People drifted in and out of the poorly constructed buildings, and shops that had been conformed to the needs of the camp rather than stand-alone structures. The faded signs indicate the past life of the city: a flower shop, a bakery, a shabby exercise studio with massive windows that had been spray-painted black. 

Reflecting on my past life didn't offer me much in the form of escaping a death camp as I hoped for inspiration to find me in any form. The weakness I was feeling didn't help my situation; the gas still sending me in and out of what felt like a haze. My feet skirt on the frozen blood, darkening the cracked and broken concrete. 

The overwhelming heat of the fire had me wishing for the familiar chill that had plagued me for some months. I shuffle against the pole, trying to find an angle that I could use to get the ropes to snap, but to no such luck, the pole had seen too much abuse to offer me any form of resistance. 

The wear marks indicated so much suffering, the various scrapes already ground into the concrete all around me. So many people had fought for their lives here. "Damn it," I murmur, trying not to let it get to me, to not give up. 

We lived because we didn't give up.

It would seem even the objects in this city were ground down to submission. "Where do you think they would have my friends?" I ask.

Ganath ponders this, "Well. The blacked-out building is where they used to take the magical beings we would bring in. They must sort them and decide who to sell and who would be best suited for extraction. They'll be coming here with us, though I'm pretty sure they're not intending to cut you up; I'm sure they're trying to increase your stress. Don't Solomonari respond to stress?"

 I stiffen at the question, glancing at him over my shoulder with a look of disbelief. 

"How would you know that? Those are trade secrets."

The elf chuckles lightly, "Ain't much for secrets anymore among us. Master Gabriel has done quite a bit of studying on magical users, experiments, and such. Didn't bother me until now, funny how sitting on this side of the pyre changes your perspective. I've seen a few of you, America has a version of Solomonari that is a bit less specialized." 

Talking to this elf was giving me whiplash, such a stark difference from the elves of old that spoke so melodically. This man reminded me too much of the banditi. 

"When you want to make money, you start to figure out what makes these people tick." He shakes his head, the humor leaving his voice. "I deserve to be sitting here. I've hunted down innocent people of their parts."

While I had to agree with him, right now he's helping me. "Well, you can right yourself after we escape. People do awful shit sometimes, now is not the time to reminisce." I think of my spells, racking my head through all of that schooling and torment. 

The difference between me and them is no Solomonari in this time would have had the schooling I've had. With my magic stores at an all-time low, I would have to be selective of what I used as one wrong move could render me back into a state of unconsciousness. 

I think of an unbinding spell though the words feel fuzzy, I begin to mumble to myself, trying to focus. 

The bindings that hold up the air vent to the steamer drop with a loud clang, and I curse under my breath, shutting my eyes to focus. If I survive this, I must remember to do more than just weather magic. 

The more I mumble, the more bonds that snap loose all around us. A rack of pans releases; corks fly off precariously placed wine bottles; a hanger full of an assortment of butchering tools flies off the wall and clatters across the sleet-covered ground. 

"Wow. You kind of suck at this." Ganath muses.

I point my glare towards a snow-covered awning and curse the snow to fall on him, causing him to laugh at the suddenness of the assault. "I'm rusty. I control the weather, not objects."

 The hustle of footsteps makes me startle and I spy a large blade, though rusty, not far from me. Extending my foot across the slick surface, I attempt to snag it. 

"What the hell was that?"

"Probably that clutz fire mage. He'll be next if he can't get his shit together." 

I twist in my bonds; my shoulders protesting at the awkward angle as I stretch and attempt to grasp the knife with the toe of my boot. The footsteps get louder, scuffing across the concrete. A young man trots out of the nearby storefront and I freeze. 

He eyes me, lips parted as I try and decide what best to dispatch him with. He approaches me quickly, eyes full of concern. 

"You shouldn't be doing that." He tells me quickly, his voice a low hiss. 

"You shouldn't be doing this!" I snap back at him, and he seems taken aback by my accent. He watches me with a look that seems to peer into my soul. Inhaling sharply, the men round the corner, and he kicks the knife at me, standing in front of me to block my form from the view of the approaching men.

"Honor the Good King." He murmurs under his breath. 

I scramble to hide the knife under my person, shoving it towards my hip with my heel in an attempt to hurry it behind the pole. "Gentlemen." The man greets them. 

Seth, our prosecutor, backhands him sharply across the face. 

With a scowl, he shoves the young man to the ground. "Look at this damn mess! What the hell were you doing out here? Costing us more than you're worth!" These red eyes turn towards me, and I tilt my chin up in defiance. "I must thank you for bringing me such an assortment of magic users. I was coming up short on my quota, but now I think I've just earned myself a vacation."

I jerk on my bonds, using the movement to sweep the knife back towards my hands. "There won't be a world to vacation in if you don't let me and my companions go right now!" I demand him, stretching my fingers for the handle. 

"I know you are familiar with the state the planet is in; my companions and I have the power to stop this."

 The laugh begins to roll through the group, Seth squats down in front of me with a broad smile. It's useless to argue with people who don't have a vision, who only live in the now instead of looking into the future and seeing that there will be nothing left to have once this is over. 

