Laughter is a cocktail swirling in the back of my throat. It pops and squeaks, its dripping downpour fizzing in my stomach, splashing my lungs until I'm breathless. Its drag on me is nearly as powerful as Edita's locked hold on my wrist, though far more jerky, tripping up every other step. Shadows dance and swirl through its haze.

Coming to a momentary halt, Edita twists to look over her shoulder at me. Her finger taps her lips. Quiet.

I nod, pressing my lips tight together to pin in the sound. The muffled tap of my footsteps fills my ears instead. Even that seems oddly funny; the wrapped cloth tickles the soles of my feet, lifted into the air as I balance on my toes. The path is frost beneath them. The northern town of Lo Dasi hangs in a haze different to the mountains or the coast; it is not dark or grey with rain-clogged fog and more still, the air's breath held tight, time itself frozen in place. There is no mist to shroud the streets, no snow piled high upon the flat farmland that surrounds these little shacks, yet the cold claws at every doorframe all the same. There's a thrill about the silence, the stillness, something almost magical. Playful shivers skip over my bones.

My borrowed cloak slaps my ankles as we spin around a corner. A man buried in ragged furs jumps at our approach, pausing his work in scraping at the hinges of his door. He shoots us an odd look. I giggle in response, unable to help myself. The people that remain up here are reclusive, passive, far too busy with their own affairs to be a danger. They're workers, Edita explained to me. They're no-one.

"Hi," I say, my voice squeaking. "Isn't it a beautiful morning?"

The man raises an eyebrow and turns back to his work. Absurd amusement bubbles up, curling my lips. Edita tugs at my wrist, her dark eyes gleaming with similar mischief. "Faster," she whispers.

Our hasty stumble becomes a sprint, and we tear through the town, my feet skidding on patches of slippery ice. The sun above is haloed in misty white. Mid-morning rays, faint and devoid of warmth, paint yellow stripes upon the straw rooftops. We crash through the slit of one as Edita drags me into a narrow alley, my heaving chest pressed to hers, our panting breaths mingling in a hot-cold breeze that tickles my cheeks.

She tosses a wary glance over her shoulder and then hunkers further down, pulling me with her. My gaze tracks the same frost-bitten path and finds it empty. "You do realise that no-one is chasing us?" I say, dropping the words in between strained, shallow inhales.

Her fingers tangle in my hair, and suddenly I'm aware of my heart, the raw, reverberating thud of its beat. She flashes her fangs. "Let us pretend that they are."

We kiss, and it feels like second nature. The last couple days have passed in a whirlwind of delirium, sweeping me from one hour to the next, and I've been far too caught up in simply keeping my feet to remember to mourn the empty absence of my flame. It's so different to the previous sluggish drag of time's flow, and I revel in it. It's a safe kind of chaos, somewhere to inject all that restless anxiety and draw out pleasure in its place. A wild, whirling freedom.

Perhaps it is foolish to convince myself this is happiness, yet it feels so close to that faraway concept that I can do nothing but grasp it with both hands. I want this. I want this beautiful sensation of her closeness, the tingle as she caresses the top of my spine, the deep, focused look in her black eyes. The pit in my chest is closed again, and all is right.

It does not all last forever. We're laughing as we both retract, our foreheads resting against one another as I press my weight into her, though I feel my own hitch a little, aware of the returning stab of pain. But it's small. I can deal with it. My smile stays.

"We should get out of here," she whispers, urgency drained away to make room for the game in her voice.

I close my eyes. "Yeah." The energy shatters all at once. A tired hum leaves my lips as I hold her closer. It wouldn't be overly difficult to tap at the door of sleep and let it flood in, content as I am. "In a minute."

She retracts, and I crack open an eye, a tad annoyed at the splinter in our moment. It's quelled by the cautious look on her face. "Perhaps sooner," she murmurs. "There is someone watching us."

Taut strings wind my muscles, tensing them. Aware of the weight of my sword pressed to my hip, I turn my head, reluctant to move any further from her.

There's a boy standing at the far end of the alley. Heavy woollen clothing hugs his torso, pinned in place by leather straps, coloured a dark auburn where the sun touches it and rich, earthy brown everywhere else. The same straps lash a bow and quiver to his back. His mousy curls dangle in the way of his wide eyes, and his hands tremble, clutching a basket. It tumbles to the ground the moment my gaze settles on him, spilling an assortment of frost-nipped plants.

Mirrored shock whirls through me. Recognition swirls a faint glee in my chest, brightening until it forms glitter on my tongue. "Cody?"

