The needle is tiny, a fragile sliver of metal that rolls unsteadily in my shaky grasp. Pinching it between my thumb and forefinger, I wriggle onto my stomach, ribs and elbows jammed against the hard floor as I attempt to tease the miniature blade through the scruffy scraps of cloth pressed down underneath my other hand. Stabbing the hole is easy, but yanking the long, tangling loops of thread through always takes an age. I capture my tongue between my teeth, fighting the jarring thrum of impatience, and weave the needle back up through another hole barely an inch further on.

Up, down, up, down. Progress miniscule and every movement painstaking. That's what the last four weeks have felt like. That thread spooling out haphazardly across the floor's creaky wooden slats is the passage of time, mixed up and chaotic and snagging on every crack and ridge. I have to keep dragging it through loop after loop, coaxing it onward, hard as it is. If I let it lie there still, I end up stuck.

Which is exactly what's happening right now. Sucking in a breath through my teeth, I spin the needle over my fingers, an unscratchable itch crawling underneath my skin and prodding at my restless flame. My splayed-out legs shift. Shoulders tense, I crane my neck to dart a glance backward.

The door to mine and Fiesi's room hangs daringly ajar, rocked slightly by the wintry wind that rattles the window panes. Beyond that, however, it remains wrapped in cold silence. My stomach twists. It hardly unknots these days, and every look in his direction only squeezes tighter.

Four weeks. Has it really been that long?

A sharp pain in my fingertip slices the rocky thought. Failing to bite back my yelp, I drop the needle, cradling my hand close as blood beads crimson at the spot where I pricked through the skin. Four weeks should've been long enough for me to learn to stop doing that. It serves me right for losing focus.

A laugh trails around the doorframe as a figure swings out of the house's second bedroom. "Can you not go a few minutes without injuring yourself?"

Warmth pools in my cheeks. Drawing from the fire in my core, I drag up a thin, violet sliver of my power to sew the tiny wound shut. "That's an exaggeration. It's been longer than that."

Cody sniggers. He has a couple of cloth bundles thrown over his tucked-in arm, likely half-constructed garments like the one laid out on the living space before me. He surpasses me in both skill and practice and has far nimbler fingers than I do; I often see him working on several articles of clothing at once. I'm only a helping pair of hands trying to earn my keep, sewing together a few simple patchworks that he'll fashion into something more complex later on. When I asked, intent on offering some kind of payment, it's all he could think for me to do.

It still can't be enough, and I don't help anyone by getting myself distracted in thought so frequently. I hesitate, force myself to lick the blood from my finger, and return to my work. The coppery taste churns my stomach as it grates down.

"You can take a break if you want."

I don't look up, though I can feel Cody hovering beside me, his shadow blurring fabric and thread together, forcing a pause long enough to listen. With a sigh, I roll onto my side to look up at him. "I'll finish this first. I had to unpick some stitches yesterday, and I know--"

"It's fine." His smile is soft, though it doesn't quite cover the lingering sorrow in his eyes. I wince. I wish he'd stop inflicting that pitying look, but I know he uses it only out of kindness. He bounces the clothes in his arms. "I have some to sell for the market later already, and I don't care anyway. You help plenty. You can... go and check on him if you want."

As if checking on him changes anything. I swallow. "Thank you." I clamber up onto my knees, resting back on my heels as the words roll around my mouth. "For all of this," I add, smaller, hanging my head. "You never needed to let me stay."

He offers a shrug. "'Course I did. It's no trouble."

That's a lie, but a well-concealed one, an airy one. It was only after I agreed to take up his hospitality that Cody revealed Lo Dasi's fate -- the real Lo Dasi, the town at the shore of the lake Shaula poisoned and the town she thrust her wave of destruction at through the channel of my power -- on top of all he's had to face before and since. This shabby village is Ni Lema, several miles further south and wrecked by droplets of war. They're lucky to have found this house at all. It once belonged to a married couple who were called to fight and never returned, and the dust and ruin stewing in every well-loved corner is a constant reminder of that.

