"Nerini!" Kannein leapt over the railing as his sister fell to the sand, sprinting across the arena even as Shiar was bundling her up into his arms like a broken doll. 

Kannein fell to his knees, and the two men looked at each other for a moment, Kannein pressing his hand into her shoulder, trying to stem the flow of blood. "Rini, you're an idiot!" He didn't pause to consider that Rini was in her role as the Fox and that only a limited amount of people knew that his sister didn't have his blonde hair and blue eyes like she so often pretended.

Shiar blinked at him, head clearly spinning at yet another revelation. "This is your sister?"

Kannein watched the other man for a long moment, before inclining his head. "Yes."

***

Wyn frowned as she watched Lyana climb through the rails and run to join her brother beside Nerini. "She can heal, really, truly heal?" Her eyes went to Prince Caelur, allowing worry to finally reach her expression.

She needed to pause for a moment and let out a slow breath as she surrounded the two of them with her magic, allowing the world to slow down. Making it seem as if it was just the two of them for those briefest moments, alone and in silence to speak. The calm helped her sort her mind, calm her soul and she knew that the moment she let it go, they would not have the opportunity to find understanding.

"Yeah, as long as there's a heartbeat, she can heal." Caelur answered, watching the scene in a sort of detached fashion, everything moving around him and Wyn slower and quieter than it should. "I'm missing something. Kannein called her Nerini."

Wyn climbed over the fence, nodding and walking towards the group of them on the ground as she answered him. "Yes. She turns her hair blonde, and changes her eyes blue, to look more like her brother when in public. She stands out otherwise, she doesn't like the attention."

"You seem oddly calm. Your friend is collapsed on the ground, bleeding all over the place. Why aren't you panicked?" Caelur frowned at her as they approached, trying to shake off his own surreal feeling. "Why are we both... like this?"

Wyn shrugged and reached over to squeeze his hand. "I trust you when you say she can be healed. And, I have the gift of calm, I needed a moment to breathe. We needed a moment for answers."

And when she let go of his hand, she let go of her power, throwing them back into the noisy, real sensations of the situation. As it hit them, they both broke into a run to join the group around the fallen warrior.

***

Shiar stood, lifting Nerini up with Lord Kannein still gripping the shoulder as blood continued to slide between his fingers and following the directions of Lyana and Lady Wyn out of the arena and choosing to go to his assigned tents, which were closer than wherever her tent had been hidden.

He ducked through the doorway, pausing before laying her down on the rug that had been set on the ground. Shiar had thought it ridiculous when the servants had set up his tents, not seeing a need to put a rug on dirt until now. The only part of their group who hadn't yet followed them was Queen Rael, who had stayed behind to deal with the ending of the fight and whatever it was that had been decided in a battle with no winners and an injury that hadn't been caused in the arena.

Lyana cut open the fabric around Nerini's shoulder and placed her hand over the wound, closing her eyes for a long several moments. Shiar frowned when he saw the horrible bruise spreading out over her skin and the ripped stitches between his sister's fingers. 

Everyone else was standing around, watching, looking slightly unsure of what to do next, when Lady Wyn shook her head and looked to Kannein. "Kan, go get blankets and water and anything that you might think useful."

***

It was a busy task, something to put the man to work as he stood there glaring at... the woman who was his sister, and the Queen's Fox, and who knew what else. But Kannein nodded silently and turned to do just that, his expression dark with fury.

Wyn pulled off her own cloak and folded it up, placing it under her friend's head, placing her hand on Rini's heated face. She looked over to Lyana, who sat there, pressing her hands against the wound, muttering to herself. "I should go get a doctor. To stich the wound. She's burning up."

Ignoring her,  Lyana reached up with her free hand and grabbed Shiar's hand, tugging him down beside her. "Brother, I need you."

Shiar nodded and squeeze her hand, "take what you need." 

Both Lyana and Shiar took on a distant expression, as if they were seeing things that weren't in the room.

Wyn looked at them, then looked back to Caelur, her expression skeptical as nothing seemed to be happening, blood still leaking out between the young woman's fingers in alarming quantities "If my friend dies..."

