Wings of Anemos

by HyrulianJedi

Generations ago, the Kings of Anemos took their people and fled the world, becoming little more than a myth. When myths come alive, however, Weyard's most recent heroes find themselves struggling to balance their own issues in this new world against the future of Weyard itself, learning the price some must pay to be heroes.

20. Children of War

Golden Sun: Wings of Anemos

Chapter 20 – Children of War

- \/\/ -

...

- \/\/ -

Jenna stood in silence, the shattered ruins of a building before her. The walls at her feet had buckled after a moment of resistance, she knew, shattering into pieces before the roof collapsed upon them. Glass crunched beneath her feet as she stepped up onto the wreckage, bending down. She tugged a piece of cloth from beneath a section of the broken roof, then shook the thick layer of dust from it. Red and yellow stared up at her.

She let the cloth go and it drifted down to lie across the rubble. Raising her eyes again, she looked out across the destroyed city. Out here, along the edges of the destruction, she could still make out where buildings once stood. As she followed the shingles upward and looked further out, though, the fleet of half-sunken houses gave way to a calm sea of dirt and rock and glass. Nothing remained at that distance.

The crater lay beyond that.

Jenna could only look at it for a few seconds before her stomach began to turn and the bile began to rise. She turned around and stepped down to the ground, taking deep breaths to quell her nausea. Before it could fully subside, however, something compelled her to turn around again, to take one last look at the destruction.

She hesitated for a moment, then followed the roof once more, stepping up onto the crest. Instead of seeing the city laid out before her, she found herself standing on the edge of the crater itself. A shingle fell from the roof and clattered down the ragged walls of the crater, the sound echoing throughout the silence as it tumbled down to sit at the very center.

It sat still for a moment, but before the last echoes could fade, something bubbled up from beneath it. The water enveloped the shingle, pooling up in the crater. The puddle grew larger, and as it did, the color grew from the black of a shade-covered liquid to the dull red of blood.

The level rose at a constant rate, despite the widening of the basin it filled. A buzzing filled Jenna's ears as she watched in horror, faces forming in the blood. Each one bubbled up in silent screams before bursting, sending a spike of pain through her head. Each one stared at her with their sunken, crimson eyes, crying out for her to help them with their expressions.

She stepped backwards off the roof. A soft splash jerked her gaze down to find blood oozing from the ground itself, as well. It welled up and began to run down the sides of the crater, joining the growing pool. Jenna stepped back again, the blood sloshing up against her ankles. On the next step, her foot found no ground. It fell into a pit and her body followed, splashing down into the pool of blood. The black sky turned red as she fell, sinking into the ocean that had formed around her.

Jenna shouted, sitting up in her bed.

Blankets rustled from beside her, followed by a thump on the floor. "Jenna!"

The Valean said nothing. She placed one hand to her chest, finding her heart still pounding, and her other to her forehead, finding it coated in a thin layer of sweat. To her side, only the faint outline of Sheba's head poking over the edge of the bed showed against the utter darkness of the room.

Jenna threw the blanket off herself and slipped out of the bed, moving to the window. She pushed the drapes aside and looked out on Kalay, outlined by starlight. Through the thick sheet of rain, she saw the flickers of firelight, or possibly candlelight; distance and darkness made differentiating the two impossible. She doubted the news of Tolbi had reached anywhere yet. Over the next week, however, as ships fled across the Karagol, she expected the word would spread like a plague.

Small, barefoot feet padded across the wooden floor towards her. "Jenna? Are you okay?"

She turned around and threw her arms around Sheba, pulling the girl to her. Sheba's arms wrapped around Jenna's waist in return, and the two hugged in silence as Jenna fought to bring her body under control.

A lamp lit across the room, casting a gentle glow throughout. Jenna released the younger girl and turned to the light, finding Mia watching her. Hama stood behind her, half-hidden by the shadows cast by Mia's lamp. "Was it a nightmare?" Mia asked.

Jenna met her eyes, then looked down, nodding. She felt Sheba's hand worm into hers, squeezing it.

"It was about Tolbi." Hama did not ask, though Jenna wondered what made her so certain.

Mia stepped over to her and guided her back to her bed, gesturing with the lamp. "You should sit down. Would you like some water?"

Jenna nodded and soon found a globe of water in the air. She remembered the sphere being a common technique of Alex's and bit down on the comment before she could mention him. "Thanks. I... Thanks."

Sheba sat down beside her and wrapped her arm around the other girl. "Are...you okay?"

"I saw Tolbi again," she whispered. "I saw blood flooding it, and the people screaming for help. I saw..." The curtain she found came to mind again, and she found herself unable to finish.

Mia set the lamp down on a nightstand and sat down on Jenna's other side, brushing the Valean's unbound hair behind her ear and taking her hand. "This isn't your fault, Jenna. There was nothing you could have done."

"Does it need to be my fault for me to feel bad about it?" she snapped. "It doesn't matter whose fault it is. It's still horrible. Can't I just feel bad that it happened?"

"Of course you can," Mia said, in the same tone Jenna knew her to use when talking to patients.

She stood. None of the other girls followed as she left the room, wandering off into the darkness that filled Hammet's palace. She knew some servants would be awake, but they tended to remain in the basement levels, near the kitchens, unless summoned.

The rain pounded against the roof, the sound unnerving Jenna further. She trailed her fingers along the wall until she reached the staircase, heading downstairs and muting the sound. She paused at the bottom, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. The low rumble of thunder still pierced the walls, but Jenna found that simple to ignore. She did not fear the sound, as Sheba did; she simply disliked it.

Why did Tolbi's destruction weigh so heavily on her mind? Mia had spoken the truth: she had no part in it, nor any means to have stopped it. She and Piers had found out about the city last, though thankfully Kalay had been their first choice for a possible meeting point.

She shook her head. Even her own mind tried to distract her from the...event. She would have felt bad had any city been destroyed so thoroughly as Tolbi had, but she knew people there, and it struck her so much harder because of that. People she had met and spoken with, laughed and argued with. They were not an endless sea of unfamiliar faces, but a small group that she could name.

Kraden stood in front of them all.

A small, indescribable noise escaped her mouth. She covered it with her hand, feeling the tears return as her body shook with sobs. She pushed her back against the wall, knowing that if she did not brace herself, she would fall to her knees.

He was gone, wasn't he? Her teacher, her friend. Though he had been with her for only four short years, not even a quarter of her life, and a tiny fraction of his own, she felt as if she had lost someone she had known since her birth. She could trace most of her knowledge to him. Not merely alchemy, but how to read and write, how to manipulate number systems, how various parts of the human body worked.

A chuckle broke through the sobs as she recalled her first lesson on that, and Kraden's exasperated explanation that there was more than 'that conversation'. She could not imagine how difficult he must have found it, a man who had spent decades studying the sciences, trying to explain them to a bunch of kids.

"Jenna?"

She opened her eyes, finding nothing more than a faint silhouette in the darkness. "Isaac? What are you doing up?" After a moment of silence, she said, "Yeah, stupid question, I guess."

He made a small noise and turned away, walking into one of the rooms. Jenna paused for a moment, then followed. He did not turn back to her as she entered Hammet's study, but stepped over to the vacant desk, trailing his fingers across the wood.

Jenna glanced around the room, not wanting to sit down; it reminded her too much of another study. "I was just thinking about...about Kraden. About when he started teaching us biology."

"Yeah?"

She chuckled again, though the sound fell flat against the oppressive silence surrounding them. "I've never seen your face so red."

Isaac made a noise of polite amusement, but did not turn from the great window behind the desk. This one lacked any elaborate metalwork, simply looking out over the town below.

All of Jenna's concerns and issues seemed trivial. "Isaac?" she whispered, the night amplifying her voice.

He did not respond this time. His eyes remained motionless in the window's reflection as his hand fell from the desk, curling up beside him.

Jenna moved towards him, stretching out her arms to hug him. The moment she touched him, though, Isaac flinched away.

"Don't," he whispered, shaking his head. "I'm fine."

She resisted the urge to reach for him again. "No you're not."

He said nothing, turning back to the window.

