Dust rises like ghosts from the skeletal remains of the palace.
He stands on the balcony of the Condor, clenching the dark purple stone in a sweaty hand. The boy is getting his twisted ankle bound up.
The girl had been aghast when the two of them had arrived, alive.
She and the others must have thought of him as a homicidal idiot.
Which was probably true.
A voice.
"Hey. I want to say thanks, I guess."
The girl.
"Hmph."
"I, uh, grabbed something on the way out. Thought you might want her."
Her?
He turns, and sees her holding out the magenta crystal. He takes it, hand trembling. He tries to talk, to apologize, to explain, but the girl's already gone. He holds the two stones close.
Two halves of a breaking heart.