked the same sort of desires. Then I really looked at her, and I understood that she already knew—and didn't seem to care. I wasn't sure how I felt about that. But if I was sure of anything, it was that I didn't want to disappoint her. Not again.

"Taylor? You still there?" she said, poking me.

"Yes." I shook my head. "Sorry, I was thinking."

"What about?"

"You."

She blinked. "…Oh."

I smiled slightly. "I want to forge a few things today," I said. "Unless someone stirs something up, the city and the villains will wait until I've finished those projects. And, once they're done… I'm going to have something for you?"

Her brow rose. "A gift?"

"No. Call it a debt paid." I passed her and strode down the hall. A few paces away, I glanced back. "Shall we meet on the Boardwalk—say, at eight?"

"Sure," she said. A pause. "Wait a minute…"

But I was already gone, my smile hidden around a corner.

There was something meditative about the hammer's song upon the anvil. The way the handle buzzed in my loose fingers with every blow was somehow comforting, the way it numbed my palm. If I was careless, it could blister, but I was not careless.

The forge was hot. The flaring of the furnace was bright and joyful, casting a flickering radiance upon the walls.

I finished hammering out the shape of my project and carefully dipped it into the quench. Then I closed a vise around it and left it to dry for a time.

Then I turned and considered my workbench—and the weapon resting on it.

Burzashdurb had turned up in my locker, as I might have expected. I'd brought it here for want of something better to do with it. Now that I had a lull in my task, it was time to make a decision. What was I to do with the mace?

Burzashdurb was as much a Lord's scepter as it was a warrior's implement. It was a magnificent weapon, an artifact from the height of my power. But it was a height of power I had no desire ever to replicate again.

I reached out and ran my fingers against the black metal. It was cool, even in the heat of the forge, and seemed almost to lean into my touch, as though my hands were magnetic.

I picked it up. I turned away from my workbench, and swung it a few times.

And it was a tool, after all. It could no more work evil on its own than a hammer, or a fire, or a gun. It was not the tool but the wielder which was the danger. So long as I kept to my course, it shouldn't matter whether I kept the mace. And it was nice to have a weapon more suited for close-quarters combat than the nine-foot-long Iphannis. Of course, Iphannis' haft could collapse, but when in that form the spear was little more than a dagger.

I gave Burzashdurb a few more experimental swings. The low hum as it swished through the air was familiar, almost comforting, like a soft, sibilant whisper in my ears.

I held the mace up, staring at the head, the deadly curved flanges. And I had to admit it to myself. It's a good weapon. I still have a use for it.

Then I saw my newest project, still steaming in the vise. Even before tempering, the blade was bright, at least as radiant as the furnace behind it.

I held up Burzashdurb, but I was staring at the sword hanging there. Suddenly, the thing in my hand felt heavy again, and the black flanges looked awful and cruel, rather than powerful and imposing.

Burzashdurb. The One that Rules the Dark. A name for the mace, but as much a name for its master.

And that was someone I never wanted to be again. Never wanted to consider being.

My fist tightened around the haft of the mace. My knuckles visibly whitened. Something had to give.

And it would not be me.

I turned to where my mithril anvil sat in the corner. Slowly, I raised Burzashdurb. The weapon was heavy in my fingers, resisting me, but in spite of everything, I remained its maker and master.

There was a sound like a rolling thunderclap as the black hit the silver. A blinding light emerged from the mace as its haft snapped. The flanges shattered into tiny, jagged shards of metal, scattering in all directions. I was peppered with a cloud of debris which pinged off of every surface in the room before settling to the ground at my feet.

I was left holding half of the snapped handle of Burzashdurb. As I looked back over at the sword in the vise, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders.

I had done well.

The Boardwalk was much smaller than it had been before Leviathan. Only patches had been repaired so far. Those patches, however, were bustling. The crowd milled around me, voices in conversation filling the air like buzzing flies. The smell of the sea mingled with the scents of cooking meats and a thousand spices. On street corners, waiters stood outside their restaurants with trays of samples, holding the food out to passersby like treats to errant dogs.