The money Cody scrapes together from his newfound clothesmaking talent is only just enough for the four of us. Sometimes I wonder whether that simple fact makes it a blessing that Fiesi hasn't stirred from his death-like sleep.

My mouth turns sour every time.

With a stiff nod, I get to my feet, gaze straying again to that half-open door. Hope is thin, but it's forever a thread that binds me nonetheless. It tugs me only a single step before the knock at the door sounds.

Cody and I freeze in sync, wariness yanking us taut as our eyes meet. I see the cogs grind in his brain, far swifter than the rusted metal I imagine governs my own thoughts in these moments. Dropping his pile of clothes, he shoves at my arm, chin jerking sideways. "Stay hidden," he whispers, voice deadly serious. "I'll answer it."

There's no need to voice my agreement. I sprint for the bedroom I share, fumbling the door shut just moments before I hear Cody's shakily cheerful greeting. With my back pressed to the door and arm outspread to brace it, it's too easy for my eyes to settle on Fiesi's sleeping form nestled into the corner bed. The sheets that drape him are serenely neat, tucked with care by my own hands over his torso, not messed at all by movement, though the furrowed knit in his brow remains. His skin has a warm hue, reddened by his endless fever. His heat beads sweat beneath my borrowed coat even now, and I smile faintly, hoping my worry doesn't twist it into a grimace. I don't care how many restless nights that warmth has cost me. I cling to it like a blanket, cradling it as one of few signs that he and his flame still live beneath the cage of his slumber. When I watch closely, I can see his chest rise and fall, steady with small, quiet breaths.

The thunder of my heart yanks me back to the present situation, the imminent problem, and I force my gaze away in favour of pressing my ear to the door. The walls aren't thin enough to grant me more than the sound of distant murmurs, and the few moments of conversation I've squandered have rendered me lost. The hitch of surprise I catch in Cody's voice could be one of fear or relief or neither. The visitor who replies might be female. Her voice is soft and sharp at once, impossible to extract tone from.

My eyes roam the room again, this time gliding past Fiesi to latch onto my dagger's hilt sticking out from beneath my own pillow. I creep forward to tease it free, calmer when its soft leather sits in my palm. I found the weapon buried in Fiesi's pocket after Cody and I carried him back here. Part of me can't quite believe he held onto it for so long, but gratitude thrums through me nonetheless.

The waiting is quick to tear my patience to ribbons. I bounce on my heels, turning the dagger over and over and over. When the door clicks, the handle turning as it's twisted from the other side, I whirl, firming my stance as the blade snaps out.

"--safe to... Oh!" Cody's gentle river-flow voice, strung in a sentence I failed to listen to, leaps so suddenly up into a cry that I flinch. Eyes wide, he throws up a pair of placating hands. "Nathan! Didn't you hear me? You're fine!"

The dagger is slipping from my hand before he's finished speaking. Recognition bursts in my chest, brighter than any sun I've seen.

A step behind Cody, huddled into a fur-lined cloak dusted with white flecks, is a very familiar face.

I can't tell which of us moves first. I only know the moment when my arms are around her, and the soft brush of her cloak wraps around me, accompanied by the brush of her golden hair against my cheek and the clouding warmth of her breath on my forehead. She releases me before I can begin to squirm at any kind of closeness, leaving me with only the imprint of a soft, breathless embrace.

Tears glisten like jewels in her eyes. "It's good to see you."

My chin bobs, buying me time while I find my voice. "You as well." I can't help the easy crack of my smile. I've spent enough days pacing back and forth, too, wondering whether Sarielle was stressed or safe or happy or grieving, and to see her standing here before me, whole and unhurt, is such a breezy relief I'm half-sure I'll float without that weight on my shoulders pinning my feet to the ground. Her castle is gone and her father is dead and all of it traces to me, but she's okay. She's still my friend. Small victories are all I allow myself in these days full of tension and worry.

