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[stillfoodforguys]

Trying out some new experiences, my boyfriend and I were looking for a dominant guy that we could both serve together. We found someone advertising themselves online as a ‘giant for hire’, which turned out to involve much more than just having a great physique.

He was at least a foot taller than us both, and all the muscle built around his broad shoulders and thick thighs made him bigger in every other direction too. But the service we’d paid for came with something extra that would take this to the max; he made us both swallow a pill that would supposedly cause our bodies shrink over time, making him truly a giant in comparison.

We sat either side of him and massaged his muscles, and after a while I could feel my body tingle as the shrinking pill took effect. After just a few minutes, my height had already reduced such that standing on the sofa only brought me up to his shoulders. I stretched my arm across one of his pecs, squeezing the massive slab of meat while suckling on his nipple that filled my entire mouth.

I kept getting distracted by the musk that wafted down from above, occasionally glancing up at his pits until the man took notice. He suddenly stuffed me underneath his arm and lowered it to pin me beside him, trapping my head inside a hot, sweaty chamber entangled by his musky armpit hair. As I continued to shrink, he readjusted his arms slightly to make sure I didn’t slip out, forcing me to keep inhaling his powerful scent. By the time I reached my final size, my whole body was pressed against his flesh using just his bicep, which repeatedly flexed and throbbed against me.

After what seemed like an eternity, he pulled me out into the fresh air, everything but my head wrapped tightly in his clutches. He returned my blissful grin with a cocky smirk of his own, gesturing his eyes down towards his lap as though he wanted to direct my attention there. My expression changed very quickly to shock when I saw his massive member, with a tiny pair of legs kicking around as they disappeared into his slit. I watched the squirming bulge travel all the way down his shaft, the left side of his sack swelling as my boyfriend settled inside.

The giant moaned at the feeling of his balls getting massaged from within, carefully stroking his cock and savouring the moment. He didn’t care one bit about my pathetic attempts to wriggle out of his grip, and even took the time to tease me as he brought me closer to his waist. “That’s one filled up, now for the other…”

My shouting and begging for him to stop was quickly quietened when my head was shoved into his cock, immediately coated in the precum that was being pumped out in response to my partner’s squirming. It sucked me in like I was being consumed by a hungry snake, pulling me deeper until my whole body sank into the sweltering pool of cum contained within his other testicle. The scent was even more overpowering than his musk, dragging out an intense horny feeling that mixed with my fear.

At first I could hear my boyfriend struggling next to me, but once he went silent I knew that it wouldn’t be long before I also met my end. Soon we’d both be fully melted down into a fresh load, which this hulking predator would no doubt enjoy shooting across our bedroom floor.

[siremasterlawrence]

A Museum of Horror # 2 : Operation Doll Face

The doll AKA aptly named Colton Haynes appears to be operational on all cylinders so far in to my research as I press a few buttons, flip on a switch as the lights in the room begin to blink on and off starting the process as the electricity radiates.The walls four corners began spinning out of control with black panels everywhere cover in black rubber, the energy is pooling all of it together as it travels to the medical slate in the center of the room and lights it up as his body brightens up with electrical currents. He is in for a world of pain as he body lifts into mid air convulsing like a lunatic sinking into a new life time as he rolls to the side of the slab and falls flat on his back as his eyes are opening wide coming to life as he stood up in wonder.

Operation on Online”

“How do you feel?”

“I am a robot “

“Do you comprehend why I made you ?”

“I am here to serve you “

“Everything is in working order.”

“Naturally! I need to be of use”

“Sit up straight so I can examine “

“Fully available “

I informed him his testing begins now as he is rising to his feet as I point to the shower area of this laboratory that use to be a very popular gym and I begin plotting my totally awesome revenge scheme that will give my slave doll Colton Haynes the biggest role of his life literally as he swerves to face me in a deep sea of power.Grabbing on to his robotic chest my hands are met with such delight at the synthetic touch of his body felt so real beyond any of my imagination my work could be this good and I lean in to play with his nipples as I watch him moan in pleasure from my delicate manipulation of his robotic mind attempting to process it all.Clapping my hand a bit as the walls spread a bit apart till they hit the walls on the side of the room as we walk through the middle of the room in to the gyms shower area of the laboratory and I watch him as he does this on purpose I mean he genuinely begins to disrobe all of his clothes as they hit the floor from flying around.

“I HAVE A RESTRAINING A ORDER!” The real Colton Haynes stares in utter pain and true disgusts.

“Oh Colton! Don’t Worry this was a your clone the toy.”

“Master! Is this who I am replacing? He is cute.”

“RELEASE ME!”

“You are fine bro! All you need to do is be a good boy.”

“Fuck you!”

“Spit in my face huh?”

“Oh! I’ll do far more “

“Too bad buddy! Hey COLTON “

“What?”

“Not you!”

“Snap the losers neck and take him in to the lab”

“Nnnnoooo!”

“STOP!”

“Bye bye “

“Mwahahahahaha “

“He is finished Master”

“Place him in the right pod and enter the left “

The machine whirls on with a bright boom of blue light washing over the room is shooting in to the sky as the pods connect in a super sexy showcase of color overtaking the room we are in and soon enough the pods begin to shake as body bodies begin to form a toxic form of gas shooting across the tube pipes in to each other.

Spreading in to the right pod forming a one Colton Haynes.

“Master! OH MASTER”

“What bitch?”

“I am at your service “

“Obviously!”

“You may exit “

“What can I do for you?”

“Kneel for me”

“No! Between my legs “

“Yes Master! I am fucking hard”

“May I worship you ?”

“That’s your job”

“Undress me”

“Follow me to the bed “

“I am so excited”

“I can’t wait “

“You taste delicious “

“Do I? How so?”

“Yyyuuummm”

The end

[abigailmoment]

In The Absence Of Stars

Tags: Tragic Kindness, Post-Solitary Confinement, Disassociation, Vampire Spawn Culture, Terrible Hurt and Strange Comfort, Starvation, Healing from Trauma, Polyamory, Community Building, Eating Disorder, Codependency, Self-Harm Through Neglect, Prevented Suicide Attempt, Familiars As Service Animals, Learning, Getting Better, Hurt and Actual Comfort

-

Astarion's neck prickled and his hands tightened around his mug. He knew he had limited time. And he knew he was doing this wrong. He was at a table in the back corner, and that was wrong of him. He should be at the bar. He should be on display. That's how you drew people. Pretty didn't work if it was hidden in a corner.

Pretty didn't work if it was hidden under stone.

"Are you all right?"

Someone was close. Someone had gotten close, and Astarion hadn't even noticed. Something inside of him flinched, but the impulse didn't make it to his body. There was a strange delay between mind and movement.

When he did move it was to look up and try to make sense of the shape next to him. Tall. Green. Teeth.

"You're not all right," said the half-orc.

-

This was inspired by this story by @ineadhyn.

I made the Samaritan a half-orc because I needed someone who would be completely unafraid to walk someone else home at night in Baldur's Gate. By the end I realized that the kind but assertive voice I had for him was based quite a bit on Finch, who belongs to @everchased and who therefore should be credited for inspiration.

It obviously isn't actually him, because that would be unbearably hideous, and also he's in the future, smiting evildoers. Possibly this is some great grand-uncle.

-

Astarion couldn't talk properly.

He was out, but his voice was back in the crypt. Trapped under a slab. Dusty and broken.

He ordered a drink by pointing. He had coins in his pocket. He had found them months ago. There was loose change in tombs, if you looked hard enough. For long enough. Funerary rites. Coins for the dead. Meant for a different corpse. His now.

Five copper for a year of solitude. Not…not a very good price.

It was enough to buy a very cheap drink that he didn't want. A necessary prop, he remembered.

He remembered the rote things. The need to get a drink to justify existing in this space. He remembered where this space was. The taven's name had changed, he was fairly sure, but it was much the same. Dingy, but not filthy. Populated by few groups, mostly solitary drinkers. Poorly lit.

Even the dim lantern light made his eyes hurt. Everything seemed so bright.

The light was better than darkness, anything was better than darkness, but it had been so abrupt. Nothing and nothing and nothing and then an assault of light and hideous movement. Dragged out by Godey. Washed by Aurelia. He had mauled a rat to tatters and not had time to pick the skin out of his teeth before he had to leave. He had to find someone. As he always did. As if it hadn't happened. As if the last year hadn't happened.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to fold down on the floor and cry.

He took his drink and went to find a place to sit. He held it with both hands. His grip was about as reliable as his voice. He found a table. He held his drink as if it meant something to him. He sat still.

This was…this was bearable. This moment. Sitting here. Away enough from the lanterns that they didn't blind so much. There was movement and noise, which was good because if it got too quiet he might actually scream, but it wasn't all around him, like it had been on the street. It wasn't doing anything to him.

At the moment.

Astarion's neck prickled and his hands tightened around his mug.

He knew he had limited time. And he knew he was doing this wrong. He was at a table in the back corner, and that was wrong of him. He should be at the bar. He should be on display. That's how you drew people. Pretty didn't work if it was hidden in a corner.

Pretty didn't work if it was hidden under stone.

"Are you all right?"

Someone was close. Someone had gotten close, and Astarion hadn't even noticed. Something inside of him flinched, but the impulse didn't make it to his body. There was a strange delay between mind and movement.

When he did move it was to look up and try to make sense of the shape next to him. Tall. Green. Teeth.

"You're not all right," said the half-orc.

He leaned over and Astarion didn't know what to do. Scripts were jumbling together in his head. There were all sorts of things he was supposed to do when someone leaned into his space and he wasn't doing any of them. Just sitting there. Like a mouse. Or a statue.

"I think you've had a little too much…" the half-orc was saying, because he was leaning over to look at Astarion's drink. He stopped talking briefly when he saw it was untouched.

"…something," he still maintained, with a fair amount of confidence. "Are you here with anyone?"

Astarion shook his head. Always no to that.

The half-orc looked relieved that he'd actually responded, and eyed him critically for a moment. Then he sat down in a chair across from Astarion.

"Did you drink something?" he asked Astarion. "Or eat something?"

A rat. It had been a moment of abject ecstasy and nowhere near enough. But that's not what was meant. Astarion shook his head.

"Did something happen to you?" the half-orc asked.

Astarion didn't shake his head. He didn't nod. What was he supposed to say to that?

"There's a Fist officer on the street outside," the half-orc said. "Do you need me to…?"

"No."

Then Astarion coughed, because there was still dust in his throat.

"Okay. Okay." The half-orc was holding his hands up. "Not that. That's fine."

Astarion finished coughing. He took a drink of pointless liquid. His hands were shaking. He was so useless right now. If even this was too much, he had no idea how he was going to…

"Do you live nearby?" the half-orc asked him.

That ticked a familiar note in Astarion's brain. That was part of a script, but it wasn't part of this script. Whatever this was. Astarion just stared at him.

"Look. I'm going to get you home, all right?" the half-orc said.

Something inside of Astarion froze. It couldn't be this easy. It was never this easy.

He nodded.

And it was easy.

Astarion was helped to his feet. He was steered very gently around the tables, chairs and other solitary drinkers. The door was opened for him.

They walked through the dark streets. No one bothered them, because one of them was six feet tall and had tusks. Astarion didn't even have to talk. He just pointed down the streets where they needed to go.

The half-orc kept a hand on Astarion's arm. Not possessive. Astarion knew possessive. It was like he was concerned Astarion might fall over and wanted to be in a position to do something about that if it happened. And it had been a year. A year since any kind of touch like that. And it was light enough that it didn't overwhelm, and Astarion felt like his body was somehow devouring it through the point of contact on his arm. Like the rat. Abject ecstasy and nowhere near enough.

And Astarion kept pointing down streets leading them closer and closer to his home.

It felt like there was a mortar and pestle inside of his chest. And every step he took turned the pestle and ground away at something. Something slender and enduring. Something that he hadn't realized he still had, didn't remember the name of, and that he was slowly destroying by doing this. A feeling like watching the night sky and seeing stars winking out.

They stopped at the base of the main stairs, that led up to the familiar mahogany door of the least convoluted entrance.

"You gonna be okay from here?" the half-orc asked.

He sounded a little intimidated. Because Astarion had led him to a castle.

And there was a moment, when the dying, ground down thing inside of Astarion's chest fluttered. A keening desire to do something, anything, other than what he was currently doing. But it was an impulse that didn't translate into motion. A death rattle. Because he was fresh from a lesson about sentiment. And the night sky was black, like the inside of a tomb.

"Would you mind…" Astarion started quietly, and stuttered, but managed to thread the words together in the end: "I may have trouble with the stairs."

"Sure," the half-orc said, immediately.

And he helped Astarion up the stairs and into the Szarr Palace.

-

This was supposed to be a short story about the POV character.

It is now an ongoing series about the half-orc. There are going to be about twenty chapters. I have all of it outlined and much of it written.

Gods preserve me. The rest of it is on AO3. -

[random-introverted-blog]

His Star - His Queen [Chapter 10 - Hunted / A Heart of Darkness and Shadow]

You were never His anyways...

Summary: You and Astarion are reunited at long last! Now all you have to do is reach the house with the mirror!

...What do you mean you're being hunted?

[This chapter is LONG. Just shy of 16,000 words. No one expects you to read it all in one sitting. Please, remember to drink water, hug a loved one, walk your pets, eat and live in between. Don't linger on the toilet for too long. Remember to take breaks. Ascendant, Spawn Astarion nor myself, are going anywhere <3 ]

Link to the Tumblr Chapter Index

Warnings/Advisories: -Creepy/Obsessive Yandere TO THE MAX -Horror/Thriller vibes -Death -Action! -Blood

Spoilers below -Scarification/Torture

A/N: It's finally here. At long last. Sorry if I missed any warnings, I'll try and update/edit as I go from here on. I did the last of the editing while I was on vacation, before bed for 2-3 hours at a time. So if the editing quality drops near the end I do apologize. All I want is to create a story worth your time and patience.

Also, I'm not doing special edits like this for each chapter. But maybe special ones.

-ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈--ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈--ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈-

You abruptly jolt awake, a sudden lurch propelling you upwards as your hands scrape against a coarse, rough surface. The world around you quakes and rumbles, disorienting you as you struggle to find your bearings. As you struggle to sit up, you feel yourself slipping against the cold, hard surface beneath you.

Gradually, your eyes adjust to the dim lighting, and you realize your surroundings are completely unfamiliar. You notice the faint aroma of damp earth, giving you the impression that you're possibly underground. Beyond some cluttered shelves and scattered furniture items, the room appears strangely bare, devoid of any personal touches or signs of life.

Underneath you lies a cold, hard stone slab you seem to have been placed upon. A table stands against the sturdy slate wall, with an assortment of enigmatic tools scattered haphazardly across its surface. Your attention is drawn to the sight of a man's back, hunched over the table. Next to you on the table, a rusty, worn, but serviceable knife. Its edges not the sharpest, but better than nothing.

The weight of the small weapon feels good as your hand silently grasps it. Your light feet swing over the edge of the slab to find the cold, damp floor. Whoever this is, wherever you are, you will find answers. Last time you fell unconscious against your will, the Ascendant appeared to investigate. If he hasn't yet, then he's up to something... or he, somehow, can't find you.

Or...

Grumbling to himself, the man continues to sift through the tools before him, brushing some aside and tossing others.

The ground trembled again, mimicking the powerful roar of thunder that usually accompanies a lightning strike. The intensity of the shake is so strong that you have to cling to the stone slab to regain your stability. Determined, you creep quietly behind the man, small knife clutched and ready in your hand...

Emitting a luminous glow that pierces through the dim torchlight, a brilliant light emanates from your foot, casting vibrant hues across the room. The intense illumination catches the man off guard, causing him to swiftly pivot in surprise. As you follow the source of the light, your gaze descends to your right ankle, and a sudden realization dawns upon you - the captivating radiance originates from the shackle securely fastened around your ankle.

"It's never done that before." You mutter out loud, surprised by this yourself.

Frustration evident, the man flings his arms open wide, expressing his exasperation. "Done what? What is that thing? I've been trying to pry it off your foot since they brought you here!" He exclaims, shaking a small saw of some kind before he chucks it angrily to the floor and grips at the blonde hair behind his pointed ears. His dark skin and red eyes are reminiscent of other drow you've met.

Suddenly, the door behind you bursts open. A dwarf enters first, waving in a small cluster of other, taller people. Including one familiar high elf with curly white hair. "All in, block the door!" He calls out, quick to join another in grabbing a shelf off the wall, bottles and books falling to the floor as they move it in front of the door. "Where the hells is Jester and the others?" Astarion demands, turning to the dwarf.

Grunting, he hefts his mace onto his shoulder and grimaces. "Separated, I'm afraid. It matters little to us right now. We can't do anything for them with that monster on our arses."

"Durgan, you can't be suggesting—"

"I'm suggesting we live, then see about Glacius, Aric and them." Says the dwarven man, Durgan, firmly to one of the others, but he turns to face you. Regarding you a moment before tipping his head, seemingly in a nod of respect. "Elowen says you've a stout heart, and the lass has always had a good head on her shoulders." Taking a look at the poor excuse for a knife in your hand. "Now's the time to prove her right, aye?" And with that, he walks past you, toward the drow. Shouting for the others to grab from the nearby supply of lanterns.

Your gaze remains fixated on the dwarf as he traverses the surroundings until a pair of arms swiftly envelops you in their frigid, familiar embrace. "Finally..." He sighs in relief, only tightening his grasp, desperately yearning to sense the warmth of your presence pressed against his sturdy body, concealed by his armor.

Already you can tell the difference. That unmistakable scent of rosemary mingling with the invigorating notes of bergamot and a hint of brandy. No ominous or frigid undertone. The cold of his arms through the sleeves of his armor and his cheek against your head are a welcome contrast to the warmth of his imposter's embrace.

It's him. Not Godking Ancunín, Vampire Ascendant. But your loveable rogue, Astarion, with his right here with you at long last, mischievous smile, quick wit and all. Your heart races as you eagerly return his embrace, the cold metal of his chestplate pressing against your cheek.

You could soak in your Star until the sun turned black...

But all too soon, that commanding, burly voice calls out to Aster, the group he came in with all huddled by a corner of the room. Two of them clutch lanterns, their feeble glow casting eerie shadows on the worn stone walls. They faintly remind you of the lantern you took with you into the shadow-curse... at least until you let the pixie out. "We've got to move," Durgan declares, his voice filled with urgency, as he presses his palm against a large brick of slate. As if responding to his touch, the slate emanates a gentle blue shimmer and a concealed door slides open noiselessly, unveiling a pathway leading down into a foreboding tunnel.

"Keep the queen close, Aster," Durgan advises, his words laced with a sense of responsibility. Without hesitation, he takes the first step into the darkness, closely followed by a tiefling man with fiery red skin and a lantern clasped tightly in his grasp as the group descends into the secret tunnel.

"I'm not a queen," you argue vehemently, frustration evident in your voice as you throw your hands up in exasperation. Astarion catches one of your hands, his touch gentle yet firm, as he tugs you along. The door behind you, the same one they hastily ran through mere moments ago, rattles violently, its unsettling sound reverberating through the air.

"Let's move it, people!" urges the drow, his call reverberating in the expansive, damp space. His arm slices through the musty air, urging everyone forward into the tunnel. You quickly scan the group, counting heads. Five, excluding yourself, Astarion, the dwarf, and the drow. The sound of shuffling feet fills the air as the group begins to move, the faint scent of damp earth lingering.

One of them, a human with a bow and arrow, stays close, guarding your back.

As he looked around, his eyes were sharp and observant, capturing every nuance of his surroundings. The drow disappears into the tunnel as soon as he spots you and Astarion approaching.

A chilling darkness swallows the room the moment you both step across the threshold, emanating a tangible, icy hunger while permeating the atmosphere with an ominous presence.

With a trembling hand, the human mutters, "Oh gods, not again..." as he notches an arrow, pulling it back tautly.

Transfixed, you cannot tear your gaze away as the man is seized and his body violently jerked backward, accompanied by a bone-chilling shriek that reverberates through the air. It is as if the encroaching shadows themselves have become ravenous beasts, swallowing him whole, leaving nothing behind but a haunting echo of terror. The sound of his bow clattering to the ground echoes loudly in the eerie silence that follows.

"Tav, move!" Astarion shouts beside you, tugging at your arm. Your eyes quickly dart between the rusty knife clenched in your hand and the abandoned bow, weighing your options.

Suppressing your surprise and horror, you watch as the man desperately claws himself back from the depths of the darkness. His blooded hands dig furiously into the void, his wide, blown-out eyes reflecting sheer terror. You can almost hear the darkness itself, a sinister laughter echoing through the depths. It takes pleasure in toying with its prey, as scraps of the man's armor are mercilessly torn from his body by an unseen force, each rip accompanied by a sickening sound. The metallic scent of blood lingers in the air, mingling with the acrid scent of decay.

The weight of the man's quiver slips off his shoulder, crashing to the ground with a hollow thud. With a final, haunting cry, his voice thick with agony, he is violently yanked back into the merciless abyss.

"What are you...?!" Your Star yells, his voice filled with disbelief.

"Aster!" Durgan calls next as they watch you dart towards the spot where the man once stood. Swiftly discarding the knife, you crouch down, your fingers tightly gripping the bow and quiver, these weapons more familiar and effective to you.

In the dimly lit room, the faint glow of your shackle emits a feeble radiance. Even now, the menacing shadows seem to possess sharp teeth and poised claws, ready to snatch their next hapless victim.

Yet, they do not threaten you.

Not with bodily harm.

You're not sure how you know this. Feel this.

An icy hand firmly grips your shoulder, pulling you back with urgency and guiding you down the dimly lit tunnel. The metallic smell of blood and decay lingers in the musty air of the room as you leave it behind. Astarion's voice cuts through the chaos, "escape now, gawk at the nightmarish shadow monster later!" he hisses, scowling at you as he pushes you along.

You both pass Durgan, his calloused palm pressing firmly against an unmarked spot on the tunnel wall. The rough texture of the stone contrasts with his weathered skin. As he seals the way back, the sound of shifting stone grinding against stone echoes through the narrow passage.

A faint smell of damp earth lingers. "It won't hold him back forever. We must hurry," he orders, his voice filled with determination. With a confident nod, Durgan strides forward, taking the lead once more, the tiefling following closely behind.

Raising your eyebrow with a querying expression, you ask, "Him?" With a smooth, practiced motion, you sling the bow over your right shoulder, feeling the weight of the wood settle comfortably against your back.

With a grimace, Astarion takes on answering you. "It's him." He spits the words with a venomous hiss, as if they're tainted with a bitterness that seems to linger on his tongue, like he's just bitten into something so vile, it sours every word he speaks.

"No," you say sharply, the word slipping from your tongue with an unexpected swiftness. Even more surprising isn't just how suddenly you speak, but the razor-sharp tone that suddenly slices through your voice, as if they've been dipped in ice before they cut through the air. It's that startling sharpness in your tone that echoes a little too fiercely, swirling around your group like a chilly breeze.

"That's utterly ridiculous. I mean, why all the theatrics when he could just show up and stab us all into mince meat?" you assert, the words laced with incredulity. Your words reverberate, echoing off the walls. As you speak, you secure the quiver tightly against your back, feeling its weight press against your spine. A sense of regret washes over you as you lament the impracticality of the dress you were forced to wear, yearning for the comfort and functionality of a sensible pair of pants and a sturdy belt.

"It's to send a message, lass." Durgan replies, not looking back, his boots crunching on the cave dirt path ahead. "We've liberated his precious new queen, and he's none too pleased about it." Though his tone is serious, it carries a hint of pride. Whether it's because they've gotten you away from the Ascendant or that they've angered him, you couldn't say for sure.

"Apologies for the interruption," the drow interjects, his voice cutting through the air. "However, I'm eager to revisit my previous inquiry. May I inquire about the purpose of the peculiar band encircling your ankle?"

"I'm also curious." Astarion adds, his gaze shifting downwards to the shackle that now emits a gentler, subdued radiance.

Gods, how do you explain something you don't quite understand yourself? In all honesty, you've never asked the Ascendant or Malacai the purpose of it. You just assumed. "Honestly, I've never questioned its purpose to the Ascendant or Malacai. It was simply there when I first awoke," you say, your voice echoing softly in the dimly lit tunnel. The gentle drip of water from stalactites creates a rhythmic melody to your words. "All I know is that it compels me to remain seated on the throne and during meals."

You pause a moment, feeling the gentle pressure of it with each step you take. "It's not difficult to surmise that it allows him to track my movements, but I believe it also... somehow alerts him if I am injured or unconscious." Your words escape slowly, stealing a glance at your right ankle, which emits a soft glow, casting ethereal shadows upon the rugged walls of the tunnel.

A deep, rumbling grunt escapes from Durgan's throat. "That sodding idiot, Spellsong..." He quickly deduces with a small shake of his head.

"I did try to warn her..." you say with a wry smile, your shoulders lifting in a small shrug.

With a throat-clearing sound, the drow gets everyone's attention. "The research myself and my student have conducted over the past month may prove useful then," he says, his voice steady and composed. If Ancunín can track his runaway bride with that bracelet, then we need to deal with it before we reach our destination," he continues, his eyes focused and unwavering. The weight of anticipation hangs almost tangible, as everyone waits for his next words. "Our checkpoint along the way may have what I need," he concludes, his curiosity evident, yet devoid of any trace of concern.

"Very well. Only because it's on the way, Zylinn." Agrees the dwarf.

Beside you, Astarion's arm lightly grazes yours, a subtle gesture that manages to capture your attention. "It shouldn't be much longer now, darling." He maintains a steady gaze ahead and speaks in hushed tones, assuring you. "Once we reach their hideaway, we can slip away and back to the portal that will take us home."