"Please, Isaac, talk to me," Jenna said.

"I said I'm fine," he said. "Don't worry about me."

Jenna's fist slammed into the window's frame before she could stop herself, the glass panes rattling. Isaac jumped away from the noise, reaching for a sword that he had not worn. "Don't you dare tell me not to worry about you!" Jenna pulled her hand away from the wall, but her feet remained rooted in place. "You have no right to tell me that, after everything we've been through! You're as much a brother to me as Felix!"

Isaac did not meet her eyes. His gaze shifted from his own boots to the corner of the room, then to Jenna's bare feet. The wind shifted outside, driving the rain into the window. Light flashed in the distance.

"You're bleeding."

Jenna looked down. A few drops of blood lay splattered on the wood beneath her hand. She pulled it up, finding the skin of her knuckles torn up from her outburst. The welled blood spilled over and dribbled down between her first two fingers.

Isaac's hands appeared before her, gently taking hold of her hand. He wiped up what had spilled with his sleeve in silence, then closed his hands over Jenna's. The warmth of Venus Psynergy filled her hand, so different from the refreshing chill of Mercury. It made his hands feel even warmer in the cool night.

When he pulled them away, the sheared skin had shriveled, while the raw skin had scabbed over. Jenna brushed the former from her knuckles and looked up again to thank him, but the door swung shut instead.

She stood and stared at it for a long time, the only sound that of rain striking the window.

What was he doing? Why wouldn't he talk to her? He never kept anything from her. He trusted her with everything, as he did Garet, ever since they could walk. She wanted to help him. She needed to help him.

All her own feelings about Tolbi came flooding back now. Jenna felt her shoulders shake and eyes burn, Tolbi and Isaac too much for her to bear together. She leaned over the desk and braced her hands against it, locking her elbows as she bowed her head and let the tears flow.

How many people lived in Tolbi? Kraden had told her once, but she could not remember. Her heart twisted again as she realized that; what a fantastic way to honor his memory, by forgetting the things he had taught her. What kind of person was she? Why hadn't she paid more attention to him? Did she think he would always be around to tell her things again?

No, she knew he would someday leave them. Her head did, at least. Her heart pushed the thought aside. "Don't worry about it," it said. "You've got plenty of time with him. Don't dwell on it."

Now, all she could do was dwell.

He would never again explain to her how snow formed.

He would never again join her in making fun of Felix.

He would never again shout at her for interrupting his alchemists while they worked.

He would never again give her a piece of chocolate he'd kept hidden, a small smile to accompany the special gift for her, and her alone.

He was dead.

Kraden was dead.

A sob burst from Jenna's mouth as her arms gave out. She pushed herself away from the desk and collapsed to the floor behind it, curling up into a ball against the wall. Her chest heaved as she sniffed back the snot in vain, destined to meet her sleeve instead.

This had to be a dream, she thought. Only a dream could explain why things seemed so wrong right now. She would wake up in her bed in the morning, and Kraden would be fine, and Tolbi would be there. Maybe even the Anemoi were part of the dream. She would wake up in Vale to the sound of Garet shouting outside her window, calling for her to join him for a morning run. They'd do a lap around the town and cool off by laughing about Isaac's laziness. He would join them a little later, his lopsided grin in place, and they would find something to occupy them for the day.

It felt good. Jenna clung to the image, squeezing it to her chest. If she believed it hard enough, it would happen. It had to happen. Or maybe she would just think it happened. Mia had told her about some people who invented fake worlds for themselves to avoid something in their lives. Jenna had no objection to that.

The door opened. Jenna recognized the footsteps, but stayed on the floor. A few moments later, a smaller body lay down behind her, a face nuzzling into her neck. Warm breath tickled the fine hairs there every few seconds. Jenna reached up and seized the hand that laid itself across her shoulder, pulling it to her chest in place of her thoughts.

The tears and the rain both subsided over time. Jenna felt the girl behind her shift a few times, trying to restore feeling to her arm without moving too much; Jenna's had long ago gone numb. A dull pain throbbed in her shoulder.

"I just want to leave it," Jenna whispered. "I just want to go somewhere that I don't have to worry about this. I don't want to fight anymore."

Shift. Fingers stroked the hair atop her head. "Soon," Sheba whispered to her. "We will. Soon."

"No, not soon." Jenna rolled over, pushing herself to her feet with the arm that she could move. Needles crept across the other one as blood returned. "I'm tired of soon. I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of people getting hurt and dying. I..." She shook her head. "I've never wanted anyone to die before. Never. Do you know what I want for Atropos?" Jenna turned to stare at Sheba, who had sat up on the floor. "I want to kill her. I want to kill her myself. I want to go back in time and kill Clotho. I want to kill Lachesis, too. I want them all dead, and I want to be the one to do it. I want to give them back all the pain they've caused."

Jenna realized she was shaking. One of her hands had clenched at her side, while the other fingers twitched in their attempt to do the same. She made no attempt to dispel the rage, to put it aside. She wanted it. All of it. That rage belonged to Kraden, to Iodem, to Tobias, to all those that had died. It was not hers to put aside, but to deliver upon those who had created it.

Sheba stood, wrapping her arms around the girl. "I don't like you like this," she murmured. "You're not like this, Jenna."

"Maybe I should be," she said, staring over Sheba's head out the window, her arms unmoving. "Maybe we should all be more like the kings. Maybe if we had been, this would never have happened."

"You don't know that." Sheba stepped back, her hands grabbing Jenna's. "You don't want to be like them. They're... They're cold and mean and ruthless. They're evil."

Jenna's eyes flicked to Sheba's. "What about you? Would you kill them?"

Sheba hesitated.

"Could you kill them?" Jenna pressed. "Do you have that in you?"

"I don't know," Sheba muttered, looking down.

Jenna stepped forward, the younger girl retreating into the wall. "You don't know if you're able to kill your own father? How can you not know that?"

"He's not..." Sheba trailed off.

"I think you could," Jenna said, backing away from the girl. "It's in your blood, apparently. Clotho and Atropos have no problem killing family. Why would you?" She turned and walked into the hallway, leaving Sheba alone in silence.

Guilt, shame, and anger ripped at her as she walked, no destination in mind. The walls blurred in the darkness as tears filled the corners of her eyes. Would she run out? She doubted it. She had not run out when her the river swallowed her family.

She ran into no one this time, and no one followed her. When she threw open the front doors of the palace, exiting into the light rain the storm had faded to, the guards watched her wordlessly. She stared down at Kalay for a moment, thinking of losing herself in the city for a while, but turned right instead. The dark forest loomed ahead of her, but she had no intention of entering it. Rounding the corner of the building, she leaned against the wall and slid down it until she plopped into the mud.

This felt right, she thought, closing her eyes and as the rain rolled down her face. No wonder Isaac refused to talk to her. Would she have cut him with her words as deeply as she cut Sheba? Did she think it would make her feel better about everything?

She had no idea.

Here, at least, the gods' tears would hide her own.

- \/\/ -

Ivan opened his eyes to a dark room. He glanced around in confusion for a moment, before recognizing his own room in Kalay. Someone had drawn the shades closed, the afternoon sun filtering into the gaps. He pushed himself to a sitting position, wincing at the pain that the movement woke in him.

"Ivan!"

Turning his head to the side, he found Garet seated beside the bed. "Garet…?" he said. He looked around the room once more, then down at himself, finding dark marks all over his visible skin. He reached up and dabbed his own face, finding the skin puffy and tender. His fingers grazed his nose once, a spear of pain thrust through his head at the contact. "What happened?"

Garet frowned. "Hey, just lie back down. Don't worry about it."

Ivan looked down at his hands, turning the palms up at himself. The haze of sleep should have cleared by now. He tried to think back, tried to pull out the most recent memory could find. He remembered being in Tolbi, for certain. They had gone there after rescuing Sheba. He remembered some of the others leaving, and remaining there with the rest. His memories felt fuzzy, so he latched onto them at that point and tried to continue forward from there. Isaac and Garet had left, he remembered that, though the exact reason eluded him at the moment. Something about-

Atropos!

