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"Are you sure you'll be all right?"

"Yes."

"Myles, if you need someone to spe-"

"I said I was fine!"

Eleni's words cut Schuylar deeply, but he understood the underlying agitation. His friend had just killed for the first time, had been presented with a situation that gave him little choice on the matter. Everyone else was on edge too.

Within less than an hour of Alanna dragging Myles from the river, Lord Imrah had appeared with an armed squad. The ear splitting shrieks of the Undine had apparently reached Port Legann and woken half the city.

Not even these battle hardened soldiers knew was to make of the grisly scene by the water. In total, there were sixteen bodies dumped on the nearest bank, all female and lifeless. Even in the weak moonlight, it was easy to see the shimmering blood that had pooled on the riverbanks. The half-drowned pages looked little better than the corpses.

Looking like ghosts themselves, most had gathered around one specific page, the only casualty of the battle. Artan of Bjorn, the source of recent rumors, had not been reached in time. Faded pale blue starred at the heavens, the light gone from their depths. His only two friends, Alexander and Pierina had knelt at his side, grieving in their own stony fashion.

The group had been promptly taken back to the city, and so was the body. Lord Padraig had left the pages under Lord Imrah's care, presumably to contact the mages in Corus. None of them saw him again for hours. The pages had been quickly ushered to the healers' wing of Lord Imrah's cliffside castle.

Eleni had refused to let anyone examine her. The healers attributed it to post traumitic stress and were ready to wait out until the young page calmed down. They had orders to obey, and a small redhead was not going to keep them from their orders. After the pages settled down for the night, they would heal him without objections.

And that's where Eleni found herself that night, pacing the small room that had been given to her and Schuylar. Unofficially, Kyle was spending the night there too.

He hadn't left Schuylar's side since he had been rescued from the river. He hadn't spoken a word since, clinging to Schuylar's arm when the healers tried to separate him from the older pages. Currently on Schuylar's cot, the poor boy had passed out long ago. Eleni's raised voice didn't even reach him, so exhausted from the night's events.

"Don't do this, Myles." Schuylar was checking up on Kyle, covering him with a light blanket. The healers had said that they were all running the risk of having ingested Undine blood, and that there was no telling how it would manifest in them. "Don't shut us out. I want to help you," he sighed. "Can't you just talk to us?" Though the battle was over, he was afraid of losing his friend.

"I just can't." Eleni was dying on the inside. For all that she had tried, a fellow page had died, drowned by those monsters. "I was useless, Schuylar, completely useless!" She punched the wall, trying to rid herself of some frustration, but it only served to remind of the half-healed cuts on her shoulders.

It didn't go unnoticed. "At least let the healers see to your injury," he insisted. When pleaded didn't work, he tried logic. "There's no point in letting it get infected."

"I don't care." Eleni never saw the fist until it reached her cheek. "What was that for?" she demanded. Schuylar didn't back down from his livid friend.

"Stop acting like you're the only one who was there," he grounded out the words. "You were one of the few who actually fought back, so don't say that you were useless!"

"Artan died, and I did nothing!" It wasn't true, she had done plenty, it just hadn't been enough to save everyone. Despite what she expected of herself, she was only eleven years old, still too young to care such burdens. "Useless," she whispered.

Not waiting for a reply, Eleni walked out of the room, leaving Schuylar alone with the slumbering Kyle. She knew he wouldn't leave the boy alone, and that she would get a few minutes to herself. The quiet hall didn't help her already grim emotions.

Mindful of the possibiltiy of wandering healers who would send her back to her room, Eleni stuck close to the fading shadows. It was close to dawn, and soon the entire castle would be awake, full of gossips intent on hearing the tales of the night's battle. The thought disgusted Eleni.

"What are you doing out of bed, young master?" A tall man wearing the robes of a healer placed his hand on Eleni's shoulder. She couldn't hold back a definitive wince of pain. "Ah, still not mended?" He was already moving her towards a door Eleni had just passed by. "This should do," he whispered before roughly shoving her through to a balcony.

"What?" she spluttered indignantly. "Who do you think you a-"

A blinding light hit her eyes, and Eleni knew it wasn't the sun. No, it was something just as impressive, but only half as bright. Where the arrogant healer had been standing there was nothing. She did a full turn until she stood face to face with the pompous rascal.