In spite of all this activity, I had no difficulty finding Sophia. Cenya pulled me unmistakably towards her, and all I had to do was follow.

I came up behind her while she was looking the other way, scanning the crowds for me. I stepped beside her and gently put a hand on her arm. "Hello."

She turned. "Taylor? There you are." She narrowed her eyes at me. "The Boardwalk isn't exactly a specific location, you know."

I smiled at her. "We found each other, didn't we?"

She grunted. "Guess so. What's this about? Why are we meeting out on the street like this?"

"I'm hungry," I said. "And I wanted to get out of the base for a while. I also wanted to talk to you. Two birds…" I nodded at the nearest restaurant, a sushi bar lit with Chinese paper lanterns in a fantastic display of cultural ignorance, "...one stone."

She considered me. "You have to know what this looks like," she said. Then she swallowed. "What it feels like."

There was a pause as I grimaced. "I'm sorry," I said. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

She didn't answer for a few seconds. "Then what did you mean?" she asked at last. "What was the plan here?"

I looked down. "I just…" I hesitated. "I missed you," I confessed. "It's been months since we just… talked. Sat down and rested, without all the noise. I wanted to spend some time with you."

She drummed her fingers on her leg, her eyes leaving me to stare out at the shore. "That's it?" she asked. "You just wanted to hang out?"

"And spoil you a little," I confessed. The words were not coming as easily as I'd grown used to, but I reached for them all the same. "I really… appreciate everything you've done. I couldn't have asked—I couldn't have imagined—a better friend. And after everything I've put you through in the past month, I just…" I sighed. "I owe you… everything. Dinner is the least I could do."

Finally she looked up and met my eyes. "No strings attached?"

"None," I promised.

She smiled slightly. "I owe you a lot, too," she said. "Okay. Sorry I'm so awkward. I just…" She trailed off, coughed, and finished with, "You know."

"I know," I confirmed, smiling back at her. If she wanted it to remain unsaid, she was well within her rights. "Where do you want to eat?"

In the end, we settled on an Italian seafood place. I'd been here once or twice, when I was younger. The food was good, but expensive. Wards were surprisingly well-paid, however, considering we had most of our needs met. And I hadn't had cause to spend much, given that most of my crafting was done with transmuted scrap.

We took some time to choose items from the menu and order our food. Once the waitress had left, I looked over at Sophia across the little booth. "I've been wondering," I said. "How did you support yourself, this past month? Where did you stay?"

"Ar—" she began, but cut herself off, glancing around at the restaurant. No one was watching us. Still, she changed tack. "Colin and I set up a makeshift workshop in the industrial district near the docks. He'll probably want to head out there in the next couple of days to pick up his stuff. We just set up bunks in an old warehouse, basically."

"And food? Water? What did you do—steal those where you could?"

"For the most part," Sophia confirmed. "We couldn't risk accessing our savings, since Dra—since you know who was bound to be monitoring our bank accounts. I broke into my mom's house and swiped some of Steven's cash a week or so in, but that wasn't enough to keep us supplied the entire month. We didn't know how long it would be, so we mostly saved whatever money we could scrape together and tried to avoid spending it on stuff we could get in… other ways."

I was grimacing. "I'm so sorry I reduced you to that."

"It's…" she shook her head. "You've already apologized. You regret it. I don't want to make this another protracted guilt trip, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, I brought it up," I said, shaking my head. "It's so hard to avoid, isn't it? So much has happened—and I caused all of it. What are we supposed to talk about?"

"Well, how have things been with the others?" Sophia asked. "Things have changed, I can tell. Carlos is more relaxed, Missy is angrier, Sam's settled in…"

"Yes," I confirmed, relieved. "Carlos is much more comfortable without having to feel responsible for everyone. He always thought of the rest of us—especially Dennis and Dean—as friends, not subordinates. It made it hard, though he was rising to the challenge. He's glad not to have to be in charge anymore, even if he still is the leader of the squad itself."