The quiet sound of someone clearing his throat draws my gaze to the side. I turn and find Dalton standing there, wearing a smile that weathers a crease beneath his single visible eye. The other is concealed behind a hard circle of black leather, pinned securely in place by a strap that winds around his head, the only suggestion of something underneath the dark crimson line of a scar poking out from one edge and snaking over his nose. His halved gaze stares somewhere past my shoulder, devoid of total focus.

My throat dries, and I feel my own smile falter. "Dalton, are you..."

"I'm fine, Nathan." His lips quirk. "There's no need to stare at me like I have two heads."

"You can see?" I cringe at the question's bluntness, but there's nothing I can do to erase it.

His shoulders lift. "More than I thought I'd be able to at first. It isn't so bad."

"I think he looks quite valiant, actually," Sarielle interjects with an inclination of her head. Her eyes sparkle with an old edge of mischief to match the grin she tosses his way. "Roguish. Like a pirate."

He huffs, folding his arms, though his smile doesn't dissipate in the slightest. "I'll let you guess how many times I've already heard that."

She laughs behind her hand, and I feel a certain ease drip into my shoulders, relaxing the coiled tension in my muscles. I've missed them, both of them. I've missed talking about simple things, or watching them playfully poke at one another, or merely basking in the knowledge that neither the world nor any of our lives is ending. It's nice. I find it suddenly hard to focus on anything else but that ease, like it's cotton wrapped around me, a tingling sheet cast over my skin that blurs out the detail in my senses and whispers contentment.

The slow, rough edge of Fiesi's breathing from behind twitches my ear, a sharp reminder that I can hardly call the situation we find ourselves in perfect. There's so much wrong and so much to recover from -- and just like that, I'm tense again. Pulling in a long breath, I rub at my arm, drawing deep circles in my sleeve. "I'm delighted to see you both alive and well, but... how did you find us?"

Sarielle's grin widens, excitement twinkling in her gaze. Without answering, she slides two fingers into her mouth, then lets out a sharp, clean whistle.

I wince at the pitch of the sound, frown drawing in, though it's quick to open out into awe when the meaning of the whistle becomes clear. A bird, coloured snowy white with dark speckles running the length of its huge wings, swoops in through the crack in the door, expertly arcing around before landing neatly on the arm she holds up as a perch. I've never seen one this close, but the singular memory I have is easy to grasp. A white falcon.

The falcon clicks its beak, staring straight through me with its shining emerald eyes. My heart skips a beat, intimidated by the powerful, predatory glint I see there, though my nerves soon settle when Sarielle reaches out to run a gentle finger down the length of its back. Its eyes half-lid, head tilted with what I can only assume is pleasure.

"This is Saiph," she says. "One of your Synté, though I'm guessing she isn't bonded to any Tía. She came to me while I was in the tunnels underneath the castle, and she found me again in the aftermath of... what happened." Her finger snags on a feather, then hurries to smooth it back down. "I asked her to lead me to you both, and she did."

I'm suddenly aware of the crackle of my flame, hot and noisy in my core as it stretches out towards Saiph, like some faint, invisible string ties me to her. The warning dampens my surprise when an airy voice intrudes upon my thoughts. You are truly untainted.

My grip on my arm tightens. I am, I respond simply, unsure of what else to say.

Warmth spreads in a hovering pool, a mist that embraces the base of my mind. Fiesi feels a great deal of affection for you, Saiph whispers, cradling Fiesi's name gently, carefully. Where is he?

The question is a sharp tug to my gut. I freeze, tongue curling into its silence, and count the beats of my heart. She isn't woven tightly enough with my thoughts to find her own answer, but I can't dredge up the words. I'm stuck.

"Nathan!"

I jolt, somewhat grateful to be snapped from my mind by Sarielle's voice. "Sorry," I say quickly. "What?"

Her lips curve an amused smile. "I was asking where Fiesi was. He did stay with you, didn't he?"

I could laugh at the synchronous nature of their questions if the topic they've both latched onto wasn't so heavy. My gaze slips to the floor, and I can practically feel Sarielle's light-hearted cheer soak out of her in unison. I hate that I must cause that, but she has to know. Breath held, I step backwards, nudging the bedroom door so that it swings wide open. The hinges groan softly.