He grabs his bow. His hands shake less as he nocks an arrow onto the string, aiming its pointed tip directly at me. "How do you know my name?"

His voice is low, wary, almost fearful, but it's Cody's without doubt. Soft, courageous Cody, the boy who fought beside me as we defended his home together. I can't figure out why he should have strayed this far from Katamen, but a smile curls my lips all the same at the prospect of seeing him again. I thought our goodbye was final.

His eyes held an unfazed hazel twinkle then. They're dark and cloudy with suspicion now, but I'm sure I can clear the fog. I step fully back from Edita, waving a placating hand in greeting. "It's me, Cody. Nathaniel."

Something flickers over his expression, a tendril of shock, though his grip on his bow doesn't lessen. "You're not any Nathaniel I know."

A stab of offence finds my heart, and I wince. Has he forgotten about me? My gaze wanders treacherously to the arrow's tip, and my feet cement in place, a thin coil of fear penetrating my confusion.

"Nathaniel Aspen?" I supply tentatively.

There's clear recognition in Cody's eyes then. But instead of filtering into joy, it grows murky, twisting sharply into a fierce, violent kind of wariness. His bowstring twitches backward, and I try not to flinch. "You look nothing like him," he says, guarded. "Who are you really?"

My exhale is short, tight with baffled disbelief. "Cody, I--"

"Who are you?" he growls out. "Tell me, or I let this arrow loose."

"My name is Nathaniel, I promise." I hope it doesn't sound as wrong in my jaw outwardly as it does to me; I've grown so used to Edita using my true name that the lie is somewhat difficult to speak. But I am nothing but a lie to Cody. I came to him garbed in a white mask and false green eyes, and spoke of rebellion, crafted myself some kind of hero's persona, back when I still thought I could make some world-shattering difference with my own little ill-thought-out act. Edita would likely laugh if I told her the tale.

Setting my jaw, I settle the ripples of panic amongst my thoughts. Perhaps the issue is that Cody no longer recognises me without the mask. After all, it was woven with magic. I've no way of knowing what effect its power would have on an ordinary Cormé like him.

"My eyes were green then," I try. "They aren't now, but I'm telling you the truth."

"No," he breathes, and I notice a hitch within the word. "Your eyes are black." His next inhale is hasty, shallow, sour waves of fear drifting from him like a stench. His bowstring jolts back, surpassing his ear. "I know what that means."

Despite the claim, he still doesn't sound sure, but my heart speeds up. So the same rumours that the ship's people spoke of have reached as far as Lo Dasi, and Cody knows them. He knows who I am.

I move further towards him, keeping my gaze on his, doing my best to ignore the primed arrow. "Cody, you've met me," I plead. "I would never hurt you."

His legs shake, but his chin tilts up. He's brave as always. "So you admit that you... you're him?"

"Yes." I stand a single pace from him, palm facing him in a gesture of peace, a steel kind of strength flowing surely enough through my veins to drown out the hesitance. There's no use dodging it, or grappling for another lie to take as my guise. Why should there be shame in admitting my true identity? He deserves to know.

He grits his teeth. "Then you're not Nathan."

I'm lucky it takes me only a split-second to register his intent. I yelp, "Wait!" and lunge forward, curling my hand around the arrow's shaft before it can loose and bending its tip away from my chest. He snatches up its feathered end in retaliation, jerking it back, and the bowstring twangs emptily as the arrow's clip on it is wrenched away. We're suddenly very close, and he's aware of it. He physically cringes, every bit of him caught in a drawn-out flinch, nothing but that spark of bravery keeping him standing where he is. His breathing is fast and taut with terror.

"Let go," he says, but it's weak. An acid taste stings my tongue. Frustration surges upward to sharpen the sensation, thrumming impatient energy into my veins. I yank harder at the arrow. His hold remains firm, and so we're frozen, still far too close.

Though I'm sure he's younger, he's a good few inches taller than me. I lift my chin to properly face him. "I can prove it to you."

His response is shivering silence, but I take it as the invitation to try.

"We fought Neyaibet soldiers together," I say. "We had to steal your weapons back from them, remember?" The memory flutters with longing, and I shove through the spiked pain in my chest, clinging to the misty recollection of fervorous enjoyment. "I burned down the tavern. That was fun."

"It left a mess." His voice is a whisper, drained of the shared joke I'm so desperate to draw out. But it's something, isn't it? I need him to start believing me.