As if the act could shatter your resolve, his piercing gaze subtly scans your body before locking onto your eyes. "I am acquainted with powerful people," he asserts, his voice carrying a hint of arrogance. "They most certainly possess the means to rid you of that insignificant trinket on your foot." Astarion's response answers the unspoken question in your eyes. "This will all be over soon." His icy hand brushes yours as you walk, catching you off guard initially. It's a stark contrast to the warmth you've grown accustomed to from the Ascendants, and you can't help but despise how accustomed you've become to his touch.

Not-Gale's words still linger in your ears about your plans to escape. What prevents him from coming after you again? If he is that shadow, then he's already silently trailing right behind you.

Could you really abandon these people, leaving them behind without a second thought?

It's not like you're devoid of problems in your own world, either.

Haven't you endured enough in the clutches of a monster parading around wearing the face of your lover?

Right now, there are no answers to any of these questions. Your sole focus has to be reaching safety...

"Oh, how fortuitous! It is you, my noble prince, arriving to save me!"

You tease, playfully grabbing onto his arm and giving him an adorable look with big, innocent doe eyes.

Astarion rolls his sharp, scarlet eyes, their mischievous sparkle betraying the faux annoyance he portrays. With his mesmerizing smile, he quietly laughs at your antics, a gentle hum escaping from his lips. "Charming, alluring, and hauntingly beautiful I am," his voice dances in the air with a hint of whimsy, "But a noble prince? Alas, that is not my crown to wear."

Once again, you are captivated by the intense hue of his eyes, shimmering like smoldering embers in the dimly lit space. The warmth that radiates from him, like a tangible presence, is a characteristic often associated with the Ascendant, but your Astarion embodies it in a way that is uniquely his own, beyond physical.

With a sudden surge of impulse, you slip your hand into his, feeling the texture of his cool, slender fingers interlacing with yours and eliciting a startled response as his gaze abruptly shifts downward. "I just... need to feel you," you whisper, your voice quivering with unexpected nervousness. In that moment, you question your actions, wondering if you are behaving like a child, craving attention, or if you are overstepping a boundary with him.

Instead, he gives you an even softer smile that melts away your worries, like warm sunlight breaking through dark clouds of your fear. His eyes, filled with understanding and comfort, twinkle like gentle stars in the night sky. The soft murmur of his voice reaches your ears, "I am here, my sweet," he whispers, his words wrapping around you like a soothing embrace. "And I'm not going anywhere."

Surveying the group with your inquisitive gaze, you notice the complete lack of acknowledgement towards you and Astarion, intensifying your curiosity. A stark contrast to the constant scrutiny you usually endure. Gods, you're so tired of your every move being watched and noted. "So, what have you been occupying yourself with lately?" you inquire, yearning to hear the voice of the real Astarion, to feel his presence, and lose yourself in the distinct presence that defines him alone.

"Well, after winning the tournament, I met with the Ascendant to have one wish granted. According to the resistance, it was to know the location of the previous queen's dust." He recalls, a weary sigh escaping his lips.

"And after carefully dispelling the tracking charm on the locket he gave to find it, we had begun to leave the city for her burial site. But then Elowen and you sent notice you were preparing to abscond from the palace..." His voice trails off, revealing his frustration at the belated revelation of the shackle on your foot.

His eyes meet yours momentarily. "Had we known of the collar around your foot sooner, I would have insisted on staying behind to meet you." His gaze conveying his regret for not having known earlier, a blend of emotions flickering across his face.

"I didn't tell you during the Festival of Gratitude because I... wasn't sure how to explain it. Back then, my understanding of the damn thing was minimal, with nobody bothering to offer any clarification, and as I delved deeper, it became increasingly difficult to put into words through the sending stone in just twenty-five words." You respond admittedly not fond of his accusatory tone. But you can hardly blame him for his feelings. You did leave him in the dark.

But you're going to change that. As best you can, starting now. "This morning, I sought out the Ascendant to secure his permission to leave.

"His permission..." Astarion sneers, his voice dripping with disdain, as his cold hand tightens around yours.

If the situation was less dire, a faint flicker of amusement might have crossed your chest, eliciting a small smile. As you pause to compose yourself, the air carries a subtle scent of anticipation. "He's planning something he called the sacrament," you say, your voice measured and deliberate, ensuring that every word is heard and comprehended. "And another called the ceremony." Once more, you pause, pondering your words and ensuring that you have overlooked nothing.

"The sacrament is happening soon," you continue, the weight of the impending event pressing against your temples. "But the ceremony... that will take place after the wedding and coronation." As your words echo through the tunnel, a heavy silence descends, filling the space with an air of unease.

"But for the sacrament," you explain, your voice taking on a hushed tone, "he needs this gem called the heart. A vessel of some kind to harness the power of a god."

As your eyes move towards the ground, you can't help but admire how the shimmering light from your shackle paints the rocky walls with beautiful hues. "And something called a Glyphblade," you add, the name rolling off your tongue like a whispered secret.

"He made a deal with the Sharrans, and they brought him a scroll. While the mother superior," you say, your voice growing softer still, "she is bringing the Sharran Glyphblade." The anxiety in the words lingers, casting a shadow over your thoughts and leaving an unsettling feeling in your core. A stillness settles over the room, broken only by the rhythmic thud of your own heartbeat reverberating in your ears, underscoring the significance of the situation for those who hear you speak.

"Then he nearly has all he needs to perform that godsforsaken thing." Zylinn, the drow, says abruptly from up ahead, his voice echoing through the dimly lit cavern. As he glances back over his shoulder, his piercing eyes lock with yours, filled with a mixture of concern and determination. The damp air hangs heavy with the scent of earth and mildew, while the distant sound of dripping water echoes in the silence. "All the more reason to get you as far away as possible," he adds, his words dripping with a deathly seriousness, before turning his gaze forward once more.

"You know what it is?" you inquire, your words threaded with an undertone of nervousness as the last echo of his voice dissolves into the charged air

Zylinn's shoulders stiffen under the dim glow of the lantern, his tension palpable. "Regrettably, yes... The Sacrament of Unanima. The kind of magic that has the power to touch one's very soul should never be treated as a mere plaything, even by a self-proclaimed godking," he says, his words accompanied by a sharp spitting sound, echoing the irritation in his voice.

Soul magic?

"Aster, a moment," Durgan's voice calls out, his voice reverberating off the tunnel walls. Astarion, his hand slipping from yours, nods gently before quickening his pace to catch up with the dwarf. You watch him for a moment as you walk along. Unbeknownst to you, a soft smile graces your lips, a rare moment of joy amidst the torment you have just endured. Being this close to him feels comforting after the hell you've just endured.

Of course, you still have to find a way to escape this place. And there's the looming presence of the Absolute and the wriggling tadpoles back home that you'll have to face. But for now, if you can shut your eyes tonight beside your vampire spawn, allow yourself to be enveloped in the chilling embrace of his arms around you, feel the coolness of his touch against your skin...

How can it be that in this brief span of time, the very thought of a world without him is an insufferable weight upon your heart?

You can tell him you love him now. Those three little words you should've spoken before the shadows of this nightmare sunk its claws into you...

Suddenly, your foot drags behind you, heavier now than your left, causing each step to feel like an arduous battle against an immovable force. It clings to the rocky floor beneath you, resisting your every move like an iron ball firmly anchored. Oblivious to your struggle, the others march ahead, their focus solely on pushing forward.

As you glance down at your foot, a somber sight greets you - the once vibrant glow of the shackle has faded, replaced by a muted shade of crimson.

Each successive step becomes more strenuous, as if the ground itself is resisting your progress. And you're fiercely fighting to keep it from firmly attaching itself to the ground, desperately exerting every ounce of strength into the struggle.

But it does.

And your heart sinks.

There's only a moment to panic before soft whispers that you can barely hear, but can feel graze your neck like the icy breath of death itself. Your head jerks sharply, eyes darting over your shoulder.

You're stunned when you see the way back is now engulfed in impenetrable darkness, inching closer like a silent predator teasing its prey with the final strike. It hangs in the air like a ravenous miasma, emanating a hunger that threatens to consume you whole.

You know it without a doubt now.

Him.

It beckons you. Though the whispering chorus is not coherent to your ears, you can feel it in your chest, a tingling sensation traversing through your limbs like an electric current. It courses through your veins, reaching your hands and feet, and finally settling into the very tips of your fingers and toes. Invisible and intangible, it calls to you, promising safety with an outstretched hand.

But not freedom.

The choice is to take its hand or be taken by it.

Summoning all your strength and determination, you fiercely contort your body, wresting control of your foot from the tight grip of the shackle. As you do, the metallic shackle glimmers with an intense brilliance, casting a luminous glow in the dimly lit tunnel. With a surge of adrenaline, you unleash a resounding cry; the echoes reverberating off the cold, damp walls. "Run!" you command, your voice filled with urgency and defiance. Swiftly pivoting on your heel, you embark on a mad dash down the tunnel, the rhythmic pounding of your footsteps blending with the symphony of your pounding heart.

Just ahead of you, Durgan and Astarion come into view, their faces now turned towards you. In that split second, a chilling instinct prompts you to swiftly duck, narrowly avoiding a tendril of darkness that whizzes past your shoulder, snatching an elven woman.

Her startled yelp reverberates through the air, her fingernails desperately clawing at a narrow crevice along the rough rock wall. A worn pack slips from her shoulder, hanging precariously around her arm. "Oh gods, please...! Please!" The plea in her terrified, trembling voice is heart-wrenching. Tears stream down her face as she continues to plead with the gods for mercy.

Despite her efforts, her fingers eventually lose their grip on the wall and the unfathomable shadows violently pull her in and a shriek that nearly curdles your blood pierces your eardrums. The distinct stench of decaying flesh begins to taint the air. Before you can fully process the horror that just unfolded, a hand grips your shoulder, snapping you back to reality. "What did I say about gawking, darling?" He growls as he drags you along, forcing you into a frantic sprint.

The two of you catch up to the others. Durgan is struggling to stay ahead of everyone, but amazingly, he manages. Zylinn is panting heavily and the other three unnamed members of your entourage, their faces glistening with sweat, pushed forward.

Finally, you reach the end of the tunnel and Durgan's calloused hand firmly presses against the side of the exit, sealing it shut with a resounding thud.

As you take a moment to catch your breath, a fleeting sense of relief washes over you. But as you slowly turn around, the relief quickly dissipates. Before you lies an expansive, ancient chamber, its walls weathered by time. At the far end, an immense gate looms, its iron surface marred by rust, reminiscent of the entrance to Baldur's Gate. Its jagged teeth are firmly embedded in the worn stone floor. The room itself is bathed in an ethereal blue glow, casting haunting shadows that dance along the walls.

Durgan growls loudly in frustration as the sealed wall violently shakes and cracks behind you. "Of all the sodding days to close the gate!" He shouts, his voice echoing through the vast space as he throws his arms up in exasperation, his dark, thick beard bristling as he tugs on it.

Racing against the clock, your eyes dart around the room, taking in the decaying surroundings. On your right, a wide hole in the dilapidated stone wall hosts a gaping hole, wide enough to accommodate two average-sized individuals, or perhaps smaller. Wherever it leads, you can only guess. Meanwhile, to your left, a staircase lies in ruins, shattered in the middle, creating a substantial gap that renders it utterly useless. As you gaze further, you notice the upper floor atop the stairs, and a room that seems to be the gatehouse.

"Who has the satchel with the scrolls?" Durgan barks, looking back at the other three remaining members of your group. Astarion stays close to you and Zylinn close to both of you.

"Kinley had it but..." the human woman replied, her voice trembling slightly as she fought to regain her composure.

Despite the immense pressure and his dwindling options, Durgan stubbornly scans each face in the room.

If you can sprint and leap the gap, perhaps...

"Durgan! Aster!" a voice you haven't heard before echoes through the distance.

As you lift your eyes, you immediately spot the source - a short gnome donned in sleek black armor, a black cowl draped over his head. He stands confidently atop the shattered staircase. The air is filled with the sound of hurried footsteps as a dragonborn couple, led by the imposing male silver dragonborn, swiftly enters the gatehouse. The gnome's voice carries a playful bite, scoffing at you, "You were meant to rescue the damsel, not become one yourselves!" his voice echoes in the chamber.

"The gate, Jester!" Durgan's urgent cry echoes through the air, the crumbling wall serving as a foreboding backdrop. "Now!"

"Glacius is working on it. Hang on." The gnome you now know is Jester answers back as the smaller, female dragonborn hurries back and forth from the gatehouse.

Just as expected, the gate, as if on cue, lets out a piercing groan, its rusty hinges protesting against the force needed to pry its teeth free from the ground.

It barely manages to budge an inch before it abruptly plummets back into the stone

"Away from the wall!" You command, the urgency in your voice evident. With a swift motion, you slide the smooth bow off your shoulder, feeling the cool wood against your skin. Your fingers wrap around the smooth shaft of an arrow, feeling its weight and balance in your hand. Astarion, ever vigilant, positions himself by your side, his daggers glinting in the dim light. He swiftly pulls them from his belt with a dramatic flair, the sharp clinking of metal against leather resonating in your ears.

Durgan reaches for his mace and shield, leading the others to the symphony of clinking armor and thudding footsteps as you all sprint for the gate. You hurried away from the tunnel wall, eager to put as much distance between you and its crumbling remains.

As the stone fragment breaks away and crashes down, darkness swiftly engulfs the area like a surging tide. It weaves a veil of impenetrable shadow that blocks any retreat, leaving only the distant echo of the collapse reverberating in the stillness.

Emerging from the black fog, faceless silhouettes resembling both walking corpses and armored knights appear, their movements shambling and stoic.

Astarion positions himself with the grace of a panther, every muscle coiled like a spring and his gaze sharp, glinting with the promise of challenge. The whisper of his boots, shifting across the earth, a delicate symphony to accompany the drumming of your own heart and a siren's call to your senses.

In one fluid motion, you summon an arrow from the quiver's embrace, cradling it into place and feeling the whisper of promised power sing through the bowstring beneath your eager fingertips. With every breath, you ready yourself to align with the unseen winds. You draw back; the world narrowing to a point as you find your mark, poised to release an arrow that yearns to dance to the mastery of your command.

"For Faèrun!" Durgan cries, charging toward the shadows.

Inspired, the other resistance fighters charge with him. Spells and swords at the ready. Already, they carve a swath through the faceless silhouette, each one bursting with shadow magic upon defeat.

Astarion is quick to react as a few stragglers get through and advance on you, digging his daggers into any who get too close. His footwork smooth like waves on water, those perfect white curls of his hair remain in place as a testament to his incredible form.

All while you aim and loose one arrow after another, almost reveling in the strain of your muscles as you pull the bowstring taut. Despite the dire circumstances, you've sorely missed this. Not just the thrill of combat, or the joy of making your body work.

Gods, you could lose yourself just watching Astarion's artistry at work.

You've missed fighting beside him...

Durgan's voice rings out, shouting "Left flank!" as he expertly dodges a warhammer, narrowly avoiding a potential blow.

Without hesitation, you skillfully nock another arrow to the whispering string, the world around you narrowing to the simple stretch and pull of your bowstring. The count of arrows released to the wind escapes you now, lost in the dance of flight and purpose. A quiet sense of pride kindles inside you, a flame that will not be quenched, as you ready yet another arrow to kiss the wind.

With deadly precision, one of your arrows finds its mark, piercing the black chest of your target. The shadowy silhouette shimmers ominously but refuses to burst like its predecessors.

Stumbling backward, it is promptly pounced upon by Astarion, his movements as fluid as air. Swift blow after swift blow, his daggers find their mark, relentlessly assaulting the shadowy figure until it finally succumbs, dissolving into inky black nothingness. Leaving behind a lingering scent of decay and darkness as the battle unfolds with a symphony of clashing steel, and the occasional grunt of exertion.

You catch his piercing vermillion eye, the color burning like a flame in darkness, the tip of his fang teasingly peeking out from his roguish grin.

He's missed this as much as you have.

You can't even remember all the different aches for him you've carried. From the gentle brush of his lips to that thrill of his fangs grazing your skin. Every tender moment that his shadow can only hope to whisper in your dreams...

But as another wave of shadowy figures emerges, their ominous forms jolt you out of your reverie followed by the piercing screams of your comrade being forcefully dragged into the encompassing abyss. Amidst the chaos, Durgan desperately calls out to him, but he too is besieged from all directions, unable to extend a helping hand. Helplessly, you bear witness to the pitiful soul's futile struggle, as he desperately claws at the coarse, grimy sandstone floor, yearning to break free from the clutches of the inky black tendril dragging him towards his end.

No sooner has he vanished, a serpentine tendril swiftly lunges out, With lightning speed, it snatches the other two companions, leaving only you, Astarion, Durgan, and the seemingly inept drow lingering behind you. What even is he...?

The scent of decay wafts through the atmosphere as you cast a glance over your shoulder. Catching sight of the drow whose hands, shimmering with an orange, arcane glow, clasp the gate's rusted ironwork. Pieces of the now-softened metal drip like wax, hissing as they meet the cold stone below.

Here...

Whispers dance from the hidden corners, beckoning you into the waiting arms of darkness. Through the shroud of fog, a shape takes form—a silhouette that strides with an easy, unhurried grace, known and yet veiled by the curtain of shadows.

Come...

Astarion appears beside you quicker than a specter, his stance poised and prepared, and his vampiric fangs unsheathed like daggers. From the ebony gloom, the Ascendant emerges a mere breath from Durgan. An embodiment of the abyss, his figure is swathed in darkness so pure it devours the light, a silhouette carved of void and malice. His eyes emit a fiery red glow, and his hair curls with an eerie elegance. "Fun and games are over, pet," he purrs, his voice a chilling whisper that carries the promise of cruelty.

Though it might seem like his voice, a nefarious presence hides—a presence both ghastly and alien to your senses. Twin whispers trail his words, one lingering a hair's breadth behind, and another hastily weaving in front.

It stirs memories of that peculiar intellect devourer you encountered amidst the twisting corridors of the nautiloid. "Dinner will get cold if you linger much longer, and what a waste that would be... wouldn't it, my darling queen?" The Ascendant's unnatural voice speaks calmly, but it only sends shivers down your spine, his hand extending slowly toward you. A serenity that belies the icy dread snaking through you, his hand inching ever closer—an offering or a threat, you cannot tell.

Astarion, with a disgusted sneer, scoffs. "Gods, what a wretched little creep," he mutters, his voice dripping with repulsion. "At least I had far more enticing ways of inviting you to dinner," he adds, his words laced with a blend of amusement and contempt.

"You never invited me out to dinner..." you quip back with a playful glint lighting your gaze. The friendly jest weaving effortlessly like a dance between you.

"Maybe not in the traditional sense...!" your vampire spawn huffs, throwing a playful scowl in your direction as his lips curl in a feigned offense. Pretending to be wounded by your teasing.

As you roll your eyes, the corners of your lips curl up into a subtle smile, revealing your genuine amusement at his absurdity.

You quickly survey the narrow opening in the crumbling wall. The gap appears just wide enough for you and Astarion to slip through, leveraging your nimble agility. However, it would mean leaving Durgan and Zylinn behind and hope that there'd be time for them to follow in after you.

There has to be a way... if you have the time to figure it out.

"I thought you capable of better obedience than this, my treasure." The Ascendant interrupts your thoughts, disappointment evident in the way he sighs.

As if mirroring your initial palace experience, the shadows creep towards him, merging in a hypnotic dance of darkness. Their ethereal movement envelops him, shrouding his figure in an impenetrable cloak.

A gentle whirling sound fills the air, as if whispers of the night converge with the shadows. Suddenly, the shadows explode in a burst of motion, transforming into a mist that hangs in the air like a delicate veil. And within this mist, emerges a taller and more imposing version of his former self, still concealed in the enigmatic embrace of his shadowy cloak.

But this time, as you gaze upon it from the front, a chilling sight awaits you. Rows upon rows of teeth gleam ominously, each one razor-sharp and menacing. Its wings, like swirling vortexes, move with an eerie grace, whispering a haunting melody through the air.

Its fingers extend into sharp, menacing claws like twisted talons. With lightning speed, it swipes at Durgan, catching him completely by surprise. A gut-wrenching cry escapes his lips as his body is propelled violently across the floor, crashing and rolling with a series of bone-jarring grunts as Durgan's body collides with the unforgiving surface.

"This way!" You urgently shout to Astarion. With a firm grip on his arm, you feel the rush of adrenaline coursing through your veins. The sound of your hurried footsteps reverberates through the vast chamber, while the scent of a winter frost fills and wafts around you..

With lightning speed, he catches on quick, his agile movements allowing you to let go and trust him to sprint alongside you. As you pause to retrieve Durgan, Astarion's firm grip grabs you, his fingers digging into your arm, forcefully pulling you away towards the gap in the wall.

You can feel the rush of wind as the Behemoth's massive claw narrowly misses both of you. "Astarion!" you exclaim, your voice filled with indignation, as you realize he wants you to abandon him to his fate.

A sudden crack of lightning pierces the air, striking the creature square in the chest, emanating a blinding flash from the direction of the gatehouse. The creature appears unfazed by the impact, but its annoyance is palpable.

It swiftly redirects its attention towards the source of the spell, its eyes blazing with fury. In an instant, two out of three scorching rays streak through the air, accompanied by the distinct smell of singed ozone. The first ray strikes true with a searing impact, while the third finds its mark with a satisfying sizzle. However, the second ray veers off course, leaving you uncertain of its whereabouts.

As you and Astarion draw close to the break in the wall, a slender beam of emerald light slashes through the air, biting into the ancient sandstone wall above.

The deafening crash rings in your ears and the impact shatters the wall, causing fragments of debris to cascade down in a chaotic freefall.

He launches himself at you with fierce determination, hurling you both to safety just as a shower of stones threatens to come crashing down and block your escape.

Your eyes catch a glimpse of the sturdy wooden beams that brace the ceiling, a surprising yet fleeting distraction from the danger that you two narrowly missed.

However, you're still a long way from being out of danger.

The breathtaking love of your life gently eases himself away from you, his movements as graceful as a shadow. "Are you alright, darling?" he asks, his voice brimming with a caring warmth that contradicts the usual chill of his touch.

Concern paints his features as his pale, icy hand delicately guides your face, turning it this way and that as his eyes, like shimmering pools of scarlet sky, survey you carefully. Ensuring you're unharmed from head to toe.

A giggle escapes you, surprising even yourself and catching his concerned look off guard. Lifting his hand, you press a grateful kiss to his fingertips, grinning broadly. "I am now... Better than ever, in fact." You tell him, the truth of it ringing in your heart.

Yours might not be the image of pristine elegance; your hair tousled, your dress torn... But he treats you as if you're the morning's first light, his palm cradling your face as if you were the most precious thing under the moon. His gaze momentarily lingering on your smile before meeting your eyes once more...

The earth shudders violently under your bodies, its quaking so fierce it feels as though the ground itself wishes to swallow you whole. If you hadn't been pressed against the ground, the force would have surely swept you off your feet. "We're not in the clear yet until we get back home. Let's go," Astarion urges with a determined glint in his eyes. His hand wraps around yours, tugging you upward, your trusty bow in your other hand.

You can't help but wrinkle your brow in skepticism as you hoist your weapon over your shoulder, a whisper of doubt escaping your lips. "It's never that straightforward..."

He casts you a glance filled with unwavering confidence, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. "Don't fret, my Star, we've made it this far..." Astarion says, a comforting note in his voice as he takes your hand, guiding you along the path paved with cool, ancient stones. Overhead, wooden beams crisscross against a backdrop of shadow, sparking a flicker of curiosity within you.

What is this place? Another tunnel? How many does the resistance have? Are you beneath Baldur's Gate? "Illyndra and Aeron will know how to take that bracelet off, and then we return to our world and deal with the tadpoles, the brain, Orin..." He trails off, his gaze drifting downward for a moment before locking onto yours. "Quite the list, honestly. Aha!" His laugh, light and fluttering, dances through the air accompanied by a smile so effortless it could charm the stars. That very grin that never fails to send a delightful shiver down your spine.

You sweep your gaze across the path that lies before you. Above, unwavering beams hold the ceiling strong, lined with makeshift levies holding chunks of rock awaiting the builders' hands. Yet, beneath your feet, a patchwork of rickety wooden planks whispers of uncertainty.

Through the slender gaps, you watch as the eager water plays tag with the light, its laughter a thundering serenade—a reminder of the depths that lurk just a misstep away. But a part of you can't help but feel a rush of relief, knowing that should the ground betray you, the river's embrace awaits to cushion the fall.

Barely a moment after you both start treading through the shadowy passageway, a shiver races down your spine.

The air turns frosty, making the fine hairs on the back of your neck stand on end and your skin prickles with goosebumps. Whispers of your breath dance before your eyes, swirling like specters in the dim torchlight. "Astarion?" escapes your lips, your words quivering just like your chattering teeth.

Even in your captivity, the last month—or was it more?—spent in the deceptive embrace of an ornate prison, your sharpness, your keen edge of mind, remains unclouded.

It's more than a mere chill; it's bone-deep and malevolent, a spectral cold that seeks to worm its way into your very soul.

A quiver in your words must unsettle him, for his gaze whips around to meet yours with a sudden attention, his eyes wide with a touch of alarm. He takes in your trembling silhouette, swathed in the whispers of your own foggy breath. "He's already following us," Astarion concludes, his voice heavy with a grim certainty. The rhythm of his steps quickens, as if to outrun the unseen spectre lingering just beyond the veil of darkness.

Before you can hurry alongside him, a strange weight clings to your foot, as if it's ensnared by an unseen force, holding you back. It's as though your foot has forgotten it belongs to you, a traitorous part of you that refuses to cooperate.

Casting a hurried look downwards, you see your right foot bathed and ensnared once more in a crimson hue.

You look over your shoulder, admittedly a little startled, to see the shadows blocking the way you came. Creeping slowly along behind you, as if waiting for you to be fully separated.

