The exhaustion dragged her limbs to the ground, but Seiren struggled through, each haggard breath razing through her lungs and each step sending a shudder through her aching body. But the thought, over and over again, of Jarsdel killing her father kept her going. Butterworth's taunts rang clear in her head. He was right: Mother didn't want her and now she didn't have Madeleine. She was all alone.

But not powerless. The flash magic tingled on her fingertips. Her magic reserve replenished at a slow but steady rate. She patted her cloak pockets. She'd spent a lot of her runes already. Spare paper lay in every pocket with enough chalk, but only about one or two rumpled blue runes remained. She bit her lip. If she stopped to draw more runes now, Jarsdel would get further away. But if she wasn't prepared--

Her train of thought was interrupted. A cloaked figure limped up the stairs towards the light. She saw red. A crackle of energy danced at her hand and she threw it forward. It soared with greater velocity, most of its energy fizzling out as it flew. It hit the wall beside Jarsdel, sending deep cracks spidering across its surface before the wall came crumbling down.

He turned and caught his feet on the uneven ground, landing on his rear. He grimaced as Seiren stalked over.

"You're stubborn, Nithercott!"

Seiren didn't waste time on pleasantries. This man had evaded her clutches for too long. Fury coursed down her arms, setting the surface of her flesh aflame without burning her. The magic coalesced in her right arm and she swung. Jarsdel threw out a handful of caustic dust and they sizzled away on contact with her flash. He tsked and threw his arm upwards. A wall of rock erupted in front of Seiren. Her fist smashed into it, charring the surface and sending a shudder up her arm. She screamed, ignoring the pain and vaulting over the wall before diving straight for Jarsdel.

With fluidity unexpected for an injured man in his forties, he spun and kicked her in the stomach.

Pain exploded in her abdomen. Stars flew across her eyes. Seiren crashed into the wall he'd summoned with burst and crumpled onto the ground, the air smacked out of her. Pushing herself up with her elbows, she was met with a crack of sound that knocked her head back. Eyes watering and ears deafened, she could only groan, the sand particles on the grey stone steps moving in and out of focus. Cold sweat drenched her.

"Maybe now you'll behave yourself." Jarsdel tutted, shaking his head and kneeling a few steps above her, keeping a safe distance. He stood straighter, with more colour in his cheeks. He was only pretending to be that injured. "It's only because of Kristen you've lasted this long. Now, if you are a good little girl and stay out of trouble, then you won't come to any more harm."

"Go to hell," she rasped.

"You can yak away. As long as you sit your pretty self down. Although..." He glanced at her trembling state. "I don't think you're in any position to behave in any other way."

He eyed the steps leading up to the palace.

"Time is running short. It's time to get into the core of the palace. Kristen is waiting."

"Why...?" Her voice faltered. The exhaustion caught up with her as the adrenaline wore off. Her limbs weighed like lead. Much as she wished to rip off his face, she could just about maintain breathing in and out. Even the muscles between her ribs hurt.

"It took a lot of effort to extract you from those idiot state mages." He sniffed, glancing at her.

She stiffened as he stooped beside her, expecting another hit. He grabbed her by the scuff of her neck. The material stretched over her throat, making her choke. He slung her across his back like a sack of meat and carried her up the steps, her top end dangling downwards and blood rushing to her head. The world spun. Breathing became difficult. She bounced with each of Jarsdel's steps.

"You killed my family..." she whispered, clinging to consciousness as the world spun around her. "They didn't deserve it. They didn't..."

She didn't expect Jarsdel to even hear her. It was a great effort to keep her hold on reality.

"You know who else didn't deserve it? The original Hannans that lived in Acrise who Karma had no issues with eliminating." His angular jaw with the neatly-trimmed beard tightened. Skin had split over his chin and blood crusted over it. "It hurts, doesn't it? Having innocent people, good people, ripped from your hands."

"Madeleine was twelve."

"And many of the pilgrims seeking to learn the art of summoning were also merely teens. The Karman army had no qualms about killing them all."

"...Pilgrims?"

He paused at the top of the stairs as if contemplating answering her question. Seiren's head pounded.

"To be a summoner, Hannan children have to learn to be one with nature before they can bring forth a demon from a different realm. They travel the whole country to learn what it means to appreciate life, absorbing the magic in each areas of the lands, before bringing in a life under their command. The pilgrimage lasts several years across the whole of Hanna, ending in Acrise. At the end of that pilgrimage, they realise their full potential and can communicate with their demon counterparts. That's when they become fully-fledged summoners."

His arm gripped tighter around her waist as his words became more heated.

"Acrise belonged first and foremost to Hanna. Ever since the countries were established, Acrise lay on the border but it was part of our pilgrimage. Our summoners' skills have greatly deteriorated over the years thanks to Karma meddling. They shoot all the pilgrims they see who only wished to complete their training. Old, young, male, female -- they were killed like cattle."

His voice throbbed with fury.

"So all this righteousness can go to hell. Karma deserves everything she gets."

"You're... Hannan?"

Seiren frowned. His face was clear in her mind. He had the Hannan features but none of their scarring or clipped, nasally accent.

