There are four casualties of our ship brawl. Two dead by Edita's hand, two by mine. Each of them is thrown overboard. I watch their bodies hit the water with my arms resting on the rail's middle bar, sword dangling listlessly from one hand, fingers drumming in time to the broken rhythm of my thoughts.

The last to fall is the man with the yellow teeth -- the ship's captain, as it turns out. A scarlet halo fans out around him, lingering at the water's disturbed surface as he sinks beneath it as if the sea itself is wounded. The waves gently break it apart, washing away the temporary scar. Glassy eyes vanish into dark depths they can no longer haunt me from.

The ship rocks, lurching along with my stomach. Elbows digging into the rail's smooth metal, I stare determinedly out at the endless horizon, focusing on taking in breath steadily through my nose. My lips remain sealed firmly shut.

"I get the sense you do not like the water very much."

Edita's voice brushes against my left ear, though I don't turn to face her. "Not really." I lean my forehead against the rail in an attempt to quell the ache building in my temples, eyes squeezed shut. A sigh battles free. "It all looked so promising from afar."

I'm not only speaking of the sea. Everything I encounter these days seems to follow that trend: a hope built in advance steadily crumbled into horror and dread. I'm sick of it. The feeling is a simmering, passive kind of irritation, painted over the steadier thrum of despair, itching at the hollow parts inside. It's somewhat different to the darker, guilty feelings that usually pool in my chest. Their aim is to drag me down. This sensation merely throws me off balance, buzzing away just out of view.

A cold hand lays on my shoulder. "I know this is likely not what you want to hear, but you must keep it hidden. If these people sense weakness, they may choose to attack again."

Reluctantly pulling myself straight, I nod. My gaze drifts to her. The afternoon daylight cast over her face leaks an almost lifelike hue into her cheeks, though the scraps of skin visible through the rip in her tunic remain a dull, shaded grey. Yet unbroken. Swallowing hard, I turn back to the sea. "You can heal." The question doesn't have enough energy to spring upwards.

"As much a surprise to me as it is to you." Her shrug breaches the edge of my vision as she leans in beside me. "Albeit a pleasant one. I am enjoying my new lease of life." I'm drawn to look again by the flash of her smile. "Thank you for your nice vengeance act, though."

It's strange how flat and empty my thoughts feel. There isn't enough buried within the grey mist of my mind to formulate a response. I simply hum lowly, chewing at my tongue.

"At least my arising from the dead gave them cause to back down." Her dark eyes roam over me, trailing to my downturned sword and back again. "Though I suppose you freaked them out a little, too. You have some, ah..."

She taps at her cheek. I reach to touch the mirrored spot on myself, wiping over my cold-nipped skin until my fingertips come away streaked with blood. I wipe it carelessly on my side, adding another stain to my borrowed silver shirt. It hardly matters. Both of our clothes are spattered with blood not our own, drying into stains of mud and grass. Perhaps it would be worth taking a dive off the ship's side just for a wash.

I recoil from the notion, dizziness washing over me. Edita lands a pat on my arm. "Hang in there," she murmurs. "We will be back on land soon."

The promise means very little, but I nod anyway. At least this one might come true.

- ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ -

Night closes its jaws over the world, and the weather worsens. Rain lashes at the ship in a torrent of arrows, an army marching within the gloom of the rolling clouds. It seems to infuriate the sea; the waves become snarling beasts, snapping at the falling droplets, their endless, writhing fury sending us tipping in all directions until I barely know which way is up. Chaos rules. I've spent many nights admiring the stars or marvelling in the darkened beauty the moonlight brings, yet that seems so distant now that I can barely believe it. I can only hunker into the back of the ship, soaked through and shivering and sick to my stomach, waiting for the nightmare to be over.

My sword doesn't leave my hand. It's intended to be intimidating at first -- some small way to follow Edita's advice -- yet as the night wears on I'm sure I lose any of my previous pretence. I feel weaker than ever. The ship's people must know it, but they don't seem to change their minds. They never come close enough for me to tell. Perhaps the weather preoccupies them too.