He turned back to Garet, opening his mouth to ask where the woman was, then stopped. The fog receded more, clearing the way for more of his memories. Her daughter, Aisa, had come, and then... And then...

Everything else followed. Alex, Mia, Aisa, Atropos, Tolbi, and...

Ivan tried to call out to Garet, but his voice cracked. He swallowed and tried again. "Garet... What happened to Tolbi?"

Garet said nothing.

Ivan sat in the darkness for a long time, knowing the answer he would get. "It's gone, isn't it?" he murmured, closing his eyes.

He heard Garet shift beside him. "Ivan, you shouldn't worry about that right now."

His eyes snapped open again. "Mia! Where is she? Is she okay? Did she-"

A hand pressed against his chest, forcing him to lie down. "She's okay. She was far enough away to stay safe."

Ivan sighed and compromised into a slouch against his headboard. "And...Alex? What about him?"

Garet said nothing for a moment after sitting back in his chair. "He's here. Mia's taking care of him. She says some book they found made him go crazy."

A book? Alex often carried one around, he knew, but never into a fight. Didn't he have one when he attacked, though? Something had allowed him to channel new Psynergy; he recalled Alex chasing Mia away from the road with rivers of fire, a power not available to him even while he held most of the Golden Sun. But... "Atropos was manipulating him, though. She... She was in our heads the whole time, reading our thoughts and pushing our emotions to keep us from being too suspicious. After she drained the Sun from him, she pushed him just enough that he put his sister above Mia."

"She was defending him too," Garet said, his tone clear that Mia had done so from more than just a verbal assault.

"I'm not..." Ivan shook his head. "Do you know what it's like, having someone inside your mind like that? Not knowing whether your thoughts and reactions are your own? Alex...was actually the one who warned me about that."

"So he should have known better."

"No, it's more than that, it's..." He fumbled for the right words. "Atropos' Psynergy is strong, but this isn't about strength. She knew just how to nudge people in the tiniest ways, things that they would reasonably do themselves, so that they wouldn't ever know the difference. She knew exactly how we thought, and used that against us." The boy sighed. "Especially me. All of this... It's all my fault."

Garet snorted. "How the hell do you figure that?"

Ivan leaned forward again, drawing his knees up beneath the blanket and leaning onto them, ignoring the sharp pain in his chest. "Kraden didn't make it out, did he?"

Silence answered him again.

"I saw it. In a dream," he said. "That dream I had about Alex killing Mia... Everything came back to that. It was supposed to be either me or her that died. I thought I could outsmart everything. I picked a third option, one that could save both of us. I never stopped to think that my dreams might have already shown me that possibility, too."

"This is why I hate those dreams," Garet said, shaking his head. "All they make you do is second-guess yourself, Ivan. You can't beat yourself up over not knowing what was going to happen, even if you saw pieces of it. In the end, you're just like the rest of us."

Ivan smiled, looking over at the man. "Don't hate them too much. If it wasn't for them, I'd probably have just taken Atropos' offer to save Mia with my own life."

"Yeah, well, that's not a choice you get to make," Garet snapped. "You made the right choice, Ivan: you fight. You keep on fighting until you can't anymore, and then you fight a little longer. If you ever give up like that, I'll follow you to the underworld and kick your ass myself, understand?"

He chuckled, then said, "You don't get it, Garet. I'd be glad to give my life for one of you. For all of you. I can't think of any better way to die."

"I can."

"Old and in bed isn't a reasonable option at the moment."

"No, not that, you gnome. If you have to go, it's not going to be by lying down. You're going to die standing next to me, and Isaac. We don't give up. We fight until the very end."

"And then just a little longer," Ivan added, burying his face into his knees to hide his smile. Standing beside his friends... "Maybe we should have died in Tolbi with everyone else."

"Don't be so sure part of us didn't."

Ivan looked up, straightening out his legs. Isaac, he realized. "How... How is he doing?"

Garet hesitated, frowning. "Bad. He won't talk to anyone. He won't do anything. He's shut everyone out and only talks about things related to stopping them. He's... He's gonna break, Ivan. He hasn't yet, but he can't handle this. Trying to kill his own father was bad enough for him. This? If he doesn't get past this, we'll never see him again." Garet leaned forward and rested his chin in his hands. "You seem to be doing alright, though. Other than being a bit beaten up."

The boy looked down. "I'm trying not to think about it right now. If I can stay focused on the other things, I can pretend it didn't happen...for a while. Maybe I'll be the same as Isaac when that falls apart."

"You won't," Garet said. "That's not you. When life punches you in the gut, you fall down and hold your stomach for a while, but you get back up. You always get back up. That's your strength, Ivan. You don't know how to quit."

Ivan could not help but smile again. "Only you would call that a good thing, Garet." He leaned against the headboard. "I'm not ready to think about it, though. Not yet."

Garet shifted beside him, rustling something on the floor. "Here, have some of this, then."

He held out a large flask that Ivan glanced over and took, peering inside. "What is it?"

"Medicine that Mia put together," Garet said. "She said it dulls the pain and helps you sleep better."

Ivan tilted the flask in his mouth, tasting the concoction. He almost spat it out as it burned his throat on the way down. "This is horrible," he said, his face scrunching up at the aftertaste.

Garet shrugged, looking away. "That's how you know it works, I guess."

"How much of this do I have to drink?"

"You don't have to take it all at once. Just keep drinking it slowly."

Ivan eyed the bottle, then took another small swallow before setting it on his nightstand, his body shivering on its own. "How is Mia doing? What happened with her and Alex?"

Garet rolled his eyes. "She's fine. She tried to downplay everything, but even the details she let out were ridiculous. That book he had? He summoned Charon with it."

"...The god?"

"How many parents name their kid Charon?"

Ivan frowned. "You can't fight a god, though."

"She didn't need to," Garet said, crossing his arms. "She destroyed the book and Charon left. Granted, this was after Alex called Clotho's father there to try and kill her, but he refused, and after Mia had stolen that Mercury blade they found from him."

The boy shook his head, reaching for the flask and taking another burning swallow. It burned less than the previous ones, at least, as he got used to it. "He called Dullahan? Didn't he say he'd be forced to pass on if we did that?"

Garet shrugged again. "Dunno, I wasn't there. Regardless, when she started against him, he had both that sword and the book. Two calls for help from Alex later, Mia has one, destroyed the other, and I don't think she's got a scratch on her."

Ivan glanced down at himself. "Wish I could say the same. Could you open the curtains, please?"

Light flooded the room as Garet reached behind him, pulling the drawstring. When he turned back to Ivan, he winced. "Wow. Uh, I mean, you're not that bad."

"Yeah. I'm sure."

Garet fidgeted in his chair, but said nothing.

Ivan had an idea of what the man wanted to say, but he did not feel up to that discussion just yet. Instead, he asked, "What did you find out about Deadbeard?"

"Nothing," Garet said. "Well, I guess that's not true. Remember Kaja? The bald guy on the ship we took across the Karagol? Red beard?"

Memories of the boat swirled around as he closed his eyes, hazy and distant. He could pick out Sean and Ouranos, though he suspected that his recent encounter with the pair helped that. Had they still been in Tolbi? He tried to force the thought aside, images of the Kraken filling it instead.

...Nothing else came to mind, though, except Mia leaning over him in their cabin. He re-opened his eyes and shook his head.

"No? Well, whatever. He was the captain we were meeting with," Garet said. "We had everything pretty much worked out, too, when Isaac figured out Atropos was lying to you, and we booked it back there."

"What tipped him off?" Ivan asked. He had not noticed anything up until Atropos made her move. Had she distracted him from figuring her out with her Psynergy?

"Your dream, actually, of me and her fighting. He pointed out it couldn't have happened yet, like she said it would have, since we don't have the armor yet," Garet said.

Of course. How stupid of him. Atropos might have pushed his mind and helped lower his suspicions, but he had not spent every waking hour near her. How did he miss that detail? He prided himself on his ability to note inconsistencies like that.

After a short consideration, though, he realized it would have made no difference. They had suspected Atropos already, but of the wrong goal. Nothing had hinted at her true target. Ivan tried to imagine what he would have done different, if he knew she had lied to him, but could think of nothing. Of all of them, he would have picked Alex to be the safest around her.

