"Rishi never intended to tangle himself up in Adeía. If he did, I -- that's Izar, not me, but... Okay, carrying on." Fiesi drags his knuckles over his forehead, already looking weary, though he does as he says. "If he did, I would never have let him follow Mayci to Tarozar, but Rishi was a quiet, lonely boy, and she was the first human to truly pay him attention. In truth, I was thrilled to see him finally happy, regardless of the barriers it created between him and his family. The problem came with the third member of their little group." Fiesi's eyes flick my way, cautious. "Harlow."

I swallow. A bitter kind of fury awakes even at the sound of Harlow's name, difficult to keep submerged. I cling to Fiesi's careful, recited words.

"It was Harlow who guided Mayci into the darkness, and she went willingly, taken by the alluring promises he made of power and freedom. Rishi refused to leave her side even as she fell, but he resisted Harlow's influence. But the three of them were hunted. It was none other than your father, little--" Biting off the word sharply, Fiesi shakes himself. His lifted hand retreats into his nest of hair. "Do you all call me little Kynig? I do find that rather patronising, you know. I'm an adult now."

"Fiesi," I whisper, tentatively grasping for his attention. "The story."

"Sorry." He blows out a breath. "Gelani Kynig caught up to them first. They fought him, but he succeeded in killing Mayci. Oh." His eyes dart to meet mine, wide and startled. "But, uh, both Rishi and Harlow were desperate to save her. Though I begged him not to, Rishi could not help himself. He dove into the forbidden arts of his flame and revived her." Fiesi's throat bobs as he swallows. "That's messed up."

I can't help but look down at my gloved hands. "I... didn't know flame had that power." I've only ever summoned death, not conquered it.

"I did." Fiesi closes his fists over a few small, fluttering flames. "But I'd never dream of..." He turns his head aside. "Izar wants me to keep going. We're not done yet.

"For a time afterward, all seemed well. Noli came along, and the three resolved to raise him together, apart from the rest of the world. But I was no longer simply content to watch. Many times, I tried to reason with Rishi, but he had taken his first step down a path of darkness, and a large step at that. It leaked into his actions. I should have stopped him, but I was too afraid of being touched with darkness myself. I was forced to distance myself instead. Still, I watched from time to time, and so I knew when the bite of consequences first found Rishi. The kind Noli will know well.

"It began small, at first, small enough to ignore, but as it grew both he and Mayci realised the true danger of what they had done. It affected her, too, you see, although Jeía suffer in a different way to Tía. The two of them took Noli and broke from Harlow, fleeing back to Aorila, where they were, rather mercifully as their families saw it, allowed to take residence on the very fringes of their old home. This very cabin is where they resided."

Biting my lip, I withhold from interrupting again, conscious of Izar's clouded gaze tracking me, although I still steal another glance of the cabin as the thought spools out unsaid. In a different lifetime, this was my home. With ashen dust and the choking scent of decay cutting into my lungs with every breath, it seems rather fitting.

"And yet still the effects of corruption worsened for Rishi. He withdrew, even from Mayci and Noli, afraid that his touch would hurt those he loved. When Ligari could not offer him aid, he conjured up a new solution. Much to my shame, I offered him help. I could not stand to see him suffer so much, but even then, I should never have let him do what he did. He--" Fiesi's voice stumbles into silence. When it climbs back out again, it has gained a cracked edge. "He made a deal with Shaula."

"Shaula," I echo, almost on instinct. The name that has haunted me ever since I spoke it for the first time, still settling too neatly on my tongue. The need for answers overwhelms all else. I pierce Fiesi with a stare, willing him to continue.

He complies, though the colour has ebbed from his cheeks. "Shaula was a highly powerful Synté, but also a highly dangerous one, a being who craved nothing but destruction and suffering. The rest of us came together to cage her up many centuries ago, forbidden from bonding with a Tía, her power trapped within her own body. And so, in return for ridding Rishi of his darkness, she asked for a young, unbonded Tía child. Rishi offered her Noli."

"Shaula is my Synté?" The shock that reels through me is less potent than I might have expected. I recall the fire-born snake who brought me company, the urging voice in the back of my mind. The foreign glee that always used to embrace me in those moments when death flowed through my veins. In this moment, it all slots together perfectly, a puzzle sealed in by blackened cracks. I don't quite know what to feel about such a revelation other than this settling relief that comes with my empty questions finally fulfilled.

"Where is she, then?" I ask, whirling on Izar. "Could I--" I shove back the notion before I dare speak it, but still it echoes in my bones, a desperate whisper I'm simply too weak to prevent myself from hearing.

Could I make a deal with her?

