"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don't even start. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods, and the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is." 

― Charles Bukowski

– T A Y A H –

The men fussed over Yanu, who was found hidden in a corner of our supplies. True to the word of my immortal the camp was spread about like a strong storm had blown through. Not obliterated to ash like an original.

I thought through it again replaying her words as I stared down at the gleaming silver helmet in my hands.

Five originals. Now three destroyed. Only her and one other remained somewhere on the realms. I felt the power. It was so immense it felt impossible. The same way the object in my hands felt. Almost diamond-like holes for eyes, joined by a thin line cutting down to the jaw. It was like the helmet of the forger but infinitely more powerful. A shudder traveled through me without permission.

"Get him some blankets or something!" Kaden rumbled angrily in John's direction.

"He's not a newborn for wenches sake!"

I heard a smack and released the helmet back to the side of my hip where I strapped it. I walked over to the fussing mortals and dropped to a knee before Yanu. He rushed from Kaden's towering form and hugged me tightly. I chuckled and patted him on the back before drawing him back.

"Trust me, Yanu. You've got the best guardian on the realm looking out for you now." I told him as he shook in my arms with confusion.

Her smooth voice cut over the camp in the Kanton translation and he laughed at something. I frowned and glanced at the demi-god who was piling supplies together in travel packs again.

"You did not tell him what I said!" I accused.

"Of course I did not." She snorted. "It was not true."

I raised an eyebrow. "So you doubt your power?"

"It's because I doubt it that I am stronger than the rest." She stated with a dark smirk.

I rolled my eyes and looked back to the child. I ruffled his hair making him giggle before pulling out a gleaming dagger and offering it to him hilt first. His wide eyes grew wider and stared.

"Tayah I don't think that's–" Kaden began.

"Try not to kill Kaden." I told him casually. "Or do. Either way." I shrugged, rising to my feet.

Yanu palmed the small blade with a big grin and turned to Kaden. The hulk was already running in the other direction with a small warrior in tow. I walked back over to the immortal and leant against a log watching her. She let it continue for a few more slithers until she leant back against the remains of a bare tree and crossed her arms.

"Ask."

"Do you really think giving me a relic is a good idea?" I deadpanned.

"Yes."

"Even after what happened the first time..."

"Even more so."

I sighed and scanned over her armour, back to the dark obsidian always sat on her back. I caught her smirking when I found her face again.

"Enjoying the view?" She drawled.

I raised an eyebrow, "Always. But it's not your figure I'm concerned with at the moment."

"Tayah, the relics are only dangerous when the one wielding them has no control. You have come across many immortals with hunger and no control."

"Yes." I agreed thinking back to Anselle and her enticing promises. How she had tried to bend my mind long before on a distant ship and told me my immortal was too rigid and controlled with her power... Only now did it show me how important it was to show restraint and control.

"I want to learn exactly how you do it. So that I don't have to fear it anymore." I finished simply, meeting her burning silver eyes.

She nodded slowly like she already knew as much already.

"I will once we make some ground to Vargos. Learning how to wield a relic is not like testing the limits of your power. It is teaching yourself to become a vessel of power. Nothing more. You do not ever try to contain it, merely let it flow through you or back into the relic. Never store it." She told me seriously. 

I glanced down at the shimmering helm of Athena. I could not imagine any reason why I would try and hold that inside me–let alone the personification of death itself Kára held on her back.

"Have you ever tried to hold that power? When you first attained the relic?" I asked cautiously.

Her body tensed briefly. A distant recollection of something but she shook her head.

"One close to me did. I felt it consume her and did not follow the same path."

A spike of something flashed through me hearing close and her in the same sentences. I brushed the childish jealousy of another beautiful immortal holding her attention away. 

"You won't let that happen to me I'm hoping..." I muttered with a nonchalant look.