"Exactly." I flash a grin, wishing I could will its contagion with mere thought. "We caused an incredible mess for them, didn't we? You remember?"

His gaze remains dark, the shade of drenched winter mud. "I meant it left a mess behind," he says through clenched teeth. He's glaring. "Chaos leaves victims. Someone like you wouldn't understand."

A sigh hisses out through my teeth. "I understand fine, but you're missing my point. That fire began as a spark of my flame. I created it using my power. Doesn't that prove it?"

He shakes his head firmly, curls rustling. "That's not what I've heard you can do."

His gaze remains fierce. It smoulders with hate, I realise. Hatred and heaving fear. It's sickeningly familiar, and yet it's wrong, and the sight of it only fans the flickering anger in my chest. I'm supposed to be escaping this. I can't have him look at me like this, or that simmering urge to tear my skin apart will sprout thorns around my heart, plunge agony into my core, and I can't afford that. I don't want to have those thoughts again. Edita has done so much to carve them away.

Scraps of the scene float in the back of my mind like drifting ashes: the roaring, all-consuming flames wrestling against their leash, burning my arms, eating their way through the building until only a blackened ruin remained. The choking smoke. The soldier lit alight in the corner of my vision, so very nearly dead. The violence and the chaos and the destruction.

And yet did I really leave such a problem behind? Is that why Cody is here now, so far from home? Did the selfish wound I caused leave Katamen broken?

Pain crests and falls at the base of my awareness, cracking apart my focus. It stings in my scars, and an idea leaps to mind. I latch onto it immediately. "I am Nathaniel," I tell him, "because we fought together after the fire." Releasing Cody's arrow, I tear back my right sleeve before he can do anything, black and silver material bunching in my fist as my scar reveals itself. It's darkened to a gleaming, obsidian river, wide and malicious, a void's open maw ready to swallow me whole. It quickens my heart and digs in fiery claws. I'm as much a victim of my flame as anyone back in Katamen. This could be one of the last days I spend breathing, and I can't spend it drowning in guilt.

Resolve hardening, I straighten. "This is the scar left behind by an axe wound. Eduart caused it. The man who betrayed us, though he got his comeuppance afterward."

Frozen, he stares at the blackened mark, barely breathing. "His comeuppance?" he asks, the words soft, shaky.

I pounce on the question. "Yes. Yes, he died afterward. I killed him." I tug down the sleeve, concealing the scar once more, and try for a smile, half-aware of Edita lingering somewhere behind. I haven't told her the entirety of this story yet. "I shoved my dagger deep into his stomach. I can still remember the blood on my hands."

His bowstrings creaks. I flinch, but I'm too late; the arrow is nocked again, and now it's close enough to jab right at my chest, the tip cutting a pinprick hole through my borrowed silver shirt. "Stop," Cody says. His voice is almost a growl, and it reverberates through me, confusion twisting into prickling unease. "Last chance. Leave me alone."

"Cody," I plead. "Come on. You told me yourself at the time. Them or us. I didn't--"

"I didn't tell you anything," he bites out. "You're not Nathan. He doesn't talk like that."

"But I..." Hurt rocks through me, a stab to my chest as if the arrow has already been loosed. It leaps a one-eighty and roars back upward as a snap of anger. My fists curl at my sides. What right does he have to decide who I can be? "Would you rather I grovelled?" I hiss. "Do you want to hear of my penance and my soul-eating guilt? I'm done with all that, Cody. I killed someone. It had a purpose. I'm still Nathan."

The arrow's tip digs in. With a gasp, I stumble back, clapping a hand over the spot it struck. A trickle of blood sticks to my fingers.

"Leave," Cody orders.

Edita's cold hand lands on my shoulder. "Let's go, Noli."

She's an anchor amid the storm howling in my ears, her low, steady voice easy to cling to and obey. Plastering a numb layer of ice over the heat searing my veins, I nod, turning sharply on my heel. I don't look at Cody again. It takes a great amount of willpower not to, but I resist, my eyes only on the path ahead.

There's no joy in the remainder of our journey through Lo Dasi, no skip or dance that flows us from one step to the next. Silence forms a void in place of bubbling amusement. Edita's fingers lace with mine, gentle and coaxing, but I keep marching forward without giving way to her invitation. The sting of the arrow wound mingles with the hollow ache in my chest. I've known it's been getting steadily worse, but it consumes my senses now, no longer shielded by any distraction and far more difficult to deny.

The echoes of my own words and his trickle through to fill the emptiness, and I wince, twisting my head to the side. Nathan doesn't talk like that.