When his attention returned to Garet, he found that hesitant expression on his face again. Ivan sighed. "You want to know what happened, don't you?"

Garet frowned. "Not if you don't want to talk about it, but... Well, Mia wasn't able to tell us a whole lot about Atropos. She even thought-" He paused, then shook his head. "Never mind, don't worry about it."

Ivan looked down at his lap, one hand folded atop the other. He knew that avoiding difficulties never helped someone overcome them, but he still found himself nervous to think about Tolbi too closely. Just do it, he thought. Just get it over with and deal with it after. He took another drink of the medicine, trying to run through the events, but the past adrenaline and present disorientation muddled the flow of time. "I need a minute. Everything's still kind of jumbled."

Garet leaned back in his chair. "Start at the beginning. Try and tell me everything you can remember."

He did. The events fell into place as he organized them with his words, although at a few points he jumped backward to add something. He told it in a quiet voice, with none of the emphasis or dramatic phrasing common in stories.

Garet listened in silence, only interrupting to clarify something, his lower face hidden behind his folded hands. When Ivan finished, he sat there in silence still for a long time, watching the boy, who closed his eyes and leaned his head against the headboard.

He felt lightheaded. His fumbled around for a moment for the medicine, his eyelids feeling heavy, but lacking any desire to sleep.

"So let me see if I got this right," Garet said after a minute, leaning forward. "You watched a friend get murdered, knew her killer could do the same to you, went after her anyway, fought your way through a city of people trying to stop you, used Psynergy in a way that one of the oldest Jupiter Adepts in the world hadn't thought of, fought her alone, and survived." Garet spread his hands to the side. "Where the hell, in any of that, can you possibly blame yourself?"

Ivan refused to open his eyes. He felt warm inside. "I was supposed to stop her," he mumbled.

"Do you think you could have beaten her?"

"No."

"Then what the hell did you fail at?" Garet stood, prompting Ivan to open his eyes. The Valean shook his head, a hand covering his face. "Ivan, kicking yourself for not beating Atropos is like kicking yourself because you couldn't freeze the ocean. No one could have done it in your position, alone, without any kind of advantages. The fact that you lived to tell about it is impossible enough. You shouldn't tell yourself you can't do something, but you also need to know what you actually can't do, and not let yourself get distracted by things that really are impossible."

Garet stepped across the room to the door, and for a moment, everything turned to the side to Ivan. It settled out again as Garet paused with his hand on the doorknob. "You're really smart, Ivan, but sometimes you're really dumb, too. Make sure to take your medicine. It'll make you feel better."

- \/\/ -

Mia sat opposite Isaac, straight-backed, watching him.

He sank into one of the couches, his gaze fixed on Mia's knee. He could not bring himself to look her in the face. Not for long, at least. A fire crackled off to their side, beating away the last remnants of the morning's chill.

She sighed. "Isaac, I'm a healer of the body, not the mind. I don't know how to help you without you showing me the way."

"I don't need help," he said. "I'm fine."

Her knee shifted. "No matter how many times you say that, it doesn't make it true. Isaac, why won't you talk to me?"

"I have nothing to talk about."

"Nothing to talk about?" She uncrossed her legs, placing both feet flat on the floor as she leaned forward. "Talking about things is one of the easiest ways to get past them, I know that much. You can't get any better if you wall yourself up like this."

"I'm fine," he said again.

Mia shook her head. Isaac could see her long hair swaying with the motion. "You're fine. Jenna's fine. Garet's fine. Everyone's fine. That's just fine." The woman took a deep breath. "Okay. What about our plans? What are we doing from here?"

"Felix already set everything up," Isaac said, his gaze unmoving. "He's leaving me, you, Ivan, and Jenna here while the others go to Yallam to get the boat and talk to Sunshine."

"Why doesn't he-"

She fell silent as the door to the small sitting room opened. Isaac shifted his gaze to the fire, away from the door.

"Oh. Hi Isaac."

He turned back at the sound of Ivan's voice, but winced at the boy's appearance. His nose was dark and swollen, the bruise extending across one of his cheeks, as well.

Ivan squinted into the room. "Hi Mia." He stepped through the doorway and began shuffling across the carpet towards them.

Something seemed strange about him, even for someone who had slept for the better part of a day. Mia noticed it as well. "Ivan? What are you doing out of bed?"

"I was bored in there all alone," he mumbled, dropping onto the couch next to Isaac. Something familiar tickled at the young man's nose.

"You still should be resting," Mia said with a frown. "At least until I can make sure your nose is healing properly. I don't think you want me to have to set it again. It's very unpleasant to do when you're conscious."

Ivan let out a low sound, somewhere between a groan and a whine. "But I took all the medicine. I should be fine, right?"

Mia's eyes narrowed. "What medicine?"

"The medicine you gave to Garet."

The woman stared at him for a moment, then stood. She crossed to the opposite couch and leaned down towards the boy's face, then stood up again. "Medicine. Of course. Where is he?"

Ivan shrugged, blinking in slow motion. "I dunno. He just left."

She turned and walked out of the room without a word, slamming the door shut as she left. Isaac and Ivan both stared at the closed door in silence for a moment before the boy turned to him and asked, "What's she mad about?"

With Ivan's face pointed at his own, Isaac finally placed the odd smell.

It was alcohol.

Ivan was drunk.

He stared in disbelief at the boy, whose eyes and eyelids never managed to stay still for long. Ivan had always refused any kind of alcohol, no matter the occasion, much to Garet's annoyance. He said he saw no point in doing that to himself, despite Garet's claims that everyone should try it at least once, that Ivan could never appreciate the experience in either a positive or negative manner if he never felt it himself.

Isaac had always agreed with Garet, at least on the last bit, but he never pushed Ivan on the matter. Now that he no longer needed to step in to shield the boy from Garet, he often stayed out of their disagreements and let them run their course. They fought only on rare occasions, unlike Garet and Felix, and always resolved those arguments within a day.

A weight dropped onto his shoulder. Isaac glanced down to find Ivan's head on it, his smooth, blond hair bunched up and pushed in all directions. "Don't touch my nose," the boy said. "It hurts a lot."

Isaac rolled his shoulder to swing his arm around Ivan's back and pull him into a more comfortable position on his chest. As Isaac leaned onto the armrest, the younger boy pulled his feet up onto the couch and curled them to his body.

He closed his eyes and his breathing slowed, but after a minute, he spoke. "You're comfy."

The Valean looked down at him. "What?"

"I said you're comfy." Ivan wiggled once, fixing whatever issue he had with his position. "And nice. You're nice and comfy." The boy giggled softly.

"I'm not nice," Isaac murmured, more to himself, looking towards the fire.

"Course you are," Ivan said. "You were always really nice to me. Garet wasn't at first. He was kinda mean. Not you, though. You're always nice."

"What makes you think I'm nice?"

Ivan giggled again, turning his head to look up at Isaac. "'Cause you've got blond hair."

Isaac wondered how drunk the boy was, but his curiosity won out. "What do you mean?"

His eyelids wavered for a moment, but he kept them open. "You've got blond hair. That means you're nice. It means you're different. Like me." His eyes closed and he fell silent again. Isaac thought he had fallen asleep again, but he continued after a few seconds. "Felix scares me. I don't like brown-haired people. Everyone in Kalay has brown hair."

"You... A lot of them didn't like you, did they?" Isaac asked.

Ivan turned his head forward again, not answering at first. Even through all that alcohol, he still held it close to himself, Isaac realized. "No," Ivan murmured. "I was weird. I was strange. I used to talk to cats. Cats always like you if you feed them. They aren't mean."

Isaac pulled the boy a little tighter to him. "And...I was different?"

"You were weird too." He giggled again. "You had the same hair and strange powers too. Some people didn't mind my Psynergy, but they weren't friends. You were. You liked me. I could be weird with you and you liked it. And I liked you. That's why I came back. I wanted to be with you."

"A lot of people did," Isaac said. "Look at all the good I did for them."

Ivan sighed. "I know. That's why you're nice."

