A city is scattered across the horizon. Lit just barely by the breaking dawn, the buildings have become the corpses of fallen guards, armour strewn in piles of rocky rubble and the bodies themselves bleeding clouds of dust and smoke. A grey air of hopelessness, of defeat, hangs as thick as the early morning fog. Fiesi is sure he can taste it on his tongue.

His bones suddenly feeling heavy, he eases his horse to a halt and gazes out at the dim sky. Upon Oscensi's flat plains, there's been no denying the approaching Polevis for some time now, but as another day ekes into existence and the distance grows shorter, the sight of it now is painful enough to scratch at his heart. It isn't like he hasn't seen it before. During his time in Neyaibet's army, he hid at the edges of many a bloody victory, but none could hold quite the same weight as the destruction of Oscensi's capital. He can't quite believe now that he could be so numb to it at the time.

Maybe it's freedom that allows the feelings to seep in. Back then, his mind was consumed with Rigel's orders: a single-minded, undoubtable urge to stamp out darkness, and a surety that nothing else mattered much. The Cormé could kill each other around him, and it didn't matter. Homes and civilians could burn in their natural way as long as the world didn't catch alight.

His heartstrings twinge, a serpentine ache wrapping loops around his ribcage. He winces and twists his face to the side. Sometimes he begins to wonder whether heartless ignorance was a blessing. At least it had a path, a certainty. At least it didn't hurt.

"Fiesi?"

Sarielle's horse comes up alongside him, her gaze razing over his turned cheek until he swallows and forces himself to glance over. He isn't surprised not to see concern. Her expression is equally guarded and fragile, a mask put up to hide her emotions. She has never even seen Polevis in its broken state. When she was last here, it was her home.

"Maybe it's something we have in common," he murmurs before the words will stop, watching the patterns of dark smoke and crumbled towers. "Homes exchanged for ruins."

The thought flickers through her eyes, darkening her expression. She sets her jaw and nods. "Let's keep going. We're almost there."

They continue on together, sinking back into drifting, solemn silence. Dalton and Jaci march in the rear, just as wordless. In all the many hours they've been travelling since they left Lo Dasi, trailing too far behind the Neyaibet soldiers they track, it's odd how few words they've collectively spoken. It's almost robotic, like they're going through the motions of surviving without truly caring.

Tongue caught between his teeth, Fiesi steals another glance at Sarielle. She's sitting stiff and straight on her saddle, injured leg locked firm, not an ounce of the lingering pain she must feel visible. Her spring-sky eyes stare directly ahead at the fallen city. Despite the quiver in her hands, a kind of steel knits her features together. He looks away.

She cares. He reaches up to grip the clasp of his cloak, metal edge digging into his thumb. The only one going through the motions here is me.

If it weren't for her, for the stupid part of him that says he owes her something, he wouldn't be here at all.

- ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ -

Fragmented as he feels, Fiesi can still find it within him to hate riding. His legs wobble as he drops to the ground, and he winces as they cramp, holding onto his horse's saddle to retain his balance. The mikros snorts and buckles under his touch, jerking away sharply enough to nearly knock him over. He throws his arms out, anchoring himself with his flame, and growls a curse under his breath.

Sarielle has already said they should be grateful the horses had been left a reasonable distance from the town -- and therefore narrowly escaped Nathan's massacre -- and he's trying to be. They've kept up with Neyaibet far better this way. Still, he wishes the beasts wouldn't all take such a fervent dislike to him.

"It's quiet," Dalton murmurs. He's dismounted a few paces away, Jaci sliding from the same saddle behind. "Something doesn't feel right."

A retort rises to Fiesi's tongue, pricking like a bundle of thorns as he forces himself to swallow it. Of course things don't feel right. Death is sunk bitterly into the air, swiping at his flame in chilling breaths and clawing out the sour, churning burn of guilt. He wraps his arms around his middle, gathering a fistful of his cloak.

Standing amongst the ruin is even worse. This street was clearly once residential, but now dust swirls rings across abandoned cobbles, the stone-brick houses caved in and dumping their contents onto one another. The wind howls hollowly through the emptiness.

It wasn't magic that caused the fall of Polevis. Perhaps that makes it worse, somehow. By all the rules, there is nothing wrong at all with what lies before him. He has no right to feel guilty.

But I could've stopped this, he whispers to his flame, the raw words swallowed within it. If I were really a hero, I would've stopped it all. I would never have to taste death.

Rigel's thread is painfully taut. He is much, much too far away to offer an answer.

Sarielle's agreeing hum beckons him outward, muting his thoughts. "I thought they'd be waiting for us." She shivers and hunkers into the fur-lined pads of her cloak. Her left foot is lifted just barely above the ground, positioned with care as she leans into the flank of her horse. "This feels like a trap."

Dalton nods slowly. His head lifts to survey the gloom before landing on her. "We could continue south and rejoin the rest of the regiment before we proceed."

"No," she says, the rejection shoved out between her teeth before he's spoken his final syllable. Her eyes flash fierce before dulling. She bites her lip. "I'm sorry, but I can't do that. I... I need to find him as soon as possible." Her gaze flicks from him to Fiesi, and the thinnest, barest smile rises to her lips. "And I think we can do this. Together."

Together. He'd return her smile if he had the strength. He glances down at his feet instead.

In his periphery, Dalton nods again, unsurprised. The whining scrape of metal fills the silence as he draws his sword. "Then we'll be cautious. Let's leave the horses here and stick close to each other."

Sarielle unsheathes her own blue-hilted blade and limps to his side. There's no use attempting to tie up the horses. Fiesi wouldn't exactly blame them if they chose to run from this place. Some part of him envies their lack of understanding, the ease in which they can slide away from this battle and shy responsibility. He and the others have no choice but to continue.