I dawn my best politician's face, squaring up with him. 

"You won't be laughing when the world around you crumbles. You will wish you heeded my warning."

Seth wets his lips, pretending to consider my words as he brushes my bangs out of my face. "Why do you think Master Gabriel is so excited we found you? I admit I was an idiot to think you were working with him, but now that I know who ya really are, it makes it all the sweeter."

 Amused, he grips my hair and yanks my head back to examine my split lip. "You, my friend, are in the way of progress. We don't want to save the planet, because, in the end, all that will be left is us guys. Keep running that mouth, and I'll stuff it full of cock. I imagine you're at the last of your reserves, or you would have escaped by now; you're too pretty to have such a poor attitude."

I narrow my eyes, jerking my face away from his hand. "Keep your hands off of me. You're killing magic users, innocent people with families!"

"A worthy sacrifice to get the right people in the right places. You should understand that; Mistress told us some of the things your people would do to trick us from seeing the truth. 'Your Majesty'. You sacrificed plenty of people to get what you wanted; I'd say we're just taking a page out of your book." 

If they had any interest in my tour, they would know how wrong that was. What I didn't understand was the sudden common knowledge of my identity in the magic community. It would seem as if our own war had never stopped, it had just gone on underground ever since I was taken from the fight, only the sides were much more bitter about the impending conclusion.

 The pendulum wanted to swing back, this time eliminating the human side who could not survive the impending apocalypse when it seemed as though the magic users who lived in squaller on the outskirts were surviving just fine. 

At least to their standards. 

"This is not the right path, and you know it," I tell him, low enough that only we can hear. "This plan isn't going to work. Nobody lives through this. You're going to die right alongside these bastards, screaming on the way out."

"She said you'd say that. Know what I see? A world in shambles and only one race that can help. Ya want oxygen? You come to us. Food? Ya come to us. Warmth and safety?" He gestures to himself. "Money to be made, sweetheart. A changing of the guard, if you will. We will either be all that remains, or we will be the only wants who can save anyone." 

I slip the blade of the knife between the rope and my hands, attempting to cut through it with the rusted blade.

 "So think on that while you sit here. Master should be here shortly." Seth moves to stand as I nick the last piece of rope and yank my hands free. 

Coming around, I plunge the knife into the base of his throat. "Who saves you?" I ask him, my tone dull. "Nobody. A society built in exclusion survives at the expense of the individual." 

Jerking the blade from the sputtering man, I stand up on wobbly legs. The inky black blood indicates that this person was some type of strigoi as he falls to the ground, I feel the imminent danger of attempting to fight on so little reserves.

 The fire mage comes to stand beside me, his hands blazing. "Get out of here," I tell him under my breath. 

"Hell no. I am not the only one who feels this is the wrong path." He whispers. 

The woman picks up a whistle and blows it as men begin to flood out of their structures toward us; I swallow hard at the large number of people who embodied this camp. I wasn't strong enough, how could I possibly make it out of here?

 "Honor the Good King!" The mage shouts, reaching towards the fire pit and forming what almost appears to be a dragon made entirely of flame around himself. His body disappears as the inferno lizard forms and charges into the fray. 

I grasp the large butchering blades, and I'm grateful I had dedicated some time to hand-to-hand combat. Making my way back towards my new elf friend, I toss him a knife. 

"If you turn on me, I will be really upset." I threaten him as he scrambles to cut himself free. 

Ganath shrugs, "What if I tell you I'll be on the side of whoever wins?"

Rolling my eyes, I dive down behind the pelts at the sudden gunfire. "Seems fair enough." As I peer over the pelts, I see that not all the workers are fighting towards us as some turn on their own, and a vast majority are running from the fire dragon. 

I take a deep breath and stand, pulling snow off the tops of a roof and sending it cascading down in icy daggers to create a barrier and put some distance between me and them. "Just understand I will kill you if I must." I

 hop up, running to the barrier to lean against it, absorbing the chill in an attempt to cool my body. I'm once again surrounded by the screams of battle coupled with gunfire and the clang of metal on metal. 

Using gravity and the snowfall off the roofs, I work through the group by creating ice barriers and taking out whoever I can. Their frozen forms encased in ice; contorted into portraits of death, I've grown numb to the sight. I've got to keep moving; I can't stop to appreciate the loss of life. 

Following the pull of the bond, I spot gray hair and fight to get to the man. It energizes me to see him, knowing that he's alright, believing that this fight could be a victory for our side. I take a gust of wind, blasting the incoming assailants as I hug him from behind, but he feels wrong. 

His body feels hard, and cold to the touch. The man turns in my grasp, and the metallic hand closes around my bicep. I note the scar over his eye, and I attempt to wrench myself free.

 "Let go of me, Tonic!" I shout through clenched teeth. 

He pets my hair with his flesh-covered hand. "Did you think I was my father?" He 'tsks' at me in disappointment; I don't have the reserves to blast him away. "It's alright, I'm here, I'm going to help save you all so that you can see who is the better option." 

My gut wrenches, and I jerk against his grasp. 

