The flames rising between Bren and me were not created through the strike of flint on steel. Mere minutes ago, I watched him bend over the pile of sticks, twigs, dry brush, and leaves to bring this fire to life. I watched his hand, covered in fresh cuts and scars of old, birth flame at his fingertips. He winced while he did it, one hand clutched over the bandage on his side while his good hand, free of stifling pain, had access to his magic reserve.

Starting a fire is a risk, but clouds cast over the night sky and the moon doesn't shine on us. It's as difficult to see smoke as it is to spot looming eyes watching us through rows and rows of thick trees.

Bren leans against a fallen long, his arm draped over his abdomen and his head thrown back against the trunk. He doesn't move; his breathing is shallow and his eyes, unblinking, flicker with the fire before us. The sight of Bren exhausted is no stranger. After long days of cutting down trees or helping my father construct cottages for the new refugees, he fell into a similar trance. His eyes droop, his lips part, and his entire body slouches as if he's melting before me.

Tonight is perfect evidence of that. His legs are spread out before him, boots so near the fire I wonder if the flame will catch—then I remember the fire can't harm him. The flames are a craft of his own design and Bren controls that life whether they'll catch onto a foreign object or not.

Shadows darken his pale features, eyelashes painted along his eyelids and the ride of his nose, a second presence on his cheek. The flame is natural on Bren's face; I've seen nothing more of my best friend than the flickers of a bright orange flame. And when that's paired with his own shade of fire, that being the hairs on his head, he's ignited further.

I don't know how to thank him for taking that arrow for me. I've allowed him to sit and rest his wounds while I gathered firewood and Renit climbed a tree to keep watch. He sits above us now; the whetstone dragging along his sword being the only sign he's awake and watching the skies.

Bren hasn't objected to our coddling He slumped down against the fallen trunk and spread his legs out; it hadn't lasted long as he took it upon himself to start the flames as I pulled out my flint and steel from the pack slung across my shoulder. He can't render himself useless, apparently. Possibly one of the reasons Alaric pushes him as hard as he does. Bren's status as a rebel became high quickly. It was impossible for him to relax, to sit, and Alaric caught on to that resilience.

The flames put me in a trance, and Bren leans forward, reaching for a log off to the side. He grunts, his hand still braced against the bandage, and I place my hand on his target before he can reach it. "I got it," I say.

Bren frowns and leans back slowly. He attempts to curl his legs in front of him, bending at the knee, but it's too close of a confinement for pressure against the healing process in his side. To think that arrow might've killed me...I can't imagine that happening. Death is no stranger, it has shown its horrid face many times. And the fact that I'm alive and sitting across from Bren is a miracle. Both of us, through all that has happened, are still breathing.

I throw the long on the fire and flames spark, embers dancing and spitting from the ash. Smoke rises as the existing flames spot their new victim and devour the dry wood. The heat is restored and I lean back slightly to avoid the stifling burn against my face.

"How are you feeling?" I ask quietly. The fire, raging, attempts to drown out my voice but Bren raises his eyes to me as an indication that he heard. They're not blue against the orange flame—they're molten red with specks of a summer sky swimming within.

He shifts one last time, lips curling inward in discomfort, and settles for an uncomfortable position against the log. "I feel as good as I can," he mutters. "With a wound like this, I can't expect more."

"That arrow wasn't yours to take." I pick at a small patch of grass to my left. Never has any conversation with Bren been more stiff than this one, and we haven't nearly come close to starting. But what it entails, our first real talk since we split in Arego that night...my anxiety is awakening just thinking about it.

"Neither was it yours or Renit's. I did what I had to do."

I meet his eye across the fire. I wonder what he sees. Whether the amber glisten of my eyes is more haunting against the presence of the deepest roots of my power, the color my veins glow when my power is asking for a seat—front and center.

Chewing on my lip, I say, "It seems more and more people are willing to risk their lives to save mine."

"Leadership is shifting," Bren admits simply. "You run the meetings, you provide inside information, you go out of your way to expand forces while others have not. You give the rebels hope; you're an example of who they wish to be at this time and they're giving you something in return. Their lives."

I hate that weight on my shoulders. I hate knowing these rebels are more than willing to risk everything in order to help me survive the remainder of the king's reign. A pit in my stomach weight down the bread and cheese I ate in the past hour, and I swallow down my saliva in hopes of not seeing that meal again.