Isaac opened his mouth to correct him, but closed it after a moment. There was no point; he doubted Ivan would remember any of the conversation. No one got anywhere arguing with a drunk, anyway.

This drunk wanted to argue, though. "I know you don't think so all the time. You've had to do some not-nice things before, but that's okay. Everyone does bad things sometimes. But you do them because you're nice. Doesn't that make them not-bad?"

"I don't think it works that way," Isaac said, straightening Ivan's clumped hair with his fingers.

"Course it does," Ivan said. He twisted, trying to turn to look up at Isaac again, but abandoned the idea after a single failed attempt. "You're always trying to help people. You're a hero."

Isaac closed his eyes, leaning his head back. "I'm no hero."

Ivan said nothing for a moment. "Well, you're my hero," he murmured.

The tears rolled down his cheeks, but he kept himself still and silent, not wanting to disturb Ivan. The warmth of the room had grown throughout the morning and Isaac felt his eyes drifting shut. With nothing more pressing calling him, he dropped his head into a more comfortable position and let sleep carry him off.

A scuffle on the floor woke him some time later. He blinked through his blurry vision to find Sheba sitting down in front of the fireplace, her knees pulled to her chest. Had she seen him? Probably not; he had slipped down on the couch, both he and Ivan now lying along it, and it faced away from the door.

He closed his eyes again. He saw no reason to bother her.

A sharp sniff made him open them again. Sheba had most of her face buried into her knees, her eyes just high enough to stare over them at the dancing flames. For a long, silent moment, Isaac began to wonder if he had heard the crackle of something in the fire when it came again, this time clearly from the girl.

He hesitated. She had come in here to be alone, he knew, and wanted to respect that. Or was that what he wanted to tell himself?

The sides argued in his head for a long moment before reaching a decision. "Sheba?" he called out.

The girl did not jump, as often happened when surprised with a noise in an otherwise quiet room. She glanced beneath her armpit, met his gaze for a moment, then turned back to the fire. "Hey. Sorry, I'll be quiet."

He considered accepting her answer and letting sleep take him again. He had never known her to sound like this, though, not unless something bothered her. The question, 'Are you okay?' came to his lips, but he bit down on it. He knew how stupid such a question was.

Instead, he gently pushed Ivan aside as he slipped out from beneath the boy, who wiggled at the movement, snuggling in closer to the cushion. Isaac watched him for a moment, then turned and walked towards the fire, sitting beside Sheba.

Her gaze lingered on Ivan. "Mia let him out?"

Despite everything, a small, wry smile pulled on Isaac's lips. "Garet got him drunk."

Sheba snorted, but her amusement made it no further. Her mouth reburied itself into the depths of her knees, the flickering flames reflected in her eyes.

He wanted to say something. He knew she hurt, but could think of nothing that might make her feel better. "I'm sorry about Aisa," he decided on.

It took a few seconds for Sheba to respond, her head slowly revolving to look at him. "Isaac..." She shook her head and returned her gaze to the fire. "I don't get you sometimes."

"I don't expect people to."

"No, I mean, all of this that's happened, and you're apologizing about one person that died?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I know she was a friend of yours. Her death is partially my fault."

Sheba made some kind of sound between a grunt and a growl. "That wasn't your fault."

"If I'd realized Atropos was lying, then I could-"

"Then she would have probably killed you when she found out you didn't have the other piece of the Sun, then."

Isaac hummed softly. "To think, Alex had it wrong the entire time. Everything that he's done, wasted."

"Do you know what happened to it?" Sheba asked.

"No idea," Isaac said. "Maybe it's just gone. That would make things so much simpler, wouldn't it?"

"Maybe," Sheba muttered. "Isaac..." She paused. Almost a minute passed in silence as he waited for her to continue. "What did you have to do so...so you could fight your father?"

His stomach tightened as he stared into the flames, watching them rip into the wood splinter by splinter. "Nothing. I just did what I had to do."

"That's not helpful," she said.

Isaac sighed. "I don't know what to tell you. It wasn't something I thought about at the time. It's also not something I've liked thinking about since."

Sheba said nothing.

He chanced a glance at her, finding her lower face once again buried into her knees, her eyes locked on the flames. Or rather, in the flames' direction. He doubted she saw them anymore.

In a way, Isaac knew she had it worse than him. Since his father would have been an innocent life lost in the name of a greater good, it made the action itself difficult, but the memory of the man grew brighter for it. Sheba could fight her father with ease, after all the horrors he had contributed to, but she would live with the memory of what he was for the rest of her life.

Maybe he owed it to her to try and help her deal with that.

He closed his eyes, bringing himself back to that stormy aerie. Back to the moment he realized the truth. Was it staring into the dragon's eyes, and seeing his own? Had it been during the fight itself? He could not be sure, not entirely. The adrenaline had blended much of that night together. What had let him continue swinging his sword? Why had he not stopped?

His father had died already. For years, he believed that. It hurt, both him and his mother, but in time, they'd come to accept it. Felix had first told him otherwise, of course, but even at the end, when he figured it out, when he raised his sword that last time on their journey... Could he raise it simply because he had already come to terms with the consequences?

No... He had no doubt that Sheba would take no issue with Lachesis' death, should another cause it. If that was the only reason he could do it, then he could not help Sheba. Some other reason had to exist, something that he had buried in his memories.

Had knowing that he fought for the good of Weyard empowered him? He had tried to believe that, he really had. He wanted to say the weight of all those souls on his shoulders had guided his decisions, had given him strength when he had none of his own. It had never been true, though, not since meeting with Felix. The thought did little more than make him second-guess himself, wondering if he had made some horrible mistake that would doom them all.

Telling Sheba the world would thank her for it would do nothing, though. She already knew him as a monster.

Isaac dove deeper. What had driven him? He closed his eyes, picturing not a dragon in front of the aerie, but his father. The man stood with his arms open and eyes closed, simultaneously blocking Isaac's path and leaving himself open to attack.

Stepping forward in his mind, Isaac tried to think. What would let him strike down his own father like that, when he removed everything else? He stepped forward once more, closing even his mind's eye. In the darkness, his mother looked away, burying her face.

That was it, of course, he realized, opening his real eyes.

Sheba had not moved.

"It was my mother," Isaac said. Sheba glanced over at him. "I knew I had to do it for her. If I didn't, she would get my dad back instead of me, but they'd both die anyway. He would have died either way. I would have killed him to save her."

"How, though?" Sheba whispered. "How could you bring yourself to do that?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. By ignoring everything else, I guess. I don't think I even thought about anything else. It was, 'I have to do this to save mom.' The world, who the dragon was... Those didn't matter anymore. She did."

Sheba said nothing. She rested her the side of her head on her knees, staring off into the dark corner of the room. The fire had grown low, neither of them moving to stoke or feed it. A gentle snoring started up behind Isaac, causing Sheba to glance back and smile. "He's such a dweeb. I wish I had been here when he was awake."

Isaac fixed his gaze on the fire again. Sheba was probably one of the few who could get away with calling him that, one of the few Ivan viewed as an equal. Her, Jenna, and Garet. The other Jupiter and Mars Adepts of their little group. Strange how that worked out.

"You know what my brother told Felix when I left with him, right after the first attack?" Sheba asked. "He blocked our door and told Felix he'd kill him before letting him take me."

Isaac's eyebrows rose. He had only met the boy once, but he had not struck him as the sort of child to say such a thing.

"He was the only one of my family who didn't have a problem with Felix." She chuckled. "Actually, they got along great. Javen loved him. Thought he was one of the coolest people ever. But he stood up to him for me. To protect me." Her eyes closed. "I think... I think I would kill the whole world for him."

The words chilled Isaac. He hoped nothing would ever test them.

The eyes opened again after a minute. "You don't have any siblings, do you?"

"No," he said, then glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping boy. "Or maybe I do, and it's just taken me a while to notice." Would he kill the world for Ivan?

Get away from him, you bitch!

One city down. Plenty more left to find out.

- \/\/ -

"What do you mean, you can't do it?" Felix asked.

Sunshine shook his head. "Just that. I... It seems like it could work, but I'm not good enough to pull it off."