"Way to come in at the last second, Tonic, you damned coward." I spit in his face, kneeing him squarely in the groin as I twist free. 

I attempt to run and yet a scream stops me. I turn on my heel to see he has Helen by her hair, a knife to her throat as his body curls from the strike to his genitals. 

"Come. Here. Nicolas." He snarls, teeth bared. 

Helen shakes her head, guarding her injured hand; I can tell by her stance that she's just as exhausted as I am. She only wears a dirty curtain, clutching it to her body to hide her naked form. I take one small step, and he practically roars at me, "Now!" 

Shutting my eyes in pure rage, I force my legs to move. 

"I am getting pretty sick of your hostility. We are supposed to be friends." His eyes are wild; he's not himself. The sickness that had been tainting Tonya had to be getting to him, I couldn't believe that this much insanity lurked in Tonic under the guise of medication.

My gaze stays fixed on Helen as she fights against his hand; where had she been? I wasn't even thinking, I had acted purely on impulse, and I hadn't even noticed her. The blade dents her skin, held under her jaw, as she tilts her head up and away. 

"Just let her go, Tonic."

It brings a bubble of laughter from him, "Just because you declare it? This needs to stop, Nic. This isn't how a partnership works. We need to get back to our family, and our friends; we can start over in the compound. I think you're ready to be with me, to help these poor people."

 How did he get free? 

My mind races, attempting to piece together how I was even looking at this man. The knife leaves his hand, sailing past me to drive into the skull of an assailant. 

"See? I saved your life. I care about you." 

Helen thrashes in his grasp; the robotic hand clutches her throat and picks her up off the ground.

 "With no replacement, you can't go to France. Maybe this is what I need to do; maybe Helen just keeps getting in the way like everyone else. Don't you see that I'm trying to save people? How could you bring those poor civilians here? They didn't want this... none of them did. This is cruel, Nic. We need to help you, help your sickness.. we can fix you if you come with me."

"Tonic, stop!" I command him, taking quick steps forward as he holds her away. 

There are times when things happen that not even I can explain. The interesting thing about magic is that it tends to come from your darkest places; when we think we can't take anymore, the universe has an interesting way of throwing you a lifeline. 

Siren's words play back in my head, rolling on repeat. The gods were not ready for this world to end; they held an invested interest in our side of this battle, and it would be by some miracle that I had happened to be in their favor. 

Nothing is as it seems.

I feel a calm come over me as I inhale slowly; the world seems silent. Everything falls away in a moment of clarity. A Solomonari is one with nature; we are the balance that brings the rains and follows the sun, allows light where there is darkness, and brings peace to unholy ground. 

I feel that call deep in my bones, a sense of purpose, a heartbeat mirrored from me to the earth beneath my feet. 

I begin to walk, the snow falls away, and Tonic takes a step back as Helen's struggles fade. He was going to strangle the life out of her; I could see his intention. I have nothing left to expend, nothing to give; with the universe at my fingertips, the call comes for someone else. 

This is not my fight; this is not about me; I'm merely the messenger. I use the enlightenment to find a worthy opponent, someone who could do what I could not, and as I stretch my fingers out, I snap the lock off the gate that holds back the prodigal son, for there is no one who values Helen's life more than him. 

"I bring you balance, if you have a god, I would beg them for mercy," I tell him, falling to my hip with the exhaustion that overwhelms me.

The white wolf appears in the doorway, fangs bared. In Norse mythology, there were drugs a man could take to induce a type of 'berserk' rage. I could only imagine what Marcus had gone through with the release of his wolf mirrored that. 

Here, with the massive white beast before me, I knew that a long-suppressed beast had been unleashed with only one goal in mind. Marcus had no purpose with his cavalier life, Legardo had only one purpose, and Tonic had a hold of her.

Tonic wheels around, holding the girl between them. I spot Jed and see the glimmer in his eyes as he influences Tonic, watching the metallic hand almost appear to malfunction.

. Helen drops to the ground in a heap, and Tonic writhes against the secondary impulses of a lessor magic-user. The white wolf closes the space between them, and I crawl toward Helen as I try to keep below the gunfire.

Covering her with my body, I attempt to guard her against the impact of man meeting wolf. The second wave of panic unfolds as my companions start to spill out of their holding cells. This is why we need an army; we cannot do it alone. 

Wolves and magic users who had expended little energy in our fight with Gabriel were fresh to finish what we could not. 

"Helen. Helen, are you alright?" I check her pulse, pulling the curtain over her slender form. 

She peeks at me through long, pale lashes, flinching as she swallows. "Not. Fault." She manages, clutching her throat. I pull my eyebrows down. 

"Don't defend him; Tonic has struggled for quite some time."

She shakes her head, fighting to sit up as I shield her from the spray of snow from the battling duo. Tonic fights against the massive jaws of a wolf crazed with protective instincts.

 "I know my uncle Tonic." Her voice is hoarse, raspy. "Please, Nic. You have to stop Daddy. This is not Tonic's fault." I want to believe her, and I want that to be true. How would we even begin to help him if he was under some control? 

I analyze her face, searching those large eyes still holding so much innocence and hope. 

Is it possible that I am wrong all over again?