My mind loses itself in the fire again. "Alaric is their leader."

"Alaric is their commander and the one that oversees the operation. He's not taking the credit because he's not doing anything to receive such an honor. You think he's not doing anything for the purpose of selfishness but he's realizing your strengths."

I scoff. "There's no way in hell he's behaving that way for my benefit. Alaric is the commander, and when this is over, it doesn't matter what we did. All that matters is who was at the helm."

"Does that matter though?" Bren asks.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I shrug dramatically and bug my eyes out of my head, urging for him to go on. After days of riding to reach this point and hiding in the woods, so far away from the trail that no one can hear our voices, I'm exhausted and not in the mood to figure out his questions.

Renit's whetstone continues to drag along the sharp blade of his sword. The pace has slowed since he began. At first, there was an eager speed to his movements, but that's replaced by the dull, slow cluster of scrapes. Exhaustion will drape over him too and time will reveal how long it takes for Renit to give in to the warm press of a trunk against his back.

"What I'm trying to say is: none of that will matter if we pull this off." Never killing the king, never the grand picture, just...this. "Once we're free and this kingdom is restored, I'm not going to give a damn about who the credit goes to. It's over. We won."

I drop my stare from his in embarrassment. I'm thinking too much about recognition, about the factors of this rebellion that don't really matter, and I allowed my dislike towards Alaric to get the best of me. The rebellion has so many other threats to focus on and here I am, sitting in the middle of the woods, and behaving like an immature child. Those days are behind me.

"I suppose you're right," I mumble and reach up to scratch the back of my head. "None of that matters if we win."

"When we win," he reminds me with a grin.

I huff a laugh. The minds of mortals and immortals alike find ways to hold optimism so close to their hearts when trials before them don't open doors. I've done the same in the past; I'm doing it now by going to Ducoria to gather forces and then, taking the risk to go across the ocean and beg Saebia for help. They have every right to kill me, and they just might do it.

The silence between us is interrupted by the crackling of flames, popping of acorns catching themselves in the fire and my looming question. "Can I ask you something?" I blurt, trying and failing to give my voice the sound of bored curiosity.

Bren arches a brow. "I'm not used to you being so formal with me but sure. Go for it." His stony expression doesn't change but his eye twitches in fear of what I might ask.

"Do you miss your old life? Would you go back if you had the chance?" This time, my voice is drowned out by the flames. Bren hears me loud and clear.

He stares into those flames, eyes once again unblinking and exhausted. I think he might avoid my question altogether and claim he's too tired, too winded after riding a horse. With an open patch of skin in his side, bleeding and oozing with pain, he won't want to answer. Eventually, he sighs through his nose.

"It's not the old life I wish for," he says. "It's the people...those I left behind. The loved ones that aren't with us anymore." He picks at his pants. There isn't a piece of lint, not even a patch of dried mud.

"I don't think I'd go back." I answer my own question. "I think I prefer this over what I had. I know that sounds terrible to say, my entire family is gone, but making a change and finding myself and my power...it's different. It feels like freedom."

Bren traces circles on his knee. "You always searched for freedom."

He wasn't out of the know with my longing to explore something outside of Arego. In fact, he was the one I talked to the most about my troubles. I wanted to explore the entire kingdom and witness ordinary life that didn't involve saving the lives of innocents every single day. I wanted to work in a tavern, visit a clothing store in the capital, have a conversation with a merchant about her jewelry on display.

I missed out on so many experiences. For years, I blamed my parents for keeping me locked up tight within Arego's confines. I never realized how much I took advantage of my luxuries until Arego was ripped from me, and my parents' lives were taken with one brutal slice of an axe in the hands of a nameless guard. That part of my life wasn't fair, but I accepted it. Adaption was key. Adapt or die.

Bren was the one that offered me freedom for so many years. He always told me we'd disappear one day and explore the kingdom, only to come back and help Arego expand. Help more people than we already had. Thinking back to those days, I smile to myself. How everything has changed, how in the back of my mind, I thought Bren to be my future.

Both of us found love somewhere else; I'm luckier in that part of our lives. I raise my stare back to Bren. He's still circling his knee. He lost Celestine, and if the pain is still biting at me, it has thoroughly consumed him. After what the king did to me, the nightmares and the endless torture, I haven't felt the full grief of Celestine's death.