"I don't have the energy to deal with you," she said. And just like the last time they met, her hand was burned when she tried to open the door. Recoiling from her newest injury, Eleni glared at the insufferable god. "I haven't suffered enough for your liking, is that it?" Common sense told her that lashing out at a god was a foolish idea, but she abandoned left her common sense at the river. "Leave me alone, already!"

Kyprioth let her unleash her rage. Curses and unspeakable swear words were sent his way, but he let her do it. He knew what she had gone through, he had been the one to restrain her at his dark brother's door. Eleni Crow had fought her first battle, died, and come back to the world of the living to finish the fight. Humans were just a little too fragile to take that kind of thing and come out perfectly fine.

Tiring out, Eleni resorted to sliding down against the stone wall, cradling her knees close to her chest. It didn't take long for the tears to start. With the other pages around, she couldn't cry, because that's not something that boys training to be knights did. Kyprioth knew the truth, probably more than she knew herself, that alone made her barriers crumble.

After a few minutes of wallowing in self-pity, a slip of fabric materialized in front of her. A handkerchief. She never noticed Kyprioth sit beside her. Somehow, the idea of a god willing to sit on a stone floor next to a mere mortal was funny to Eleni. She could help the nervous giggles that escaped her mouth. More tears followed the meek laughter.

"Come on, nestling." Kyprioth had hugged her close to him, trying to keep the sorrow from consuming Eleni. "Nestling," he whispered in her ear. She didn't look up. "Myles." The reminder of her deception made her cry even more. Sighing to himself, Kyprioth silently cursing his sister. "Eleni Crow, look at me."

Compelled by the command of a god, Eleni had no choice but to look. The kind, almost fatherly, expression on Kyprioth's face was something Eleni had not expected to see. Now that she wasn't hiding her face anymore, he set to cleaning up her face. The warmth from his fingers brought back memories of her time in the dark place.

"You were the one who saved me."

The statement hung in the air, suspended by uncertainty. Kyprioth could take credit for saving her and be punished by his sister, or tell her the truth and be punished by his sister. Both choices were less than optimal. Trickster to the end, he skipped around answering her. He didn't deny it, but he didn't affirm her suspicions either.

"You did a good job tonight." He noted that enough of Eleni remained for her to snort at his comment. "Really," he insisted. "How many of the others fought back, hmm?"

"They couldn't fight back. The only reason I was able to do anything at all," she countered. "Was because women are immune to the Undine's song."

"So you admit you did something." The girl was speaking, coming out of the cocoon of despair she had constructed. If he could get her to dispel her fears in one go, she might just keep her sanity. "You saved your friend, even that stuff training master you hate so much."

Eleni let out a watery chuckle. "I don't hate him," she said. "He just aggrevates me."

"Fine," the god relented. "But you did save a few lives tonight." He placed a delicate kiss on the top of her head. It was eerily similar to the ones that Lokejo gave her. "You're going to be fine, little one, just fine."

"How do you know?"

Kyprioth gently nudged her. "Look out past the wall. Tell me what you see."

The night had slowly turned to morning, sunlight warming the city beyond the castle. As far as Eleni's eyes could see, there was a golden glow, bathing everything. There was no indication that a battle had taken place that night.

"The sun," was her simple answer.

"Exactly," he whispered, placing a second kiss on the tiny chick. "You see a new day before you. That is proof that everything will be perfectly right. You're watching a new day unfold," he explained. When he saw a tiny ghost of a smile appear on her lips, he knew for a fact that she would be fine. "Now, let's get you to bed. You're going to have a few hard days ahead of you."

They were almost back to Eleni's room, when she asked Kyprioth for a favor.

"Do you think you could heal these cuts for me? I don't really want some healer finding out that I'm not a boy." She felt like a small child, asking such a trifle favor from a god, but it was necessary.

Kyprioth gave her a final kiss on the forehead, before slowing fading from her sight. "What cuts?"

Eleni's fingertips examined her neck and under her shirt to check her shoulders. The Undine's wounds were gone.

"That sly trickster," she muttered. In truth she wasn't angry, but she didn't like him working magic on her without her knowing. "Thank you," she whispered to the empty hall.

Eleni didn't thank him so much for healing her wounds as for healing her soul. Perhaps, he wasn't as much of a rogue as her mother had said.

Ick. This chapter was so angst-ridden...

But all of it was a necessary evil. Kel's first battle was against Spidrens, creatures that barely resemble people. Eleni had to kill various immortals that look identical to human beings. It was a bit much for a little girl to handle. Alanna herself didn't see real combat until after she became a squire. Eleni's path is a little bit rougher than most.