"We crashed a short distance from here." The words feel thick, swampwater dragged up my throat. "He shielded me, but... I don't know what happened to him. He hasn't woken up since."

Sarielle moves forward gingerly, teetering on the doorway's line beside me like it's an unseen border she dare not cross. She dips her head, expression tight as her eyes dim, then her fingers brush my knuckles. A tingle shoots my spine, making me jump. Shakily, I open out my hand, letting her take it in a loose, interlaced hold.

"He's still alive?" she asks softly.

I swallow hard. "Yes."

"Then we can't give up on him." She snags my gaze, and there's a fierceness there -- the same determination as always, but underlined by an ashen, dusted weariness, flakes that catch in the flame behind her blue eyes and dampens its glow to something steady, controlled. "We'll have faith, and we'll wait." She sighs, then squeezes my hand, lips pinched like she peers into my fluttering, panicked thoughts and flinches back from them. Her eyes drift to rest on Fiesi again. "I'm hardly surprised," she adds, quieter, voice riding a scrappy breeze. "He'd give up anything for you, Nathan. If he doesn't come back, then that's his choice, and we'll honour it just the same."

She always knows exactly what weight to dangle from her words, precision scraping the edge of each rough syllable in a mix of poetry and music that isn't meant only for me. It ties strings to my heart all the same, caves my chest inward. I don't realise I'm crying until a wetness trails my chin. It drips into the fur of Sarielle's cloak as she captures me in a second embrace.

This one lasts longer, an isolated droplet in time that every fibre of me sinks into. Perhaps that thread I mused over endlessly has finally snapped, and with it comes a watery rush, a crack in a dam that widens to a chasm as it all flows through in one huge tidal wave. I'm crying not only for Fiesi but also for everyone and everything else: for the parents I never really had, for the nameless men and women and all the faces I never saw in Lo Dasi, for the innocence my purified flame pretends I have without understanding the depths of the darkness it is blind to. For the child Shaula destroyed, for the starving boy in the woods. For all that I've lost and all that I don't deserve to still have.

But I have Sarielle. Her arms stay there, anchoring, even as I sob into her cloak and tuck my head against her shoulder. I squeeze my eyes shut and shiver into her hold, snatching at the air until my breathing steadies, calming my heart. When I push back from her and straighten, scrubbing the mess of tears from my face, I survey her.

She offers a sad smile back, wiping at her eyes with a thumb. She's crying, too.

Because she's no saint, no perfect hero, no idol. She's my friend. She's here for me, and she's kind and gentle and imbued with so many beautiful qualities, but she is only a girl.

"I'm sorry," I tell her.

She sniffles, some half-shape of a laugh. "Whatever for this time?"

"For burdening you with so much." I duck my head, voice wavering. "I'm grateful for all you've done for me, but I fear I made myself your responsibility. That wasn't fair."

Her smile twitches upward, soft and secure. She curls a hand around my shoulder. "Nathan, I chose to help you, just as Fiesi did. That was my choice, and it's nothing to apologise for. All I ever wanted was for you to be okay."

I wish I could outwardly curse the heat climbing up the back of my neck. That isn't what this is about, and it shouldn't have to be. I pull at the coil of gratitude, of relief, curled like a slumbering animal in my chest, and bundle it close. "Well, I'm okay now." My head cocks along with a wry curl of my lips. "Sometimes. I think I can get there."

"And I'll be here for you whenever you need me regardless." A sigh drifts through her nose as her hand drops away. "I wish I could stay with you longer than I can, but... there's a lot to do." Her gaze slips to the side, and I see that weariness glide to the surface again, accenting her presence in some ways yet grey and dull in comparison to the brightness of her spirit. There are many other burdens on her shoulders. She's brave to carry them, but still my stomach twists, a desperate ache that compels me to help her when I know I can't. Even the previous month's events can't change this mutual pull between us.

She makes a sweeping gesture at Cody's main room. "May we sit?"