"Oh, that's up to you immortal." She told me with a knowing smile. Then she frowned as if recalling something. "That night in Vayleron... You were the one to release my power when it was becoming too much. I think I would have found a way but you still took my own and sent it out. In many ways you are ready for the powers of the gods if you do the same as you did that night."

I pulled myself off the log and rolled my shoulders with a casualness I did not feel.

"I suppose we will find out."

"To answer your question, Ashrive. I will not let it consume you. But you must put the past behind you. You were manipulated by Thanatos because of who wielded it. You control what happens now." She finished before picking up a travel pack again and throwing it at me. I caught it with a grunt. "Now stop burning daylight. We have a boy to reunite to some warlords."

I chuckled and hefted it onto my back before tucking my chrome shield over the top. We all proceeded to arm ourselves in different levels of lethality until I heard Kaden's shout through the trees and watched the hulk of a man collapse before a child with his hands raised.

"Tayah take it from him!" He complained from the ground. "He has not stopped trying to stick me where no man should be struck!"

I laughed loudly as I crossed the camp and dodged the boy's swing in Kaden's direction before picking it out of his small hands easily. Kaden sighed and dropped his head and arms back to the ground. I raised an eyebrow at Yanu.

"Kára, tell the lad that Kaden is friendly and shouldn't be skewered please!" I called over my shoulder.

There was silence for a beat before the Kanton reply came back. Yanu grinned and giggled in response before calling something back. I waited before turning to her with a curious look. She threw me a devilish one back and I palmed my face.

"Something tells me this isn't going to change." Kaden grumbled, getting to his feet and going for his pack.

"Wait until he discovers devil's sneeze." John quipped with a grin while he stretched his legs.

"Wait until my fist rediscovers your soft face." Kaden snapped.

"On that note we move!" I called, pulling my pack tighter against me and making for the trees before pausing. "In which direction?" I added, glancing at the Kára. She joined my side and nodded forward.

"This works well enough. We need to cross the Black Fangs before we start to see the capital." She noted, glancing at a vicious collection of sharp mountains ahead of us. "Hopefully no more than three spans of listening to two morons communicate."

"I hope you mean yourself and Tayah." John added, coming up behind me. "I design the finest inventions a mortal can come across!"

"You steal designs and modify them, Keavesmith. That is not talent it is–"

"Business." He finished with a snort.

"Helpful." Kaden grunted with a smirk. "I would be ten foot under long ago had it not been for that fruity smoke."

"Is that not a shame." Kára muttered too low for them to catch.

I giggled beside her as she led on through the trees that grew thicker by the moment against the sharp rock face we climbed. The cool mountain air was growing cooler and it cleared my head. It felt nice to feel the familiar bite of air again. The furs on our shoulders and cloaks were finally being put to use. Yanu was upon Kaden's shoulders once more and nudging him on with his heels like a stallion.

John filled the echoing rock face that grew higher with endless stories and ideas of our future. It wasn't until we were walking single file along a thin trail against the mountain that he thought it appropriate to voice something.

"Why aren't we using a magical portal?"

I heard Kára sigh ahead of me which meant it was up to me to answer. I smiled ahead at her back and decided on entertainment over truth.

"We actually tried it once." I told, keeping my voice level. "I tried to get a little old lady through a portal in my training and she came out the other side with two and a half heads." I said gravely.

There was silence for a beat behind me before John snorted. "There's no way–"

"I don't know... I heard from a wench in Vayleron that there was an old lady outside the wall that had multiple limbs." Kaden voiced unsure.

I bit down on my tongue hard and kept my eyes on the silent immortal in front of me that was no doubt considering throwing herself off the side. The snow had started to thicken at our feet and gravel often rolled down the side to our right.

"She can't be–Tayah come now you jest!" John called with less humour and more concern. "An old lady?"

"Aye. She was not deserving of two and a half heads." I stated, unable to keep the growing smile out of my voice.

"What if I wanted multiple parts in a different location?" He quipped, seeing that I was losing the will to laughter.