I can't say the same for Bren sitting across the fire.

"How are you truly feeling?" I ask.

Bren's question is quick. "What do you mean?"

"You know, after Celestine. How are you faring?"

He sighs deeply, one long, dramatic display of his lack of pleasure for my curiosity. Bren's mouth quirks to the side and when his stare rises to mine again, his molten eyes are softer. The soft lines of his exhaustion in his face are no longer as present. They're replaced by a sorrowful truth.

"I miss her every day," he confesses. "I blame myself for not finding her as quickly as I should've."

I say nothing. We share a similar tug from within, a fight back and forth between guilt, then realization that our role never would've aligned perfectly to save her from Silas's weapon. If it wasn't for her, it would've been one of us. Another example of too many people giving their lives so I can live. Celestine did that unintentionally but the end result is the same.

She's dead. I'm not.

"She said she was falling in love with me," Bren says softly. I strain to hear him. "She said she wanted to marry me when this was over because she couldn't imagine being with anyone else." He huffs a laugh and blows out his cheeks. "She said I made her happy."

I don't want to ask when their secret relationship started. It's none of my business and as long as they were happy together, I can't hope for anything else. But the pain of losing someone at the beginning of love; it's difficult to compare anything else to that feeling. I can't express it. Bren can't either. He's waist-deep in despair and sinking farther.

"Thank you for giving her that," I say, more to the flames than to the witch responsible for them. "No wonder she was so happy in Arego at a time when happiness was stretched thin."

"I sought out Takata." His gulp is loud. "I can't stop feeling guilty about it."

"Don't," I retort immediately, shaking my head. "There's nothing we can do to bring Celestine back and you have every right to move on. I understand that's hard, and you still have hope for her but this is it, Bren. As much as it makes me angry or sad, Celestine is gone."

He mimics my shake of the head with one of his own. It's full of force, anger, and regret. "It's not that." Bren picks up an acorn and tosses it against a tree. "It's...I don't know. I honestly don't know what is holding me back."

Guilt, I want to say. Blaming himself until the end of time will not change the fact that Celestine is dead and it definitely won't restore the happiness he's searching for. But he's opening all the wrong doors. He's going into this with blame on his shoulders and every time he believes he's moving on, he's still carrying Celestine's life with him.

Renit's whetstone stops dragging along his blade and he tugs on the Grounding bond, signaling that he's going to sleep. The signal is so close to the perfect point in the conversation that I can't ignore the significance. I don't want to be just Renit's fiancée anymore—I want us to be more than that. We've stood the test of time through hatred, separation, and coming back to each other, only to fight against an unstoppable force.

I don't want to wait until this is over. We may not have that long. Unlike Bren and Celestine, willing to wait for flowers to bloom without fear and rain to fall without threat, I want to do this now. Renit is mine, and I am his.

"You'll figure it out eventually," I supplement instead of telling him the swirling thoughts inside my head. Renit has mentioned it once or twice, but those few words were a plea for our future. To remind me we still have one.

Bren rubs at his brow and pinches the bridge of his nose between two fingers. "I certainly hope so. I need it; you and Alaric will drive me into the ground with your endless bickering. And watching you make loving eyes towards Renit is just..." His voice trails off and he shivers in disgust. "Let's just say he's not my favorite."

"He is sitting right above our heads. You know that, right?" I grin wide.

"Of course I do. I'm hoping he hears me."

I laugh. "I'm certain the only reason he isn't pummeling you right now is for the open wound in your side."

"Damn right," Renit's voice echoes down from the trees.

Bren huffs a laugh, shaking his head, and angles his body to lay down against the log and use his satchel as a pillow. I wince while watching his slow, aching movements, and wonder when it'll be easy for him to move again. A few days, perhaps. The immortal body heals wounds but the process doesn't take place all that fast when one hopes to preserve their strengths.

He props an arm behind his head, smacking his lips one final time to prepare himself for sleep. "Stop staring at me," he mutters. "I'm fine."

I don't give him the benefit of a mocking retort. He's not fine, he won't be fine for a while, but I have to accept that as our new reality.

I fluff my satchel and lay down on my side, one arm propped underneath. My eyes remain on Bren's sleeping figure, his relaxed state, until I fall asleep.

Grief. It takes a toll on us all.