"Of course," Cody hurries to chime in, voice brittle and cracked with awkwardness. I shoot him an apologetic glance he doesn't catch; he's already rushing to tidy, tossing the strewn bundles of cloth across the floor into a messy pile and snatching a trio of chairs set out by the kitchen's corner table to crowd the room's centre in their place, adopting the demeanour of a subservient, scurrying mouse. Guilt folds up tight in my chest, but before I can say anything, Sarielle steps forward. She catches his arm.

"It's alright," she says, grip firm on him until he stills. Her smile is warm, casual. She delves into her pocket and produces a small drawstring bag, one that clinks and clatters as she captures his hand and sets it in his palm.

Coin. The connection is made disjointedly in my mind, flat as ribbon, but it skips through Cody as lightning. I suddenly recall the fame and importance of Sarielle's name and heritage. With that taken into account, it's little wonder that he appears faintly scared when made to meet her eyes, though most of what I see wide in his gaze is simple, confused shock.

He nudges the bag of coin back towards her. "I can't accept this. I-it's very generous--"

"It's no trouble," she affirms, unknowingly repeating his own words from earlier. She closes his fingers over the bag and lets go, a pointedness to her gaze that allows little room for argument. "You could go out and buy us all something nice to eat, if you wish?"

Cody hesitates, blinks, then looks at me, somewhat helpless. I smile my encouragement. If I'm to accept her help, everyone should.

His lips form the ghost of a smile in return, and he bows his head. "Right away, Miss." He's gone like a hare, swift on his long legs until the door swings closed.

The house feels quieter without him. I grasp the arm of a chair and sink into it, doing my best to banish him from my thoughts for the time being and focus on Sarielle.

She sits between Dalton and I, ankles crossed neatly over one another as she shrugs off her cloak. Her clothes are a splashed mix of tan and white underneath, the pale colours curving arcs over her shoulders and across her waist. New. Just to the left of her heart gleams a freshly-polished metal pin: a golden bird with wings arced in flight.

Her fingers linger upon the bird, lightly brushing it as if for reassurance, as she clears her throat. "Soon after Shaula fell," she begins, "Saiph helped me get in touch with King Cyneric, to inform him of all that occurred. I told him the general story but left out a few details." She pins me with a stare. "Perhaps most importantly, you're dead."

I can't help but glance awkwardly down at myself, hands twitching where they steady me either side of my straight legs. "Okay."

"Fiesi, too." A wince interlaces his name, but she continues. "I... Well, we" -- she tips her head towards Dalton -- "decided it was safest for you both to disappear, to avoid what others might assume. People need simple, uncomplicated facts that can't be twisted into rumours that might endanger anyone. And people believe what they know." She heaves a slow sigh, prolonging the pause, the twist of her lips scrawling apology into her face before she's even spoken. "Therefore, in the story we tell, the Anathe is the villain who tried to destroy Oscensi. He was beaten by a traitorous Neyaibet soldier, Finlay Hunter, who received a blessing from the stars -- or simply possessed a witchcraft magic, whichever one chooses to believe -- and sacrificed himself to vanquish the darkness." She shrugs. "It's a child's tale, lacking in nuance, but it will have to do."

An abstract of the truth. Fingers tapping rhythmically, I stare down at my knees, painting its smoky outline in my mind, like the scribbled, colour-blotted illustrations that used to adorn the pages of the books she showed me when we were young. There's no room for intricate fear and pain, for reams of thought, within the picture's thick pen strokes. The simplicity is strange and utterly detached from my own memories.

It's not the long, waltzing story I've dreamed of telling. But maybe that dream was always mist, unreal and untouchable.

"I'm sorry," Sarielle inserts into the silence I've left to wander, the words stiff and twisted around one another. "I wish everyone could know the full truth. But--"

"No," I say, lifting my head. My smile tilts, vague and crooked. "This is how it was always supposed to be, isn't it? The hero and the villain." I spy a glance of my hands -- pale, spindly fingers, ungloved, free. "It's fitting."

