Nyxis woke up to Denara shrieking his name.

He groaned as he sat up and mussed his hair. The curtain flapped open and Denara's blue head poked through. "Oh, you are awake. Good," she was huffing. "Come with me and bring splints with you."

Then, she was gone as fast as she came. What now? Confused, Nyxis gingerly edged off the rock and tramped into the pile of healing supplies Denara had left in his cavern. He remembered asking her about it and she answered rather cheekily that it was tiring to haul those things in and out of the kitchen.

Nyxis blew a breath as he picked his way into a pile of chopped branches atop the keg. He palmed a roll of white cloth bandage and went on his way. Denara screamed at him to hurry from the garden. Dread coated his throat as he emerged through the curtain separating the kitchen and the cavern that led to the open ocean. Could it be...?

"What took you so long?" Denara demanded as she yanked the supplies off his hands. "He could have died."

Nyxis knitted his eyebrows. "Who?"

Denara rolled her eyes and trudged into the lip of the cave where a boy no older than twelve lay. Nyxis froze in his tracks as he beheld the bruised skin, the bluish lips, and the broken arms. Images of him with his wounds peppering his form like that flashed in angry screens across his mind. He had to clamp his jaw and squeeze his eyes shut to regain control.

He was fine. He should be helping the child.

He forced his feet to move. Denara looked up at him as he reached them. She was breathing hard; her hair was all over the place. It looked like she dove into the waters to rescue this boy. Nyxis stole a glance at the ocean beyond and true enough, the waves beyond the banks were nothing but a violent storm. By some familiar instinct, he dropped next to Denara and examined the boy.

Pale red hair hung in sopping, rigid locks on the boy's head. His eyes were closed; his chest rose and fell in shallow gasps. A trail of blood ran down the corner of his mouth. His arms and legs were bent in strange angles.

Nyxis clenched his jaw. How in the world did this child end up here? Surely he wasn't battling the Heiress on the edge of the cliff, was he? Denara finished securing the splints on the left arm and moved to the right. "If you are just going to stand there, at least get me the stretcher," she said. "It is behind the kegs in the kitchen."

Nyxis nodded and moved to stand up when he processed what she said. "Stretcher?" he turned back to her. "Were you able to use it on me when it required two people?"

"Why do you suddenly want to know that?" Denara clicked her tongue when the boy began coughing. He must have suffered organ trauma. Denara answered nonetheless. "No, I treated you by the banks until I can move you without leaving your leg here."

Nyxis winced. The image of his leg lying alone on the shore was disconcerting. It must have been hard for her. He trudged back to the kitchens to look for the thing Denara ordered him to find.

Was that why she was asking him for such a terrible price? Their conversation last night jarred something in his heart. He might not be able to remember everything but something in his gut told him that the feeling he had back then was not allowed. Not yet.

He trudged past the tower of empty kegs at the far end of the kitchen, his eyes glazing over various objects scattered beyond it. Stretcher. Hmm. There. Wedged between wooden poles and a towering amount of folded fabric. He stretched his hand to grip the stretcher's legs and then spent the next minutes trying to wrestle it out from its hiding place.

Something fell to the ground with a metallic clink and a sheathed dagger skittered into view. Nyxis looked around, up and down. Where did that come from? Denara certainly had interesting things scattered around here. Perhaps, if he looked hard enough, he could find rare gemstones or ancient versallis.

For now, he had to get this stretcher to Denara. The boy needs their help.

When Nyxis got back to the cave's opening, Denara had her arms forward, the cocoon of healing water over the unconscious boy. The words of her healing song floated along the cavern's air but the waters beyond devoured it to nothingness.

Nyxis laid the stretcher beside the boy just as Denara opened her eyes and willed for the healing water to subside back into the ocean. Together, with some grunting and be-carefuls, they transferred the child into the stretcher. Then, Denara instructed him to head for the cavern with the rock. His cavern. He bit back his protest. They had to help this boy. And fast.

After a few minutes, they had laid the child atop the rock. Denara turned away from the rock. "At least it is going to be easy for this boy," she dusted her fingers like the whole thing dirtied her hands. "He suffered the normal injuries from falling into the ocean," she gave him a pointed look. "Unlike you."

Nyxis bit his lip and extended his hand. Even after a few days have passed, he still couldn't get a hold of his magic. He closed his fist and opened it again before turning to Denara. "Is...losing the ability to do magic part of those injuries?"

Denara apprehended him, probably to see if he was kidding or was just plain dumb. She shook her head after a while. "No," she said gently. "You and I know that you suffered from something other than the ones you obtained from slamming into the waves."

"I have to remember more," Nyxis muttered.

A hand laid atop his. "When the boy wakes," Denara looked up at him with soft eyes. "Perhaps he can help."

Nyxis cast a brief glance at the sleeping boy despite the sickening feeling at the pit of his stomach. "I hope so."

"If we ever make it out of this alive," Rhys blurted to Eldan as they were stashed inside a damp room that smelled like piss and expired ale. "Will you consider joining our cause in fighting in this war?"

Eldan smiled without a trace of nerves in his face. "What are you fighting for?"