At some point, Edita slides a tattered cloak over my shoulders. She's there and gone, somewhat ghostly in the rain and the dark, an occasional touch to my cheek or squeeze of my hand. I wish she were always there to cling to, but I hug the cloak instead, knees to my chest and a prayer on my lips.

I pray to the stars for fire to alight on my fingertips, to soar through my bones and chase the pain and the cold away, but they too are buried within the depths of the storm. They do not reply.

I barely notice the heaving of the ship subside until her fingers lace with mine. "Noli," she whispers. "We made it."

Relief is a dry trickle, a drip in the back of my mind that only just taps its way into my awareness. My limbs won't move on their own, and so she pulls me to my feet, her arm wrapped firmly around my chest to guide me along. The deck sways and creaks with each step. Rain drums upon the shield of silence. Then my feet sink into sodden sand, and the trickle becomes a flood, nearly crumpling my last will to stand. Solid. The ground is solid. A fresh, dizzy surge courses through me as if even the sickness itself howls in shaky joy.

My gaze drags up to rest on Edita. She's half-turned to face the ship we've exited, that purposeful grin curving her lips again, a carefully crafted malice. "Thank you for behaving. I could say it was a pleasure, but in truth I hope our paths never cross again."

If there is any audible response, it's lost on me. We're walking again. Stumbling into her side, I cast a glance over my shoulder, watching the inky waters lap at the shore, waves etched out in the silver of starlight. So calm again, so beautiful, yet I know better now. Its violent swell lies not far beyond.

"Keep going," Edita whispers, giving me a gentle, urging push. "We will find some shelter until the storm passes."

Shelter sounds perfect, but my legs wobble. I claw at her supporting arm to stop myself from falling. There's a sigh, and then her arms are shifting, sliding down my back, hefting me into the air. The cloak's collar bunches up against my cheek. I twist to huddle into her chest, unable to even dream up the will to argue.

Her ribs are noticeably prominent, a hard press to my forehead. There's no warmth. Yet the quiet, steady beat of her heart finds my ears, and it's familiar, soothing. The itch in my veins dies away.

Scraps of sky and navy cloth blanket my vision. Part of me is convinced that the rise and fall of Edita's arms as she walks is the continued bob of the ocean, not helping me to shove aside my muzzy headache. A low, crackling rumble echoes in my ears.

It takes a moment for me to realise that the sound isn't merely my imagination. It swells louder, trampling over the hiss of the rain, and I flinch. "What was that?"

Edita pulls me tighter into her chest, increasing in speed. "Just a little thunder. Do not worry."

Thunder. The word carries a rolling weight as I mouthe it soundlessly. Thunder, the sound of the storm. The last I heard, it was Dalton who spoke of it, though there was an eager excitement that lanced through his pronunciation. Edita's low murmur matches the sound much better. Foreboding roars within its depths.

Sharp rock digs into my spine, and I realise I can't feel rain on my face anymore. A few blinks reveal the looming shadow of an overhang above, mud dripping through the cracks in a cliff face. A flash of white light sears it, there and gone within a fraction of a second. My heart races. In a dizzy rush, I roll over just as the thunder peels in its wake. My fingers shake as they dig into dirty stone. The sky is black and drenched in ice.

Edita's hand claps over my chest to still me. There's a small drop to the ground below; we're both perched upon a ledge, the rain pelting down barely an inch from my nose. I shrink back, pressed into the alcove.

I told Dalton I hoped I'd see a storm someday, yet I'm beginning to regret that wish. Wet dirt clings to my gloves, my face, my arms, anything it touches. My hair is plastered to my forehead. My breath is difficult to grasp, and the thunder snarls on, as if the beast that dwelled within the ocean is baying its denial to leave me alone.