Sarielle's frown sews her discomfort. She shifts in her seat. "It shouldn't have to be."

"But it is." I hold her gaze. "I've always known my place in people's minds. And it was my hand that caused all that destruction." I press further into my point when she opens her mouth to argue, cutting her off. "My part in history was sealed from the start. There's no reason for it to concern me now."

There's another segment of thought I don't say, one that keeps my lips buoyed as a strange air of serenity drips between my ribs like a long-held sigh let loose. Fate has always held me in its strings, like a noose around my neck, but now that part of me -- the villain, the Anathe, the one painted in simplistic black -- is dead. Doesn't that mean the strings are severed? Doesn't it cut away the past, give me the clean, blank slate I always wanted?

I pull the expression back into one of grim acceptance. I can't choose to forget. I can both remember and mourn being that person, but I can shed him, too. If Noli is dead, then I can truly be just Nathaniel.

That triggers another realisation, and my tongue jumps on it. "What of the Enkavmé? Do they know I'm alive?"

She shakes her head. "I told them the same story. I... figured neither of you would want to be found by them."

Her gaze has a flash of hesitance, though, which she tosses to me. I give her a nod in return. I might have had a place with them once, but I can't ignore the quick way so many of them chose to abandon me. Aorila and its people only inhabit ghosts for me now.

"Thank you," I tell Sarielle, then gnaw at my lip. The magic has been dealt with, but that was never the only problem we faced. My next question comes with an odd sense of repetition. "And what of the war?"

Much to my surprise, she laughs. It's a short, shaken chuckle, but it comes with the twinkle of true humour. "Now comes something you'll never believe."

I'd believe just about anything in the world right now, but I sit forward regardless, taken as I always am by the intrigue in her demeanour.

"Roughly a week or so ago, I was cornered by a man bearing the Neyaibet crest. Naturally, I assumed he was a soldier, though he wasn't dressed like one. But when I drew my weapon on him, he didn't fight. He said he'd come to make peace, on behalf of his queen." Her voice has a shiver to it as it dances through the tale, a streak of her own bafflement. "It came to be that he was a messenger, and he'd been following a trail of rumours in searching for me -- or my father or the king, but I suppose he had some difficulty with that, for contrastingly obvious reasons."

She quietens for a moment, and I realise this is the first time she's mentioned her father. The man I forced Fiesi to kill. My memories of Shaula's outward actions while she saw through my eyes are a whirlwind, but that I remember. Horror crawls up inside my chest upon many limbs, a dark, thorny spread that weighs me into my seat. I lock my jaw, letting the feeling fester in silence. There's nothing I can say that will help.

She's quick to jump neatly over the pause, returning to her explanation. "To summarise the message he brought, the queen claims to have no memory of why she began conflict over our land. She's lost many Neyaibet citizens just as we've lost our people, and she has no desire to keep fighting. Apparently, she says she feels as if she woke from a haze, as if she's been detached from sense all these years and suddenly woke up full of it." She laughs lightly, a breezy disbelief. "I can't puzzle out the phenomenon myself, but it sounded sincere."

Woke from a haze. I ponder over those words, feeling pieces slowly click into place. A faint, wry amusement sparks to life, wrapped in a deep ache. I only know of one man with the power to cloud someone's mind so completely.

My fingers flex, and I bite back a sigh. Perhaps it's fortunate for Harlow that he chose to die in his sad, sacrificial way. If he were still alive, I'd strangle him myself.

"That is strange." I do my best to unwind the tightness woven into the words, pushing back the truth. It isn't something Sarielle needs to know. "But it's excellent news to hear you'll have peace."

She flashes a brief, careful grin. "It is. Cyneric and I have made arrangements to meet with Queen Oletha at the border in a few days' time, to sign a peace treaty and make arrangements regarding aid." She inhales deeply, pushing her shoulders back, and I see that steely tiredness in her eyes again. "There's a lot to do."

"But we will get it done." Dalton nudges her hand with his, and she smiles, flicking him a slanted glance.

"We will. Oscensi might be only embers right now, but it will burn bright again. Nothing is impossible."