That could be Izar's intention to this whole story, after all. I curl a hand over one of my binds, squeezing, a trickle like ice-cold water flooding my veins. It's such a stupid, pathetic wish, and yet it keeps battling its way in, digging persistent teeth into my meagre hope. Perhaps Izar is right. I do look like my father, in more ways than one.

Lost in roundabout turmoil, I stare down at my feet, remembering to listen to Fiesi's response just in time. "She's dead," he says, summarising rather than repeating Izar's words. He must be tired of playing go-between. Or maybe he doesn't want to speak of Shaula for any longer than necessary. "Izar says she took control of you the night you burned down Aorila, and he sacrificed himself to kill her. That's why he's stuck like this, her corruption eating its way through him. It'll swallow him whole eventually."

"Dead?" That soothing voice pokes at my memories again. I frown. "You're sure?"

"He says he's sure." Fiesi shrugs, his arms wrapped around himself. "I... I think you'd know if your Synté was still alive. You'd sense her. Rigel has put quite a hefty barrier between us, but I can still sense him in my flame, always." He's mumbling, a resigned kind of tiredness slumping his figure, all element of his usual showmanship sapped away. I move towards him.

"Go back outside," I say. "I'm... sorry you had to stay here so long, but thank you for doing this for me." I try for a reassuring smile despite all that tangles and roars in senseless shreds amongst my thoughts. It was selfish to drag Fiesi into this in the first place, and it's selfish still that some empty, starving part of me is irked that my hope has been so quickly severed, that even knowing the destructive evil Shaula lived to cause, I'm disappointed that she can't be my solution. I'm angry, even, that Izar would take her from me.

Taking a long, calming breath, I attempt to cast it all away, clutching for some sense of rationality. It's ironic, really. I hunger for the very thing Rishi was so desperate to escape.

"I'm sorry," I whisper again, though it crumbles on my lips, wispy and formless without a target.

It must be too quiet for Fiesi to hear, for my final, soft syllable trips over his first. "In a minute. Izar has one last thing to... to tell you." His finger twirls around his cloak's clasp, over and over, sliding in to tease it apart before he snaps it back into place. His thumb keeps rubbing back and forth over its silver surface as he shifts fully to face me. Guilt pines at my heart. He looks nervous, the glance he throws me short and wary, his bouncing heels betraying his desire to bolt. An extra fist squeezes in my chest at the realisation that some of that fear is thrown my way. My frustration must be showing. I shrink in on myself, another apology sour on my tongue.

"Your binds," he begins, snapping my head up, "were created by incredibly strong Adeía magic. They cannot be taken off by anyone but Harlow." The clasp falls apart again, two pieces sitting limply against his collar. "There's no way to break them."

A stone drops into my stomach. It rolls around, hollow inside, crushing the breath from my voice. "No way at all?"

Fiesi shakes his head, his flickering eyes darting to my face. "None. Izar knows for certain." His lips pull at a small smile. "But maybe it isn't all bad?"

The decaying air is closing in around me, wrapping my chest in dizzying loops until my vision bleaches all detail from the room. I'm sure my ears are ringing. This is panic, but also something else, something deeper that wrenches all control from my grasp. Agony thuds behind my ribs. With every pulse, an itch skitters over my enclosed palms.

"The binds remove temptation to use the flame, and you cannot harm anyone when they're--"

I hardly notice him cut himself off until a ball of his grey shirt is compressed in my grip, my fist pressing against his chest, his shoulders bumping the cobwebbed wall. Dust mingles with his tangled hair. His struggles are weak, much diluted by the startled look that paints his face.

His inhale rattles. "His words," he gasps out. "Not mine."

"But you believe them." My blood is hot in my veins, a sharp, painful heat that renders my mind blurred and coated in fiery pretence. I push harder. How I wish that there was flame gathered behind the strike, granting me strength. My arm is shaking already.

He remains pinned there regardless. "I mean..." Feebly, he spreads his hands out either side of him in a vague gesture. "You... are safe now, aren't you? And the pain isn't as bad as--"

"Don't pretend to know about something you don't understand," I snap. A growl builds in the back of my throat. "You know nothing of my pain." Dimly, I'm aware of a tiny voice prodding amongst my burning thoughts, an anxious tickle riding my spine, but it's far too easy to drown out. That voice is weak and sad, hopeless. At least this part of me isn't afraid. When the space beneath my skin sears, I can almost pretend that I do have power again, that the pain flooding through me is inconsequential.

But this has to stop.

"I should've known you wouldn't keep your word," I hiss, slicing through that sliver of sense. "You always lie, don't you?"

"Nathan," Fiesi pleads. His hand curls around my wrist, gentle and twitching. "Really, I tried, but there's no solution." His expression hardens. "You have to accept that."