"I'm a half-blood. My mother was a Hannan raped by a Karman soldier. She snuck me through the border when I was young and I grew up in a small village south of Acrise."

"You can summon...?"

He stiffened. "No. Summoning is a talent and a skill, and I had neither."

Seiren cast her mind back to the summoners she'd met -- only on two occasions: one on graduation day and one during the siege of Acrise. They couldn't really control their demons. Bringing them to this world seemed a straightforward task, but then they would just let them rampage. She realised now it wasn't the choice of the summoner to let the creatures rampage, but rather the lack of control over them as they never completed their pilgrimages. Acrise had been the subject of much Karman-Hannan conflict for over twenty years.

"Once Hanna finally takes back her rightful land, we can restore peace. No more wars. No more conflict. No more children losing their parents, families destroyed. Why couldn't you state mages see that? Surely we all want the same thing?"

"You don't get to decide who lives and dies," Seiren said, shutting her eyes. The swaying motion was making her nauseated.

"And you do? I remember you submitting the proposal for your regenerative rune research, Nithercott. You decided those inmates at Bicknor Infirmary deserve to die. Humans bicker. Humans fight. It's an endless cycle of bloodshed, loss, and death. You resent us for trying to stop that cycle by one final battle. What makes you any better?"

She shut her eyes. Madeleine's scream echoed in her mind. I want to die! "That was unethical. I should never have done it."

"Regrets only make you weak. People don't appreciate what they have. They don't deserve the magic within them, regardless of their mage status. This includes Pollin. He got in the way. We disposed of him."

"Disposed... but..."

"He got in the way. Just as your father did. I disposed of him."

Her breath hitched in her throat.

"God, that man irritated me. He just wouldn't stop shouting. He didn't need to be involved that night."

Each word seared into her heart. Seiren's eyes flew open. Her chest tightened. Fire coursed up her back. Each word grated.

"Shut up."

"He was of no significance, just another ant in our scheme, but was he an irritating ant. So I stamped him out. Your mother didn't like that but she prioritised. She understood sacrifices."

"You're wrong."

With new vigour, Seiren slammed an elbow into the small of Jarsdel's spine. He stumbled, surprised, and almost dropped her. Seiren yanked out the last, crumpled blue rune in her pocket, slapped it onto Jarsdel's back, and snapped her fingers.

Electricity exploded across the two of them. He seized. Seiren crashed onto the floor, her joints locking together and the muscles spasming in agony. She screamed, pins and needles tearing through every fibre of her being. It hurt less than the last time she'd applied it to herself; her magic reserve was at pit bottom and it knocked the remaining wind out of her.

Jarsdel lay in a heap not far away, shallow breaths echoing off the tall stone walls. Tiny streaks of light, the last of a setting sun, peeped through the uppermost windows. The air smelled stale and sweaty. Seiren's limbs jerked, the remains of the burst of electricity drowning them in fatigue. She wasn't sure how long she lay there. She wasn't even sure if she'd blacked out.

Eventually, she managed to move her body. With trembling fingers, she tugged out and flicked through the leftover rune papers left in her pockets. They were all blank, except for the last single green. Her emergency healer, pre-infused with magic from the very beginning.

She applied it to herself and snapped her fingers, sighing with relief as the pain eased and the smouldering exhaustion ebbed. A heavy headache throbbed at her temples still, her thoughts were sluggish, and her mouth was desiccated. When her breathing came easier, she pushed herself up, wiping non-existent saliva from her slack-jawed mouth. Each joint cracked as if they hadn't been moved in years. Her whole body tingled.

It was all she could do to push herself onto her feet. The world swam in and out of focus, but she clung desperately to consciousness. She needed to be awake for this. There would not be a second chance. Swallowing bile that perched at the back of her throat and resisting the all-too-enticing world of darkness that accompanied sleep, she stumbled over to Jarsdel's fallen figure. He hadn't moved. The green rune continued to pulse, knitting together the open wounds and encouraging her depleted magic reserve to replenish.

"You took everything away from me." The hatred raged like a forest fire in her body. All she wanted was to rip his head off and make him suffer as she'd suffered. No need for logic. No need for reasoning. All coherent thoughts were out of the window and her only primal instinct is to end this man's life.

"And Karma took everything from me. Now you know how I feel," he said in a raspy voice. He didn't look at her. He probably didn't have the strength.

He was weak, at her disposal. They were alone in the tunnel. Nobody would know what she'd done. One spark. That was all it took.

Yet her hands would not clap. The hatred burned strong in her mind, but she could not summon the last bit of magic. It was so easy. One clap. She had barely any reserve left, but she would happily drain herself dry for this decisive moment, even if it meant she would die.

She couldn't do it.

Her mind was a blur of emotions: fury, grief, bewilderment, denial, guilt. Jarsdel deserved it, she knew, but at the deepest crevices of her heart she could not bring herself to kill another human. Not any more.

With a frustrated scream, she slammed her hands together. Magic scorched down her arms, glowing brilliant crimson and gold in her palms. She smashed them into the wall beside her. A rumbling shook through the bricks and cracks snaked up the vertical surface. Shaking her head, she tore past him. She'd failed. She couldn't do it after all. Couldn't avenge her father or sister. Couldn't be of any use to anyone.

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