Her faith glows like the fire she speaks of -- though its shine is faded, hue striped with flickering shadows, it roars its strength regardless. That light reflects between the two of them, her and Dalton, a beacon they share that lights up both of their faces when they look at one another. Their touching hands are slow to separate. When their bond shows itself as strongly as this, I can't help but think of their twin cutlasses, or their matching white uniforms. They're made to be partners, the two of them. They complement one another. I knew that already, but now is the first time I truly feel it as a twinge in my heart, a steady, rising warmth that brings a soft smile with it.

It's hard not to be jealous of that easy connection. Of course it is. It's all I've ever wanted: to have someone match me, to find sturdy, unbroken kinship, to look at someone else with affection and see love bounce back at me. It's why I fell for Shaula's trap, why I convinced myself I just had to claim that kiss. But, in this moment, I let the feeling sag, spread my fingers to let it drip through.

Perhaps it really is time I let go.

I doubt Sarielle can read the depth of thought in my gaze, but she jolts as she meets it all the same, brow furrowing again. "What are you going to do, Nathan?" Her eyes dart around the room, between each shabby corner, and the line of her lips thins. Her stare becomes more concentrated, earnest. "You should know you're always welcome with us. There'll be a few details to figure out in terms of your identity, but we're happy to--"

"I'd like to stay," I say, firmly enough to quiet her. "I think I'm better off separate from your world, and I have a plan."

In my mind, I take those strings of time that have bound me all these days since as reins, regaining control of their flow. I do have a plan, frayed as it is. I still need to visit Ligari -- to answer my questions, to talk about my mother. I want to reach out to Izar, see if there is anything that can be done about the curse that binds him. I'd like to see the world I haven't yet seen. Freedom opens its doors out wide when I let the possibilities trickle in.

I resist the urge to look at the room Fiesi lies in again. More than anything, I wish he could come with me, but I can't guarantee that. He's as safe as I can make him. Sarielle was right: the choice is his now. I know perhaps better than anyone else that it can't be made for him.

Sarielle's eyes flash like the diamonds they're coloured as, and a tension I didn't notice until now ebbs from her shoulders. "I'm glad," she says simply, though her voice has a tremor to it. She blinks, hard, and the air of glass-like fragility is cast quickly away. She sits nearer her seat's edge instead. "I've been thinking. It'll be spring soon."

Like a cord has reeled me in, I lean forward. "How soon?"

"Hard to tell. Seasons are finicky and imprecise. But we're clear of the depths of winter now." She grins, and I see a glimpse of that spring already, painted in recollections of her old words: colourful fields of flowers, leaves sprouting to life upon bare branches, long arcs of sunlight that grow stronger by the day. "I can't wait for you to see it."

She's quick to tumble into those familiar descriptors. Our talk of grand life plans and world-shaking magic and kingdom-wide conflict is over, and now we turn to simple things, little delights that greet me like soft, snowy cotton. Sarielle tells me of birds and plants and skies to watch out for, sights I'm duty-bound to seek out. Dalton chuckles at the fierce nature of her passion, but loves it truly. He joins in -- he's a farmer by upbringing, I remember, and he has more stories of the outdoors than I ever cared to listen to. Our voices fill the room. The shadow Fiesi's silence leaves behind is cavernous, but we talk over it, reminding ourselves in a thousand tiny ways how much we still have to live for.

Part of me hopes he'll hear, from wherever his slumber has taken him, that it'll call him back the same way his voice did for me. Guilt ruminates in my chest, cold and gnawing as ever, a pain that'll never go away.

But I live regardless. The pain is my own and my voice belongs to me. Somehow, I can't help but smile.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

Apologies that this chapter is rather long. It deserves to be split in half, but since it's the very last chapter, I just couldn't find a suitable place to split it, so you get the chonk. Nathan also said lots and lots of rambling internal monologue but when doesn't he.

ALSO! Yes you did hear me right. We finally reached the end :D Let's yeet straight into the next part and unpack that--

- Pup