Should you cross paths with that idiot halfling again, you'll clasp your hands around her throat until her eyes pop juicy red, akin to overripe grapes under the sun. Perhaps there was a sliver of a chance this plan might have succeeded, yet with her baffling refusal to listen and inadvertently alerting the Ascendant, she sealed its fate with certainty.

Nothing will save you from that gilded cage of a palace. Not this time...

But you can still ensure one thing.

Gripping your will tight, dragging your foot along the ground, caring not for your admittedly favorite shoes as you feel the rough ground beneath your foot, grinding against the dirt. Un-shouldering your bow, you're sure you can hear the shadows snickering in hushed tones around you, a mocking harmony barely audible. Astarion, oblivious or indifferent, remains focused on moving forward.

You spy with your little eye the perfect target, a slender thread of rope clutching a massive stone aloft, dangling like a strange fruit from the cavern's mouth.

With a swift dance of fingers, you draw out an arrow, one of the scarce few remaining in your quiver. A deep breath steadies your hand, you draw the string taut, take aim and release. The arrow, true to your silent command, cleaves the air and severs the twine with a whisper.

Down plummets the stone, colliding with thunderous might against one of the ceiling beams.

Jolted by the deafening crash, Astarion quickly spins around to face you. "Tav, stop!" he cries out, his eyes darting across the chaos unfolding.

Just as he realizes what's happening, a massive chunk of rock hurtles down, colliding with a scaffolding tile. You watch, heart in your throat, as the platform buckles. But with quick reflexes, Astarion manages to seize the lip of the floor as it gives way, hanging on for dear life.

A chilling gust skims across your skin, causing your hair to flutter and your skin to tingle, as the shadows stretch their arms wide to envelop you in their cold embrace.

The absence of light that follows is absolute, save for the brilliant glow emanating from the bracelet adorning your right ankle, the sole beacon in a sea of starless midnight.

You turn, heart pounding, to find the shadow-shrouded Ascendant materializing from the void as though woven from the night itself.

This time, the shadows peel back, clinging to him as if loath to let him go. Unveiling the truth of him—The Vampire Ascendant, your captor... your nightmare. "Tsk-tsk. So very... disobedient, my sweet," he coos, his voice a silken warning that pulls taut the air around you.

He straightens to his full height. Every movement deliberate, predatory, as he towers over you with an expression of amusement and scorn, eyes piercing from above that seem to drink you in, consume you whole. The silver studs on his obsidian leather armor flicker in the dim radiance of your shackle. His obsidian cloak cascades behind him like a waterfall of pure abyss.

"And just look at you!" he chides, the edges of his words sharp yet coated in honeyed venom. He twirls a lock of your hair, his touch featherlight yet unwelcome. "Drenched in filth, the gown I lovingly selected for you, had tailored specially for you—reduced to no more than tarnished, common rags." Lamenting with a tilt of his head, a smile playing on his lips, cruel as the edge of a blade. His disapproval falls around you, a tangible presence, and his eyes linger on you, an unnerving blend of possessive desire, eager to reclaim what he considers his own in this haunting mockery of the Faerûn you know.

"Ta-av," Astarion's breath catches, his voice trembles faintly, just over your shoulder. He's fighting to rise, wrestling for his footing and shield you from the monster that dresses its obsession in the garb of devotion.

A shard of ancient tile fractures beneath his grasp, and for a heart-stopping moment, he dangles perilously. Yet, defiant to the very brink, he clings with a single hand, his determination unwavering.

You steal another look downwards, making certain that should he slip, the water's embrace will break his fall. And if the enchantment he spoke of at the Festival holds true, mirroring the protections of the tadpole, then surely running water is included in that.

One truth rings clearer than any spell or enchantment: a leap of faith into the unknown is a far kinder destiny than the dark designs the Ascendant harbors for him. "I'm sorry, my Star," you murmur, your voice a soft breeze that he might not even hear.

Within moments, the disbelief paints a vivid picture across his gaze, just a breath before his grip falters. Your heart leaps into your throat as, right before you, your spawn plunges into the depths.

Straining your hearing, you pivot towards the Ascendant, biting back a scowl at the distant sound of what you pray is Astarion plunging into the forgiving embrace of the waters.

The bow you once gripped, a token of your fleeting freedom, is seized with an insidious gentleness from your grasp by unseen forces. The quiver follows, dispatched unceremoniously, its clinking demise a chorus to your fading defiance, its contents scattering with a reckless symphony upon the cold ground.

His gaze burns into you, smoldering with a dark intensity. Within the depths of those darkly glinting eyes, is a mingled twisted pride with disappointment at your earnest attempts for freedom. To him, your resistance is a game, a challenge to be adored and extinguished.

Oh, how he cherishes you, even as he schools you with an obsessive, possessive love—a love that will exact its price from you in whispered, intimate consequences.

With every honeyed promise, the reality blurs, and the terrifying truth takes root: you are perilously close to cherishing the very chains he binds you with. And the silent tears that threaten to spill—the ones you dare not show—are proof of the battle within, a heart both resisting and yielding to his insidious embrace.

He pulls you close, enfolding you in an unexpected gentle embrace. A shiver grazes across your delicate skin, his arms tighten around you as if you were the only fragile soul in all Toril. The crimson gleam in his eyes precedes the darkness curling protectively, hungrily, as though it were a living thing.

There's an unsettling tenderness in his touch, possessive and chilling, as though he would never allow the world to steal you away from the cocoon of obsession he's spun. That you belong to him—and only him—in this twisted fantasy of affection.

As the veil of shadows recedes, there you are, standing somewhere in the bloody palace you'd only just slipped from.

A scream simmers on the cusp of your lips, the desire to raze the walls of this opulent cage with nothing but the strength of your will, pulsates through your veins. To incinerate its every crevice with fury searing enough to challenge the infernal heat of Karlach's own fiery heart.

He yields as you thrust yourself from his embrace, your senses drinking in the eerie calm of the lavish bedchamber bathed in silvered whispers of moonbeam. "...And?" The Ascendant's voice slithers, a seductive murmur that curls around you from behind. His tone drapes possessively over your shoulders, an intangible caress. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Your snarl is sharp as you pivot to face him, defiance etched in every line of your being. "Fuck. You. If you think I'll ever stop trying to pry myself out of your grasp, you truly know nothing of me." you spit out with venom enough to fell a wyrm.

Sighing deeply and with a languid, almost taunting cadence, he approaches. Each step measured to instill uncertainty as if to tempt you to back away or run. But you are steadfast, your hands clenched in silent defiance, even as he tenderly traces the line of your jaw.

Never could you have fathomed that Astarion's touch would repulse you, his warmth an unwelcome blaze. And yet, repulsion is your reality. "Oh, my pretty consort. My little spitfire." His murmurs are velvet, so softly you might have imagined the caress of his thumb on your blemished cheek. "You will be exquisite as my queen, my bride eternal." He coos tenderly, as he brushes a strand of hair away from your face.

"Then do it." You challenge, not daring to pull away from his touch just yet. "Drag me to the altar, shove the crown on my head, turn me already, right here." Oh, the delicious fantasy of driving your dagger deep into his back, unraveling him slowly, bit by bit—it dances through your mind like a siren's song. But you know provoking his ire will only backfire.

Yet the allure remains strong, calling to the very core of you. To bestow the gift of your urge upon one who truly merits such a fate.

A faint, disturbing chuckle escapes his throat, as a disturbing grin twitches at his mouth. "No, my pet. I've woven such intricate designs for you. And when the moment ripens, when our pulses in perfect harmony, I'll reveal to you a world of shadowed luxuries and forbidden delights, the kind that this realm reserves for its most formidable sovereigns." There’s an ominous tenor to his promise that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, a warning that his words are just the surface of something deeper, something darkly intimate.

Out of nowhere, a whirlpool of shadows appears and from it, Ballar springs, his spine curving in a swift, respectful bow. "Your Almighty Majesty, your esteemed visitor crossed the threshold not a heartbeat before you and Lady Ancunín graced these halls with your return," he blurts, breathless with urgency.

The Ascendant's gaze sharpens, a flicker of intrigue as his hands come to rest at his sides, easy and poised. "Has she indeed? So soon?" he murmurs, pivoting smoothly on his heel to meet the eyes of the tall Elven man.

Ballar rose to his full height, his posture going rigid with formality. "She sends her deepest regrets for the shield of caution she's wrapped herself in, yet she stands by her need for such prudence."

"That can be addressed at a later time. Retrieve the heart and meet us in the Eventide Gardens." Commands the Ascendant to Ballar, who melts away shrouded in a swirling maelstrom of night. His eyes then burn into your soul with a chilling delight. "I had fancied the notion of luring you into the soothing warmth of a bath, but such luxuries must be postponed," The chilling twist of his grin pierces through you, a sensation more unnerving than any prior moment shared with him—and that truly speaks volumes.

The Ascendant drifts toward the dresser. Your ring is absent, but that scroll case sits there, looming with an air of foreboding. Intriguingly, he plucks a pair of gloves that lie nearby and deftly secretes a tiny phial into the belt around his armor. "Come along, my sweet," he beckons with a devil's allure, "our tale of power and awe awaits us to carve its telling into the ageless constellations."

Your brow creases into a frown. His ardor strikes a dissonant chord, more alarming than reassuring. Perhaps this is the rite then—the sacrament. Zylinn painted it in strokes of peril, too sinister for your meddling.

Yet, when has that ever stopped you?

If the danger is as real and stark as his warnings suggested, it cries out for intervention and it is in your hands to prevent it. Magic that can touch one's soul? Such things are uncommon whispers in the dark—the lore of soul cages and magic jars are known, but this... this speaks of a peril unfamiliar. And it must not be allowed to unfurl.

Shadowing his every move, your mind whirls like a tempest, you can't help but mentally sift through all the possibilities that come to mind for the items he has gathered. Robbed of your trusty bow and quiver, you feel a pang of frustration as you lament the fact that he stripped you of your bow and arrows.

With each passing moment, the gravity of the task at hand weighs heavily upon you. The surroundings seem to blur as you immerse yourself in the task set before you, and you know that without a weapon, your ability to put a stop to this will be severely limited. But there is no time to dwell on it. You'll have to improvise as you go.

In your mind's eye, you picture Astarion, and a hopeful whisper in your heart insists he's unharmed. He has to be safe; he just has to. The idea that his journey could be snuffed out so unceremoniously, so abruptly... it's unthinkable. Astarion, who's faced down shadows scarier than most could dream, who's outwitted fate time and again. Maybe not by the most moral of methods. No, he's a survivor, and survivors find a way through, always.

He said he wouldn't leave you alone... His heart, tarnished though it may be by shadows of the past, nevertheless holds a small, gentle glow, like the embers of a long-forgotten fire. Ever since he laid his soul bare that night in the shadows of Moonrise, confessing his deepest emotions, you haven't once doubted the sincerity that glows in his eyes, his affection for you.

He vowed he'd save you from the siren call of your own darkness. He's promised to help you retake your freedom. For better or for worse, you trust his word wholeheartedly.

Guided by the Ascendant, you step through an imposing doorway into a wonderland of vibrant flora and manicured shrubberies, all circling a majestic fountain that sings a crystal melody. Enveloped in an abyssal dome where not even a whisper of starlight breaches the darkness, you feel the void of the moonless midnight.

"Did the wonders of my realm charm you upon your arrival, Missy Superior?" he asks, a smooth cadence in his query pulling your focus from the wonders around and pulling you into the throes of the moment unfolding with each heartbeat.

With her eyes lifted in hushed awe and reverence, there stands by the fountain the honored guest, clad in unmistakable armor merging shadow and splendor. The kind of armor that could only belong to a dark justiciar. Etched in steel and kissed by gold, the deep violet scarf wrapped snug around their throat stands out. "Not a trace of moonlight to disturb the flawless obscurity bestowed by Lady Shar," she murmurs, almost to herself. Then, slowly, she pivots gently in your direction. Her gaze descended from the heavens, settling upon you with the weight of dozens of lifetimes.

You're beyond speechless. No, that's not even close. "Do you have it, Shadowheart?" Astarion inquires, his tone sharp and quick as a striking serpent.

Shadowheart greets you with a familiar, gentle nod and a gaze that defies time, her appearance untouched by time's march. Quite literally, not looking a day older than the cleric you left.

For a fleeting moment, you're nearly convinced she's the old companion you cherished, save for the night-shaded locks. "It's safeguarded," she assures you with a serene confidence. "And what news do you bring of the Heart of Darkness?" Her words flow gently. A serene harbor in the midst of your storm-tossed journey.

Astarion's expression remained fixed, his eyes flickering with unspoken thoughts. "The wizard was true to his promise. Ballar," he uttered, the name leaving his lips at the exact moment his fingers clicked like the sound of a lock springing to life.

As if out of thin air, he appears in a whirl of shifting shadows. Clasped in his hands, a jewel enshrouded by pale linen which he extends towards her with outstretched arms.

Shadowheart steps closer to accept it, her eyes narrowing with intrigue as her fingers brush the surface. "Truly? It... pulses like a heart as well?" she questions, wonder tinting her voice.

"Fascination abounds," Astarion breathes out, punctuating the air with a hint of boredom as he strides toward the fountain. He waves his hand carelessly, and a swirl of ebony mist sweeps the fountain away, unveiling a hidden stairway beneath. "Ballar, be on guard," he commands, the air frosting over with the severity of his tone, "We mustn’t suffer any disturbances."

Addressing with utmost respect, Ballar acknowledges, "As you have commanded, so shall it be, my Godking," his tone unwavering in loyalty.

Beckoning you to his side, Astarion abruptly stops and casts a glance back at Shadowheart. "Any chance you can work some of your magic on her, maybe a little prestidigitation to spruce her up? Sure, her gown's seen better days, but wearing the filth and grime of five realms of Faerûn? Intolerable." he says, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

The cleric shoots a glance that speaks volumes, yet with a resigned exhale that betrays her patience is wearing thin, she acquiesces. As she quietly utters the spell, a cozy, soothing sensation cascades across your skin as the spellbind lifts the dirt from your skin and dress, leaving you feeling fresh and spotless.

Your eyes lock with hers, and in those deep, mossy pools you're ensnared by the depths of her you've never seen in your Shadowheart before. You can't shake off the curiosity bubbling within you, nor the overwhelming urge to embrace her, to confirm she's real. She's familiar, yet... thrillingly foreign, and her eyes—those mirrors to her soul—reflected an eerie new intrigue in the way her eyes hold yours...

"Come now, pet, dawdling is not an option," Astarion's voice slices through the connection, impatience lacing his tone. With a reluctant twist in your chest, you pivot and continue to follow his lead, down spiraling stone steps into the cool shadows below. Shadowheart keeps pace, her presence a silent promise right at your heels.

Strangely, you find yourself stepping into an expansive cavern, its vaulted ceiling embraced by darkness and veiled by a creeping mist that danced upon the unseen floor. The flickering light from the torches positioned along the walls provided the only source of light.

He takes your hand in his—a clasp both gentle and unyielding, pulling you with a resolute force to the heart of this eerie hollow.

Thoughts of rebellion flutter through your mind—fleeing, resisting. Yet, unarmed and having glimpsed the dark reach of his power, you realize resistance may awaken a tempest. To provoke him now would spell ruin. For now, survival lies in the masquerade of compliance.

He pivots toward you, his touch lifts your chin, a claim disguised as a caress and the ghost of a possessive smile playing on his lips. "My pretty consort..." he murmurs, voice dripping with an obsession as pure as it is terrifying. "Tonight, you will glimpse but a sliver of the lengths I will go to keep the past's bitter hands from our future..." Heat from his thumb skims your skin with a gentle fire, while his crimson gaze latches onto yours. Ensnaring you, pulling you deeper into his spell...

Your limbs seize up, each one rebelling against your will like iron in frost. You try to burn him with your fiercest scowl, but it's no use-His smirk, a twisted crescent, is shadowed with a chilling intent that pierces deeper than the coldest night. "On." The word slides off his tongue as his hand retracting gracefully. "Your." With a slow, deliberate motion, he lifts his hand, his fingers curling inward into a haunting directive. Save for the solitary index finger. Pointed you earthward. "Knees, my pet." Purring the words, they curl around you like tendrils of a dark spell. His voice a velvet darkness, each syllable dripping with a love that is as cruel as it is compelling, drawing you into its depths and urging you to submit.

Desperate to resist, you grasp at the slipping shards of your will, but your body begins to betray you and begins the descent, a puppet ensnared in unseen cords. He waves his hand, and the fog parts like a curtain drawn back to reveal the stage, laying bare a ring of cryptic runes encircling you.

"Call her forth, Shadowheart." Astarion demands with an imperious turn. His ebony cloak ripples with the grace of nightfall, as though the very air around him was bewitched to follow his whims. Circling like a constellation moving through the skies, leaving you at the epicenter of this arcane ritual. Your eyes trace his path as he places a scroll case and then, delicately, a pair of gloves before you-an offering, or perhaps tools as you wait, poised on your knees.

As she drifts into your vision from the right, she circles you like the moon tracing its path in the night sky. Her gaze burns with a luminous violet. Dark vapors ribbon from her fingertips, dancing like spirits in the twilight.

With a voice that seems to weave through the stillness of the night, she says, "O Night's Mistress, Veil of Darkness, hear my call. In the shadow of your wings, I seek refuge. In the silence of your secrets, I find strength." Goosebumps rise on your skin, each syllable soaked in the fervor of her Sharran faith. A faith you know your Shadowheart had broken free from.

Guided by the gentle pull of her own steps, she edges before you, hands lifted to the unseen sky. "Before the shroud of your eternal dusk, I stand, a mere wisp of your vast darkness. From the depths of despair and the cradle of shadows, I call out to you, seeking the honor of your presence."

"You what??" tumbles from your lips, a startled echo. In a flicker, the flame from the torches is snuffed out, giving way to a darkness too dense to be natural.

The silence is almost a living thing, only pierced by Shadowheart's steady tones. "Let the nightfall be the bridge between your realm and ours, and grace us with the visage of your divine essence." A churning mist embraces the chamber, curling like an unseen tempest, barely visible in the all-consuming dark. Quietly, violet flashes of lightning fork through the mist and from the dome above.

"May the darkness manifest and the silence speak your arrival. Shar, I beckon you, not as a demand, but as the ultimate homage to your unfathomable depths. Reveal yourself, not as the light does, but as darkness enveloping all, a testament to your power and mystery." Shadowheart's ritual reaches its crescendo, her hand bearing the wound thrums with dark light, yet she shows no sign of the agony you'd expect.

The room's air thickens, dark fog coalescing at its farthest reach, where Shar, the Lady of Loss herself, materializes from the mist. Enshrouded in a cloak woven from the essence of night itself, she is barely visible, but unmistakably present. Her voice, echoing from the shadows that form her court, "At last, we convene," she declares with regal disdain. "Let us proceed. This child who fancies himself a sovereign has long since exhausted my tolerance."

As Shar's gaze pierces through the murk, she watches Astarion weave a mute path emerges from behind you, on your left. His eyes, alight with a cunning glint, study the shadowy visage before him for a long while, making a show of cocking his head from side to side. "Well now... this is a surprise. The wizard was right then. You truly do not know where the heart is." He mused, bringing his fingers to cradle his chin.

The air around you seems to crackle with Shar's displeasure, a biting cold that might very well frost the blood in your veins, a tempest barely contained and as palpable as the taste of iron during a storm. "Spare me your coy charades, child," she warns, her spectral gaze cutting through the umbral haze. "I have bestowed much upon you, and here you are seeking more. Heed this: my realm's bounty knows no end, but my leniency has its bounds."

"Of course, terribly sorry." murmured Astarion with an air of sarcasm thick enough to touch, his gaze flitting across the dim expanse to where Shadowheart holds her ground on his right, the other side of you, steadfast and resolute. "It just so happens I have become quite acquainted with loss over the last century and a half, as well as Shadowheart. The... sharp lesson you designed with Nocturne, lingers still. Does it not, dear Shadowheart?" His hand, once thoughtfully at his chin, now swung with nonchalance toward her.

"Yes... the same can be said for Dekarios, isn't that right?" Shadowheart responds with a lift of her chin, her head held high in stoic defiance.

In a sudden crescendo, a deafening thud pounds through the cavern's heart, bouncing off its ancient bones. Shar crumbles before us, her knees striking the stone with the weight of the ages. "Indeed," hisses Not-Gale, a cruel edge to Not-Gale's tone, as he looms behind the faltering deity. Arcane tendrils, alight with an eerie glow, lash out from his fingertips around Shar, a magic so intense, a power too monumental for your mind to grasp. It brings a blinding ache between your temples just to witness.

"You... you dare," Shar hisses, her darkness roiling around her like a tempest scorned. Yet, it betrays her, refusing to obey her furious demands. They danced away from her grasp, and her shock becomes a tangible thing, a rare, fractured shard of divine disbelief.

A wicked grin spreads across Astarion's face, dark eyes alight with a malevolent crimson glow. "No, no... They heed the call of a new master..." he crowed, satisfaction lacing his tone. The very shadows that once heralded her presence now betray her, binding her in their smoky chains to hold her captive at his feet. "So the three of us came to a mutual understanding and reached a new, more than adequate agreement. Shadowheart, if you would..."

He shifts, granting Shadowheart the space to take the heart from behind her in her belt and move toward Shar. "You wouldn't dare! I made you, you ungrateful, spiteful imbecile of a child! It is I who deemed you, above all others, worth keeping long past your time! Were it not for my steady hand on your life, you would have long succumbed to your own folly!" Shar's protest fell on deaf ears as she squirmed, the shadowy tendrils and magical binds refusing her any mercy.

Shadowheart cradles Shar's shrouded in darkness. "And I will be ever grateful to you. You made me capable of the impossible." Her fingers trace down to Shar's chin, holding it firm. "As you have taught for time eternal, Loss is an inevitability. Nothing lasts. Not your most loyal, neither your chosen. Let go, Shar... Embrace Loss."

With a sudden grace, Shadowheart rears up, casting away the cloth that veils the Heart, the vessel. Her hands, firm and sure, cracks it in the middle.

A maelstrom of iridescent brilliance erupts—a tempest of colors that dance and whirl, the surrounding air drawn into a vortex that threatens more in mind than in reality. Yet, amidst this chaos, only you, Shadowheart, Dekarios and Astarion, remain untouched by its furious serenity. Something unnatural, like the screams of a thousand gods long past and forgotten ring in your ears, beyond your comprehension.

Then, as quick as lightning kisses the earth, the tempest subsides.

Collapsing before Shadowheart, now cast in the flickering glow of newly returned torchlight, a woman with hair as dark as a moonless night, her breath coming in labored gasps and her body a quivering portrait of fatigue and sweat in the flickering light.

"Hmph. That was disappointing." Astarion scoffed with a flicker of disdain, striding over to tower above the fallen figure beside Shadowheart, eyes returned to their typical vermillion, "My ascension was so very exciting, so dramatic and befitting my station, a king, a god! But this...? A goddess's fall from grace?"

With effort, the woman pushed herself upright on trembling hands, her defiant gaze slicing through with dark blue eyes—the only hint that she might have been something otherworldly. "So disappointing." Astarion almost purrs, clearly entertained as he circled her with predatory grace. Shadowheart, on her part, discreetly slipped the now-dimmed gem into a concealed compartment of her belt.

"You will pay for this... every single one of you! Your children, their children, and their children's children!"

"You skipped a generation there." Shadowheart mutters with an audible grin, her arms now snugly crossed.

Astarion pauses just behind the once mighty deity, his gaze wandering upward as if catching his thoughts mid-air. "Oh, I don't know. If it's our children, then their children..." he mused aloud, his fingers tracing invisible threads in the crisp, damp cavern air.

Shadowheart cocks her head. "Right, there's us, then our children. Then their children, that's the third generation..." she ponders, along with an idle shrug of her hand.

Chin in hand, Astarion’s nimble, pale fingers tapped a thoughtful rhythm. "So our children, then their children, supposedly pay. Then the third generation's children pay?" Turning his head to Shadowheart as if she's the one who made the threat.

"Exactly my point, the third generation is skipped entirely." She nods, her own hand now uplifting her chin in mirrored thoughtfulness.

With a whisper of movement, Dekarios unfolds from the shadows just beyond where Astarion stands, "Might we postpone such spirited debates for a moment more suited to conversation?" he suggests, with an impeccable knack for timing that leaves you secretly irritated. This charm that the Ascendant had spun around you lingers stubbornly, far more potent than before. Your fingertips tingle with the slow return of sensation, but they remain defiantly numb, leaving your fingers as rigid as frozen twigs, barely able to twitch.

"Agreed. We're losing time." Astarion concurred with a stern tone. In a swift, calculated motion, he grasps Shars' flowing locks and jerked her head aside with ruthless intent.

Your breath catches as Astarion descends upon her, his fangs gleaming ominously before piercing the delicate flesh of her neck. A silent pact of predator and prey is sealed with a mere whimper as Shar hardly uttered a sound,

When his thirst is quenched, he discards her like a spent candle, allowing her body to collapse onto the cold stone. Her complexion is ashen, the very image of deathly pallor as she crumbles to his boots. A flicker of dissatisfaction crossing his features.

Astarion studies her motionless form and with a disdainful spit aside her still form, he utters, "Disappointing..." His voice is a low growl, a dark echo of sentiments once spoken. "With the shadow weave now predominantly present in the cavern, it is time to claim my due before I have her buried."

He barely avoids grazing Shar's faintly quivering digits as he steps over her with uncaring ease. His boots thudded on the cavern floor until he halted before Shadowheart. With a flourish of dark magic, a sinister blade emerged into her grasp, its leather sheath adorned with ominous green runes that seemed to dance and hiss with sinister life. "The Shadowcarver," she declared formally, "the unique glyphblade necessary for the Unimina. As agreed upon." As she extended the foreboding weapon towards him.