Felix frowned and turned away, crossing his arms over his chest. Piers knew it as a sign of restraint, that he was holding his frustration in and letting it settle, so he picked up in his place. "Sunshine, I've met a lot of smiths. There is no mortal more skilled in the manipulation of elementally charged metal. If it can be done, you're the one who can do it."

"No, you don't understand," the smith said, running his hand through his hair. "I usually work with raw materials, not finished products. I have room to experiment and figure things out. I don't have that here. I doubt my forge can even handle that thing," he added, gesturing to the Mars blade in Piers' hands. "It's on fire, for the gods' sakes."

"Sunny," his wife called out in a warning tone.

He winced and rubbed his hands together. "Look, I'm sorry. I was a bit excited when I brought it up. Haven't you ever been passionate about something, and had a really great idea, only to learn it wasn't quite doable? That's what this is."

Piers frowned. He knew that feeling all too well. "What about the Myrtle armor?"

Sunshine spun around. "Ah, that was doable." He moved back into his smithing area and dragged out a wooden crate. He pushed it over to the duo and pulled the sheet from atop it, sending a few papers to the floor. He ignored them, bending down to lift the armor from the crate. "It came out great, I think. I can't say how useful it will actually be, but if it does what you say it does, then this here will be the finest suit of armor you could ever wear." He paused. "Just, uh, watch out for lava."

Piers stepped towards the table and peered down at the armor. He ran his hand over the metal and rapped his fingers upon it, his mind swearing that he would hear the dull thunk of rock. This jade was no stone, however, the clean, metallic ring echoing in the small house.

Sunshine placed the pieces back in the crate. "I hope this'll be enough for you."

Piers placed a bag of gold on the table. "It's more than we had a moment ago. Thank you again, Sunshine. We will certainly be back." He grabbed the crate of armor and followed Felix out the door.

The other man waited five steps before saying, "We can't let him give up that easily."

"I have no intention of letting him do so," Piers said. "But there's no use standing here and pushing him on it like this. Let's get back to the others and talk it out. At the very least, we'll still have the individual swords and this armor. Those will still help significantly."

Felix grunted, but offered no further argument. Piers knew Sunshine's denial still annoyed the man, but he would calm down in time.

A change in topic might help him along. "The repairs on the Kailani are to be finished today."

"Really? That fast?"

Piers nodded. "Yallam carpenters do swift work, oddly enough, for how little work they see. We should be able to take her when we leave. If we fly the entire way, we should return within two days."

Felix frowned. "That's two days we're still blind, though. We have no way of knowing what the Anemoi are doing while we're out here."

"Well... If we feel it necessary, I can bring the ship to Kalay on a skeleton crew of two," Piers said. "We can make it in roughly the same time."

"We might not need to go that low," Felix said. "I'd just rather not keep Sheba here any longer than necessary. We don't know how much Clotho told the others before his death."

They entered the inn in silence, heading upstairs to their rooms. Once inside, Piers placed the crate down, then dropped into a wooden chair, mopping at his forehead with his sleeve.

"Is that the armor?" Garet asked.

Felix nodded. "It is, and it's set to go." He paused. "Where is everyone?"

Piers glanced around the room and found it much less crowded than when they had left; only Garet and Buford had occupied it upon their return.

"Master Ashling took the others to check on the ship," the warrior said, half-seated on the end of a bedframe.

The Lemurian frowned. He could see Hama wanting to check on the progress herself, but... "Why did Sheba and Brennan go with her?"

Garet shrugged. "Sheba...needed a walk. Brennan did too. I don't think he's really dealt with what happened yet."

"You have?" Piers asked.

Their eyes locked for a moment. "Enough to do what I need to," Garet said.

Piers shifted his gaze to Buford. "And you? How are you feeling?"

"I..." Buford shook his head. "My mourning can come later."

Felix nodded. "Good, but I have some bad news. We have a problem with the sword. Sunshine doesn't feel he's capable of making it."

Garet frowned. "So we wasted all that time trying to find those swords?"

"We don't know yet," Felix said. "I don't think this conversation with Sunshine is over just yet."

"Why?" Buford asked. "Do you believe you can convince him that he can make it?"

Before Felix could answer, Piers said, "Actually, Sunshine might very well be right. He might not be capable of making this sword."

Garet frowned. "Then we just give up on it?"

"Did he say that?" Felix asked, giving Garet a flat look.

Piers resisted the urge to smile at Felix's small outburst, turning away from the others to hide it. He stepped around the room towards the window, placing his hands on the sill as he looked out across Yallam. "Sunshine brought up a few good points. This isn't the kind of work he's used to. Making that Mars blade, that's something he likely would have been able to do, though in a different manner, I'd wager."

"Do you think Ein could forge it?" Felix asked.

"I don't know." The Lemurian turned around and leaned against the window, folding his arms. "I don't believe Einion has dealt with anything like this before, either. His skill lies primarily with metalworking. I have no doubt he could combine these blades, but ensuring their properties remained would be another matter entirely." He paused. "However...if Sunshine combined his Psynergetic enhancement with Einion's ability to work steel, I imagine the two of them could do it."

Garet frowned. "Einion's that smith in Prox, right? You want to bring him here?"

Piers shook his head. "No. Sunshine also expressed concern about his forge, questioning its ability to handle the work. I have no skill in judging that, but if he is unsure of it, I trust his judgment. I don't know of any way to compare forges, if Einion's might be more powerful, but I don't need to. I already know of a suitable forge for this job. If it can't be done there, it can't be done anywhere."

"You're talking about the forge in Champa," Felix said quietly. "The one used by Briggs' grandmother."

"Obaba, yes," Piers said. "While far from a traditional smith, she holds many lost secrets of forging that I expect to help. She is the woman who joined the pieces of the Trident together," he added, looking at Garet. "It's possible she may be able to make our sword herself, but at this point, I have no desire to risk that. I plan to bring all three smiths together in Champa for the forging of this blade."

None of them replied for a long moment. Felix frowned, looking at his feet, reviewing what had just been said and trying to find holes or weaknesses in the plan. Buford watched Felix; Piers knew the two had worked as mercenaries together once, and he suspected Buford had learned of Felix's mind for planning. The man had little in the way of input, at any rate, having learned of their plans just that morning.

Only Garet replied. He shook his head before leaning forward and cradling it in his hands. "Piers, you are completely ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?"

The Valean looked up. "This is probably the most farfetched scheme I've ever seen anyone come up with." He snorted. "Let the Anemoi dream this up. They'll spend weeks trying to make sense of it." Felix glared at him, but before he could say anything, Garet continued. "Do you have any plans to convince Sunshine and Einion to agree to this?"

"Ein won't take much," Felix said after a moment, his disapproving gaze still locked on Garet. "He's a man of Prox, through and through, and the Anemoi will go after them eventually. He'll do what he needs to do to defend his town. Sunshine, though..."

Garet snorted. "He can be a real pain in the ass sometimes."

Felix's frown deepened, but he nodded. "He's well known for his stubbornness when unmotivated."

"I doubt he'll be a problem," Piers said. "Don't you remember what he looked like when he said he couldn't make the sword? I've never seen a man so disappointed with himself before. He would love to do it, but he believes it impossible. If I can convince him that, with help, it is, I expect he will willingly join this team."

"Looks like I'm headed to Prox, then," Felix said.

"What about the rest of us?" Buford asked.

"You'll be taking the armor to Kalay on the ship," Felix said, gesturing to the crate. "You and Brennan are both inexperienced Adepts, but I don't think you'll have much trouble helping to fly it, at least for short periods."

"With that many people on the Kailani, there's no reason for you to go alone," Piers said. "I'll come with you. It's not good for any of us to be alone right now."

"Are they gonna be okay with you having that?" Garet said, pointing to the sword on Felix's back.

"They might respect Isaac, but they don't like him," Felix said, shifting the golden blade with a shrug of his shoulders. "They'll probably be happier to see it in my hands instead of his."

"I bet he's happier to see it there, too," Garet muttered, looking away. "We should just throw it in the ocean."