He's right. He's right, but I don't want to believe it. Not yet. Not when I've clung so hard to hope, not when it's all that keeps me afloat. I suck in a harsh breath between my teeth, my fingers closing around the hilt of the dagger at my side. "You know what I think?" The blade scrapes from beneath my belt, heavy and yet weightless as I reach up to shove it under his chin. "You're a coward." The familiar, glowing spark of terror I spy in his eyes matches my statement all too perfectly. If I had fangs, I might bare them in a grin, but reality grants me no genuine pleasure at the sight. Only that churning, reckless fire. "You and Izar and everyone. You're afraid of me. And--"

The blade tips in my trembling grip, and my scratched reflection flashes back at me: my death-touched skin, my narrowed, black eyes, slits of a burning void that do little to hide the emptiness cowering beneath them. Whether it's the reminder they bring or something else entirely that causes it, I can't be sure, but the fire suddenly dips, fizzling out into smokeless mist like the falsehood it truly is. A bitter, panting sigh sinks out with my exhale.

"And who can blame you?" Whatever hot sap that bound my voice together has disintegrated, leaving the shards disconnected and broken. I cast the blade's mirrored surface a final glance before dragging my gaze up to Fiesi's face. He's still watching me with that telltale wary concern. His lips part, then press together again. I've even managed to render him speechless.

My laugh is hardly recognisable, barely a breath. I release him, pulling my dagger into my chest, my other hand kept in its closed fist to keep it docile. He doesn't move, still stiff and taut with that wish to run. Perhaps I should be grateful that he doesn't.

"We should go," he says, quiet, a fragile command. Right again, but I barely hear him.

"Izar's right." I look down at my dagger, my resolve crumbling all at once. "I am just like my father, aren't I?"

"You're not." Fiesi moves closer. "Nathan, you're--"

"Look at me." The dagger slices a sharp line to my side as I shove my hands down. "I'm a mess. I... I can barely keep my thoughts straight, or keep myself from lashing out at anyone who..." I twist my head aside, fighting tears. "Fiesi, you made me another promise. Remember?"

His gasp is loud enough to fill the room. "Nathan--"

"Fulfil this one." Flipping my dagger around, I pinch its blade, thrusting its hilt at him. Our eyes meet. "It's time."

Throwing his hands up, he retreats back into the wall. His head shakes, frantic. "No."

I steel myself, piercing him with every bit of determination I have left. I can't tell whether this is the right choice anymore, the warring reasoning equally foggy, but I know I can't live like this. Not blinded by desperation, one misstep away from doing something catastrophically foolish. I'd have cut Fiesi's throat if he'd provoked me. I wouldn't have thought about it.

"Nathan," he says again. "You know I can't do that."

"Then find a way." The dagger falls from my grip, clattering to the cracked floorboards at our feet. Fiesi flinches. I take a step back, teeth clenched, a spark of internal fire returning to stab into my own heart. Even now, I'm hurting him.

I turn sharply on my heels, racing for the door before I can let myself do any more. He calls my name. I move faster. If he refuses to run, then I'll do it for him.

The grass is thick in this part of the forest, blades slashing my ankles and dragging at my boots, but I don't care. I'm caught in a thoughtless, stumbling sprint. I don't want him to catch up. I don't want to see the pity in his expression, the fear, the pain that I always cause.

I don't want him to tell me that things will get better. I'm not in the mood for lies.

Another shout echoes from behind, and I veer to the right, struggling for breath as I dash under the deeper shadows of the trees. How fragile I feel with my heart thrashing and muscles straining, but at least I feel alive. It's a brief yet freeing sensation, to run like this. I suppose I should welcome it, given its rarity.

All sense of freedom is severed with the spike of pain in my chest. It's fierce, blazing, a crippling ache that is horribly familiar. I clap a hand over my mouth to seal in my cry, forcing myself to keep moving, though my head spins. The barrier. I must be near it. I try to pull in a different direction, but instead my toe catches on a tree root, and I fall.

My shoulder slams into the ground first, a different, natural ache lancing up it. It springs tears to my eyes on impact. Conscious of the feet pounding in my wake, I crawl behind the shelter of a tree, and curl up in a tight ball, desperately holding in a sob.

The sound of Fiesi's boots rises and falls, fading away. I stay where I am.

The tears are flowing freely now. I choke on them, shaking amongst the undergrowth, hating every one and yet needing their indulgence regardless. My chest heaves, the space beneath split by a thousand phantom knives.

I wonder if Rishi ever felt this broken.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

My poor emotionally unstable boy ;-; Someone get him some therapy pls.

Anyway uhhh we finally know who Shaula is!! Hooray!!! Except she's dead so snad. Guess she won't be at all relevant for the rest of the book right :pensive:

- Pup