"Noli," Edita murmurs, almost as if she delves in amongst my thoughts and intrudes amongst them to place a reminder of my true name. It accompanies a prompting tug of my hand; she's leading me around a bend. I follow without response.

Not Nathan, but Noli. Perhaps that's the problem. This new philosophy I've claimed has leaked into my identity, changed me into someone new.

And Noli is running from the Cormé. He doesn't let them become friends.

Gravel slides beneath my foot and becomes earth. My toes catch on the wilting tuft of grass, and I come to a slow halt, gazing blankly at the earthen path ahead. It weaves through barren farmer's fields, all sharp turns and narrow, trodden-down undergrowth pressed against hedges. Far in the distance, the faintest crystal gleam lines the horizon, visible between the slopes of shallow hillsides. Lake Katai. It winks and taunts, so close and yet still far for my aching feet.

My fingers brush from the new wound to my middle, drawing circles in my tunic almost absentmindedly, as I toss a glance over my shoulder. It lengthens until my back is to the lake and straw-capped houses fill the view instead. I linger on the outskirts of Lo Dasi, forever an outsider, outcast, causing problems and then running away.

I bunch up a fold of my tunic and curl a fist, knuckles digging in beneath my ribs. I can't let it be like this. Guilty or not, if this really is one of my last days alive, it would be wrong to sever things this way.

Gravel crunches beneath my foot as I take the step back onto the path. Ice leaks through its wrapping. Edita catches my arm.

"Do not go back," she tells me. "He is not worth it."

I watch the frost-rimmed sun lick the rooftops, painting them in dying shards of flame, glints of gold. "He was my friend, Edita."

She chuckles softly. "You knew him for barely a day."

"He still counts." The gold is somewhat reminiscent of Cody's hazel eyes, his frayed brown hair. His glower. His hate. Why did I let that hate fester? I've never wanted that, certainly not from someone so kind and gentle as he was. I've truly messed up if I let myself darken the bright candle of his soul with such feelings.

"I don't want him to be upset," I say. "I need to go back and make things right." Yanking free of her grip, I attempt another step. She darts in front of me.

"We do not have time, Noli."

"I can make time." I try to dodge around her, but her movements are fluid, blocking me wherever I tread. I shoot her a sharp glance. "This is important. I want to know he's okay, and I want to explain. If I just choose my words better--"

"He will not listen." She snatches my gaze and holds it, her stare an anomaly in the crisp, clear morning, a fragment of night bleeding through. For a moment, I forget how much I trust her. I let myself swallow a lump of fear.

It only lasts that moment. She smiles, and her expression softens, corpse-pale and death-black but beautiful all the same. She takes my hands and pulls me in, lifts one to graze my chin with a finger. "You are too kind," she says in an alluring whisper. "Your dedication to your heart remains admirable." She sighs. "Yet I fear you will let it lead you into more trouble, and I cannot allow that. Cody will not understand. There are very few Cormé who can hold strong in the presence of magic's power, and fewer still who can resist the pull of fear once they discover all that you alone are capable of." She shrugs. "After all, I know that when I was only human, I could never have understood."

"I... guess that makes sense." But my mind is racing already, casting up memories and supplying names in haste to disprove such a blanket statement. Sarielle. Rovena. Dalton. Every member of his regiment, wary as some of them might be. Why can't Cody slot in amongst them? "But I want to try anyway," I say. "I'll regret it if I don't."

She tilts her head, something stern dark in her eyes, though her fangs shape a grin formed of mischief. "I thought you were learning to release the burden of regret."

"I am," I say weakly.

"Then let it go."

The breath of the words brushes over my nose. Her hands shift up to my shoulders, guiding me inward, tilting my head so that her lips touch to mine. My heart thuds. That restless, hungry craving surges upward from my core, desperate for some reprieve, and it's so tempting to give in. I can practically hear the whimper of my absent flame as I force myself to push her away. Throbbing interlaces my ribs.

"No." The word sounds so uncertain, breaking at the seams. I shake my head as if that will strengthen it. "I can't."

Hurt flickers in her gaze, and my heart squeezes. She's still so close. I can't bring myself to say anything else, my focus drilled into keeping me still, into preventing me from snatching a kiss I'm battling the urge to want.

I want to bury myself in her affection and forget all about Cody, but there has to be some limitation to this haze of wanting and getting. I can't have everything. Right and wrong isn't one large puzzle in this case; it's just one boy, and a mistake I made that I could fix.

I can fix it. I'm not a monster. I have to prove that to someone.