"And the others?"

"Missy is…" I sighed. "She's still reeling, for the most part. It's only been two months since Vicky died, and Dean's… revelation. She and Amy have been spending time together, and Amy's response to grief hasn't been the healthiest. It's had an influence." I rubbed at my eyes. "And I just… let it happen. I told myself I had more important things to worry about, that Missy and Amy could take care of themselves."

"You can't micromanage everything," Sophia said, half consoling and half warning. "That would be… insane. In a couple ways."

"I know. But they're—they were—my friends. I was supposed to care at least."

"The whole reason we're here is that caring bit you in the ass," Sophia said gently. "It's okay to not be perfect, Taylor. You're trying."

I smiled wryly at her. "Yeah. Let's hope it makes a difference."

"It's already making a difference to me," she said, smiling back. "Try not to worry so much, okay?"

"I'll try."

Before I could change the subject, the waitress arrived with our food. Sophia had ordered a bread-bowl of piping hot chowder, and I'd gotten a pair of crab cakes. The conversation stalled for a time as we dug in.

After a few bites, I cleared my throat. "What were we talking about?"

Sophia swallowed her mouthful of soup. "The others. Sam?"

"Sam is most comfortable with structure," I said. "The system, as it was, treated him like a child in an after-school activity. That's not what he wanted or needed. He needs a solid framework in his life." My lips twitched darkly upwards. "The irony, again. His features, his self, is fluid, when all he needs is something to depend on."

Sophia frowned. "…Again? Is that a thing?"

"It certainly seems like it," I said. "But that's… a conversation for somewhere else. The others… Dennis has been doing better since Amy healed his father. But—well, now that his father is healthy, he wants Dennis' time. In some ways, he's traded one source of tension for another. For now, it's new enough that he's still mostly happy and appreciative, but it might cause trouble down the road." I sighed. "…People like us have a bad habit of not getting along with our parents."

"Ain't that the truth," muttered Sophia. She took a slow bite of her chowder. "How about Chris and Dean?"

"Chris has been content to spend most of his time tinkering on his own projects," I said. "He feels more isolated, without Arm—Colin or me in the workshop. That may change, now that Colin is back. I hope so—he's never felt quite like a member of the group."

"Really? I though he, Dennis, Dean, and Carlos were all really close."

"Dennis, Dean, and Carlos are. Chris has always felt like the fourth wheel there. I hope things will change for him soon, with the paradigm shift we're going through."

Sophia shook her head, staring at me. "It's amazing how you can read people," she said. "It's… I don't have the words. I wish I could do that."

"Can't you?" I asked, smiling at her. "You certainly have a pretty good read on me."

"That's different, you're…" she shook her head, gesturing uselessly with her spoon. "Whatever. It's not the same."

"I think it is."

"Your opinion doesn't count. What about Dean?"

"Dean…" I sighed. "He feels… betrayed. He feels as though his ideals have let him down. And so he's thrown himself into the work, trying to find another way to drive himself. If you hadn't changed our course when you did, I worry that he might have been well and truly brought over to… my way of thinking."

Sophia frowned. "You're not evil, Taylor," she said.

"On that," I said gently, "we'll have to agree to disagree."

Before she could reply, the waitress returned to ask if we were done eating, and I found that, in fact, we were.

Once I had paid and we had slipped out into the warm night air, Sophia turned back to me. "You're not," she said, as though we had never been interrupted. "You made mistakes, you took a bad route. That doesn't—"

"Then what does, Sophia?" I asked, turning to face her fully. "There are very few people who cause pain for its own sake. Are those few the only people worthy of being called 'evil?' Is the category that narrow?"

Sophia chewed her lip. "I don't know. Maybe?" She sighed. "It's what I was doing."