You watch in horror as a smile, slow and sinister, creeps across his lips—a smile that chills your bones, like a ravenous beast sighting its next ghastly meal. He takes the blade and pulls it from its sheath, revealing a make of darkened steel with strange glyphs that softly glow green, shaped into a fine point. Astarion admires it from one side to another in the torchlight. How faint threads of darkness gently feed into the glyphs on the blade, a thin line of green glyph along the cutting edge.

As your gazes lock, Astarion's grin widens into something far more chilling, turning your way. With every deliberate step he takes within the strange ring of runes etched onto the ground, a soft glow pulses from each symbol, as if breathing to the rhythm of his stride. Shadowheart maintains her distance, hugging the perimeter while Dekarios paces, a careful observer just outside it.

Astarion pauses before you for a heartbeat. Then, he gracefully lowers himself before the chest, his hands deftly unfastening the catches with a satisfying click before swinging it open. "This more potent charm appears to have tamed you quite nicely," he purrs, unfurling the scroll within and sweeping his gaze across it. "Like a work of art... you will be one step closer to perfection, my treasure..." His whisper barely reaches you, laced with private delight.

"With this," he utters fiercely as his words harden into a growl, snatching the glove and standing tall, "nothing will pry you from my grasp." A beckoning gesture of his pale hand calls forth the shadows, and they heed, manifesting a tendril of darkness to cradle the scroll in the air, facing you.

There, revealed to you at last, was no text but a sketch. An arrangement of symbols entwined in a circle. A puzzle assembles within your mind, revealing his chilling intention. "It that your needle, Cazador?"

A twinge of complex emotions washes over you, marked by the tautness in his form when your barb strikes home. His eyes flicker, hinting at a suppressed urge to retaliate... but he restrains himself, fixated on donning the glove upon his left hand while drawing a small vial from his belt. "You're acquainted with slumberthorn toxin, are you not? Cazador would've let your screams sing him to sleep," the words barely more than a murmur off his lips and tone soft as a secret, a fleeting semblance of warmth amidst the encroaching cold.

He leans in, a smirk playing across his lips, shadowed and sure. "Oh, the naïve believe a monster only crafts nightmares with needles, clumsy and cruel," his voice a mixture of eerie tenderness and dark amusement. "But an artist can wield the same needle with such precision, such... brilliance, that the lines between horror and beauty blur."

His smirk widens into a chilling grin. "I am the exception—both the monster and the maestro."

Even as enchantment binds you, unable to resist, he orchestrates the very shadows to dangle from the ceiling’s embrace, your wrists lifted as if in offering. A creeping realization settles that the slumberthorn’s venom promises a descent into inescapable slumber—and how unceremonious it would be to crumble to the floor and impede his meticulous intentions.

With your frame secured in the shadow's grasp, Astarion prowls to your rear, liberating the vial’s top. His touch is a ghostly caress along your skin, sliding the worn threads of your dress aside, baring the untouched canvas of your skin. A solitary droplet of icy elixir kisses your shoulder and traces a shivering path down your arm, the smell of fresh, earthy plants tickles your nose. Then, agony a lance of white-hot torment piercing the space between your shoulder blades, wrenching from your lips a cry torn from surprise and agony.

And as the world dims to nothingness, a peculiar ache constricts your heart, something... weaving and unraveling all at once, accompanied by the dismal awareness of blood, your own, warm and trickling, painting your back sanguine.

‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐–‐

"Caladhel can go blow bubbles with a pixie for all I care," the gnome scoffs over his shoulder. "He should be more concerned about evacuating the safehouses before the Noctis flush out the tunnel network."

"Aye, they've already hit several, and our ranks are getting thinner by the day." Aric grumbles, his voice a rumble as they continue their trek downhill, a rusty shovel perched on his shoulder like a knight's lance. The locket glimmered in Jester's grip, while Astarion followed a pace behind, lost in his thoughts despite trying hard to keep his mind focused. The sun's dying light cast a fiery cloak over them as dusk approached.

He couldn't stop thinking about yesterday. How close he came to ending this for you both, only to fall so short.

"No word on Durgan or Zylinn either, right?" Aric asks, the two barely masking their decision to steer clear of the silent and brooding elf.

Honestly, when would you stop playing the idiot, gallant hero? When would you accept that this time you are in need of saving? Initially, he feared the worst. Perhaps the bastard had slithered into your mind, made nice with the tiny beast inside your skull even. Maybe he'd lulled you into believing your place was by his side until the line between captivity and courtship blurred—until you couldn't remember the sweet taste of freedom...

"Pyrastra and Caladhel are convinced Ancunín is the culprit behind their disappearance," Jester muttered, the wariness in his tone betraying his own hesitations, "yet something doesn't sit right with me. Truth be told, I can't fathom why..." he admits with a puzzled shake of his head.

But the more Astarion turned the memory over in his mind, the clearer the details became. The scarlet shimmer of the bracelet clasped around your foot, the desperate struggle you faced as you attempted to lift it...

Godsdamnit, he could have helped you.

"Where was Caladhel yesterday?" The tiefling man queries with simple curiosity.

Jester, his fingers restlessly playing with a locket that dangled by his side, gave a casual shrug. "He was to rendezvous with them at the city's edge, but when the plan went sideways, he fell back to Haven. But what vexes me to no end is Spellsong and Morning's stupidity. They knew damn well than to act so openly, killing one of his special spawn. Then not listening to the queen is another mess altogether..." His voice faded into a grumble, clearly annoyed.

"Tav." Astarion interjected sharply, clearly at the brink of losing his patience. Jester and Aric stopped to glance at their once quiet comrade, their brows creasing in confusion. "Her name is Tav."

"Right." Jester acknowledged with a quick blink, "not a strange name..."

"Once Elowen lays eyes on Tav, we can hatch a new plan to get her out, Aster." said Aric, and with those words he turned on his heel, leading the way down an earthen path towards the beach.

Astarion's voice climbed a notch, tinged with concern. "Elowen hasn't seen her?"

Jester shakes his head. "Seems like nobody has. You were the last to lay eyes on her."

As they approached the same stretch of sand along the shore, astonishingly little has changed even in this world, where so much time has passed.

Astarion never fancied himself one for nostalgia, yet the ambience of this place tugged at something within him. It was here that he first laid eyes on you, emerging from the nautiloid wreckage—the very picture of intrigue, with Shadowheart trailing close, eyes already alight with admiration.

Even then, the magnetism you exuded was palpable. Others seemed mesmerized in your presence and Astarion noted it keenly.

Shadowheart, the devoted Sharran, so quickly wrapped around your dainty finger from the moment you crossed paths. Her heart, usually so guarded, skipped a beat with every word you uttered, every glance you shared. Meanwhile, Gale's heart thundered like storm drums at the mere sight of you.

He watched, sometimes with mirth, other times with a jealousy that pricked at his chest, as one by one, your little band vie for your a place in your heart.

Lae'zel was drawn irresistibly to your essence, her loyalty unwavering as your shadow. Karlach ever eager to compliment you or go out of her way for you. Wyll almost painfully obviously indulging in his chivalrous, charming prince act. And Halsin...

...godsdamned Halsin...

Perhaps you should have taken Gale's offer to teach you magic that Astarion surely didn't catch the inept man planning for days prior. Or accepted Shadowhearts' invitation at the party over a fine vintage that she, of course, wasn't saving just for the occasion. Perhaps... No. You should have chosen anyone but him.

After all, look where it's led you?

"This is the place," Jester's words cut through the stillness, jerking Astarion back to the present. His eyes catch the soft radiance of the locket clasped in the gnome rogue's grip, its radiance a beacon in the dimming light. The shifting sands below seem untouched by the rhythm of time, barely altered from that day. It's almost as if he can see it—the echo of you, your silhouette emerging from the shoreline, responding to his calls for help.

"Hurry! I've got one of those brain things cornered!" He exclaimed, resisting the urge to smile at how well this little plan of his was falling into place.

You quirked an eyebrow, contemplation flickering across your face. He took in the sight of you: a bow strapped against your back, accompanied by a quiver half-filled with arrows resting on your shoulder. Your leather armor bore the marks of recent skirmishes. Stains of drying crimson adorned your sleeves. You seemed worn out, bruised. Short stature, light build. Easy.

A different caution glinted in the eyes of the half-elf shadowing you, clad in the shimmer of light, clinking chain mail—a cleric by his best guess.

She seemed loyal, but not born of any significant bond. More a debt she seems to feel she owes you. The look she was giving him could almost unnerve him, but to sell the danger, he turned away to face apparent peril, beckoning you both closer with a casual wave. "There, in the grass. You can kill it, can't you? Like you did the others."

From over his shoulder, he observed the casual crossing of your arms, your eyes locking with the clerics. With a pronounced exhale, you relented, "Alright, alright, let me take a look..." and approached the spot in question.

Astarion's eyes trailed after you, the corners of his mouth threatening to betray his amusement, even as his fingers crept surreptitiously to the pommel of his dagger. "There, can you see it?" he prodded, urging you to fixate on the rustling bush. You just needed to look closely for but a moment. Just a moment...

With silent steps, he maneuvered behind you, moving into position... and then that damned boar made a break for it. "You're kidding." You deadpanned. "All that - for a fucking oversized pig with tusks."

Astarion caught the hint of bewilderment in your tone, but you hadn't caught on yet and he was short on time. "Are you daft or just drama-TIC?" In one fluid motion, the blade found its way to your throat, poised yet not pressing against you as he moved to grapple you in his arms.

Tired as you might have been, you had more fight in you than he had given you credit for. You threw your weight back into him, and sent Astarion stumbling, his balance wavering like a tree in the storm. But he reacted swiftly, pulling you down with him. Your hand latched onto his arm reflexively in a futile attempt to free yourself, but there was little you could do to loosen him off you in this position.

And there you were, just as he had planned, his dagger taunting the delicate skin of your precious little throat. The tease of your vein throbbing under your skin. Almost inviting him for a nibble, a taste of what he imagines is your delightful life essence. "Shh. Not a sound. Not if you want to keep that darling neck of yours." Astarion hushed, his hunger held tightly in check.

"Rather attached to it, actually." Your reply, strained yet tinged with humor, flashing a lopsided, strained grin that caught him off guard for a fleeting moment.

You were a pretty sight like this, on your back-he'll admit...

Such a beautiful creature you were—in league with a ship's worth of squid.

What a surprise you were, darling...

His gaze snapped upwards, catching the cleric's eye before she could get any ideas. "And you - Keep your distance! No need for this to get messy," he warned.

The cleric glared. Power crackled in her voice, a tempest of divine magic barely contained. Her hands barely resisting the call to cast and intervene. "I need her alive - Stow that blade, or I'll show you just how messy things can get," she growled low and dangerous piquing his interest.

But not enough to care.

"Aha! Promises, promises." Astarion light-heartedly retorted, a rogue's grin spreading across his features. "But I have other business, I'm afraid." and with that, he directed his gaze back to you, your form squirming lightly under his hold.

He adjusted his hold on you, keeping the blade just near your throat enough to remind you who was in control. "Now, I saw you on the ship, didn't I? Nod."

Caught between defiance and prudence, you hesitated, carefully considering your predicament. Ultimately, you answered with a single nod. "Splendid." Astarion praised with a sardonic smile. "And now you're going to tell me exactly what you and those tentacled freaks did to me," he demanded, eyes sharpening with the query.

"What in the hells are you talking about? Do I look like a walking seafood platter?" You snapped bitterly through grit teeth.

"Don't play cute, you little - agh!" Suddenly his mind twisted, writhed in his skull. The eyes in his head felt strange. Through them he watches his feet touch the nautiloid floor, the blood in his head thrums, and a gaping void where memories of a life lived should be. He feels confusion, only a name and a headache as what he can call his own.

His senses flooded back like a deluge. "What was that? What's going on?"

The answer came not in words, but in an unexpected shift of the scales as you freed a hand to push against his face, swiftly breaking from his hold to reclaim your freedom. With grace born of necessity, both of you rose, an unsettling dance mirrored by the roll of both your bodies. He held his dagger tight, his gaze locked with yours, searching, questioning.

And in that moment, if Astarion’s undead heart could still beat within his chest...

...It would have skipped twice.

Jester peered over as Aric paused and gazed into the deep pit before him, then gracefully leapt down with a soft thud. What Astarion saw next surprised him.

When Aric bent down, Astarion envisioned Aric unearthing a grand coffin, or an embellished, weighty chest, perhaps even a stately urn. Yet, what Aric tenderly cradled from the earth was an old dark wood box, worn at the edges and smeared with the earthy remnants of its burial.

The tiefling gingerly placed it before Jester, and, with a slight arch of his back, Jester wiped away the dirt from the locks with his bare fingers, the earth clinging to the material of his fingerless gloves. He scrutinized the locket in his palm, flipping it over several times before he held it to the lock and clicked the catch. Upon pressing the hidden catch, the locket's mechanism resisted just as it had before. But the lock that guarded the curious box began to dance with hues of fiery orange and burnished gold and finally unlocking with an audible click.

Aric clambered out of the pit as Astarion, curiosity piqued, sidled up behind Jester. The chest's lid creaked open to reveal a solitary, tightly secured leather pouch, its closure bound with a strip of golden fabric. "What in the nine realms…?" Aric let out, his voice tinged with disbelief.

Astarion quizzically arched an eyebrow. "He simply stuffed her ashes in a sack and buried them without ceremony?" he mused, his tone laced with dry humor. "How utterly twee."

With a sharpness in his tone and a glare directed at the two taller figures, Jester retorted, "Oh, what a shock—the late queen treated as refuse. It's not as if he's ever done such a thing before." He paused, a note of impatience coloring his words. "We must ensure her safe return to Haven."

The mention of the queen by the gnome stirred a flicker of interest in Astarion.

But their musings were abruptly eclipsed as the world around them dimmed, and they found themselves enveloped in a dark emerald gloom.

From within the pouch, tendrils of dark green mist began to coil upwards. A wraith-like figure arose, formless yet distinctly feminine—a specter, perhaps a ghost... And from the silence rose a tentative voice.

"...H-hello...?"

-ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈--ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈--ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈-

A/N: GUYS I'M BACK. I've been writing this almost nonstop since I finished Chapter 9. Finished editing this while on vacation (brought my whole laptop with me, portable monitor included) and after work pressure, vacation packing/planning, active vacation things, a family emergency in the middle of vacation… WE'RE HERE!

HUGE THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO WAITED PATIENTLY FOR ME TO FINISH THIS I HOPE YOU ENJOYED IT. I'LL FINALLY BE ABLE TO RESPOND TO MY ASKS NOW.

[saltmannequin]

aquarium

eddie munson x gn!reader

wc: 800

warnings: marijuana use (edibles), high eddie, no use of y/n!

a/n: just a messy little drabble based on that one family guy tiktok sound - apologies if there’s any mistakes!

————

It was a warm Sunday evening in mid-July when your best friend Nancy sat opposite you in the old diner a few miles east of Hawkins, hands in her hair, eyes on the slab of oak that separated the two of you.

She exhaled lowly, emitted a frustrated groan, and pushed her hair backwards against her skull. "I’m just bored. There's nothing to do around here.. me and Steve just hang out by his pool all day." She rolled her eyes and looked up at the ceiling.

You thought carefully about what advice to offer her. A service bell rang in the distance. An idea appeared.

"Well, sometimes me and Eddie take edibles and go to the aquarium a few towns over."

Nancy’s once downturned mouth quirked slightly upward. She shook her head at you while chuckling softly. "Now that.. is an idea. Is it fun?"

The memory of your last trip to the aquarium with your boyfriend of six months, Eddie Munson, drifted into your mind.

-

Your denim-covered thigh was pressed against Eddie’s, similarly, denim covered thigh. The bench underneath you both had grown warm from how long the two of you had sat, transfixed on the floating fish opposite you.

Eddie’s mouth was slightly agape, and his doe eyes were sparkling under the fluorescent blue of the lights inside the large glass tank. Your eyes were heavy, and your smile was dopey.

"Imagine…" He swallowed, "Imagine being a fish.." He chuckled lightly as a bright yellow angelfish changed direction almost rapidly. "Just floating around..eating those tiny little fish cracker flakes.."

"Fish food"

"Yeah.. that…wouldn’t that be just awesome?"

"Breathing underwater? I’d never go on dry land again." You sighed contentedly at the thought of having no thoughts and swimming around all day.

•

A few extended minutes passed before you both got up from the bench, bones clicking. The two of you walked hand in hand along the seemingly endless aquarium until you reached the gift shop placed strategically just before the exit.

You both gasped at the countless array of trinkets, keyrings, and plushies that decorated the shelves all across the shop floor, noticing that they had added tonnes of new items.

Instantly, Eddie dragged you towards the mug section, insisting he had to buy Wayne a new mug, gasping when he found a small coffee mug with a crab painted on it. ‘If this mug is empty, I’m feeling crabby.’ was printed in block letters next to the grumpy-looking crab.

"This is so perfect!" He smiled excitedly while taking one from the shelf and clutching it to his chest like a prize.

You both walked around some more, ogling at a few items you both adored a little too much, before buying Wayne’s mug and leaving through the exit. "Sea you soon!" was written above the door.

The fresh air was a warm welcome for the both of you after being in the stuffy air conditioning of the aquarium.

You made your way over to Eddie’s van, chatting about ‘which fish is subjectively better than all the other fish’. He opened the passenger door of the van for you, helping you up before running around to his side. You opened your bag as he slid into the driver's seat.

His hand reached out to place his keys in the ignition, but he hesitated as he felt something hit his leg. A thick silver ring adorned with a sting ray and various swirls carved into the metal alongside it was placed in his lap. He gasped when he saw it.

"Babe! No way! Oh my god…a-are you sure I can have this?"

"I bought it for you, Eds; you’ve never even looked at me the way you looked at that ring." You smiled at him warmly as he thanked you profusely, sliding it onto his middle finger.

" ‘Got you something too." He smiled sheepishly as he reached into his pocket, tongue curling upwards out of his mouth slightly as he struggled to pull the item out of his jean pocket. He sighed triumphantly as he finally got a grasp on it. "Here."

You took the small, black box from him hesitantly, wondering if the item was really what you thought it was. You were right. "Oh, Eddie.."

"D-do you not like ‘em? ‘Cause I can return ‘em, s’just you looked at ‘em for a while and I thought you might’ve liked ‘em.." He spun his new ring around on his finger, nervously awaiting your response.

"Eddie, these are so beautiful! Thank you so much." You placed your hands on both sides of his face and pulled him in for a soft kiss. Lips melding together in harmony.

"I love you." You whispered, foreheads touching.

"I love you too." He whispered back, smiling.

-

"It’s really, really fun." You beamed at Nancy, fiddling with the stained-glass jellyfish that dangled from your earlobes. Thin wisps of glass extending from the body of the jellyfish, reflecting the neon lights in the old diner.

————

thank you for reading!!!

these are the pieces of jewellery i had in mind when writing :)

[1296-very-good-year]

Just for fun, here are some excerpts from the last wow novel that explored Anduin's mental state (Shadow's Rising) immediately PRIOR to his kidnapping, torture, mind control, and however many years wandering around alone with crippling ptsd:

1) They had reached the fences. Anduin grasped one of the crossbeams and squeezed, the old, battered wood creaking. He wanted to break it. He wanted it to snap. A surge of anger made him close his eyes, as if he were afraid of what Alleria might see there.

The hunt would continue, and he, as king, would find a way to keep faith in their odds of victory. That was his duty. A man had to know his limits, but he could not reach that limit, not yet; too many depended on him now.

The fence beam snapped. Just another thing to fix.

Another in a long, long line of things to mend.

2) He strangely wanted to stay in the crypt, to sit there among the dead and know their pain, their stories. It seemed easier than facing another day of frustration and failure.

3) Jaina: “Alleria and Turalyon tortured that smuggler in front of me. She used the Void to infiltrate his mind while he held him prisoner with chains made from the Light. It looked unspeakably painful.” She rounded the table, searching his face. “My king…I worry that their tactics represent you poorly. Every one of us, every soldier, is in service to your crown. We stand under your banner, and if their actions are sanctioned by your rule, what does that say about us?”

Anduin did not speak for a long while, though his smile diminished. He shook his head, turning away from her, pacing back and forth across the lush green carpet beneath their feet. Finally, he crossed to a large brazier in the corner belching healthy flames. Flattening his hand, he passed it back and forth just above the reach of the fire.

“What does it say?” he echoed. He sounded almost offended that she had to ask. “It says we will do whatever we must to bring murderers to justice. It says we will not forget those lost in war. It says we will not forget Teldrassil, or Lordaeron. It says we will not forget the mak’gora. It says that we will not forget the flames blazing over the Veiled Sea, or the fires reflected in the eyes of a thousand mourning children.”

4) His skin looked worn and blue around the eyes, exhausted smudges painted beneath.

Thrall knew that look well, had experienced it himself many times —the sleepless, sallow ravages of leadership. It had been mere months since he had last clapped eyes on the king of Stormwind, yet he seemed to have aged a full year.

5) Anduin found himself before the great carved fireplace in his bedroom on the floor, legs tucked up to chest, catatonic, eyes unable to close, mind unable to clear, the flames just inches before him searing into his vision until tears poured down his cheeks.

6) Anduin after meeting some young alliance soldiers in a bar while in disguise: They lapsed into song, forgetting all about their new “friend.” But Anduin wouldn’t soon forget them. He looked at each of their faces in turn, memorizing them, wondering how long it would take until they too turned up on a freezing slab beneath the Cathedral of Light, innocent lambs before the slaughter.

7) Anduin to Jaina: "Sometimes I need to be a boy again. I think about all the soldiers giving their life to serve the Alliance, and I think: How? How can they be so young? Those three brave souls inside, they think they’re ready to die. Ready to die for me. It isn’t fair. It…it should make everything stop. The whole world should stop and point at that, but it doesn’t. Everything just rolls on, the world forgets, and I have to pretend like their sacrifice isn’t a cruel, heartbreaking joke.”

8) Anduin made a soft sound of disgust and stood, hovering over her, considering her for a long and tense spell. A wisp of purple energy traveled down his arm, gathering in his palm. It happened in a blink, coming and going, dissipating before Mathias could see for certain what the king had done.

It startled Anduin enough to make him stumble backward. Shaw felt Jaina’s eyes upon him, and he glanced her way. If he was rattled before, the fear etched upon Jaina’s brow shook him to the core. Anduin winced, breathing hard, shaking out his hand before leaning back against the wall. Shaw knew better than to be staring when the king’s eyes began to roam their faces for a reaction.

So.. you know... He hasn't been great for a while.

Also, just considering it now, when Anduin winces and shakes out his hand after calling on the void, is that implying that the Light/Divine Bell hurt him for it? Cuz that's what it reads like to me 🤔

And if the Light has left him, does the Bell still bother him? Or is that gone too? Questions questions.

[lycmr720f3]

Sims 4 house -a high standard decoration modern mansion

Modern & Minimalist & Fashionable

The 1307 Sierra Mansion is a modern luxury home with a unified style of ceiling decoration（The first person perspective of the ceiling is visible,and the third person perspective is not blocking the view）, building materials, furniture, and decorative items specially crafted.

The vast majority of building materials, furniture, and decorative items in houses are meticulously modeled and tuned.They are both textured and fully functional, and are placed in the perfect position of the house,creating a modern spatial design that is very beautiful, exquisite, and fashionable.

Housing configuration

House Features:

Will not prompt for lost furniture items, what you see is what you get.

The exterior and interior decoration of the building are quite modern and fashionable, with textured furniture and specially designed ceilings. The first person perspective is visible, while the third person perspective is not.

The entire house has almost no overlapping objects putting, causing flickering of object textures.

The second floor of the building has two flowing water features. If a simulated citizen passes through this area, they will Walk on stone slabs, which will not create a strange water walking scene，and so on.

The interaction of furniture functions is very complete and will not block simulated citizens, resulting in inability to interact.

Almost anywhere you go to the house, you won't get stuck.

The elevator lobby can be conveniently and quickly moved between the third floor, saving a lot of time.

The basketball court theme can be modified in construction mode, providing 30 themes.

The vast majority of furniture has storage and placement function, and hangers can hang clothes.

Basketball Court

More styles

The floor texture, walls, and ceiling treatment here are excellent, and the lighting design has a sense of layering, creating a good sports atmosphere.

The house offers 30 basketball court themes that can be customized in construction mode.

Take A Look

More HD images of the house

Usage Information

Game version

Your game needs to be version 1.77.131.1030 or higher.

Packs

The house uses the following combination packages to ensure the integrity of the decoration effect.

For Windows only

This house only supports Windows systems.The usage of this house is the same as using a house in daily gaming, with a Mods folder and a Tray folder, it just the cc files of this house has been encrypted, and once unlocked with one click using the files unlocking tool, the house can be used.

House file size

1.87GB

Lot

64 x 64, recommended for placement inWindenburg

Download

Because the house file is a little large, so the house is stored in TearBox, which is a network disk service for free，using TearBox to achieve extremely fast downloads.

click here to download the whole house

Download

House Video

Here are my two YouTube videos of the house , one about the design of the space and one about simulating people interacting with the house.

[deborahdeshoftim5779]

AT 9:03:11 A.M., less than seventeen minutes after American Flight 11 devastated the North Tower, United Flight 175 bored deep into the South Tower. The plane struck the tower’s south face, twenty-three feet from the midpoint, toward the southeast corner. The off-center jolt caused the upper floors to rotate like a boxer’s torso twisted from an unexpected blow. The entire building vibrated from rooftop to ground. The plane struck on a 38-degree angle, its right wing sharply higher than its left. The nose, pointed slightly downward, hit the slab of the 81st floor, near where Stan Praimnath trembled under his desk. The immediate impact lasted about six-tenths of a second. Just as parts of American Flight 11 tore through the North Tower, the right engine of Flight 175 passed entirely through the South Tower and blew through the building’s northeast corner. It damaged the roof of a neighboring building before landing fifteen hundred feet north of the tower, near the corner of Murray and Church Streets. The right landing gear followed a similar trajectory. Damage from the fuselage and the 156-foot wingspan stretched across nine floors, from the 77th to 85th floors. The two additional impact floors, compared to Flight 11’s damage, resulted from the more banked approach. The impact shattered 433 windows on the south, west, and east facades. It cut the pipes for fire sprinklers. It destroyed nearly all elevator service, severing cables and trapping occupants, although one freight car from the lobby to the fortieth floor remained operable.