Edita frowns. "You are getting yourself worked up for no reason, Noli. Calm down."

She makes to lean in again, and I squirm, a flicker of protest briefly lighting anger. "No," I say again, fiercer. "Release me."

She does within the instant, the hurt all the more potent. "I am only trying to help."

"I don't want it." I do my best to stand my ground, inhaling steadily through my nose, despite how my pulse thunders. I don't want to upset her, either. It isn't right that we fight, but this new thought is brewing in my mind, steadily rising to a climax. I take a moment to formulate it into words.

"You asked what I wanted, really wanted for myself, a while ago," I start. "I think I've figured it out now."

"Oh?" Now there's a spark of interest in her eyes, though there's something else, too, something I can't figure out. "And what is it?"

I draw in a long, careful breath, lining up the argument. "I want to be normal." The weight of the words is a barrel-load of feathers, light and heavy all at once, but soft to the touch. So perfectly inviting. "I hate this existing on the fringes of everything else. I want to find a way of living without being controlled by what I am. And I feel like..." My gaze slips past her, tracing Lo Dasi's skyline, the squatting huts where such simple people reside. They'd never guess I could be jealous of their calm, uneventful lives. "Cody is one of those ordinary people. If I can help him to accept me, then it proves it's possible. Right?"

The longer question feels so raw, tingling as it hovers in the air between us. Edita's gaze slants. "You want to be ordinary?"

I nod vigorously. "I do."

She laughs, and my certainty shrivels. I flinch.

"To think someone as special as you would long for the mundane." Reflections of sunbeams glitter in her eyes, and the light feels harsh for once, piercing. "It is rather ironic, in a way."

It isn't the first time I've been called ironic, but I can't bring myself to laugh with her. I make to duck past her again, but her arm snaps out, forming a barrier.

I glance at her, somewhat desperate. "Let me--"

"We have travelled this far in search of your power, have we not?" She raises an eyebrow at me. "You cannot simply throw it away. And besides..." She steps closer again, snaking a hand to my wrist. "I am not ordinary. Am I not enough for you?"

Of course. I blink, surprised how quickly the instinctive response comes, how hard it is to resist blurting it out without thinking. "Well, I... I mean, you're... it's..."

"I see," she mutters, and my voice dies away.

She's not smiling. Her eyes are dark and blank, and her touch has lost its gentle edge. She's rough as she grabs my tunic, wrenching it up so high that the collar presses uncomfortably into my throat, almost choking. My bare skin tingles as it's exposed to the cold air. It grows colder still as her finger traverses my ribs, coming to a stop at a point right over my thrumming heart.

"I would be careful if I were you, Noli," she whispers. "You are rapidly running out of time."

Breath trapped and quivering cautiously in my throat, I peer down at my chest. Ice crawls over my bones, bitter and aching with fear.

There are other scars that adorn my chest, small, dark nicks of weapons or likely of my own scraping nails, but this one commands attention above all others. It's ghostly in comparison, only a faint grey outline, but I know well enough now how quickly the black will bleed through. It slashes a sharp, precise line. A sword's mark.

Edita's sword, plunged into my heart on the day I was supposed to die.

"Backward in time until the last," she murmurs, and then lets my tunic fall, though the scar is already seared into my mind and jaggedly striking every one of my thoughts. "Today might be our final chance. I suggest we move with haste."

She sweeps past me. For a long second, I can do nothing but stare, until sense catches up and forces my legs to scurry after her. The distant lake glitters cheerily. My insides squirm.

Everything has flipped. Just hours ago -- less than that, even -- I thought I'd found my perfect rhythm. My perfect chaos, but chaos leaves victims, and now it is shattering, broken pieces slipping meaninglessly through my fingers and piling in a puzzle I've lost all hope of solving. A thousand question buzz and itch, curiosity and fear tangled as one.

When I was only human, she said. I am not ordinary.

But there just isn't time. I'll work it out, and I'll make it right, but I can't lose myself in it now. Now, I have to move fast, blur it all out, and pray tonight's stars won't steal my soul.

When tomorrow comes and the pain is gone, I'll fix it. Tomorrow.

There has to be a tomorrow.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

This chapter is chaotic in all senses, but I hope in a somewhat good way. I started off writing it very differently -- in that Nathan was gonna reunite with Cody and they'd get along okay and chill for a bit before anything happened -- but I eventually decided instant angst was the better way to go and I'm good with this. Even if it means no rest. RIP Nathan's feet.

Now the fun begins :D

- Pup