"Perhaps we will, when this is all over," Piers said. "But that's not our choice to make. We swore that we would return it to them when our use of it had finished."

Garet waved a hand towards the window. "Isn't it? Do you really plan on using it again, knowing what it does?"

Felix said nothing for a long moment. "If it's the only way I see to defeat the kings, then yes. If we don't stop them, they will destroy far more than a single city."

The room fell silent. A bird cawed outside the window a few times, then flew past it. A song drifted up through the open doorway from downstairs; the innkeeper's wife singing to herself as she cleaned.

"You..." Garet breathed.

"I think I could use that walk now," Buford said, standing. His face had gone pale.

"I'll join you," Piers said, giving the man a small smile as he followed him from the room.

Buford glanced at the door as Piers shut it. "Are you sure it's alright to leave them there?"

Piers shook his head. "They'll be fine. They get into this every so often." As they moved downstairs and passed Dorothy, bustling near the front desk, Piers called out, "If you hear shouting upstairs, don't worry. It's best just to leave them."

The woman looked at him, confused, but the Lemurian continued past, emerging into the evening's fading light. He and Buford walked in silence through the town, the former only giving guidance when their path would lead them out of it. Yallam held little in the way of dangerous wildlife, but Piers preferred not to press their luck; it only took a few seconds of distraction at night for everything to go wrong.

"Did he mean it?" Buford asked as they gazed up a small hill at a house. "About using that sword again?"

"No," Piers said. "He is relentless and ruthless to the guilty, but Felix always avoids involving innocents. If any of our number could do so, I would have named Isaac as the most likely. But...I doubt even he could do that. He would sacrifice anything of his own to stop them, but he can't make that kind of choice. Not intentionally, and not live with it."

Buford nodded. "That is...good to hear. I... Tolbi was..." He paused to collect his thoughts. "No one else needs to experience what we did there."

Piers glanced over at him for a second. "Did you live there?"

"Yes. My brother and I each did, all our lives," he said. "We did a bit of traveling around Angara and Gondowan as we grew, but Tolbi was always the city we called home."

The softness of Buford's voice made the question that came to Piers' mind unnecessary. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..." He trailed off.

Buford shook his head as they walked. "It's fine. I was able to grieve a bit before, and I'll be able to do so more once we're finished. His is not the first loss I've suffered."

"Would you tell me about him?" Piers asked.

Silence fell between them for a moment, and Piers began to wonder if the man had taken offense to the question. Lemurians rarely spoke of the dead, but Piers had noticed other cultures often honored them with tales, not just Prox. Had he misjudged?

The hesitation appeared to be nothing more than time for Buford to organize his thoughts, however. "He was a judge, appointed by Lord Babi himself. He'd always held such a high opinion of justice. I wanted to follow him, but I have no mind for that line of work."

"So you became a mercenary, instead?"

Buford nodded. "I sought the position of a palace guard, the highest honor a fighter can achieve in Tolbi. Every one of their members is selected from Colosso victors."

"Yes, I remember Felix mentioning that," Piers said. "It was one reason why he refused to compete. He felt it would be unfair to enter with no intention of taking the job should he win. Your brother liked his work?"

"Loved it. He always told me he could think of no more noble way to spend his life than in the service of justice."

Piers turned his face up to the afternoon sky. "Then let us administer the piece of justice that he could not."

- \/\/ -

"It feels weird to be leaving without Piers again," Sheba said.

Garet made a small noise of agreement. "It's not like anything bad happened the last time we took the ship and he went to Prox, either."

The two of them stood on the bow of the Kailani, watching the waves pass below them as the sun set ahead of them. Sheba had always liked watching the sea when the sun grew low, as blue gave way to red and orange and yellow, a sea of flames that danced and sparkled until twilight settled in.

Now, however, the image of flames made her queasy. She lifted her eyes from the water and turned around, leaning against the railing and gazing at the cabins. Hama and Buford had gone to sleep in preparation for their night shifts. Brennan had seated himself at the table, tinkering with his version of the Anemian communication tool. Sheba had taken to thinking of them as Talking Tines.

"Hey," Garet said, causing her to look over. He still leaned over the railing, looking down at the water. "Thanks. For helping with Isaac. I... I don't know what you did, but he's doing a lot better."

Sheba shook her head. "I didn't do anything except ask him for help. He might be my friend, but your his best friend. I'm sure you would have figured something out."

Garet sighed. "I couldn't, though. I tried. He just shut down and wouldn't respond with anything more than a single word. I mean, I'm not great with words and people and stuff," he snorted, smiling for a moment. When it passed, he frowned again. "It's more than that, though. Most of my problems with people are, well, caused by me. At least somewhat. I haven't... This wasn't. I didn't know what to do. Nothing was working. I was worried I would never get him back."

He glanced over at Sheba, then back at the horizon. "He's my best friend. I should know him better than that. He should be able to count on me better than that. But I couldn't do a damn thing. Do you know how that feels?"

Flashes of cinnamon passed through Sheba's mind. The girl dropped her eyes to the deck. "Yeah. I do." She saw Garet's head turn back to her. "I... Jenna wasn't dealing with it very well, either." She paused. "That's...a pretty big understatement, actually. She was only a step above Isaac."

Garet grunted and looked away. "Yeah... I don't really know how to talk to Jenna about something like this. Isaac's usually the one who calms her down when people die. I usually have to go hit something before I'm ready to help anyone else." The leather of his gloves crackled as he squeezed the rail. "This kind of crap... I don't get sad about it, like her. I just get mad. Really mad. I usually can't even talk to anyone until I've vented."

Sheba frowned. "How much venting did it take you to get over this?"

"I haven't yet."

She looked up at him.

"I'm saving it," he said. "Every time I want to hit something in frustration, I push the feeling back down. There's only one thing I can vent on in order to feel better about this, and I haven't see her yet. Soon, though," he added quietly. "Soon."

Both fell silent. Should she let Garet stew and suppress his feelings like that? Mia or Hama would know better than her, but Sheba doubted it. Could she say anything to change his mind, though?

Furthermore, did she want to change his mind? She remembered speaking to Alex, in Tolbi, what seemed like months ago. Had he not pointed out that emotions, when released in a controlled and directed fashion, could prove incredibly potent and useful?

She had never seen Garet fight while angry, Sheba realized. She had seen Felix, a thought that struck her as very odd, given his and Garet's frequent arguments. It made sense in her head for Garet to get angry while fighting, but she could not recall it. Had the others seen it? Could Isaac say he had? She tried to imagine how it would look, banishing the thought a moment later; it scared her.

The door to the cabin banged open. Sheba's eyes snapped to it, but Brennan emerged with no apparent haste or distress. He glanced around the deck and moved towards them. "This is it! I think I have it working!"

Sheba looked at the thing he held in his hands, but she did not recognize the device. It looked like a long, metal tube with one end open, and it stood almost as tall as her. "Uh... What is it?"

Brennan frowned, glancing between the two of them again. Had he forgotten neither of them were alchemists? "You remember the Anemian staff you brought back? The one capable of extending the range of Psynergy?"

Garet nodded. "You were trying to copy it, right?"

"Did, actually," the young alchemist said. "Reverse-engineering it was a simple matter, so we decided to apply the same principles elsewhere. Our first thought was to reproduce it, but on a larger scale. Something capable of sending Psynergy not just across a field, but across a continent, or even the world."

"You're talking about how Anemos attacked Tolbi and everyone else," Sheba said.

"Yes. We didn't understand how they had done it until you brought this staff to us, but once we learned how it might be possible, we tried creating our own version." He tapped the tube next to him. "I was able to salvage this prototype from the lab, even though it didn't work, but I think your cannon helped me fill in the missing pieces."

Sheba's eyes flickered up to the Lohoan cannon fitted onto the upper deck. She had forgotten the thing even existed, so rarely did they have a need for it.

"So...it works, I guess?" Garet asked.

Brennan nodded. "I believe so. I haven't been able to test it long range, or with any suitable input, since my Psynergy is... Well, not that significant, so..."

Garet rolled his eyes. "Yeah, sure, I'll test it for you."