Mitchell Zuckoff describing the horror inflicted on the South Tower of the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001. Fall and Rise: the Story of 9/11, Chapter 14, pp 275-276.

[calamityardman]

i’m gonna gush about dead space remake for a second, i love the level of detail here, this ship is an OSHA nightmare and I’m so happy to be re-experiencing it.

there’s no story spoilers for the cut but i am gonna post environmental screenshots and yammer about the ship itself so

One of the things i adored about the original was the grunge, the rust, the reality of 62 years of continuous service, maintenance, and the usual level of corporate willingness to cut corners. Even before all hell breaks loose on the ship, this level of rust has been here for decades, at least.

This is from a fan grate, multiple slabs of steel to prevent people from walking into/something coming out of the gigantic-ass fan behind it, but it’s well engineered so that it’ll stay up. The fans themselves groan and creek while in operation and if you turn Isaac away sometimes you can hear the screech of overworked metal as your camera gets close to the fan.

like here, you can see rust on the fan rotor itself through the bars. The Ishimura’s maintenance logs show that things that are damaged and not working get dealt with, while things like routine maintenance seem to fall to the wayside as more and more big things start to fall apart. But the big things falling apart are 60 years old!! They were designed to last, built with a sturdiness that boomers speak out reverently when they say ‘they ain’t build em like they used to’.

But that level of good infrastructure design cuts corners still, with designs that clearly don’t care for people being near it. there’s an element of the Ishimura that is already pre-baked hostile to people because ultimately in Dead Space, people aren’t valued as much as the machines around them.

that’s a natural gas line that just goes into a fucking circuit board?? WITH A ‘HOT METAL’ warning?!

three still-kicking electrical switchboards stacked like fucking dominos? The ducts leaving to and from this insane electrical frankenstein’s monster are neatly spaced, curled to exact specifications, and neatly find their place within the steel walls of the Ishimura.

by contrast, the places where people walk are usually grates, cluttered with boxes of materials, and generally more cramped then even the space-saving efforts to place electrical infrastructure.

also while taking this screenshot the light flickered and just beautifully plunged the hall into darkness for me

Ducts just lay rolled out on the floor, crates of shit pushed into space where it can be found, further cramping the space people have to walk freely. The Ishimura feels like the carcass of a great whale, hollowed out to serve as equal parts home, workplace, and tomb but with enough infrastructure designed around the bones that it hides the fact.

i’m gonna keep gushing because i love dead space and this remake so maybe expect another of these

[finestconcrete]

Concrete Driveway Installation Contractor in St. Peters, MO

Finest Concrete is the perfect choice for concrete driveway installation contractor in St. Peters, MO. We provide a variety of services and is more than just another concrete company, which sets us apart from other concrete companies in St. Louis, MO is our attention to detail and customer satisfaction is our goal for every project.

[sinfulpunishment]

✎ᝰ┆Hail Mary

─❏ Warnings: implied suicide

─❏ Characters: Fyodor Dostoevsky

─❏ Synopsis: Would mama be proud?

─❏ A/N: i support fyodor being a mama’s boy allegations

inspired by ventoavreo

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Despite the sun shining brightly down upon this town, the world in my eyes had been completely drained of its color.

I knelt before the stone slab of which had your name engraved on it, my hands clasped together in prayer with white, wilting lilies woven between my small, frost bitten fingers. Never would I have known that being near you would feel so cold and harsh, for it had never felt that way before.

The church had refused to give you a proper service due to the nature of your untimely passing. Much to my disliking, I could not argue against God. I knew that if I had, you would have given me a frown to remind me of my faith.

And so, with my own hands, as well as the help of a few of your acquaintances, I laid you down to rest in the earth. I had gathered my own flowers and coins to lay in your bed alongside you, a bed you will never rise from—I hope it is comfortable and to your liking.

I did my best to dress nicely for the occasion, I even assisted in making sure that you looked just as beautiful as always, despite your fading complexion. I planted one final, gentle kiss upon your once warm cheek before they lowered you into the ground, covering their mistakes with dirt. I did not cry, I did not believe that you would have wanted me to.

She always had the warmest embrace. The way she would cradle me in her arms made it feel as if nothing else in the world mattered besides us. You were like an angel, or perhaps even a saint. Alas, your passing certainly proved to me your mortality far too soon.

I wish you would hold my face in your delicate hands once more, looking at me with the most gentle of eyes—eyes that, when gazed into, felt as if one had fallen into a pool of silk. I wish to hear your voice, reminding me that I am blessed by God, I am loved by God, but, most importantly, I am loved by you.

I wanted nothing more than to show you the world I would have created, a world without sin, just as God had intended. You would have loved it there because you would have been happy. No longer would you spend nights weeping and worrying over what you’re going to do to get through this next month, everything would be prepared for you beforehand. It would make you smile, and I believe that would make it all worthwhile.

You used to tell me that I was special, that I must be a gift from God. Though, you weren’t the only one to say that, it felt far more significant coming from you. You were different from anyone else, you weren’t tainted by humanity’s sin.

At least, you used to be clean…

Oh, my dearest mother, what did they do to you? Why did they push their grievances upon you? You had nothing to do with their affairs, you were but a bystander, and yet they hurt you.

What a terrible experience it is to feel the warmth flee from someone’s body along with their life, especially when that someone is your own mother. Discovered laying on the kitchen floor, mouth agape with that crimson ink spilling from it—there was blood pooling around the body on the floor. She was barely recognizable, not because of any disfigurement, but because she was a woman of strong faith.

What could have driven someone so dedicated to God to such an act?

You were once so pure, free of sin, I thought you were above it. Yet, they tainted you. They hurt my mother. You left this world—you left me in one of the most sinful ways possible. I wonder if they’re proud of what they did to you.

These sinful people, filled with nothing but greed and driven by desire, they soiled your good name. They disgust me beyond belief, and yet, I still pity them. If only there was someone who could save them from their sin…

God ensures everything happens for a reason, right mama?

I will show them the light of God. They will soon know the meaning of my name. May they repent and pray for God’s forgiveness at the pearly gates. I do not care if they are forgiven or not, part of me hopes they will be damned for the rest of their time away from the Earth.

I hate them.

I hate them all.

May God pity their souls, it’s the only hope they have left.

Even now, I feel you embracing me; so warm and comforting, it feels like home. I will take you with me to a new world.

I will make you proud, mama.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Mother of God, Son of God.

[druidx]

Her Countenance was Light - Chapter 14

CW: Small amount of blood, Eye dialect AO3 ; Chapters: 01. 10. 11. 12. 13. Tag list (ask for +/-): @aquadestinyswriting, @hannahcbrown, @jacqueswriteblrlibrary, @babyblueetbaemonster

The roads are quiet as she rides home. The streetlights catch the gold on Auri's faring, sliding off like a lover's caress. Somewhere a dog barks, and an indistinct voice calls out to quiet it. Some people think the city streets are more like a rabbit's warren, but Elo grew up during the rebuilding, the roads forming like pathways in her brain. So she's on autopilot as she guides the bike along the roads, and it's only when she stops, she is surprised to find she is over the canal at Spit Bridge. No one is working this late. The tape is the only barrier stopping people from tramping on the crime scene. From here, Elo can see it sectioning off the alley where the victim was assaulted. The scene is like a loadstone, drawing her to park up the bike and descend onto the towpath. She's tired. By all rights, she should go home and sleep. But she has pushed herself like this before and no harm has come from it. Besides, she tells herself, it's not like she has to engage her brain tomorrow/ later today. She just has to waffle about the city, something that's as natural as breathing. If worst comes to worst, she can always steal Joahn's on-call room. The night is clear and still, almost eerily so. The smallest zephyr, a breath of wind, brushes against her cheek and skims through her hair. Her footsteps sound loud against the paving slabs, amplified in the way all quiet noises are in the dark of night. Beside her, the slick water of the canal is still, and she can smell the fumes of it mingling with the night's mist – there is the heavy metallic smell of engine grease, the pungent green scent of water weeds, and a cold, ice-like scent.

Elo ducks under the barrier tape, scanning the alley in the sodium-orange glare of the warehouse floods. It's exactly as she saw in the vision.

She steps carefully along the alley's length, picking out where her/ Evelyn's foot dragged, where their hand scraped along the rough brick wall. The déjà vue of familiarity is disconcerting. She stops and looks back towards where the canal shimmers darkly. Leaving her car, passing through the alley… The victim had to be on her way somewhere. The killer followed her? Elo looks towards the landward end of the alley, at the bins and the service exit from the warehouse. No – the victim surprised the killer. A surety grows in her bones then – this was an ambush. But maybe not an intended one… The wrench was a weapon of opportunity, of panic. She knows the type – a cumbersome thing used on the barge engines, too heavy to flee with. It would have been lying around, forgotten by some careless deckhand, ready to be grasped in panic, and swung to… To what? Hide a crime in progress, or to stop the vic from being someplace she shouldn't? Elo turns and walks back towards the canal. It's difficult to figure out exactly where Evelyn/ she was stabbed, but close to the end of the alley floor, barely visible in the darkness, is the iron stain of blood. Elo looks back along the alleyway, head cocked in thought, and notes where the victim was struck in the head. Alleys, by their nature, are long and narrow. There's no way the same person would have been able to get in front to stab her through the chest. Then Elo thinks of the vision, of the thing with red eyes between her and the tree. Realisation thrums in her veins – there were two killers. There had to have been. There's no other way around it. The one, further back, panicking. The one on the tow-path, calmly sealing the deal. Two would more easily move the body. One to hide it, the other to scuttle the barge. Two to murder her friend.

There was a payphone up the street, tucked between the tow-path steps and the wall of a warehouse. She turns and sprints. Maybe Farren has already worked it out – if he has, then great – but maybe he hasn't, and she can't take that chance. There is the scuff of pebbles behind her, but she ignores it. It's probably a stray cat, she thinks and ignores the advice of her gut – nine times in ten, it's nothing, but you check anyway because that tenth time it's something – and runs to the payphone. She dials for an operator. "Hello, how can I help?" "I'd like to place a collect call to Precinct 88, to the line of the electronic secretary. Charges will be borne by TPD, authorization code 1-1, 5-0, 4-2." There is a pause while the operator notes down the authorization code, and looks up the number for the dedicated answer-machine line. "One moment please," she says, "Connecting your call now." There is a click, and a whirr, and Elo fancies she can hear the operator moving the plugs to transfer the call across. "You've reached the electronic secretary for Precinct 88," comes the tinny recording of DIspatch-Sally's voice, calm and soft. "This number is for official, non-emergency use only. Please keep your message succinct. Messages will be recovered by the officer on duty every three hours starting at 0800 hours. Please clearly state your name, rank, and number; the recipient of your message; and the message itself. Proceed." "Elowyn O'Toreguarde," she says, rushing through the procedure requirements. "Detective Sergeant in Special Cases, ID 0-6, 0-8, 8-4. Message is for Constable Farren Breakwood, regarding case number 1-2,1-1, 2-0, 1-7. There are two killers. Maybe you already figured it out, maybe you didn't, too bad, I'm telling you anyhow. Time is–" she glances at her watch "–0330 hours, I'm at the crime scene. There's a scuff mark from where the vic was struck in the head, and there's no way that same attacker could–" That scuff comes again. Only, this time it doesn't sound like pebbles. She is tired, she must be imagining things, but it sounds like the scrape of claws on stone. But it doesn't come again, so she dismisses it once more and continues her message. "The first strike," Elo says, having lost her train of thought, "was done in panic. The second was deliberate, cleaning up his fellow's mess, though it could be–" The scratch of claw on stone sounds again, and it is different from the scrabble of a dog. It sounds sharper. She looks out of the booth, and there is something standing there, in the shadows. "–Premeditated. Gotta go," she finishes quickly and hangs up the receiver.

Elo took a slow step outside the phone booth, not taking her eyes from the thing that hid in the shadow. Her gun is locked in the topbox, back on the dragon. "What are you?" she called out. «Youse was told to beat it, kid,» said the thing. «Youse was warned not to get into our business.» Its voice scratches at her ears, all harsh consonants and short vowels, that sends a chill through her body. "I don't believe I was," she responded, and a distant part of her wonders how she is understanding it, and, for all that her voice sounds like English in her ears, what she is speaking back. "I don't recall any of your kind, whatever you are, knocking on my door and telling me so." «Stupid moss-ear. What're you, blind as well as dumb? The signs was clear as night.» "The hell does that mean?" Elo snapped, almost certain that she has fallen asleep in the phone booth and this is all a twisted nightmare. "I don't even know what you are, let alone read whatever signs you think you've posted." «Not posted,» it sneered. There was a flash of twin red glows, vanishing as quickly as it came. «Actions delt. We didn't think a moss-ear like you would know how to swim.» And then she realised that incident the other night – the one where she thought she dreamt the skittering thing in the shadows as she got dunked in the canal – that was real. "A green-skin," she said, and saying out loud what she has called them in her head for all these years sounds peculiar. It snorted. «'Green skin',» it muttered, offended, and finally moves out of the shadow. «She calls us 'green-skins'. Pah! We's Dvasia, dumb-ass.» Elo can only stare at the thing. In her defence, she decides, it does have green skin. It also has narrow pointed ears, and a narrow pointed nose and needle-like teeth. Well-corded muscles wind around thin limbs and sharp joints. Those hands and those legs terminate in knife-pointed claws, and she thinks that must be what she heard before. The thing is not much shorter than she is, and skinny as it is, she absolutely does not want to try it in a fight. For all that it called itself Dvasia, it bears a striking resemblance to a fairytale goblin. It's not wearing a whole lot either, she notices. Ragged shorts that look like they're made of potato sacks, a red cloth cap, and crude shoes that are akin to sandals. "Aren't you cold?" she asked, mouth bypassing brain. It blinked. «What?» "Um." She blinked back. The thing frowned. «S'pose it is a bit nippy.» Elo considers this for a long moment. "D'you want a coffee?" she asks, even as her mind is screaming that there is a fairytale standing in front of her, a fairytale villain at that, and for the love of all the gods, why is she offering it coffee? Because it's cold and alone and wearing sweet Fanny Adams, argues a different part of her, and she was raised to be polite and considerate of the needs of others. «Uh,» it said, clearly as confused as she was, but carefully considering the offer. «Yeh?»

So she loaded it onto the back of her bike, and drove them to the corner of Penfold and Welch, not far from where the clubs are, and pulled up by a kebab van. She buys them both a coffee, and then she walks them down a block to a park. They sat on a bench under a tree, sheltered from the mizzle, watching empty swings sway in the breeze, and drank their coffee.

Eventually, though, Elo finds she must say something; she can't just sit here, in silence, drinking coffee with a fairy story. "You know the blond girl?" she asked. "She came down to the canal two nights back." «Say I do. What of it?» it rejoined. "Did you kill her?" It paused. «What you gonna do if I say no?» "Keep looking for the ones that did." «What you gonna do if I say yes?» Elo stared at the swings, the way the rain collected along the cracks in the slabs. She hadn't thought that far ahead. "I guess I'll shoot you," she said finally. "Then go looking for the second killer." «Ain't you an officer of the law?» it asked. «Ain't youse supposed to arrest me or something, send me down the river, and take me to the Big House?» "If you were human, yes." «That's racist.» "No, it's practical. I'm struggling to believe that your kind are real, and yet here you are, sitting drinking coffee and holding a conversation with me. I can't find any way to pretend you are just some hideously deformed human speaking some foreign language. You are real and existent, and I still don't quite believe it. Now, if I feel like this, and I've been exposed to more oddity than most, how am I to expect anyone else to react to your presence?" Elo pauses, takes a sip of coffee. "There's no way I can simply arrest you, put you on trial, and 'send you down the river'. Much as I would like to, it's not feasible. So. I would shoot you." «Huh. Fair enough.» "Did you kill her?" «No. Blood as my bond, I did not.» Elo looks down at it then. It's staring at her with a strange intensity, those red orbs steady in their gaze. She knows, without a shadow of a doubt, it is telling her the truth. "What were you doing down there?" she asked. It chuckled lightly. «Waiting for you, moss-ears,» it said. «The one what did the murder sent me down there. He knows you've unsealed the Nerishklis, and he wants it back.» "You were sent to take it from me?" «Yeh.» "Why are you telling me this?" The creature sniffs but doesn't even pause. «Bought me coffee, dintcha.» "Your loyalties are so easily swayed?" «Nah. I'm on your side now.» Elo looked down at it again and it sniffed, yet again. Its gaze has that same, unwavering intensity as before, but this time it raised the paper cup in salute. "Let me guess. Your blood is your bond?" «S'right. You're getting the hang of things, eh?» I'm really not, Elo thought. "But why?" «Because,» it said slower, «Y'bought me coffee.» "I find it hard to believe that I bought your unwavering loyalty for a fifty-cent cup of joe." The creature – the Dvasia – sighed. «S'not about the amount, or what was purchased. Only that the transaction was done. Youse paid for something from your own stash o'gold for me. Which means, I'm duty bound to you for the rest of my probably short and miserable life.» It sniffs at her continuing look of confusion. «Had youse stolen, or otherwise provided said beverage from another's stash, it wouldn't have counted.» "So if I'd taken you back to the station, and given you a cup from the communal supplies, you wouldn't be beholden to me?" «Nope,» it said. «But, had youse done that, I could have lied through my teeth about whatever I fancied, then happily stabbed you in the back, got the Nerishklis, and gone on me merry way.» "So why'd you accept the coffee then?" «Why wouldn't I? Anyone who can unseal the Nerishklis is someone to be reckoned with. I figure I'm better off with you than I am with my old boss.» "Ah."

Elo swirled her coffee in its polystyrene cup. It makes sense, in an odd way. Not that she'd done anything to the artefact on purpose. "What's your name?" she asked. «'S Snotgrut,» "Pleased to meet you, Snotgrut," she said. "I'm Elowyn." «Charmed, I'm sure» Elo gives a little snort of amusement as she looks up at the sky, to see dawn starting to tint the air. Beside her, Snotgrut makes a little strangled noise. «Uh, moss-ears. You think maybe you can give me leave to bugger off? Only, I ain't too fond of the sunlight.» "Ah hell," she muttered, rubbing a hand over her face. "Yeah, of course. I need to get to bed myself. How do I get in contact with you?" she asks, as Snotgrut downs the rest of his coffee and starts away. «I'll have my people call your people,» he calls back, slipping behind a bush, and is gone.

Elo shakes her head. She's trying to solve a murder via proxy, babysit a king, look after her grieving surrogate father… And now this creature, this Dvasia, is speaking in riddles about things she's only just grasping the edges of. Elo drains her coffee and gets herself ready to ride on. What the hell else could happen? she wonders, pumping the kickstart before giving it a swift downward thrust. Auri fails to start.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Thanks for the tag @kirjanikv6ilill @wretched-mischief @funkypoacher and @g0dspeeed

Tagging: @noetikat @roofgeese @direwombat @strangefable @adelaidedrubman @derelictheretic @confidentandgood @strafethesesinners @natesofrellis @thomrainer @purplehairsecretlair @clonesupport @turbo-virgins and anyone else with something to share :)

Got some "American Beasts" Ch. 6 goodies I can share:

Her foot tapped on the wooden beams, a rapid drumbeat, all nervous tension and anxiety reverberating through the floor. His eyes fell to her boots, caked in mud, clumps falling off. The steady rhythm turned into a crunch as the dirt crumbled under her heel. 

“It usually is, but we’ve been sharing a foxhole. Least I can do is listen to your troubles without too much judgement.”

Her eyebrow cocked. She’d only known Jerome and Mary May for a short time but he wasn’t wrong about foxholes, they had a way of making people closer. “I was in Afghanistan.”

“Oh, like Grace.”

“Yeah.” She sat back in her seat, stretching out her back, forcing herself to sit up straight as if she were standing at attention, but her hands kept fidgeting, fingers stretching, knuckles cracking. She wasn’t one for sitting still. “Started my service in 2005, just when things started to go south over there.” 

She rarely divulged anything about herself, keeping her life a secret was her greatest weapon. It kept everyone at bay and it let her control who came close. 

“My whole life I was raised to become a soldier. It's what my father was, and his father, and his father before him. There was always the expectation that that would be my career. It’s all I ever wanted to do.” 

It wasn’t the entire truth, but it was honest enough. She was sure there was a time when she was a child where she imagined being a doctor or a firefighter, hell, maybe even a ballerina. But as far back as she could remember she could only recall the times with her father at the shooting range, and on camping trips as he taught her how to survive,  and the only word she could summon with pinpoint accuracy was soldier. 

“I served for five years – wanted to do more – but had my plans changed for me. The taliban were becoming more brazen, bombings had increased, as they were fighting to gain back ground that we had taken from them. My unit was travelling through Kandahar, I was leading them. Their lives were my responsibility.” 

The nervous energy began to travel up her limbs, her foot no longer happy to bear the brunt, her leg began to shake, knee bouncing as she tried her hardest to stay in the present, to not let the memories invade again. “But I lost sight, lost my concentration for one moment…” She paused, frozen in time. 

The feeling of hot flames licking at her skin, the searing pain of molten metal tearing into her flesh, chunks of debris and sand ripping through her wounds. Muscles, tendons, sinew, bones, skin, all torn asunder. She was remade on a surgical table. 

“...Roadside bombing. Our vehicle was blown sky high, shrapnel and debris blew out in every direction, a hole torn through metal like it was fucking tissue paper.” Kit’s stare grew to over a thousand yards, something missing from behind the eyes. 

Jerome sat and listened in silence. There was no point in trying to add sentiment, to direct her thoughts back towards God. He was being given a glimpse into what made her tick. This was likely the most vulnerability this woman had the capability of showing. At this point he’d only ever seen her as a slab of concrete - heavy, tough, and only able to crumble with the right force. 

[wavesmp3]

the world is ours to remake

[a part of of the world of gifts and sins; a prequel to the sea is yours to take]

Avi’s been told what it means to wear a crown. His teachers had said it to be a symbol. One of grace and elegance. One that he should uphold as the only son of Queen Raffa. His mother’s council members had told him, with lingering eyes and outstretched arms, that it meant power. Power that Avi understood was the root of the envy in their eyes whenever they looked at Avi, the crown prince and sole heir to the throne. But his mother, the Queen of Leraak herself, had always told Avi, with a voice as gentle and smooth as silk and with hands combing through his hair, that the crown was a burden. At the time, he didn't understand what she meant. 

It’s when he’s 11 that he feels it for the first time. 

It’s when he’s been called to the throne room, a servant placing his crown perfectly in position and pushing him towards his much too big throne next to his mother’s. It’s when the six Gifts of the Spirit enter the room with a young girl, no older than 7, trailing behind anxious and unsure, bowing before Queen Raffa a second too late, awkward and unnatural. As if bowing is not something her body was ever meant to do. It’s when the Gift of Wisdom announces to the room that Avna, the young girl, is the Gift of Fortitude, that Avi knows the meaning of the small ceremonial crown atop of his head. 

And a month later, when the Sins arrive and announce Kamir as the Sin of Pride, he again feels the weight of each jewel, each pearl of responsibility that manifests itself in the shape of a golden crown. He understands the symbol he must uphold. The power he possesses. And the burden he must bear. 

And in that moment, if his mother hadn’t covered his hand with hers and squeezed until the blood stopped, Avi’s sure he would have been crushed under the weight of his own crown. Crushed straight to a pulp. 

(but when she dies, a year later on the eve of his 12th birthday, nothing is there to stop Avi from crushing into a powder and blowing away like dust)

Avi learns quickly, once the Seven Sins and the Seven Gifts of the Spirit have settled into the Golden Palace, that there’s an unspoken tenseness between the two groups, both of which have been blessed by the Gods with unmatched fighting skills. The Gifts and Sins rarely leave from their opposite wings in the palace unless called upon by the Queen. Avi doesn’t see any of them after their first presence in the throne room. 

So when Avi’s running from his servant one night, wandering a familiar part of the Golden Palace alone, and turns a corner to find the young boy he recognizes as Kamir, the Sin of Pride, he’s shocked to say the least. 

It’s only when Avi hears someone calling Kamir’s name, does he realize Kamir is sneaking around as much as he is. And maybe that’s what makes Avi take the younger boy’s hand and bolt. Eventually while panting through the corridors, making quick turns and chasing each other up the service stairs, Kamir starts leading the way, and Avi follows him around another corner, now on the top floor of the palace. Kamir knocks on the walls until he finds a slab of stone that sounds hollow even to Avi. Avi knew the Golden Palace was filled with secret passageways, halls that connected rooms and stairs that led to hidden quarters. The only one he knew of was the passageway that linked his room to his mother’s. So when Kamir pushes on the hollow slab of stone that opens slowly unveiling a staircase behind the wall, Avi isn’t surprised by its existence but rather by the fact that Kamir has found it at all. Either way, Avi follows the younger boy up the staircase and onto the palace roof. There they find the Gift of Fortitude, standing on the roof waiting for Kamir and dismissing Avi entirely. 

He learns that night, that Avna and Kamir were from the same village and that they had been friends before he was a Sin and she was Gift. He learns that whatever tenseness that has come between the other Sins and Gifts has not extended to them two. Them two who were closer than anyone Avi had seen before. Like the trunks of two trees tangled and lost within each other until deemed as one. Like two halves coming together to create a whole. It was like their closeness filled the air and snaked down his throat until he was suffocating in between their friendship. Like they were a puzzle with no room for his piece. 