The next burst of light has a shape. As I stare out into the ash-stained clouds, a fork of brilliant, blinding gold-white severs them in two. It's too rapid to be flames, too sharpened and malicious. Glowing white cracks fill the back of my mind, snatched from some faraway dregs of a dream, spilling painfully hot into my veins. Electric fear forms a taste on my tongue and a tightness in my throat.

Thunder shakes the very ledge itself, grating over my bones. Lips pressed together to hold in a whimper, I retreat into the folds of my new cloak, closing my eyes. The material is frayed and worn, but at least its too-large nature gives me plenty of room to burrow into it. The hood pulls tight over my ears.

Everything is still far too loud. My heart refuses to slow its shivering beat. As muffled light illuminates my eyelids, I wrench my thoughts sideways, delving out of the present.

I wonder if Dalton is watching this storm now. Right now, I can't begin to understand his fascination, yet I can still picture him seated upon some faraway rooftop. Perhaps Sarielle is with him. She would be brave enough to face the thunder. I wonder if they're thinking of me, and I pray they aren't; the very idea of them searching while I continue to run clenches my stomach. I wish I could apologise. Perhaps I'd feel a little warmer if I could be cocooned in Sarielle's arms instead, kept safe by the tender, mellow light she radiates. Perhaps she could banish the fear. The hopeless, hollow pit in my chest would close up if she were here.

Maybe this is what homesickness feels like.

"It will pass soon," comes Edita's voice, nearly crushed by the storm's howl.

"How soon?" I sound feeble, pathetic, but the desperate longing tips my tongue all the same.

"It is hard to say." Her hand rests on my side, thumb driving a crease deep enough into the cloak to rub gently over my skin. It's comforting, but not nearly enough. "Can you try to get some sleep?"

My bitter laugh trails out into a sigh. I pull the hood out of my face -- it's having little effect anyway -- and shift to look at her. She sits with her chin cupped in her hand, her eyes tracing the flashing sky with unreadable emotion. There might be the curl of a smile on her lips, but it's grim rather than joyous.

"I think sleep is impossible right now." My voice is shaky. Stiffly, I pull myself up a little, my back propped against the jagged edge of the alcove. Another white-gold line strikes in the corner of my eye, followed a second later by that booming rumble. A shudder plays up my spine. Even if it wasn't all so loud and so bright, the persistent thrum of terror would keep me awake, nonsensical as it likely is. Light has never done anything to hurt me. Even now, with my flame so distant, it's darkness that steadily tears me apart.

Edita's gaze shifts to me. If there is a smile, it retreats. "I am sorry today went as poorly as it did. I really wanted you to get a rest."

Crossing the two halves of the cloak over my chest, I wrap my arms around myself to pin them in place. "I know. It wasn't your fault. I just..." The words tremble and wander astray. "I miss..."

"Sarielle?"

Her name in the flow of Edita's voice is somewhat jarring, a burning rod that jolts my heart. A faded teasing glint battles with her furrowed brow. I swallow the strangled beginnings of a laugh. "I suppose."

She swings around to properly face me. Her gaze is still distant, pondering. "You do realise that if Sarielle were here, she could not simply magic the storm away?"

"I know that." Even so, I look down at my feet. They're filthy. If only for something to preoccupy my shaking hands, I bunch up the edge of my cloak and tear it, gathering up a strip of greyish fabric. "I... I still wish she were here."

"And what would you do if she was?"

My head snaps up just as thunder's crackle fills the air again. It forces me to hesitate over my response, and when I grab for the words, they're mist slipping emptily between my fingers. Jaw tight with silence, I turn my attention back to my feet, unfurling the bundle of cloth. Feeding its end under my sole, I begin wrapping it in awkward loops.

"It's not about that," I mutter, the hollow ache twisting. "Things are just better when she's here. They always have been."

I can't tell exactly why my words sound so flat, devoid of the usual unbreakable surety that should embrace them. I tug the cloth tighter. It digs into the side of my foot, though it's far too flimsy to act as any kind of protection.