"You were lashing out. That's not the same."

"Isn't it?" She laughed suddenly, and the sound was clear as cool spring water. "We're a mess, aren't we? This is good enough to be a comedy routine!"

I chuckled, then laughed, and soon we were leaning against each other, wheezing.

"Let's just… agree," gasped Sophia, "to stop arguing about whether we're evil, at least for a while. Maybe we can get some practice being decent people before we talk about it again."

"I can get behind that," I agreed, still chuckling. "All right." I glanced up at the moon, high above. "Any idea what time it is?"

"About nine-fifteen, I think?"

I nodded. "Well. We should head back. I have something to give you, but it's back in my workshop."

We took a taxi back to the city center. During the ride, I asked Sophia about her sister.

"I haven't seen much of her for the past month," she confessed. "But I haven't kept totally away. I tried to find time to slip into the house once or twice a week, just to play with her—usually when Steven was away. I wasn't sure whether you were watching the house."

"I wasn't," I admitted. "Dragon might have been. I knew you wouldn't go back to Steven under the circumstances."

"Yeah," she said dryly. "There was no chance of that. Even if I didn't think he'd hand me over in a second, I wasn't about to deal with that, on top of everything else."

I wasn't so sure Steven would have handed her over. The man I'd seen might well have been happy to lord the fact that he could over his adopted daughter. It would be just one more way to control her. I didn't see any reason to voice that unpleasant thought, however.

Once we reached the city center, it was a walk of a block or two to the PRT headquarters. We came in through the front, and then took the elevator to the workshop level.

"So, what was it you wanted to give me?" Sophia asked.

I beckoned for her to follow. "You'll see."

We passed into my old forge. The lights were off, and I didn't turn them on. The half-light of the dying embers seemed somehow more suitable for what was to come.

I'd spent most of the day here, but before that I had scarcely set foot in the place for a month. The Nine still lay, locked in the safe where I had stored them after they'd left the forge. I was starting to have ideas for who their recipients would be, but it was only the beginning of a thought, one to which I scarcely dared give words.

My shoes crunched across the shards of Burzashdurb as I led Sophia into the forge. She noticed the debris immediately, and recognized it almost as quickly. "Is that…"

"Burzashdurb," I said.

She stared at me. "You broke it?"

"Yes. It was… a symbol."

She nodded slowly. "I think I understand." She smiled slightly, barely visible in the half-light. "I'm… I'm proud of you, Taylor."

My lips quirked upward, but I didn't reply. Instead, I crossed to the rack where I had hung my most recent project and pulled it down, unwrapping the hilt. The moment the bright steel was revealed, Sophia gasped audibly. She recognized the blade.

"From the ashes, a fire shall be woken," I intoned, my voice almost a whisper, barely audible against the crinkle of the wrapping. "In darkness, a song shall awake."

Sophia barely breathed. In the gloom, I saw her green eyes sparkling.

The sword emerged. The steel seemed to flicker and glimmer, reflecting the light of sun and moon though neither was to be seen in the dim forge. I took it by the blade and held it out to her, hilt first. "Renewed shall be blade that was broken," I said. "In shadow, the light shall not break. Narsil is made whole again—and it is given a new name."

Anduril had been my adversary, once. The Flame of the West. But this time, I had hope. This time, I dared to dream that darkness would not be the only thing to stretch from the eastern sky.

"Amauril," I breathed, and the sword seemed to flare in my hands. "The Flame of the East."

Sophia's hands shook as she reached out to touch the hilt. But as her fingers closed about it, they steadied. She breathed out, a slow, shuddering exhalation, and when she breathed in again, it was steady and strong. She raised Amauril in salute, and the light of the sword played upon her face like sunlight filtered through unsteady waters.

"Amauril," she repeated, tasting the name of the sword which, really, had always been hers.

"It is yours," I said. "If you'll have it."

She smiled, her teeth glittering in the half-light. "I'd be honored."