But there’s something about their suffocating friendship that makes Avi want more. So it becomes like that, Avi goes on walks at midnight, sneaks onto the roof, finds Avna and Kamir already there talking until their breath turns blue.

He wonders, not for the first time, on the night he joins wordlessly on the roof, on the night Avna and Kamir are playing a game from their hometown; Avi wonders if they’d even notice if he were to disappear. So he does. He slips back down the secret staircase, waits at the base, he waits for what feels like hours and hours and hours. And when no one comes down, he decides he won’t come back to the roof again. 

—

After that, the seconds and minutes bleed and bleed and bleed until it’s been days, weeks, months since his last night on the roof. Things seem to get lost between curt nods in the corridors and his lessons on etiquette and diplomacy. 

“Avi,” his mother whispers one night when he’s snuck into bed beside her, “did you attend your lessons today?” 

He buries his face in her lap. “Yes.” 

“Don’t lie to me.” She chides, combing her fingers through his hair in a gentle way that doesn’t at all match the tone of her voice. “You can’t skip lessons, Avi. They’re important. One day you’ll be King of Leraak, and I promise that you’ll find them coming of great use then.” 

“I’m still young. I have time.” He whines into the fabric of his mother’s sheets despite knowing how this conversation will end. Avi’s mother was two years younger than he is now when she inherited the throne and the crown. 

“Avi,” she repeats, her voice sending a chill down his spine, “you never know.” 

She’s right. Avi doesn’t know how things will play out a month after that night. 

He doesn’t know what it means when one of his mother’s close lady servants comes to his room one day, the servant who made his mother giggle behind her palm and the same one that Avi caught lingering around her rooms one night. He doesn’t know what it means when the servant falls into his small, child arms like he’s the ground and she’s a falling star. He doesn’t know what it means when she clings onto his clothes, tugs on his skin, and cries into his shoulder until they’re both drowning in a puddle on the floor.  

He doesn’t know until the Seven Sins appear at his door. Until words fall from their lips like a mantra that’s been broken and forced into their mouths. Avi knows what it means when they kneel before him and pronounce solemnly, “For you we serve,” he meets Kamir’s eyes, small and teary, 

“King Avi.” 

Two days before his coronation, a week before the funeral, and the night after rumors of murder travel between the cracks in the walls, the Seven Gifts of the Spirit flee from the Golden Palace. And in two days time, once he’s completely crushed, obliterated into dust under the weight of his mother’s crown, he sits down with his mother’s council members, stares into their green eyes, and announces the start of the Holy Wars. 

(a cry rings throughout the entirety of Leraak that night. from the eastern mountains, to the Zalazar River, to the southern sea, to the western peaks, to the Giant Forest and to the Nomads’ Land within. every corner of Avi's kingdom cries for the misery to come, for the misery that will drag on for five long, unbearable years)

And one night, after the coronation but before the funeral, he finds Kamir, the youngest Sin, on the palace roof. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” He whispers when Avi joins his side. And Avi knows, through the crack in Kamir’s voice, that he’s talking about the Gift of Fortitude. Avna, who is probably innocent, but who is still part of the group that orchestrated the murder of Avi’s mother. So Avi pretends Kamir isn’t. He reaches into his mind and pulls on the ringing sound of Kamir’s voice. He twists the memory and contorts the heartbreak until it fits his own. That night, on the roof with the Sin of Pride, is the first time Avi cries since the day he drowned in the puddle on the floor.

—

A fire is lit. Eventually. 30 days after Avi’s mother dropped the crown on his head and threw him towards the throne. And it burns and burns and burns. Reaching towards Avi until he feels compelled to extend his arm and let the flames lick his skin and tarnish his red shirt. And suddenly he’s lost in the flames, sitting in the middle, fire closed around him like curtains. Avi watches, between the holes and rips in the red curtains, he watches everyone watching him burn alone. 

It’s the service leader who pulls him out. Handing him a log and lighting it in his hand. Only family members were allowed to throw logs into the fire at funerals. So when Avi tosses the burning wood into the flames, it’s the only one. And the entire court watches it burn. 

(and later, when the service has ended but the fire still flickers, Avi, hidden in a corner, watches his mother’s servant sneak back into the room and throw a stick from the apricot tree into the dying fire)

Avi learns that being king is a vulnerable position to be in. The green eyes of his council members burn holes in Avi’s back and hire assassins for murder. As it turns out, their loyalty to Queen Raffa does not extend to him. Though Avi can’t really blame them; 12 is too young to be king. He knows it, they know it, all of Leraak knows it. And Avi’s reminded of his inadequacy each time his hand brushes past the scar along his back from the arrow that got too close and whenever he looks in a mirror and sees the scar at the bottom of his right cheek just above his jaw from the dagger that was pressed to his neck one night. 

But despite the assassination attempts and the emerald beacons in their eyes, the council members still have the best interests of the kingdom when it comes to enacting policies and war meetings with the Commander of the Knights of the Holy Order. The Sins start joining too, recounting their wins and losses on the battlefield, recommending allocation of the Knights and redirection of old supply chains. Avi finds solace in Kamir, sharing exchanges like the whole room has been caught in a hurricane and they’re alone together in the eye of the storm. For the first time in a while, Avi knows he has someone he can trust. He knows because unlike the council members, unlike the other Sins, there isn’t a fleck of green in Kamir’s eyes. 

—

The five years of the Holy Wars pass eventually, long and slow, as if they’re taking a leisurely stroll through time and space. And with each step taken, the entire world shakes, flinging lives over its edge and burying bodies under its dirt. One by one, the Sins and Gifts start to die off as well. The Sin of Envy is the first to go. Avi only finds out when six Sins show up at the next war meeting instead of seven. In truth, Avi hadn’t realized the Sins and Gifts were even capable of death. And not even a year later, when only five Sins sit down to discuss the latest battle, Avi knows not to ask about the whereabouts of the sixth. 

—

It’s in the last year of the war that Avi learns the cause of it. By the time he does, the Sin of Sloth has been inching towards death with every passing day for a week. And the day before Sloth dies, Avi’s told everything. He’s told the truth. A truth much too large and much too heavy for a 17 year old to carry. A truth that has been buried for years by the Sins and Gifts. A truth not even the green-eyed members of the council know. Avi’s 17 when he learns the truth of angels, the truth of his world, and the truth of his mother’s murder. 

And the next day, when Sloth dies and when Kamir returns to the Golden Palace from the battlefront to mourn, Avi looks down at the younger boy’s hands and sees that they’re stained with a bright and burning red. Red caked on by five years of spilt blood and murder. Avi turns to his own hands and finds them red with guilt. Finds it under his nails, between the lines in his palms, and dripping from each of his fingers. Kamir’s hands are stained, but Avi’s hands are submerged, drenched in a red that rivals the Zalazar River.

Avi thinks about how at six Kamir became the Sin of Pride. How at eight he was forced to fight in this war, and how, now, at thirteen Kamir’s fighting alone. His entire childhood slipping between his fingers as easily as coats slip off their hangers. Avi studies Kamir and feels the unfairness of this world and the wrongness of this war like a boulder to his gut. Avi thinks that what the Sins and Gifts have done, the chaos they’ve brought upon this kingdom, is poison walking in human form, rotting these lands, and destroying its people. 

“We’ve been robbed.” Avi whispers to Kamir, who has taken his murderous, blood-stained hands and wrapped them around Avi’s, crying for the loss of the last Sin into the older boy's side. “We’ve been robbed of our childhood. You and me. Robbed by this war and by the Sins and Gifts.” 

“Not just us.” Kamir says lifting his head, wiping his blue tears with his red palms, creating purple streaks over his cheeks. “But Avna as well.”

Avi doesn’t respond. Instead he comes to the overwhelming realization that there is no right and wrong; there is no black and white. There is only grey, grey, grey. And the millions of shades in between. 

And in the next week, when Kamir is brought back to the Golden Palace with an injury that will kill him in two weeks time, Avi comes to a new realization that just as the war robbed Kamir of his childhood, it’ll also rob him of his life. So Avi waits by the younger boy’s side, counting the borrowed breaths and the fading pulse of his heart. 

—

Kamir mutters nonsense, induced by herbal highs and too much medicine, something about his village one night, a special tree the next morning, and heaven that afternoon. But there’s a frightening amount of certainty when one day Kamir whispers “she’s coming.” Avi doesn’t have to ask to know he’s talking about the Gift of Fortitude. 

She does come, one night, although Avi isn’t sure how she’s heard that Kamir was injured in the first place and then how she’s managed to slip between the cracks of King’s City.

His first instinct, when he finds her in a corridor, is to let her go. Let Avna find Kamir half dead in the palace infirmary. Let her mourn for the night and disappear in the morning. But it’s as Avi’s turning a blind eye that a bitter candy is placed between his lips and on his tongue. It’s right after he’s made his choice that he remembers those nights five years ago on the palace roof. 

So he catches her hand and tugs her back before she can pass, using her shock over her strength. He stares the Gift of Fortitude down, grazing his finger against the scar on his cheek above his jaw, the bitter candy now dissolved in his mouth.

“How badly do you want to see him?” 

“Avi please.” She whispers into the darkness of the corridor. 

“Gift of Fortitude,” a seed falls into his mind, takes root between his nerves, and blooms within his skull, “let’s make a deal.” 

—

(there’s something unmistakeable in Avna’s cries when she sees Kamir for the first time. but when it comes to putting a name to whatever it is that hangs in the air and clutters under the infirmary bed, Avi can’t think of one that fits)

—

Avi and Avna watch Kamir’s chest deflate and his blood turn cold. In a blink of an eye, at the burn of a candlestick, Kamir’s dead, and Avi hides his tears behind billowing sleeves and heavy jewelry, keeps his grief locked up in a special corner of his room, an act by this point in the war Avi’s all too used to. And he notices Avna dragging her feet along the stone floors and painting the walls a duller shade of grey, and thinks that perhaps this isn’t a one-man show, that perhaps this act he shares with her. 

So Avi loses Kamir by the end of the week, and at the start of the next, he gains Avna, the Gift of Fortitude.

When the last Gift other than Avna dies, the war is ended. Five years, all those lives, the destruction of the kingdom—ended by two wax seals on yellow paper, one of the royal insignia and one of the Seven Gifts of the Spirit. And the next morning, after Avna and Avi stamp the yellow paper, after news that the war has ended spreads like fire to every corner of Leraak, Avna vanishes from the Golden Palace, disappears from King’s City, and breaks the promise she made to Avi two months ago. 

It’s sometime during the first year after the Holy Wars, while Avi and his entirely new council are immersed in reconstruction of the kingdom, that the mobs start breaking out. They start in the north. Destroying every trace of the Seven Sins and the Seven Gifts of the Spirit. Ripping paintings. Setting fires to the sanctuaries. And it’s on Kamir's first death anniversary that Avi wakes up to the palace sanctuary in flames. 

Coincidence or not, Avi doesn’t have the heart to clear out the ashes. 

Some years pass, in truth Avi loses count after the second. Every now and then, Avna returns. Hungry. In need of money. Stays for a night, then slips out of the palace the next morning. It’s a routine Avi gets used to the third time she shows up on the palace roof, somehow sneaking past everyone on her way up. 

But when she shows up this time, something’s different. Avi knows by the way she doesn’t slip through the palace’s secret passageways and by the way she doesn’t wait for Avi on the roof. This time, she shows up at the palace gates, holds a dagger to the throat of a guard, and waits for the King to come down and greet her himself. 

He does come down eventually, insisting that he doesn’t need his guard to accompany him. But his guard doesn’t trust the Gift of Fortitude, or perhaps it’s that they don’t know her like Avi does. Although Avi wouldn’t consider his relationship with the Gift as anything more than the two conversations and broken promise that it is. 

But either way he does come down, guard surrounding him, swords drawn and arrows strung. She drops her dagger when Avi appears from behind the palace doors, scoffs at the guard, and bows towards the King thanks to the reminder from Lady Mirana, one of Avi’s more petty council members. Avi finds that there’s a shocking amount of familiarity when Avna bows, the same as she did on her first day in the Golden Palace, still awkward and unnatural, still a second too late, still something her body was never meant to do. And when Avi asks what she wants, he expects something along the lines of money and food, but instead she surprises him by asking for a room. 

So Avi throws her in the palace dungeons. 

— 

The palace dungeons were built underneath the ground, straight into the dirt under the palace. But ever since Queen Raffa’s crime pardons, the palace dungeons have been left unused for the most part. So when Avi sends away the two dungeon guards, he’s sure that there’s no one around but him and the Gift of Fortitude.

In truth, Avi’s never been to the palace dungeons, never felt the need to. Though he assumes Avna and Kamir must’ve stumbled upon it at some point all those years ago. He learns quickly that he’s been right to never visit this particular part of the palace. It’s cold and dark. One singular torch lighting each hall. The flames carrying each bit of light and warmth that’s been allowed between the walls. He finds her in a cell towards the center, the small torch in front casting a golden shadow on the angry sighs and lonely laughs she’s discarded all over the small space. 

He greets her with her name, her real name, and when she stiffens, visibly tenses up from the corner of the cell, Avi wonders if anyone but him even knows she has one anymore. 

“This is low, Avi,” she says, voice small and venomous, “even for you.” 

Avi ignores the comment; he came here with purpose. “Where have you been?” 

She chuckles, a scattered, broken thing that leaves from her lips and crawls between the cell bars. “I’ve been searching.” 

“For what?” 

“Answers.” 

Avi waits a beat, realizing in what feels like too late that Avna doesn’t know the truth of the war. And instead of saying that he has them, that Sloth told him everything before the war ended, he lets the silence of the dungeons stretch from him to her, lets it peel from the walls and contaminate the air. “Why did you go?” he says finally, voice sadder than he means for it to sound.

She inhales sharply. “I told you.” 

“But why,” he hesitates at the crack in his voice, “why did you leave?” And when he asks it this time, she understands. Avna understands that when Avi asks why she left, he’s really asking why did you leave me.

She stands up from the corner and makes her way towards the cell door, face now illuminated by the torch on the wall although Avi doesn’t dare look up, he doesn’t dare risk letting her see the tears streaking down his face. Especially because he knows she’s studying it closely, like a book she’s been waiting to read. And once she’s done reading between the lines of his face, she bites at him, sinking teeth and venom traveling under his skin. “You can’t seriously be talking about that.”

He is, and now that Avna knows, he doesn’t bother hiding the wavering in his voice. “You said you’d stay with me, protect me—“

“That was years ago.”

“—you promised.” He insists. 

“I lost everything in that war!” She chokes out, the wavering in his words now mirrored in hers.

He meets her gaze, captures Avna’s eyes in a harsh stare, and finds that they’re as sad as his. There’s a shattering amount of conviction when Avi says: “So did I.” 

Without another word, he exits the dungeons, leaving her alone in front of the single torch, his last words echoing off the walls. 

The next time he speaks to Avna is when he takes her on a walk along the palace grounds, and the first thing she does when she steps out of the palace is shiver at the warmth of the sun, making Avi wonder if he’s kept her in the dark for too long. He doesn’t dwell on the thought. Guards trail behind, swords drawn, but far back enough to be out of earshot. 

“You should tell your guards to back off.” Avna mutters bitterly. 

“It’s precaution.” Avi looks behind him, giving the guards a curt nod. “You are technically my prisoner.” 

She huffs. “I’m not going anywhere.” She pauses, and Avi takes the time to study the sincerity in her face and words. Then after another second of thought, she adds: “Not this time.” 

“And how can I ensure that you’re speaking the truth?”

“Because I’ve let you cuff me,” she starts, motioning to her hands clad in wooden handcuffs, “when I can easily,” she pauses, inhales once, then splinters the wood around wrists, “break free.”

The guards clamor behind her, ready to jump the Gift of Fortitude who’s now free from whatever restriction they had against her (although Avi isn’t sure they had much to begin with). Avi waves the guards off to which Avna smirks, rubbing life back into her wrists. She halts in her tracks when she notices where Avi’s been silently leading them. “Why have you led me here?” she says, breaths becoming shallow and short, then stopping entirely. 

Avi turns his head towards the pile of ash and the scorched foundation of what once was the palace sanctuary. Of what once was a beautiful building dedicated to and commemorating the Sins and Gifts, but what is now nothing more than a dark reminder of the turmoil they caused. “Was it you?” Avi asks, quiet and calm, something bubbling under his skin. 

“No.” she hums, sounding somewhat amused by the scorched and crumbling walls. “But,” she murmurs, voice turning suddenly dark, “I sort of wish it was.” 

“Promise me.” Avi blurts, the words tumbling out of his mouth. “Promise me that this time you’ll stay. That you’ll keep our original agreement.” 

She considers it for a moment, picking at a loose strand in her sleeve. “Alright,” she nods, “I promise.”

And once Avna does, the grudge Avi has been holding against her splits as easily as the wooden cuffs. “Take my old room.”

She looks at Avi, surprised, then turns her head towards the Golden Palace behind, squinting at a window that looks into the Royal Library. 

(Avi doesn’t wait for her response. instead he nods and walks back to the palace alone. he doesn’t think to mention the secret passageway that connects his room to hers)

The first thing Avi thinks when he can’t find Avna is that she’s run away again. Slipped out of the Golden Palace and broken another promise. He does find her though, praying in the palace temple, long after the last service ended. 

All temples were built the same, circular in shape with pews centered around the altar, and at the center of each altar is the first teaching from the Elders known as the Sacred Scripture. The palace temple though, unlike other temples, is known for its striking beauty. Paintings cover the ceilings of the palace temple illustrating a myriad of people: the Gods, angels, humans, the Elders, Sins, and Gifts; all heading for the clouds and colliding in a burst of colors. But even that isn’t what makes the palace temple unparalleled. Rather, the revere of this temple comes from the four stone murals carved directly into the walls. The first mural depicts the Giant Forest in the north and the Nomads residing within who ceased communication with the kingdom during the second year of the Holy Wars. The next mural portrays silhouettes, supposedly of the Elders, sitting on thrones made of treetops and solid earth. The third tells the tale of the Bronze Bridge suspended over the Zalazar River and its construction, overseen by King Zalazar whose hair took on magnificent, unnatural colors and whose name is attached to the great river that does the same. The last mural Avi hasn’t had the stomach to look at since Sloth told him the truth five years ago, the thought of it alone filling the young King with rage and bitterness. It is a stunning mural though and perhaps the most intricate of them all. The final mural that’s been etched into the walls of the palace temple captures Maratelli the Archangel, with six arms and wings terrifyingly spread out, falling out of the heavens and landing in this world. 

And instead of thinking about the six-armed angel, Avi slides into the pew next to Avna, sitting down by where she kneels. “May I ask what you’re praying so intently for?” 

Avna opens one eye, making note of Avi’s sudden presence, then returns to her prayers. “Not what. Who.” 

“Who then?” 

She waits a moment, the corner of her lip lifting. “You.”

Avi lets out a breathy laugh. “Holy are the Gods.” He begins. 

“Have mercy on my immortal soul.” She finishes. 

And there’s something about the word immortal that ignites a memory in Avi, one concerning the slow death of all the Sins, a memory Avi thought he put out and stomped away a long time ago. And perhaps that’s that makes him say, “You aren’t immortal.”

“I know, but…” she murmurs, getting up from the floor and sitting down next to Avi on the pew. 

“But?”

“There’s no war to kill me anymore.” 

It takes a second for the meaning to settle between his nerves. “Maybe it already has.” 

“Maybe.” she pauses. “Perhaps a part of me did die in that war. But then a part of you must’ve died as well.” 

“Maybe the part that belonged with Kamir.”

“Maybe that part was the only thing left.” 

Yes, Avi thinks, because it was never a part of him and a part of her. But rather, the fire of the Holy Wars swallowed them whole. And the two figures that sit in the palace temple now, a King and a Gift, are just shells, placeholders waiting for the day they both rise from the ashes, reborn. 

Her voice comes quietly. “It’s been so long, but sometimes it feels like time hasn’t moved since Kamir’s death. Like the seconds and minutes and days have yet to pass.”

And Avi can only manage a nod because suddenly Avna’s grief is filling up the room and traveling through the pews. It’s spilling from her heart and overflowing into the hall, exhaling from her lips and inhaling through his. It’s like grief is a painting, each canvas and image its own. The paintings might be different, but the shades are the same. Whatever it is that makes up her grief, makes up his as well. 

And oh this must be it. But of course— what else is this feeling pushing against the walls of his heart and what else is this terrifying liberty. This must be what it means to understand and to be understood. 

From the silence emerges the distant ticking of a clock. A tear falls from one of her eyes and a year falls from the other.

—

(love, Avi realizes. that’s what it was in Avna’s cries the first time she saw Kamir’s body, and that's what it is in her sighs now. the four letters feel sticky and unfamiliar in Avi’s mind)

It’s one morning during breakfast that Avi recounts the way the war came to its end. After Kamir died, Avna stayed at the Golden Palace, protected Avi from the ever frequent assassination attempts like she said she would, and fought alongside the Knights of the Holy Order against the other Gift. But one day Avna came back from the battlefront, a small cut across her forearm, and whispered that the war would soon be over before collapsing into the arms of a servant. The next morning, Avi and his council received news that the last Gift was dead. The Holy Wars were ended within the next week.

Avna finds him after the service in the temple that same morning. “Are you busy, Avi?” 

“Did you know it’s considered rude to address a King by his name?” Avi muses, nose flared and amused. Avi can’t recall a single instance where Avna called him King in the absence of an audience, and even then, sometimes she allowed the title to slip. 

Avna ignores the comment entirely. “Do you plan to make a queen out of me?”

Avi’s unsurprised by the question. In fact, he presumed it would come up eventually with how close they had become since that day in the palace temple. They had been spotted by servants escorting each other to daily agendas, by cooks taking select meals together, and by stable boys sitting together in the gardens and courtyard. The palace court was known to gossip, and recently the blooming friendship and next to nonstop conversation between the Gift of Fortitude and the King had become a popular topic, specifically the possibility of marriage between the two. And yet, despite the lack of surprise, Avi can’t contain his own laughter at the mere thought of Avna ever becoming a queen and even more oddly his wife. His laughter seems to answer her question. 

“How relieving to know.” She huffs, mildly annoyed. “Well anyways, I was just asking. You know how the court talks.” 

“Did you honestly think that I would?”

“Make me queen?” She asks to clarify; he nods. “I don’t know. Unless you have a secret affair that I know nothing about, it’s not the most bizarre thing in the world.” 

“And yet isn’t it?” 

“How so?”

“An immortal queen whose title is a reminder of the Holy Wars doesn’t sound quite feasible.” 

Avna’s face turns dark. “Well, yes. I suppose not.” 

“Plus,” Avi continues, bumping his shoulder against hers, “it’s probably best that a queen doesn’t have the potent disdain for formality that you do.” She laughs at that. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you as well.” Avi adds seriously, reminded of his thoughts earlier this morning. Avna hums for him to continue. “When you came back from the battlefront the day before the last Gift died, how did you know the war was ending?” 

Avna inhales sharply. “It’s less that I knew, but rather that I felt it.” 

“How do you mean?” 

“I could feel that the last Gift was close to death. I could feel it like a lump in my throat and a rock in my chest.” And that makes sense to Avi. It makes sense that the Gifts and Sins would be connected in some inexplicable way like that. It makes sense that when Avna came to the Golden Palace days before Kamir died, it was because she could feel it in her stomach and head. 

And because his breakfast pondering has been met with a plausible explanation, he nods. Avna stops in front of Maratelli’s stone mural. 

“Isn’t it odd,” she says, “how Maratelli the Archangel only had two arms in all the sanctuaries but here, in this mural, Maratelli has six.” 

Avi swallows a chuckle. “Yes, Avna, it is.” 

And with that, he turns on his heel and heads to his office.

There’s a knock on Avi’s office door while he’s discussing an appeal from Lady Eloise of a western town with one of his council members.  

“Come in.” 

“Avi—“ she stops when her eyes land on the council member, “ah, King Avi. Do you have a moment?” 

He sighs, beckoning Avna in and motioning the council member out. 

“If you keep this up, the rumors about us will only get worse.” 

Avna snorts. “The court will talk whether I come barging into your office or not. No use in catering towards it.” She drops a pile of books and scrolls on his desk. “How often do you visit the Royal Library?” 

The Royal Library, like most other libraries, is filled with teachings from the Elders, historic scrolls, maps of all sorts, and books from various scholars. It sits between the north and east wings of the palace, housing two entrances: one that connects back to the Golden Palace for the court’s use and another that opens up to the palace grounds meant for the residents of King’s City. In all transparency, there isn’t much that differentiates the Royal Library from the other three libraries scattered across the kingdom apart from its obvious grandeur. Avi hasn’t been since he stopped meeting with personal tutors. “Often enough.” 

“Did you know about the staircase behind one of the bookcases and the secret room it leads to?” 

“Another secret passageway?” Avi states more than he asks it. “How many have you found at this point?” 

She ignores the question. “But what’s even odder is that I’m the only one who can open it. My strength is required to push aside the case. Do you suppose it means something?” 

“A passageway meant only for the Gifts and Sins?” He offers half-heartedly, grabbing a book from the pile and studying the cover. 

“But that doesn’t make much sense either. Why should anyone construct a secret passageway that could only be opened by so few?” She says although Avi doesn’t hear much of it, finding himself to be stumped by the book in front of him. 

The title of the book is written in characters that Avi recognizes, the same ones he memorized as a child, but the words they create aren’t ones that he knows. Foreign, is what comes to mind, although Avi presumes ancient is the one that should. A whole array of words and sounds dropped in the past and exchanged for something new. It makes Avi wonder just how old these books actually are. He shapes his mouth in the form of the words, tugs and plays until they start to make some sense in his mind. And oh— Avi’s breath gets caught in his throat because from the one word he can just barely make out he reads ‘angels’. 