Rhys eyed the door that remained dark and glanced at Reeca seated beside him. "I'm fighting for the innocent souls out there that got dragged into this mess," the words were thick against his tongue. "I'm fighting to make the island a better place to live."

"That's a noble cause," Eldan scratched his palm. "What makes you think that by fighting in this war will make the island better? Fighting will make it worse."

"We just need to drive the Synketros and Cardovia out," Rhys bobbed his head as if the act of it would make his argument more convincing. "Then we'll go from there. We can rebuild the island from the ground up if we need to. It's just...I don't want any more people to lose things like I lost them. And this war..." Rhys's eyes snapped up to Eldan's. "This war will kill us all if we don't fight for the right thing."

Without a word, Eldan tore his gaze from Rhys and stared at the bare wall of ice that's becoming annoying for Rhys. Seriously, that particular shade of ice blue was beginning to no sit well with him. "That's something I always liked to see in young fairies," the nature fairy said some time after. "What are the odds that we'll live through this war?"

Rhys gave Eldan a reluctant smile. "If we're talking about odds, we must be crazy."

Eldan returned Rhys's grin but wider and more genuine. "Then I'm in," he jerked his chin towards his friends and his wife. "I don't know about the others though."

"Ask them, perhaps?" Rhys said, his nerves elated at the sudden ally he made while waiting in this smelly room with a trial against them soon. Don't even get him started that this whole charade took him back to when he was twelve, watching his sister undergo the same thing under the charges of murdering their mother.

Eldan shrugged, oblivious of Rhys's thoughts. "Hey, Airese," he called to his wife who sat on a bench opposite them. "Want to go to war with me?"

Airese smiled, one that made Rhys glad that she was on his side. "About time," she said before elbowing Marthiaq who readily grinned beside her.

"Count me in," Marthiaq's smile was equally menacing. "Then we'll have hot chocolate drinks later on."

Airese shook her head. "Tea."

"Careful, you might start a brand new war with that," Eldan snorted.

Airese stuck her tongue at her husband. A small smile tore past Rhys's defenses. This was amusing, playful banter. Then, the door melted and guards flooded the room, killing what's left of Rhys's amusement. A loud voice rang from the door, Here are the convicts that tried to abolish our peace.

Rhys swallowed the bitter taste that crawled at the back of his throat. They were led outside and his jaw dropped at the sight that greeted him. Hundreds of thousands of ice sprites sat on benches shaped out of ice. Judging eyes followed him as he and companions were led towards an empty space at the foot of the first row of benches. Couldn't they have made the announcement a little nicer? The one they made didn't promise a good outcome.

The levels in which the ice sprites sat around them like an amphitheater blurred in Rhys's eyes as he dared crane his neck up. All he registered were the swarm of faces, the variety of hair colors and skin tones, and the eerie silence as everyone watched him and his companions get forced to kneel on hard ice in front of an elevated dais.

Seated behind a table carved from a big block of ice crowning the dais were twelve fairies dressed in shimmering robes, the ice-blue dye making Rhys want to seek other warmer colors like, oh, his beige here. On the center of the table sat the Crown Prince who remained smiling and had his hands folded on the ice table. Beside him...

Rhys swallowed his saliva against the growing dryness in his throat. Beside the Crown Prince was the most stern man Rhys had met. His father shirked at the sight of this imperious fairy with black hair almost like his son's. He was dressed in a simple ice-blue robe yet his eyes were as dark as the blackest ink.

Even though the Chief remained young, his face reflected someone who had seen chaos upfront and lived to tell the tale. A huge scar ran from his forehead diagonally to his cheek. Where had he gotten that?

The temperature of the entire room seemed to have dropped a few notches when the Chief straightened in his seat. His eyes flashed against all the blue around him. "It has come to my attention that we are currently housing trespassers who have had the brazenness to speak about a war that we have yet to see," his voice boomed across the whole room even without something strengthening it. Was it because of the ice? "So now I ask them," the Chief said before lowering his head to peer straight into Rhys's eyes. All of Rhys's blood drained from his face. "What are the odds that our lives are going to be preserved if we fight in this war?"

Well...that's that. He didn't know. He wasn't ready for anything at all and was just being lucky all this time. He didn't have a concrete plan. He didn't even know how to talk himself out of this mess with the ice sprites. What were the odds that they're all going to see this war to its end? What were the chances that they're all going to be saved?

He didn't know.

The Chief took one look at Rhys and seemed to have found a sufficient answer in his eyes. Wait, that wasn't—

"For trespassing into our territory, you are under our laws," the Chief said. "For endangering the entire population, for stealing state secrets from both the Alkaran and this Court, and finally for causing unrest in the general population, I charge you all to execu—"

A loud crash ensued from somewhere above them and before Rhys's eyes, the ceiling made of ice creaked. Thin cracks spread first in light lines before webbing into thick splinters. Before the whole assembly, the ceiling gave way to at least three people dressed in cloaks and trousers. A voice leaped out into the whole room from one of those people. "I am Cyrdel Sonasson, Heir to the Alkaran throne. Please don't kill us!"