"Then I would fuse a portal and you can see for yourself." I murmured, turning half back to him with a wink. He scowled and flicked me the finger.

"You cannot cross through immortal power, mortal. That is why." Kára finished for him ahead.

"We crossed just fine when Tayah was excited!" He called back.

"You travelled through a god-made portal. Do I look like a god to you?" She uttered dryly.

"Don't answer that." Kaden cut in. "It is a trap. It's like when a woman asks if she looks beautiful. The answer is never simple."

John laughed loudly before I joined in. "He's not wrong. But that's because you men say things like yes."

"What's wrong with that?" John demanded.

"You cannot just say yes like it means nothing. Your response should exceed the question and then you will please her."

John was thoughtful for a moment. I smirked into the biting winds that pushed strands of brown hair against my face. The fact that I did not care much for compliments unless they came from the one ahead of me was besides the point. But even Kára had noted that I was not distracted by them as most mortals were. I pulled the water skin from my hip as I thought.

"Fair maiden, you look not beautiful but utterly bed worthy!" John called.

I spat half the water I had been drinking down my chin and Kaden burst into booming laughter behind me with John.

"Mortal if you do not stop filling the air with your endless idiocy I will test how far you can fly."

"Come Valkyrie I know you would have me if you could!" He called back.

I wiped the water off my mouth and shook my head. Thunder rumbled distantly in response and I grinned.

"On no realm. If you were the last breathing thing left." She growled, not breaking stride.

"You could have her under water–" Kaden began, before a thick crack of lightening hit the rock face behind them and Kaden screamed like a woman. More laughter rang out behind us.

"Tayah, please." She said sounding desperately close to losing patience.

"Let's get off this rock face and then I promise I will have a word with them–which they will ignore."

"How did you survive so long? I feel like I could send all of Odin's power through them and it would still not satisfy me." She muttered, hopping over a pile of rocks in our path. I jumped over them easily and a few slid down the mountain. I heard John do the same and more rocks moved.

"It's not about surviving them it's–"

Something cracked and moved before the heavy shift of too much stone sounded.

"Kaden!" John shouted as the ground fell away beneath him and Yanu. He threw a hand out uselessly as the giant man fell with the rocks down the side of the sharp mountain. I moved fast but Kára was already in motion. Before I could shout she threw herself off the edge after them. We huddled to the side of the thin trail as steps of bright power glowed quickly beneath her and she swooped down fast beneath them as they slid uncontrolled down the side.

Kaden stopped suddenly and Yanu grappled around his huge head. Then as quickly as they fell they were rising on bright pools of light below a demi-god's running strides.

She leapt high with Kaden's leather in her hand before dropping him on the trail again with Yanu wrapped around his neck like a bush creature. He dragged in gulps of air and gripped the gravel around him to be sure. Then he stared over his shoulder at her.

"Thank–"

"Stop talking. Please." She answered him. "You might last longer than a span."

"Yes ma'am!" He saluted her, while I rushed up to the giant and slapped him around the head.

"Idiot. Be careful for realm sake!" I hissed. He gave me a lazy grin and shrugged his shoulders making Yanu move with them.

"On second thought. He comes with me." I plucked Yanu off him easily and the boy seemed more than happy to comply. I set him on my shoulders easily and his little form sunk on top of my pack and between my shield well.

John slapped Kaden on the back as he helped pick him up. "Excellent show, man. I was even marginally worried for a moment."

Kaden grunted and dusted himself off behind me as we started on our path again.

"I think I broke something." He grumbled.

"You even rolled like a tree." John sniggered.

"At least the immortal likes me enough to get me. She wouldn't help you until you hit the bottom."

"He is not wrong." She muttered, stepping faster on the trail to get to level ground faster and away from rock faces that would cause problems for my mortals. I cast one more glance down the steep face that only ended in distant sharp rocks and mist below. I couldn't be certain if immortal power would even repair that damage. I dragged my eyes back to the silent guardian that calmed my heart once again.