He places the book in his lap to look more into later and picks up a scroll from the pile. 

“Tell me what they say. You can read can’t you?” 

“Of course I can read but these aren’t—“ he cuts himself off. “Wait,” he tears his eyes away from the scroll and meets Avna’s, “you can’t?” 

And when Avna gets small, visibly shrinking under her skin, Avi realizes that he’s accused Avna of illiteracy rather than asking her of it. “I was too young for school before I was taken and…” she shrugs “there’s no use in a Gift of the Spirit knowing how to read or write.” She adds with a nonchalance that sounds forced and fake. “I was only taught how to fight.” 

“Well,” Avi mutters returning his attention to the scroll laid out in front of him, “I guess we’ll have to change that then, won’t we?” 

He doesn’t miss the way Avna breaks out in a brilliant grin. 

It’s a rather easy arrangement for Avi to make. Hired tutors come every morning to instruct Avna’s finger along each line until the symbols and characters start to make sense in her mind. She reads to Avi during meals and has him correct her when she’s gotten a certain word wrong or misread a line. 

And in the meantime, while Avna struggles to learn modern ways of writing, Avi wrestles with learning an ancient one. It doesn’t come quickly, nor easily, but eventually Avi is able to make sense of the language written in the books and scrolls Avna found in the hidden room of the Royal Library. 

“What’s this one about?” Avna asks, pulling on a map from the pile. 

“That one…” Avi begins, peering over Avna’s shoulder to look at the map he’s already studied, “was made by Birn and Kietha from the Midage Era. They were famed for the exploration of the eastern part of Leraak and the east end of the Zalazar River. Kietha drew the maps, and Birn documented their findings in these journals.” Avi tells her, shuffling through another pile on the opposite side of his office for one of Birn’s journals. He finds it and drops it by Avna. 

“Was she a healer? Birn?” Avna wonders, tracing her finger along Birn’s drawing of a herb that’s now crushed into a tea and used to prevent pregnancy. 

“I believe they both were. And look right here,” Avi says, pointing to a part of the map, “this is where they died. It’s now called Lover’s Pass.”

“Why?” 

He looks at her blankly. “Because they were lovers.” 

“Oh.” Avna responds just as blankly before beginning to laugh. “Ironic, isn’t it? That two women who would’ve never gotten pregnant should have found the herb to prevent it.” Avna picks up a book from the armchair. “How about this one then?” 

And this book Avi recognizes for it’s the first book he tried to make sense of the day Avna told him about the Royal Library’s secret room. 

“I’m not sure,” he lies, “I haven’t gotten through to this one yet.” straight. through. his. teeth.  

She eyes him carefully, dissecting his words in her mind. Then after a long moment, Avna looks away and mutters, “you’re lying,” before dropping the book back in the armchair. She doesn’t ask for the truth, so Avi lets out the breath he was holding and releases the lie with it. 

Perhaps there’s a reason though. A reason as to why Avna doesn’t chase after the true title of the book. A reason for why her eyes stay trained on the book as it falls off the armchair, tumbles to the floor, and gets buried under the other ancient scrolls, and another for why she fights the urge to move when it does. It’s then Avi understands that when Avna lets his lie slide, it’s because she’s hiding something as well. Something about the nature of the Royal Library’s secret room. 

He tries to slip into conversation once, during dinner while Avna reads poetry silently, something she had grown quite fond of while learning to read. “Do you like it? The poems?” 

She nods, leaning forward in her chair and quickly swallowing down her food. “Look here,” she says turning the book towards Avi and pointing to a line on the page. “Here the poet describes love as a burden. As a warm weight that we must accept with open arms.” Avna sits back. Eyes closed and book held against her chest as if she’s afraid the words will disappear. For a moment, it feels like she’s left the room altogether. 

“How many of the secret passageways have you found.” He asks, suddenly— twisting his fork and letting it clink against the plate. 

Avna lets out something between a breath and a laugh, flips a page in her book of poems, and shoves a carrot in her mouth. 

“Avna—”

“I won’t play your games, Avi.” She pauses, turns another page in her book. “I know more than you.” 

“But there is one,” he mutters; her eyes flit off the page and towards his, “that I know, and you don’t.” 

She sets the book down. “Which one?” 

—

He shows her that night. Knocks on the main door to her rooms, to which she opens, eager and awaiting, pulling him inside before anyone can see him entering. He leads her towards the sitting room and swings open the door of the wardrobe in the corner, the same one he filled with extra winter coats and boots as a child. He finds the wardrobe bare, dust collecting in every corner, and when he asks Avna about the emptiness of the wardrobe, she shrugs. “I don’t own many things.” She tells Avi simply, pushing past him to inspect the false back of the wardrobe. It takes a couple shoves for the back to budge, revealing a dark hall that leads to Avi’s extra room. 

“Let’s go.” Avi says, stepping one foot into the tight corridor. 

She hesitates. “Doesn’t it lead back to your rooms?” He nods. “And won't someone think it suspicious to find a Gift in the King’s rooms?” She says, sounding both concerned and confused. “Especially at this time of night.” 

Avi scoffs. “Please Avna, no one will know. Besides,” he adds, with a shake of his head already starting down the hall, “it’s just you.” After a small moment, Avna follows. 

In the time since Avi last used this secret passageway, his entire world had shattered, the broken pieces reconfigured into something unrecognizable. The last time this passageway had been used, Avi was still a prince and the Holy Wars had not yet begun. But, for some reason, Avi doesn’t feel off-put by those thoughts. Instead, when he remembers how everyone he once knew is now dead, he looks back at Avna, following close behind, and thanks all that is holy that the Gods spared her. Tonight, as Avi walks down the tight hall he last used as a child, he doesn’t let the reminder of the Holy Wars crush him like it would’ve a year ago.  

The King’s rooms were made of six separate rooms: a foyer, sitting room, dining room, bedroom, bathing room, and an extra room. When Avi was forced to move into these rooms after the death of Queen Raffa, he handed off the decoration for most of it to a servant whose name he never learned. The same servant who was close to his mother and who has since quit from working at the Golden Palace. And so the chandelier in the foyer that shines even in the dark of night and the fine art that hangs from the walls of Avi’s sitting room were all hand picked by his mother’s lady servant. The most striking decorations she chose, however, were in Avi’s sixth and extra room. Each King and Queen was given an extra room to use however they pleased. Some transformed it into a study, others a reading room. One past Queen even fitted the space to be a personal wine cellar. But when Queen Raffa was pregnant with Avi, she changed the room to be a nursery and never changed it back. And Avi, 12 and heartbroken at the time, had no need for a sixth room that was once his mother’s, so the servant took it upon herself to fill the room with marble sculptures. Five sculptures to be exact. The first sculpture she chose was of two men dancing with Jarat sticks, except that the two men were one, their bottom halves bleeding into each other and their top halves exuding love, the kind of love that could make the heavens fall. The second marble piece was of a simple apricot tree. The third was of a child taking off her face with one hand and holding a new face in the other. The fourth piece was of a weeping woman whose hair and arms were made of pure fire. The last sculpture was of a young boy kneeling on the ground whose arms started as normal arms but by the wrists they transformed into whole mountains. It was the same with the legs of the last sculpture; past the boy’s knees, the ankles were not ankles but trees and the feet an entire forest. And from his mouth, the boy vomited an entire ocean. This sculpture was Avi’s favorite and least favorite of the five, for the sculpted boy was remaking the world, but his eyes always looked frighteningly alone. 

“He looks like you.” Avna mumbles, after they’ve taken a turn around the extra room to which the secret passageway opens up to. “The boy in the sculpture. His eyes and yours are the same. You both look so alone.” 

Avi frowns. “Do we look lonely as well?”

“No.” Avna pauses, ghosting her hand over the sea that’s been purged from the sculpture's stomach. “Remember those nights on the roof?” Avi nods. “When Kamir brought you up that first night, I thought you didn’t speak because you were scared of us. But then you came the next night and the night after. And no matter how many nights you came, you never spoke, not once. By that point I just thought you were bizarre. But Kamir didn’t think so. He said you were unbothered by not speaking, content with watching from the side. I never understood it, how you managed to be alone without feeling lonely as well.” She removes her hand from the waves of the sculpture, and looks up, sounding suddenly sad. “To be honest, I still don’t.” 

Avi stares at Avna. He doesn’t say that he’s not sure he agrees. He doesn’t say that when he didn’t talk during those nights on the roof, it was because he didn’t think there was any room for it. Because he was sure that if he did speak, the worlds would fall into the air and fail. Instead he asks, “Do you think the servant thought so as well? That she chose this piece because of that?” 

“She didn’t choose these sculptures, Avi; she made them. And she wasn’t a palace servant. She worked here as an artist.”

“She was a sculptor?” 

“And a painter.” Avna adds, nodding towards the paintings in Avi’s sitting room. “Her name was Kanah. She used to let me and Kamir sit in her workshop and watch as she made her art. She was always so kind to us.”

“She stopped working for the Golden Palace years ago.” 

“I know.” Avna murmurs. “I asked a cook about her when I came back. She also said that Kanah stopped painting when your mother died, and a year into the Holy Wars, she stopped sculpting as well. They must’ve been close, Raffa and Kanah.” 

Yes, Avi thinks, they must’ve. And suddenly, as Avi studies Kanah’s five sculptures, something clicks. It becomes unthinkably clear that the sculpture of the young boy remaking the world is not the only one that’s familiar. No, because Avi also identifies the marble apricot tree as the same one from the palace gardens. Abruptly, he realizes that the two dancing men are not men at all, but women! With hair kept short and skirts traded in for slacks. Avi understands that the sculpture of the girl taking off one face and putting on another is his mother at ten years old mourning the death of King Levi and becoming Queen within the same month. And of course, the weeping woman made of fire is none other than Kanah mourning for Raffa alone the day of her funeral. 

After so many years, Avi sees that what makes his sixth room so odd is that it was never a room, but rather a love letter made of marble, hand crafted by Kanah. He recognizes that the answer to the question of Kanah’s relationship with his mother is love, just as love explained the closeness between Avna and Kamir. And helplessly, Avi wonders how he keeps finding love in a corner of all the things he once could not make sense of.

Avi looks around his extra room again and no longer sees five sculptures. Instead, in their place, he sees Kanah. “I think...” Avi starts, taking a step towards the sculpture of the two dancing women so in sync they seamlessly mesh into one, “I think they were in love.” 

“Yes,” Avna smiles, “that would make more sense.” She leaves from the extra room and heads towards Kanah’s paintings in the sitting room. A moment later, Avi exits from Kanah’s love letter as well.   

— 

Two large paintings sit on opposing walls of Avi’s sitting room and smaller paintings hang in between. One of the large paintings is of a man and woman emerging from the top of a tree in the Giant Forest and standing on a branch among the clouds. The other is of a cliff by the sea depicting a woman by its edge ready to jump and a man in the water waiting for her fall. 

“I think I’d like to do that.” Avna says, standing in front of the second large painting. Avi comes to her side. “To jump off a cliff and fall into the sea.”

“Do you know how to swim, Avna?”

“No.”

“Have you ever seen the ocean?” 

She pulls at her sleeve. “No.” 

“Well,” Avi pulls his attention back to Kanah’s painting, “I think you’d like it.” 

“Have you seen it then?” 

He shakes his head, and she scowls. “Holy are the Gods, Avna,” he chuckles, “but don’t kill yourself jumping off cliffs.” 

She huffs, annoyed, and turns, standing directly in front of where a mirror once hung, but where is now only an empty gold frame and a few shards on the floor. 

“I broke it.” Avi tells her before she can ask. “Had the rest of them removed.” 

Her eyebrows knit together. “Why?” 

“Guilt.” Avi kicks one of the shards. “I can’t stand to look at myself anymore. In truth, I don’t know how you do it.” 

“Do what?” 

Avi waits a beat. Avna swallows in the silence. “You see, I sat in my office for five years and watched as half of Leraak died. Let my council members deal with all of it. Pretended it had nothing to do with me. But you, Avna, you were there. Every day for five years you fought in that war. You sat with murder buried under your nails and lives splattered across your armor. And if I can’t stand myself for doing nothing, I’m not sure how you stomach your own image after what you did.” 

Avna’s quiet for a while, and when she does speak, her voice is far away, somewhere between denial and disbelief. “They made me do it, Avi. You know that, don’t you? I never had a choice. Not once.” 

“I know, Avna, I know. But they’re all dead. And we aren’t. So now we’re responsible for the plague that was the Holy Wars. The people need someone to blame, and what reason could they have to choose anyone but us?” 

“But,” her voice cracks, falling to the floor and joining the mirror shards as a thousand different fragments, “we were just children.” 

Avi shatters as well. Adds to her thousand with a million of his own fragments. “We were children with the power to stop it.” 

(in the next couple days, Avi hears that Avna’s had all the mirrors removed from her rooms as well)

Avi can’t find the urge to sleep tonight. After meeting with his council members this morning discussing the same appeal from Lady Eloise as before, he spent the day in his office, hoping to make more sense of the ancient books and scrolls from the Royal Library’s secret room which Avna had yet to take him to. He had taken one particular book, the first book he picked up and the same book that he lied to Avna about, back to his rooms to read further into before bed. But the more of the book he read, the more his own perception of Leraak seemed to shift into something unrecognizable. Particularly his perception of the Early Years and what little records were kept from that time. In each line and verse of the secret books and scrolls, Avi finds more and more sense in the truth Sloth told him. The book made him sick. Even the thought of it sitting in the next room made Avi’s skin crawl. So he pulls on his robe and carries the book back towards his office. 

To Avi’s surprise, he isn’t the only one who's thought to visit his office in the dead of night. Avi enters his office and finds a figure bent over a table, searching through the books and scrolls laid out on it. 

“What are you doing?” He harshly asks the intruder, fitting all the authority he can into his voice. The person jumps beneath their skin and straightens. Avi comes face-to-face with Avna whose eyes land on the book between Avi’s hands before they land on him. He steps a foot closer. 

“What are you doing?” He repeats, this time his voice harsh with accusation.

“Avi. It’s fine.” She scowls. 

“No. It isn’t.” He spits back. A dozen questions run through his mind. What if someone else had caught you? What would they think? What would you say then? But he doesn’t ask any of those. Instead, when he catches her fingers reaching towards the book in his, he steps back, shields the book with his body, and asks. “What do you want with it?” 

She looks Avi in the eye for the first time that night. “Why are you keeping the book from me?” 

He counters with, “Where’s the secret room?” 

“I can’t tell you.” 

“Why not?” 

She shakes her head. “I don’t trust what you’ll do with it.”

“But you said it yourself: your strength is required to open it.” 

“You lied to me Avi.” She points her finger at the book behind his body. “You lied to me about it.” 

“I was trying to protect you.” 

“From what? The truth?”

“Yes!”

“Avi, how—” she paces around the room, holding her head like it’ll blow off from the frustration. “How am I supposed to bear the weight of the Holy Wars if I don’t even know the reason for it?” 

“Trust me.” He breathes. “Knowing will only make it harder.”

“Let me be the one to decide that!” She nearly sceams. And when Avi refuses to speak, she chuckles, gravely, heartlessly. Lifts her eyes to the ceiling then shuts them, breathing heavily. “We’re prisoners of our guilt, Avi. And the truth,” she gestures towards the book, “that’s our way out. Please Avi, just tell me the title of the book.” She begs. “Tell me the book’s name and I’ll take you to the secret room. I promise.” 

But the thing is, Avna has a track record of breaking promises. So Avi doesn’t respond, pulling the book impossibly closer to his body instead. And once Avna realizes that Avi won’t budge, that he won’t be telling her the name of the book at least not tonight, she exhales and lets her eyes turn to an unsettling shade of cruel. 

“Fine.” She snarls. “I’ll learn the language myself.” 

She’s right. They’re locked in a prison of guilt, and now, Avi knows how to set them free. 

The news of the first burning comes to Avna before it does to Avi and his council. She bursts into his office, this time unbothered when she finds his entire council within as well. “Have you heard?” She cries to Avi and his council, eyes frantic and wild. “One of the libraries was burned by a mob last night. The library south of the Zalazar River. The entire building is nothing but ashes now.”

The council stands in an uproar, barking questions at Avna and yelling worries into the air. 

“How many were hurt?” 

“Where did you hear this from, Gift?” 

“What misfortune has been cursed on us!” 

“Which library did you say, Lady Gift?”

“Oh Gods have mercy!”

“Lady Gift,” Avi booms from his chair, silencing his council. Avna’s eyes meet his from across the room. “Was anyone hurt?” 

“No.” 

He swallows. “And the contents of the library? Was anything salvageable?” 

“No. Everything was burned.”

— 

When news of the second burning comes, Avi and Avna are praying in the palace temple. 

“What a terrible thing these people are doing.” Avna says to him once the news-bearing servant leaves. “They must be mad to burn down libraries. I can’t stand the thought of another one burning. I hope you find the culprits soon.” 

“We’re working on it.” Avi sighs tiredly, looking up towards the painted ceiling. “My council and I are working on it.” 

“I’m just worried—” 

“It isn’t your duty to worry.” He hisses. And when she flinches at his words, Avi turns back towards the ceiling and with a softer voice, adds, “I just mean that you need not worry, Avna. We’ll take care of the eastern library.” 

She stares at her clasped hands, brows drawn together as if deep in thought. Her voice comes quietly. “They never said which library was burned.”

“Oh that.” Avi swallows. “Well, it’s obvious isn’t it? This mob is working opposite of the one that burned the sanctuaries.”

“Yes,” she mutters, still glaring at her hands, “I suppose.”

Avi stands from the pew and heads towards the Royal Library. Alone. 

— 

When the third burning occurs, Avna doesn’t cry like the first and she doesn’t worry like the second. She peers at Avi, squints her eyes, and says, “Only one left.” Then warns, “Don’t let them burn down your palace with it.”

He won’t. 

It’s hot. So hot that Avi feels as if he’s burning. Like any second his skin will melt off his bones and turn to ashes. And yet, despite the heat, all he can think is—

We’re free. 

“Avi,” comes a voice behind him, “what are you…” he turns and finds Avna with golden skin and orange eyes. “What are you doing?” she asks breathlessly. 

He drops the torch he was holding. The flames lick the carpeting around his feet. “Avna, it isn’t what you think.” 

She ignores him completely, dazed by the flames growing behind him. “It’s burning. The bookshelf is burning, Avi. All the books, they’re burning.” She stumbles towards the burning bookshelf. “We have to save some. There must be some books we can save.” She lurches towards the fire. 

“Avna no!” Avi catches her between his arms and pulls her back from the orange heap. 

“You know what’s behind there, don’t you?” She cries. “The secret room. My truth, Avi. My truth is burning.” 

“Lady Gift, I—” the servant’s eyes find the fire immediately, “Oh my!” 

“Quick!” Avi yells to the servant. “Run for help! As fast as you can, before everything burns!” The servant rushes away, and alone, Avi pulls a distressed Avna away from the smoke of the burning bookshelf and the secret room behind it. 

— 

Avi and Avna stand on the palace grounds outside of the Royal Library wrapped in blankets and watch as workers douse the fire inside. Most of the library’s content would be saved. But the bookshelf that hid the secret room and everything behind it was now an unrecognizable pile of ashes. 

“Were they all you then?” She inhales sharply. “Did you order the mobs to burn down the other three libraries and then wait to burn this one yourself?” 

“Avna—”

“Avi, what were you thinking?” She says voice low and venomous. “Do you know what you’ve done?” 

He turns to face her, pleading. “Guilt is a prison. That’s what you said. Our guilt is a prison. I set us free.”

She scoffs, not turning to face him. “You set yourself free. How could you have possibly freed me from a guilt I don’t know?” 

“You murdered people, Avna.” He spits. “For five years you killed my people. And your people killed my mother. Be guilty for that.” Avna’s anger is like a fire. It spreads and grows and licks, leaving red burns all over Avi’s skin. 

“Yes, fine, I killed people.” She fumes, finally turning to face him. “I killed people with my own two hands. But don’t think yourself to be better than me for that. Because you are the one who stamped the war acts and sent thousands of Knights to the battlefront knowing they wouldn’t come back. And because your name is the one they whispered with their last, dying breaths. I only killed the men and women that you sent my way, that you sent to die. The men and women whose King had them declared as dead long before my blades ever touched their necks. You, Avi, are as much of a murderer as I am. And now,” she seethes, “you’re an arsonist too.”

She storms away from Avi and the diminishing fire of the library he burned. 

Avi and Avna have only spoken once since the day the Royal Library burned. It was Avi who came to her pleading for Avna’s secrecy. She had scoffed, then said, “Don’t worry, Avi. I won’t tell.”  

And those five words were all that Avi’s heard from her since. 

It’s the longest he’s gone without speaking to Avna since she returned to the Golden Palace. He hates it. But it seems Avna hates him more than he hates the silence. After a week, he stops seeking her forgiveness. 

Three weeks after his act of arson and five days after reconstruction of the Royal Library is completed, Avna starts picking fights in the courtyard. She begins by fighting hand-to-hand with a guard or an off-duty Knight. Avi watches from a window two floors above. And every afternoon that she returns to her rooms without a scratch, a new body is added to the infirmary beds. The palace healer had scolded Avi for the bruised guard in one bed, the unconscious Knight in another, and the dozen similar injuries in between. 

It’s during one particular fight with a well-known Captain of the Knights of the Holy Order that Avi appears in a corner of the courtyard instead of his usual window up above. Avna sees, somehow noticing Avi’s small presence from the corner of her eye and turning away from the fight completely. And in the three seconds that Avna’s distracted by Avi, Captain Yelena takes her fist and sends it straight through Avna’s rib.

Avna’s rib takes 7 weeks to heal. 

So she starts fighting with swords after that. 

The guards and Knights leave from these fights bloody and screaming. 

The day the fights stop is the day Avna punches a guard in the gut, kicks him to the ground by his neck, and leaves small slashes up his leg before sending her sword straight through his thigh. An injury that the guard will survive from but that’ll leave him with a limp according to the palace healer who also mentions to Avi that if the Gift of Fortitude had struck the guard a little more to the right, he wouldn’t have left the palace infirmary alive. Avi supposes that’s something Avna knows. That she purposefully stabbed the guard next to where she knew would kill him. When he finds her in the palace temple that evening and asks her why she does it, only the second time they’ve spoken since the burning of the libraries, she doesn’t answer at first. Instead, she says, “I inflict all this pain, but if it were me, if that sword had gone through my leg today, I’d be dead by next week.” After some time, she adds. “A sick sort of empathy I guess.” 

Avi doesn’t say anything after that, and surprisingly, unlike all the other times Avi’s tried to approach her since the fires, Avna doesn’t immediately leave. 

“Remember that night in front of the broken mirror?” Avna says suddenly. Avi nods. “You said that the people need someone to blame for the Holy Wars. But the thing is, no one blames you for the war, Avi; you’re the king. They blame me.” 

She speaks again before Avi can even begin to process the admission. “I’ll stop fighting, but you have not been forgiven. No number of apologies can take back what you did.” 

Avna stands from the pew and leaves.  

It dawns on Avi then how wrong he was to burn the libraries. He thought that by setting fires to the books, setting fire to the truth, he was also setting himself and Avna free. But their guilt is a prison, a prison that Avi burned with Avna still inside. He regrets it immensely. 

Avi couldn’t say how much time has passed between the end of the fights and now. He gets lost between the daily council meetings and the sleepless nights he spends staring at Kanah’s sculptures. He promised to stop seeking Avna out, made it a rule even. Presumed that if an apology wouldn’t do, perhaps space would. But Avi didn’t know that the space between them could stretch from two closed doors to the width of a black Zalazar River with no Bronze Bridge in between. Avi didn’t know that the space Avna occupied in his life was the spot between his lungs and next to his heart, and that each day the silence continued between them, that space would stretch, slowly cracking each of his ribs. In all transparency, Avi couldn’t say if Avna is even still living at the Golden Palace. But he knows she is, for he can feel her guilt and hate and grief pressing against the walls of each corridor and seeping from the cracks in his stone. Avi finds her presence all over the Golden Palace without ever finding her. 

The day Avi returns to himself and Avna returns to the world is the day of Kamir’s death anniversary. Avi wakes with the same weight on his chest that he feels twice a year, once on Kamir’s day of death and once on his mother’s. A sort of lingering grief that grows out of his stomach and pulls at his throat. But it’s under the weight on his chest and growth in his stomach that Avi’s struck with a startling sense of clarity: Today is the day to make peace. 

The only issue is that today Avi doesn’t find Avna’s presence pressed against the walls and shoved between each crack. Today, Avna’s disappeared from the Golden Palace altogether. His only worry is that she won’t reappear, that her absence will stretch from today to tomorrow and eventually to forever. And during the temple’s service that morning, Avi can’t be sure who or what he’s praying for. 

Later that day in his office, Avi remembers the first night after Avna’s return to the palace and the hushed conversation they shared in the unused palace dungeons. Avi remembers how when he asked where she had gone in the years after the Holy Wars, she said that she had been searching for answers. Avi wonders, while stamping an appeal and shelving another, if she’s still looking for them. 

That night, Avi heads to the top floor of the Golden Palace and finds the secret staircase behind the hollow stone that Kamir showed him as children. That night, by accident, he finds Avna on the palace roof. He finds her for the first time in months. He finds her, and yet he can’t find her presence. 

And when Avna doesn’t immediately shoo him away upon realizing he’s joined her, he’s again struck with the same sense of clarity as he was this morning. 

“Where were you today?” He asks quietly, approaching her by the edge of the roof. 

She inhales. “There’s a portrait of Raffa in one of the service stairs in the west wing. Behind it is a secret passageway that leads to a hidden balcony overlooking the palace temple.” She exhales. “I was there.” 

“All day?”