Sheba watched the man's face light up with glee as he turned a few knobs on the Tolbian cannon, before handing it off to Garet. "Is it...safe to use on the boat?"

"Oh, of course," he said. "Recoil was among the first issues we addressed. We knew that if the Anemoi could utilize the power of the beacon and channel that through theirs, it obviously lacked any recoil. We sought to recreate theirs as much as possible."

Garet looked over the cannon. "So, how do I use it? Just point and blast?"

Brennan shook his head. "No, no need. It's a two-path process. It collects your Psynergy, along with its intended form, converting it back into its pure state for transference. It also collects your intended strike point, which we modeled after that jewel you've used for teleportation."

Sheba's eyes widened. She had not thought something like that would be possible. "You put this thing together in just a week? You guys are amazing."

He smiled at her before turning his head to the side. "Yes, my coworkers were some of the brightest minds Weyard could offer."

Were. A cold knot formed in the girl's stomach at the unspoken implications. She had forgotten how they had pulled Brennan from the wreckage of Kraden's palace, along with a lucky pair of servants. Even at that distance from the rock's impact, the wave of force had destroyed the building.

"Then we'll make sure the Anemoi learn just what those 'worms' were capable of," Garet said in a flat voice. He placed both hands on the sides of the cannon, Psynergy pulsing from him.

It felt odd to Sheba. Each pulse bent towards the cannon, an invisible flow of Psynergy from Garet to the weapon. He closed his eyes after a few seconds.

The pulses stopped.

A burst of Psynergy, invisible to the eye, but a beacon to the mind, shot from the cannon straight into the air. Garet stepped back, his eyes tracking it despite having nothing to track, as it rose into the air, curving over and away from the Kailani.

Sheba could feel it rising through the air and when it reached the peak of its arc, the Psynergy took form. Light filled the sky once more as flames winked into existence above their heads. The tiny flames shrieked down towards the water some distance out, striking the surface with plumes of steam one after the other.

Brennan let out a slow sigh. "It works," he murmured, closing his eyes.

"I don't know what we'll use it for, though," Garet admitted. "We're not fighting the entire city, only a couple specific people."

"We'll think of something," Sheba said, shooting Garet a look. As Brennan picked the cannon up and began walking towards the cabin, she said, "Brennan... When this is over... That will need to be destroyed."

The man opened his mouth, indignation lighting up his face in an instant, but he paused. After a moment, he nodded. "Yes. Yes, I... That's probably best." He turned around again. "I want to check it over for damage, see if I can find anything I want to fix or improve."

They watched him go without any further word. Would destroying that cannon keep it out of people's hands, though? Brennan's team had built it in such a short period of time; others would figure out the trick, too. Were there ways to block it, maybe? She'd have to bring that up with him later.

"I talked to Morta," Garet said after a few minutes.

Sheba hesitated before speaking. "Did you tell her about...her sister?"

He nodded. "She told me Atropos showed back up, looking for Lachesis, but he wasn't there. When she asked where Aisa was, Atropos said she didn't know."

"Did she say anything to her?"

"No," Garet said. "She was smart enough to keep her mouth shut and wait. But... I don't know what happened after I told her."

Sheba glanced over. "What did she say?"

Garet sighed, squeezing the railing again. "Nothing. The link went out after a few seconds."

That could have meant any number of things, but Sheba disliked all of them. What outcomes would she have liked, though? Hearing the news of Aisa's death had stunned her, the nature of it even more. Aisa had helped her. She had been one of Sheba's few friends in Anemos, one of the few she could count on for help, someone who wanted to stop the kings as much as she did, but lacked the ability.

In the end, she had stood up to them regardless, and the king struck her down for her defiance.

"She died a true king," Sheba murmured, more to the breeze than to Garet. "Aisa, I promise you, I won't let them win." How many people did that promise now envelop? How many counted on her to make good on it? Everyone, she thought. Aisa is just one more. The last one.

When she pulled herself out of her thoughts, she found Garet watching her. "What?"

He looked back towards the sun. "We need to finish this soon. The longer it goes on, the more people are gonna get hurt." He tapped his fingers on the rail. "Ivan gave me a lot of information about Atropos. How she acts, how she thinks, how she fights. I've got a pretty clear picture in my mind of her."

Sheba said nothing. He seemed to be making a decision himself.

"She's alone in Anemos right now," he continued after a moment. "I don't know if Lachesis is hiding from her, or off doing his own thing, or what, but it doesn't matter. They're separated, and that's what we need." He turned to her. "I have the armor."

The girl glanced towards the cabin. When she spoke, she lowered her voice. "You want to fight her now?"

"No," he said. "I want to kill her now."

Sheba opened and closed her mouth once, thinking. "You can't do it alone, Garet."

He turned to her. "I'm not bragging here. She uses a lot of Psynergy, and the Golden Sun will be useless to her against me. If she does have some actual fighting ability, which I'm sure she does, it'll be just as rusty as Clotho's is. She's arrogant, Sheba, and the Golden Sun will only make her more so. This is our chance. With her out of the way, we don't need to worry about running into multiple kings anymore. There'll just be Lachesis. That's it. This is the best chance we have."

It made sense. Garet always claimed that he hated planning, but none could strategize for individual combat like he could. He knew how to give himself all the advantages, and how to remove all his disadvantages. Even Felix deferred to him a lot in that area. Wasn't that why he had given him the armor in the first place?

"What about the others?" Sheba asked. "Shouldn't we tell them? Shouldn't they be there?"

Garet shook his head. "There's no time. We don't know how long Lachesis will be gone, and bringing anyone else is a bad idea. Atropos can't turn the Golden Sun on me, but she holds complete command over three elements. She'll tear apart anyone without the armor."

Sheba crossed her arms, tucking her chin into her chest. "I'd have to take you, I guess, and then...what, hide?"

He shrugged. "I guess. You can't be at the fight itself, no. If Atropos is willing to kill Lachesis, I'm sure she'd have no problem killing you, too."

"Yeah..." The girl disliked the idea of hiding, but she had no counter to Garet's point. Atropos would kill her just as swiftly as any of the others. She glanced at the cabin again. Buford and Brennan had little experience with Psynergy, and flying would drain them far faster than it would Hama, but between the two of them, she expected Hama could rest enough to maintain their speed. "We should still tell them."

Garet hesitated, then shook his head again. "I don't know Hama enough to figure out what she'll think about this, but I don't want to risk her trying to stop us."

"She might just want to come with us, as backup," Sheba said, then frowned. "But then the ship would take even longer to get to Kalay. If we do this, we can't do it at the cost of other things, or Felix will kill you."

"Felix is going to kill me anyway," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "I'm bringing you to Anemos so I can fight a king alone. Hell, he'd kill me just for the first part."

Sheba looked away, feeling her face turn pink. "Um, I guess that's true."

A large hand dropped onto her head and ruffled her hair. The girl squirmed and ducked out of range, raising her hands to slap Garet away if he followed. "Ugh, cut it out!"

He laughed, placing his hands on his hips. "I can't help it. You're so cute when you get embarrassed. You're just like Ivan."

Sheba opened her mouth, but closed it again as 'shut up' came to her lips, swallowing the comment and smirking instead. "Aw, I'll be sure to let him know you think he's cute."

"Please do," Garet said with a shrug. "I can't be the only one telling him he looks like a little girl, especially when he goes without cutting his hair for a while."

"I'll pass it along," she said, rolling her eyes. The last piece of the sun dropped below the horizon, the endless yellow interrupted for a single moment by green. Sheba stared at the point for a few moments in silence. Yellow and green... "Are you ready?"

Garet nodded. "Let me grab my stuff."

Sheba watched him head vanish into the cabin, then turned to the twilit sea. She had always planned on going back to Anemos, but when she imagined it, she stood next to Felix, with everyone beside them, heading to end the kings' reign and allow the Anemoi to rejoin Weyard as equals. Sneaking away like this, to rush into the city and assassinate one of those kings... It felt a bit wrong. That wasn't the way heroes were supposed to do it.

When she thought of Tolbi, of Kraden, of Aisa, though, it felt a bit right, too.

To keep Javen out of those thoughts, anything would feel right.