They cluster together, prowling through the dead city's centre like a shivering prey animal buried amongst expansive undergrowth. They might as well be the size of insects for the shadow each high-rise ruin casts over them, specs of nothing cowering in a crater left by a deity's fist. Jaci's shoulder presses against Fiesi's in a small amount of reassurance. Her icy daggers sit in her hands, hilts glued to her palms by shifting frost. Her pale eyes are narrowed to hide the fear that shimmers within them.

He nudges her. "Still glad you came with me to see the Cormé world?"

She ducks her head, lips pressed in a thin line. Her cheek whitens as ice crawls out from the skin beneath. I am. Determination drags out her scowl, though it has a soft, sad edge. The frost spreads and rearranges. Their world is nice. Why do they make it ugly with fighting?

Flame burns within Fiesi's clenches fists. "I don't know." He twists his head to the side, breathing in dark motes of dust. "I can't understand how I didn't see how... ugly it was before."

Sarielle glances at him over her shoulder, greying light reflecting bright in her gaze. Jaci tugs at his wrist to draw his attention back to her. I am glad to be here, she writes on her hand, a flowing trail that leaks from her dagger. She smiles. You see a lot more now, Fiesi. You are good. I'm glad to be here with you.

He doesn't realise how much those words mean until they flow warmly into his chest, over his bones, plucking at his heart with gentle fingers. The words to reply are slippery on his tongue, not enough. "Thanks. I..." He looks at her, her soft cheekbones, her long waves of raven hair, her tanned skin that mirrors his mother's. The steadiness in her gaze, the easy way she stares back at him without expecting anything more. Her strength and her love. There's suddenly a lump in his throat.

"I'll keep you safe," he says. "All of you. I promise."

Sarielle laughs lightly, a gentle, friendly kind of laugh that kindles a spark in her gaze as she looks behind again. Gratitude shines in her half-smile. "You've gone soft on us, Fiesi," she says, then jerks her head. "You should walk in front."

Something darker rises in her expression with those words, wariness and pity and fear. Fingering the back of his neck, Fiesi averts his eyes from it, offers a brief nod, and darts around her, surveying the path with his stomach tied in a web of knots. His gaze snags on a body draped atop the nearby rubble, and his boots meld to the gravel.

"Wait here." The command is thin and torn, so quiet he doubts the others even hear it, let alone are inspired to obey. He steels himself and heads to check it out anyway.

He's seen more than enough dead bodies to last him a lifetime, yet still nausea roils in his gut. It's a woman, though she's barely recognisable as that. Layers of ashes and soot sprinkle her pale skin, turning her hair grey and wiry, its former colour indistinguishable. One of her legs is twisted at a sickening angle, as are many of her fingers, each snapped one by one, as if slow and purposeful, though none of that is what carries the reeking scent of death. That belongs to the black, void-like cracks that riddle her arms, her feet, her face, her eyes. She stares at nothing in a cage of empty pain, parted lips searching for a scream that never came.

In the depths of Fiesi's core, his flame howls, hissing and scraping between his ribs until he forgets how to breathe. His lungs are filled with sour smoke, his throat glazed with ice. Biting his lips together, he curls his fists tight enough to dig his nails into his palms, doing all he can to fight the aching sting of tears.

Jaci's cold fingers brush his wrist. He flinches, though he doesn't mean to. She's searching him, expectant and curious, trying not to be afraid. For his sake, he supposes. She's being brave for him, just as he's fighting his fear to protect her.

The others come up behind her. Sarielle's soft gasp taps at his ear. "Nathan," she breathes.

He nods, trapped in his own silence.

"He's here?" Dalton asks.

"He must be." Sarielle's words are clipped, horror and disbelief forming a tide for her shaky determination to ride atop. "But he... he can't be himself. This is Shaula."

Shaula. Fiesi regrets telling her that name and doesn't, all at once. He wrestles in a slow, rattling inhale. "You shouldn't come with me." Speaking feels like a battle. "I need to carry on alone."

Jaci's hand curls around his wrist, fingernails digging in. She shakes her head vehemently, but he lifts his chin to stare her down, weak azure flames flickering at his shoulders and ripped off into the air by the wind. "It's too dangerous. I have to--"

"You don't have to do anything." Sarielle's foot comes down hard as she steps forward, her gaze fierce. "Protect us all you want, Fiesi, but we will be by your side."

"So you'll die by my side," he snaps back. The tears burn his eyes. "Please. I... don't want you to die. I'm tired of losing people. Especially to..." His voice gives in, but they all know what he means.

This monster has taken everyone he's ever loved, and now it's coming back for more.

Sarielle captures him in an embrace. He doesn't have the energy to fight it, and so merely folds into her arms, head resting beside hers. She pulls back enough to touch their foreheads together. "We'll make it out," she says. "All of us. That's a promise we're making together."

Salt tingles at Fiesi's tongue. The tears must have fallen after all. He's afraid his voice will break again, but he nods, conveying what he's lost the strength to say with his eyes.

He doesn't have enough fingers to count how many promises he's made, how many more he's broken. But he wants to keep this one, more than anything. It's a desperate fire, and it has a searing, painful burn, but he will endure it. For her and for Jaci, and for everyone that Shaula has already taken from him. For Nathan. For his mother.

Strands of flame converge in his hand, lengthening to a long, slim spear. Holding it before him, he wipes his eyes and takes a step towards the broken castle, the place his flame most intensely wishes to shy away from. "Let's go."

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

Fiesi really said internal monologue time in this chapter and I don't know what to do with him. He's not supposed to have this many thoughts. His braincell must be having a crisis.

He's being such a good boy though. Have I mentioned how proud of him I am T^T

- Pup