She nods. “I saw you there. Praying in the temple this morning.” She waits a beat, mouth opening and closing as if the words get lost each time she goes to speak. “Were you thinking of him?” 

Avi licks his lips. “In a sense.” 

“How do you do it?” She asks lowly, picking at her nails and drawing her brows close together. “How do you think about Kamir or about your mother without feeling the world falling against your chest and the weight of the heavens on your back?”

Avi looks up at the night sky above them, the simple act now difficult with the way Avna’s grief hangs over his head. Avi’s grief is lingering, something that grows for a day and spreads from his stomach before always retreating back down to a small pit the next morning. But Avna’s grief is persisting, like a mass hanging from the walls of her heart, waiting for the day she’ll wake up and admit to her own pain. 

“I grieved for my mother, Avna.” He says. “While you fought in the war, I grieved. And when you disappeared from King’s City, I grieved for Kamir as well. I lit fires for them both. You should do the same.” 

Avna sighs, a helpless thing that sounds more like a cry. “Oh, Avi, let’s talk of something else.” 

And so he does. 

“After the Holy Wars, when you were away from the palace, you said you were looking for answers, but what were you looking for exactly?”

She blinks once, speaking slowly. “When the Gifts and Sins took Kamir and I from our village, they took us to this place called Midheaven. I was looking for that but...” she trails off unsurely. 

“But you don’t remember where it is.” Avi finishes. And when Avna shakes her head, disappointed, he adds, “Kamir didn’t either.” 

They stand on the roof in silence. 

“Avi,” she says suddenly, breaking the quiet, “will you tell me the title of that book?”

“I-”

“Please Avi.” She begs, biting her lip. “I forgive you. Truly, I do. Just tell me the name of the book.” 

Avi lets out a heavy breath. “It was called ‘The History of Angels In Our World’”

Her shoulders drop. “Will you tell me what it means?”

“I will, Avna I will. One day.” He swallows. “But not today.” 

And with that he leaves from the roof and slips back down the secret staircase. 

— 

Back in his rooms, Avi finds there’s something about his conversation with Avna that takes him to Kanah’s sculptures and makes him kneel by the piece dedicated to his mother. Or perhaps it’s something about Avna’s grief, which has slipped from her fingers and tangled itself through Avi’s hair, that makes him sob next to the marble child holding her face in one hand and the face of a queen in the other. Whatever the reason, it’s then, on the night Avna finally forgives him, that Avi feels the heavens falling against his back and the weight of the world crashing against his shoulders. 

“King Avi,” starts Tarek, one of his younger council members, “aren’t you nearing the age of which King Levi fell sick?” 

Avi sighs at the question. His age, disinterest in marriage, and lack of an heir had quickly become another worry of his council rather than a personal matter meant for himself. Avi’s grandfather, King Levi, had died prematurely from a family illness passed to him through his non-Royal bloodline. If Queen Raffa hadn’t been murdered, that sickness would’ve killed Avi’s mother as well. And now his council worries that it won’t be too long before Avi is taken by the same incurable illness. But really their only worry is that Avi will die without a family member to take the throne after. 

“There are things in place for occurrences like this.” Avi mutters to Lord Tarek and Lady Mirana, the two members of his council with whom he was meant to be discussing renovations for the Bronze Bridge with. “If a King or Queen dies with no heir and no family to take the throne, the bloodline will change.” Specifically, the bloodline would change to one of his council members by vote or by Avi’s wish. 

“It isn’t that simple, my King,” Mirana sighs, gazing out the window of Avi’s office. “The people are loyal to your blood; they trust you. A change in the bloodline will not be taken lightly, especially so close to the Holy Wars.” She turns away from the window and approaches Avi’s desk. “Your mother made a sacrifice for Leraak. It is now your turn to do the same.” 

Avi frowns. “How do you mean sacrifice?” 

Tarek groans to which Mirana laughs, pushing back her greying hair and says, “This was Queen Raffa’s doing, Tarek, not mine.” 

“Mirana,” Avi repeats with a stern voice, “what do you mean sacrifice?” 

The room goes silent for a moment. 

“Raffa never wanted to get pregnant when she did.” Mirana says simply. “She had you out of duty to her people, and she had you so young because she knew her life would be small like her father’s.” And then with a laugh she adds, “In fact—well you must’ve known but—your mother didn’t even enjoy the company of men.” 

“Oh,” Avi mumbles. It takes a moment for Avi to digest that this is the truth which was hidden from him as a child, veiled by tight lips and empty affirmations, and then another for Avi to realize that he was born for duty, not for love. But once the initial shock of Mirana’s statement wears off, Avi finds that he’s unsurprised by this truth. It made sense that Raffa who never married and who was in love with Kanah didn’t have Avi because she yearned for a child. It made sense that Raffa, who always put her people first, bore a pregnancy for them too. And perhaps, deep down, Avi knew this all along.                                                                                                                   

“She still loved you, my King.” Tarek offers sympathetically while side-eyeing Mirana. “She might’ve had you out of duty, but she loved you all the same.” And those words, however fake they may be, provide some comfort to Avi. 

“What we mean, King Avi,” Mirana begins again placing her palm on Avi’s desk, “is that a marriage isn’t necessary to provide an heir. A willing friend would do. Perhaps even the Gift of Fortitude.”

“Lady Mirana,” Avi scowls, a warning. 

Mirana ignores it. “Think realistically, my King. It’s no secret that the Gift starts most mornings with tea as of late. A certain tea known to prevent pregnancy.” Tarek swallows nervously at that. “Perhaps you could—“ 

“If you are suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, Lady Mirana, then I should advise you to stop immediately.” Avi snaps at her furiously. “Who Lady Gift takes to her bed and lies with at night has nothing to do with me and is absolutely none of your business. Quite frankly, this conversation is all too inappropriate for me to entertain any further. So to make myself clear, the answer is no. I will not have a child out of duty, and I will most certainly not have another child ruling Leraak if I should fall sick and die young. I will not do what Levi did to Raffa, and what Raffa did to me. If I have a child it will be of my own will. Not of my duty. Any questions?” Avi stares them down, waiting for a challenge. They sit silently. “In that case, you are both excused.” Tarek and Mirana hesitate in their seats. “Do I need to repeat myself, Lady Mirana and Lord Tarek?” Mirana’s mouth drops open as if ready to protest. But before she can, Avi stamps the renovation forms, throws the folder in Tarek’s lap, and stands from his chair nearly screaming, “Out!” 

They scramble out of his office. 

— 

“It’s a good thing you did today.” Avna teases, sitting down at Avi’s table. “Throwing Mirana and Tarek out of your office.” 

“Of course you think so.” Avi rolls his eyes. “Your distaste in the council is rather well-known among the court.” 

“It is?” She gasps. 

“Don’t be funny.” 

“I’m not quiet by nature, Avi. If I were there, I might’ve physically thrown them out, but, ah, a scolding from their King will have to do.” 

“I cannot say that I share your pleasure in this.” Avi frowns, attempting to rub away the creeping headache. 

“Oh Avi,” Avna sighs, sounding suddenly sorry, “I was only joking. You’ll tell me why you did it though, won’t you?” 

Avi leans forward. “Lady Mirana suggested I produce an heir, have a child—” 

“That isn’t new.”

“—with you, Avna.” 

She flinches at the sentence, as if the words have reached across the table and struck her. “Oh.” She mumbles, eyes trained on the vase behind Avi and mouth fighting a grimace. “I thought the court had moved on from that notion.”

“The court,” Avi scoffs exasperated. “The court thinks we’re long lost siblings now.” 

“We don’t look similar.” 

“Our names do.” 

“But then why did Mirana suggest such a thing?” 

Avi hesitates. “She said you’ve been drinking tea in the mornings, Avna. The tea to prevent pregnancies.” 

“I am not even allowed that simple pleasure now.” Avna says, eyes narrowing.

“She didn’t mean it like that—“

“Then how, Avi? Be blunt. I have no energy for riddles.”

“She thought you were drinking Birn and Kietha’s tea because of me.” 

Avna stills at that, then stands from her seat abruptly. She strides away from the table, mutters something incoherently, then returns, standing before Avi, furious. “I always knew there was a reason I despised her.” She hisses finally, turning away from Avi again, throwing her hands in the air, then pivoting on her heel to face him.“Do you know Mirana has a son? Only a little younger than me. I’d take him to bed before you, Avi, no offense.”

“None taken.”

“Oh, she’s a dense woman. Absolutely maddening. I could just—” Avna stops herself, slumping back into her chair at the table. “Did you know?” She pauses, biting her lip, then adds, “about the tea?” 

“I had an idea. I saw you take one of the Captains that you fought with back to your rooms, the one who managed to hit you--.“ 

“Captain Yelena.” 

“Yes her. Then on another occasion, I  saw you with Lord Tarek.” Then with a raised brow and teasing lilt, he adds: “But perhaps I’m mistaken for last I checked you despised my council.” 

Avna shrugs. “He has a nice face.” 

“But there’s something else too.” Avi says soberly. 

“Another reason you threw them out?” 

He nods. “Mirana suggested something about the manner with which my mother had me.” 

Avna hums in a somewhat knowing manner. “Mirana’s a sick woman, Avi.” 

“But she’s an honest woman too, isn’t she?” 

Avna looks Avi in the eye. “Kanah, by accident, explained it all to me a long time ago. She said that Raffa’s decision to bear a child was one of politics and one driven by thoughts of Leraak. But Kanah also explained that for so long Raffa felt alone in this world, and when she had you, Avi, you became her home. Kanah told me that not even Raffa knew how deeply she loved her own son and that people were wrong to say your mother loved nothing more than she loved Leraak because more than anything, Raffa loved you.” Avna reaches across the table and places her hand over Avi’s. “If your mother didn’t want you, she would’ve left you to be raised by a servant. But she didn’t. She raised you herself, Avi, and she did it out of love. So yes, Mirana’s an honest woman, but she’s sick if she thinks, even for a second, that your mother didn’t love you and fiercely so.” 

Avna glances down at where her hand covers Avi’s and then pulls it back into her lap. Quietly, she says, “I’m sorry, Avi. I didn’t mean to make you cry.” 

Avi hadn’t realized he was. “Sometimes I feel as if I never even knew her. As if she lived this whole other life that I never knew about.” 

She’s quiet for a bit. Then, frowning, Avna says, “The greatest mystery of this world is one’s own mother.” 

“Is yours alive?” 

She shakes her head. “Died in the Holy Wars.”

Avi nearly smiles, a terribly morbid joke hanging off his tongue. “Didn’t they all?” 

Luckily, Avna laughs, and it gives Avi a moment to think over what she’s just told him, about how Avi was his mother’s home. And this is it, Avi thinks watching Avna laugh at a joke only the two of them would find amusing, this is his home. Because the world could succumb to another war or the sky could be falling outside his window, and Avi would still feel with a striking clarity that Avna is his home. 

His voice comes like a sigh. “Why is it that time and time again I’m left feeling like it’s you and me against the world?”

She rests her cheek against the wood table. “That’s because it is.” 

So Avi turns towards the window and watches the sky fall outside of it. 

Avna’s voice comes suddenly from behind him. A mangled sort of thing that gets caught in his ear and hangs by his neck. The sound somewhere between a sob and a sigh. 

“Oh, Avi, what will I do when you die?”

It’s then, with Avna’s question wading in the space between them, that Avi licks the salt from his lips and feels his heart sinking within. 

Avi throwing Tarek and Mirana out of his office only keeps his council out of his personal life for a week, and by the time Avi’s meltdown has faded to the background of the court’s gossip, preparations for a festival have already begun. 

The guests start pouring into the Golden Palace a week before the festival itself, and they come from all corners of Leraak. A Lady from the far north, a Lord from the east, and another guest which Avi heard lives almost entirely on her boat like a pirate of sorts. It’s a guest list that had taken his council months to finalize, and another few months before that spent discussing the smallest details and the millions of other preparations. The whole spectacle, really, was more for Avi’s council than for Avi himself, and pretending that he hadn’t already made up his mind on the matter of marriage and children was a small sacrifice that Avi could manage for the collective sanity of his council. So even though Avi’s bored of the whole charade long before the main night of the festival, he wears his finest clothes, bears the weight of his crown, and paints a smile every night for the palace’s grand dinner.

It does bring Avi some comfort though, how full the palace feels with all the festival guests. The courtyard buzzes with life and the temple soaks in whispers. Avi hadn’t even realized how empty he kept the Golden Palace with no family and only one Gift to fill it.

— 

The main night of the festival starts long before night actually falls. And this night is considered the grandest of them all for even the people of King’s City are invited to dance around the Golden Palace, specifically in the throne room that’s been transformed into a hall by the five dangling chandeliers, long tables, and lush green curtains lining the walls. 

By the time the moon becomes visible behind one of the green curtains, Avi has only danced with half the guests that his council brought in for him, and every time he bids goodbye to one dancing partner, Tarek and Mirana appear out of nowhere, pulling him in opposite directions each to a suitor they believe to be a better match. 

But this time as he nods away from one Lord, he finds Avna before Tarek and Mirana can find him. 

“Lady Gift,” Avi greets, holding out one of his Jarat sticks, “would you like to dance?” 

Avna nods then joins her own Jarat stick with Avi’s and lets him lead her to the floor. 

“I don’t understand your council’s purpose in this festival.” Avna admits as they begin dancing. “A marriage isn’t needed for an heir.” 

“It is for a legitimate heir.” 

“But Raffa never married.” 

“And in the eyes of Raffa’s court I was illegitimate.” Avi tells her. “Barely royal, if you were to ask her council. Plus, I have no interest in raising a child, Avna. But more than that, if I die from Levi’s illness, I don’t want to leave a child to rule Leraak. I rather give the crown to Mirana.”

Avna frowns at that. “Holy are the Gods, Avi. I pray you live a long life.”

They dance in a sad quiet that doesn’t at all match the liveliness of the music being played and the cheery taps of their Jarat sticks. Avna flashes a look at someone across that hall, then turns her face to the floor, grinning to her shoes. 

“Who was that?”

“Who was who?”

“Whoever you just looked at.”

“Oh them.” Avna smiles, hitting her Jarat against Avi’s and peeking over his shoulder. “Just someone.” 

“Someone you’ve taken to bed perhaps?” Avi taunts with a playful smile and raised brow. 

They spin around each other in accordance to the dance. “Perhaps.” 

She looks behind Avi’s shoulder again, and this time, Avi follows, turning his own body to find Lady Eloise from the west sneaking glances back at Avna. 

He spins back to face her. “Lady Eloise? But she was brought here by my council? Mirana’s favorite pick for queen out of the whole lot.”

Avna throws her head back in laughter at that. “Yes, well, she’d be more interested in being queen if you were a queen yourself.” Then, with another look towards Lady Eloise, Avna also mentions that the western Lady only accepted the festival invitation in hopes of getting Avi and his council to pass her appeal that she sent long ago but has since been repeatedly pushed to the side. 

“Did she say that?” 

“Yes. Last night.”  

“Who else have you taken to bed?” Avi asks suddenly. 

Avna considers the question for a moment. Then, with a shrug she takes one of her Jarat sticks and begins pointing at people around the hall. “Him. Eloise. That one. Her. Tarek, regrettably. Oh and…” she trails off, “wait, why?”

“No one else?”

“Avi!” She demands, hitting him over the head with her Jarat. “Why do you want to know?”

“Have you ever considered spycraft, Avna?”

She hits him again, snorting. “Stop talking nonsense and dance.” 

The song ends soon after that, and a scowl takes shape on Avi’s face when he notices Mirana making her way towards him, probably upset that Avi wasted an entire song dancing with someone who isn’t one of her approved matches. Avna notices as well, so she takes hold of Avi’s hand and whispers a small ‘come with me’ pulling him out of the hall. She drags him behind one of the green curtains in the corridor, pushes on the wall, and then leads him down the secret staircase that the wall opens up to reveal.

The passageway takes them underground, eventually ending at an alcove behind the waterfall in the gardens. Avi and Avna slip out from behind the water and onto the garden path. 

“You know, Tarek was heartbroken for quite some time.” Avi mentions as they pass the rose bushes. “After you and him ended things. I believe that he fell for you, irreparably.”

“Unfortunate.” 

“Yes, it is.” Avi mutters, balancing his unspoken words on his tongue. “He was especially sad to see you with Captain Yelena so soon after.”

Avna stops walking. “What are you suggesting?”

“Do you love them, Avna? The people you take to bed, do you lay with them out of love?”

“Is love necessary?”

“No, but perhaps a bit more decency is.” Avi says. “For most, to lay with someone is not an emotionless act. Have respect for those emotions before you jump into bed with someone else.”

“I am not a monster, Avi.” She defends. “I have emotions too.”

“Enlighten me then.”

Avna exhales. “The poets always write about love. This overwhelming love that can tear down walls and make the heavens fall. I want that kind of love. I want to feel the kind of love poets write about.” After a long moment, she mutters, “don’t you?” 

And suddenly Avi’s reminded of the mornings Avna spent reading poems and holding the memorized verses to her chest. He feels a drowning amount of pity for Avna, who yearns for a love Avi isn’t sure is even real. 

“Oh Avna.” He sighs helplessly. “A heart is a heavy thing. Don’t take it in your palms and lay it in your bed only to throw it out the next day.”

Avna doesn’t respond, so Avi continues down the garden path and returns to the festival.

“You were right.” Avna mumbles one day in the palace temple long after the night of the festival. “Lady Eloise proposed I return to her western town with her. She even mentioned marriage.” 

Avi was right, and yet he feels no elation at the news. Instead the admission saddens him. To no avail, he returns with: “I didn’t want to be.”

She sighs. “But you were.”

And there’s something about the way Avna admits Avi to be right, that reminds him of the time he was terribly wrong. There’s something in the air of the palace temple that makes him remember the truth he’s withheld and the truth he burned down the libraries for. With a deep breath, he says to her: “It’s time I told you the truth.”

Tiredly, she mutters, “the truth of what?”

The truth of the war, Avi thinks. The truth of this world. The truth of his mother’s death and the truth of Kamir’s. But instead of all that, he looks at Avna far more steadily than he feels, points to the fourth mural on the wall, and says, “The mural is wrong. Maratelli never had six arms, and he didn’t fall out of the heavens alone.” 

So with Avna’s wide eyes boring into Avi, he tells her about the history of angels in their world. 

—

The truth—the same truth Sloth told Avi in the last year of the Holy Wars—doesn’t settle easily for Avna. No; instead, it sends her in a silent rage that headbuts the sky and bursts into flames. A quiet anger that blankets the land, filling in all of the empty space. 

She doesn’t speak to Avi for days. 

But when she does go looking for him in the palace, a week after he told her everything, she cries worries into his side and sobs a broken and bewildered, “what am I to do?” into his arms.

Avi waits. He waits for the weeps to wear into thready whimpers, lets out a shaky breath that pains some part of his chest, and then croaks, 

“Tell no one.” 

It’s long after their last conversation over matters of the heart that Avna finds Avi in the hall as he’s exiting from the palace infirmary and suddenly asks: “How are you so content with being alone?” He jumps at the sound of her voice, clutching the fabric of his shirt. “You’ve never craved the company of a lover. You had a whole festival thrown for you, and not once did you wish to actually find love.” 

Finally, releasing his hand from his chest, he answers. “I am not alone.” His eyes flit up to observe Avna’s face. “I have you.” 

Her entire face twists at the remark. “And I’m enough?”

“Am I not enough for you?” 

She shoots him a look. “Don’t do that.” And to Avi, the sentence sounds discreetly like guilt.

He frowns. “You’re enough for me.” Then, after a moment spent watching Avna pull at her sleeve, he adds. “Even if I’m not enough for you.”

She stops walking and turns her entire body towards Avi, an action that strikes him as a plea; she then opens her mouth briefly, only to shut it again after. Wordlessly, she continues walking. 

Avi knows, of course, why he isn’t enough for Avna. Perhaps he knows more clearly than she knows herself. In truth, he isn’t even convinced that love is what Avna longs so deeply for. Avi believes, most ardently, that it’s peace. The kind of peace that Avi felt settle between his organs that day in the temple all those years ago, and again in his sitting room when it dawned on him that Avna is his home. And with her peace will come the joy of being seen and the liberty of finding shelter in someone else. With her peace will come love. 

But then again, perhaps Avi is wrong. Maybe it isn’t that to find love you must find peace first, but rather that peace is love. And that when love does come tumbling into Avna’s life like an avalanche of burning snow, there—beneath all the ice—she’ll find peace as well. 

“Come.” Avi whispers, placing a hand on the small of Avna’s back and guiding her towards the palace temple. Without explaining, he says, “let’s pray for an avalanche of love.” 

“You were leaving from the infirmary.” Avna notices finally, despite having passed the place in question minutes ago. “What business did you have there?” 

“Nothing important.” Avi reassures, holding back a cough that’s emerged in his throat. “But,” he sighs, “let’s pray for that matter as well.”

—

When Avi does receive news back from the palace infirmary, a week after his actual visit, he does not feel shock. He does not feel pain. Instead he lets out a cough of relief and spends the rest of his day thinking about Avna, her undiscovered peace, and the avalanche of love waiting for her. 

The news from the infirmary hangs like a cloud over Avi’s head, infiltrating his mind with a reminiscent fog. One that makes him reflect on the years which have passed him by so quickly and yet so slow. Avi wanders the palace grounds and discovers littered memories by the stable path he used to take with his mother and in the throne room where he was made King at 12 years old. He finds a piece of his past in the hall that he first met Kamir and another piece tucked under the infirmary bed where Avi watched him die as well. Bitterly, Avi turns into a hall and finds the spot where he heard news of his mother’s death and the room just above in which he announced the start of the Holy Wars. For a brief moment, it feels as if he could wrap up the Golden Palace and find his entire life between the cracks in the stone. For a brief moment, wandering the halls of the only place he’s known as home, Avi feels as if he could fit his whole life between his palms. 

Looking back, Avi knows that his life has been a bitter mix of blessings and hardships. But despite knowing that, despite remembering with a startling clarity the pain of all the death in his life and the struggle of those years in and after the war, Avi can’t help but look back and wish for more. 

If Avna were here, she would tell him to wish not only for more years but also for those years to be filled with a great love. But sorting through the life in his palms, Avi discovers that the most prominent parts are not the feelings that have come and gone; they’re the people he’s known. His mother and Kamir, who appeared as fiercely and as briefly as lightning in a thunderstorm. Kanah, whose life had been intertwined with Avi’s in a way he just barely understood. And, of course, Avna with whom he spent the better part of his years, growing and grieving, diving into life headfirst and praying to emerge. And it’s because these people showed Avi love that they stick and poke and protrude from between his palms. Avi’s life may not be a love story, but it is a story bursting with love. 

So with his entire life slipping between his fingers like sand, Avi walks the halls of his home and admires how delicately his story has been woven with the people he loves. 

Dread. That’s what Avi feels when he finally finds Avna in the palace temple after having spent the whole morning looking for her. An inexplicable dread that collects beneath his feet and chains itself to his ankles, begging him to turn around and run back to his rooms. A dread that causes him to wonder whether ignorance is truly bliss. Perhaps the crime is not lying to Avna, but rather robbing her of her ignorance. But despite those thoughts, despite the cough that comes bursting from Avi’s lips and the way Avna inhales at the sound of it, he takes a seat next to his dearest friend and asks, “May I speak with you?” 

She exhales. “No.” 

“Avna.” 

She looks up at him then, frowning, and Avi finds a sort of acceptance in her eyes. Then, bearing a small, off-putting smile, she nods. “Let’s go to the roof.” 

—

From the roof, Avi can see the entirety of the Golden Palace’s gardens, so he watches the gardeners rake the fallen, yellow leaves from the yard. Avi hadn’t noticed the weather turn cool nor had he noticed any other signs of the changing seasons. It appears that recently, Avi hasn’t been noticing much of anything. But here, on the palace roof, Avi does notice the stiffness with which Avna stands, the distant ringing of bells from King’s City, and his own oblivion to the passing of time. All at once, Avi feels, like a small weight against his ribs, the fear of getting left behind in time. 

“Is it wrong to wonder how people will remember me?” Avi asks suddenly, and for a while, Avna doesn’t answer. She lets the words sit in the air and fall into pace with the wind until they’re among the leaves and being raked up by the palace gardeners. Finally, with the same small and off-putting smile as before, she responds. 

“We’ve never talked much about all that you’ve done for Leraak. How you rebuilt this kingdom, from the ground up. How you watched these lands burn and then made something beautiful out of the pile of ashes and list of grievances that were left. You bore the anger and distrust of your people and then showed them how to take their pain and turn it into love. You gave these people a kingdom to be proud of, and you, Avi,” she stops for a second, meets his eyes and smiles, “you did good.” 

And there’s something about the admission that fills the air between them until it finds Avi, tickling the corner of his eye and touching the back of his throat. He thinks that if an artist were here to witness this moment, they would color him gold because how else could they describe this immense comfort and overwhelming validation? What is it if not a blinding shade of gold?  

“It seems that Kanah’s sculpture had it right all along,” Avna continues, “people will look back and remember you as the king who remade the world.”

“Do you believe that?” Avi asks with a foreign smile that mirrors the one stuck on Avna. 

“I do.”

“Then, how will you remember me?”

Her smile disappears. 

“When I die, Avna, what will you do?”

After a long silence, she quietly says, “I have wondered that myself.”

“And?”

“And you’re the last person alive who knows me by my real name. When you die, I suppose a part of me will die as well.”

Avi doesn’t respond, doesn’t even look at her. And in the silence, he decides it’s time to tell her what he suspects she already knows. 

“Avna.” He finally mumbles, after he’s mustered up enough courage to do so. She reaches across the railing and covers his hand with hers.

“I’m dying.”

With a small squeeze, she responds: “I know.”

And so they stand on the roof and gaze upon the world that they remade together.