"It doesn't matter," I add, given a pause long enough to fill. "Forget it."

There's quiet for a short time. I sense Edita is thinking, but I dodge her musing gaze, focusing on winding the cloth over my toes and then up my ankle. I run out of material just beyond the heel and have to retract half a loop in order to tuck it in. It's hardly secure. Sarielle could do a better job. A sigh puffs out through my nose, and I drag a hand up my face, fingers shoved into the limp strands of my hair.

"You are incredibly reliant on Sarielle," Edita murmurs.

Teeth gritted, I let my eyes slide half-shut. "I said forget it." My voice is dusted with venom, though tiredness drains it of potency. I don't care enough to correct the tone.

It hardly matters; she is unfazed. "I do not mean it as criticism. I am simply wondering whether it is entirely healthy for you to continue this obsession."

"Obsession?" The word scrapes over the roof of my mouth as I jerk to stare at her. Some slithering animal rears up in my chest, a burn lancing outward from where it touches. "I'm not obsessed with her. That makes me sound--" I bite the sentence off abruptly, though I'm not sure I know entirely where it leads. My gaze slips sideways to the inner curve of the alcove. "I'm not obsessed with her," I repeat, quieter.

Edita rests a hand on my knee. I tense, though there's no space to shrink back into. "Sorry. That might have been a poor choice of word. What I am trying to say is..."

She pauses, sighs, her tunic scraping over the rock as she shifts. I let my attention wander back to her, though my expression is still carefully flat. Uncertain curiosity flutters somewhere deep regardless. I wait.

"I am not saying you do not love her," she says, her voice soft enough to brush aside the instant tickle of protest in my throat. "It is only natural that you should fall in love, after all. She was your entire world for years, correct?"

"I suppose," I mumble, though I know it's true. I lived through her. She was everything. She still is.

"You knew nothing else but her, and so you were bound to form an attachment to her." She lets out a low chuckle. "Stars know I fell the same way. You remember Tyler?"

Frowning, I nod.

She hums. "He was hardly the most charming man there was, but he was all I had outside of family for many years. My love for him came as easily and as uninvited as a spring tide." Her hand slides up and down, gently shaking my leg in an odd kind of comfort. "All I am saying is that sometimes love is inevitable, but that does not mean it has to be forever, if you no longer want it. You are free to let it go."

Some string in my heart twangs. "You think I should let Sarielle go?"

Edita's smile is slight. "It may bring you peace."

Discontent snakes up my spine. I shake my head, fingers dragging through my tangled hair. "No. That can't be right. She... she's..."

"She does not love you in return, does she?"

I wince. "No."

"Then your love will only bring you pain." She shifts to watch the sky, the black pools of her eyes perfect replicas of the darkness beyond. "Think on it."

As if responding automatically to the notion of pain, I prod at that spot over my heart, the cloak's coarse fur-like texture pricking my fingers. All this still feels strangely new to me, and yet part of me is convinced that I've known this feeling forever. Sarielle's place beneath my touch is the one constant that threads through every memory, every piece of life I can recall. There's never been a moment I haven't thought about her in some way. I'm lost without her.

But she is not mine to own, not something for me to possess, and it is not her responsibility to drag me on through life. I know that much. Won't it cause her harm, too, if I continue to cling to something I should never have taken?

What would she do if she were here now?

With one glance at Edita, I know. She would tell me I was making a mistake. She would whisk me away, take me somewhere far safer than this clifftop ledge in the middle of a storm. She'd claim there had to be another way, an easier way. She'd say everything was going to turn out alright. She would be wrong.

Sarielle would hate Edita for her dirty Neyaibet uniform. Fiesi would call her unnatural. My fingers dig into the cloak's folds.

"I wouldn't even know how to let her go," I admit.

The sky lights up again. Edita's eyes shine in reflection as they flit my way, her hand wandering closer to brush over mine in invitation. I let our fingers intertwine, squeezing her palm as thunder tremors my bones.

"Freeing yourself of love is simple," she says, her voice blending with the fading rumble. "You merely find something else to fill the hole."

My mind leaps immediately to the hollow void in my chest. "Like my flame?" It's certainly smothered emotion before. It would be a welcome anchor right now amid the wild sea of conflicting feelings.

"Maybe." She pulls her legs underneath her, and suddenly she's leaning forward, her hand is sliding behind my back, our faces a breath apart.

"I have a different idea," she whispers. A grin balances atop her lips.

Startled, I stare back at her. My heart thuds. I run my tongue over my lips, my lungs freezing over. "You really..."

"Why not?" Her grin spreads, stars twinkling in the nightly depths of her eyes. There's something ethereal about it. "Only if you would like, of course."

"I..." I'm still as stone, my thoughts toppling into an unseen chasm and leaving only blank, bottomless space in their wake. My pulse fails to drill for them no matter how hard it beats. The rain roars in my ears, an urging scream, a beckoning. "I don't..."

I don't want? I don't know? I don't understand? It's impossible to tell what teeters there unsaid.

Yet Edita smiles as if she hears what I cannot. "You do."

There's a bird caged within my ribs. Its panicked flutter tickles my dry throat and sweeps heat into my skin, crawling up my face, hot and cold all at once. I can't move. I'm stuck. The seconds glue themselves to my skin in the shape of wired bars.

Her brow creases, and she lifts her head a little, the gap widening. "Perhaps this was a little forward of me." Her gaze slips to the side, guilt tainting the downward turn of her lips. "I am sorry. I should not have--"

"No," I manage, tripping over the word but forcing it out. Her eyes widen. There's bursting delight there, pure and whole despite the black that forms it. A breathless laugh clambers out from the cage in my chest. It's funny. The girl who once shoved a sword into my heart is now asking for me to give it to her, the question soft and hesitant despite the outward confidence she attempts, and I can't think of any reason to deny.

Sarielle has never looked at me like that. With care, perhaps, with joy, but not with love. Not something so direct, meant only for me. She would never call me beautiful. Why should she have to?

Edita cradles me closer. She isn't warm, but she's just as secure, just as easy to nestle into. As the storm growls around us, I let our lips touch.

There's no awkward calculation about it. Instinct smoothes the kiss as if the knowledge leaks into me, a flood that overwhelms all rationality. Her lips are cold. Her body is, but so am I, and so we fit. A lightness soars through my bones. A syrupy feeling drips along them, filling up the emptiness, prickling my skin with a familiar sensation. A drop of calm, numbing cold.

I draw back with a gasp, hand clapping over my chest, wonder sweet and sharp on my tongue. It's slippery, fading. The pain is a slow, sluggish slither, settling back into place before I can revel in its absence. But it left. Just for a moment, I felt complete.

Edita watches me. "What?"

"I thought I felt..." I let the words trail away, shaking my head as I dismiss them. Joy brings all kinds of illusions. "It doesn't matter." Still, I throw her a grin. "Kiss me again."

She obeys, and there is fire in my veins again, dark and icy and perfect, a craving fulfilled with such ease. Perhaps love does feel like my flame after all. It's that hungry desire all over again -- that sensation of a soul cracking apart, of death pooling from my touch -- yet alive, so very alive. It lasts. There's no reason to shy away this time.

This is greed. I know that. Maybe the regret will come later, when the thrill has faded and agony replaces this bittersweet taste. But for now I simply drink in more of it, lost and content to be, wanting this more than the very air in my lungs.

Take what you want, I tell myself. You deserve it.

Whether it's true or not, whether it's right or wrong, a giddy smile builds in my chest. I've spent enough time hurting. Even the cursed glare of the stars above can't keep me from this fleeting, beautiful slice of escape.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

I don't know if I pulled this chapter off quite as well as I wanted to, but there it is. Have fun hating me I guess.

- Pup