"She won't. It's working. I promise." Prince Caelur stepped closer to her, his voice as calm and reassuring as he could manage it. "All we can do is watch, I'm afraid. All I know is it works. When it's really bad, she needs more than her own energy, more from someone else. She's worked with Shiar before, knows his energy best. I know magic is rare and we rarely see it done. That's why Lyana isn't supposed to do it in front of others, people still have their distrust of it in Sellexu, nothing so badly as lynching, but the distrust could make her life quite difficult."

Wyn could only nod, watching the siblings, trying to figure out what they were seeing, other than this room in front of them that did not hold their attention. Their faces were blank, their eyes open, but she could tell the way their eyes moved that they could see something, wherever their minds were.

***

Shiar found himself standing in a library, watching a man with dark blond, tousled, hair sitting with a small red headed girl on his lap, reading to her in Sellexun.  It seemed to be a book on history, listing various cultural and political events that had happened centuries ago. The man stopped, then kissed her temple. "I know people are going to tell you that they are our enemies, Nerini. But believe me, there are good people there. I wouldn't be alive today if they were really our enemies."

... Next, he was standing in the cabin of his father's boat, gasping as he saw his father as he remembered him, talking to that same girl, who was now older and more familiar. His father watched her with an amused expression. "You can join us in Sellexu if you want. All you have to do is tell me who you are and why you attacked my son and the prince."

The girl narrowed her eyes at Senzai, crossing her arms over her chest and addressing him in Sellexun, despite her Aupanan accent. "Is it true that you don't let girls fight, or keep property or even make decisions?"

"Yes." His father looked apologetic, watching her for a long moment, as if seriously conversing with the child. "Yes, we believe women are worth protecting."

"But you love them less? Why would I want to go somewhere where you think less of me?"

"Who are you, child?" Shiar's father looked surprised but not offended, a gentle expression on his face as he regarded the young girl.

"Nerini."

...And then, he was following his men and Foxes up through the castle, watching her take in her surroundings as she was led up the stairs and towards the top of the castle. He frowned as he recognized that moment, moving with her as she suddenly broke free and ran towards the edge, Shiar yelling as loud as he could as she didn't slow while approaching the low wall. 

His yells went un-heeded, unheard. He heard his own men yelling at her, imploring her to stop as she stepped up onto the low wall. And then, he found himself falling with her, faster than possible into the water, seeing her miss the rocks by bare feet, carving painfully into the water, breath knocked out of her as she sunk below the circling sharks.

One came for her, and he tried to yell out again to warn her, caught up as he was in the moment that he knew was already long past, but somehow, she had a knife in her hand and was slicing it open, struggling out of her heavy leather armour and swimming away, further into the ocean as the sharks swarmed and slaughtered the injured shark, ripping and tearing at her armour until realizing it was empty of meat and letting it drift away into the ocean tides.

...Suddenly he found himself surfacing with her, as she gasped for breath painfully, dragging herself onto shore several miles away from the cliff, the beach, the sharks, and the castle, shivering as she glanced back up at it in the cold half-light, barely visible in the distance.

She paused only a moment before she scrambled up onto land and climbed back up into the pass, far behind the castle, towards her own people. She didn't pause, despite the fact that she was exhausted and freezing, soaked and half covered in ice from the cold mountain air.

...He blinked and found himself moving with her into the lines of the Aupanan army, stumbling finally into the war command tent, unnoticed, into a meeting of the higher ranking soldiers, where Lord Kannein was furiously snarling and pacing, looking ready to destroy everything in his path, nothing like the calm politician he had dealt with the past two years.

"They took the pass and we will make them pay for every inch they dare climb into this land. Any hopes for peace were given up when they attacked us! I will put his head on a stake myself! There will be no negotiating, no quarter, I will get my sister back, if I have to kill every single one of them!"

"Nerini said there was hope, Kanny." Queen Rael was sitting back in her chair listening to the man she loved. Her expression sorrowful until Nerini cleared her throat, standing, half frozen, half damp, covered in days of dirt, snow and filth. "Well, brother, I'm sorry to disappoint you. But you don't have to kill any of them anymore."

...Then he was walking along beside her, as she mounted a horse, days later, wearing the same white cloak and uniform, riding out onto the battle front alongside the Queen and Lord Kannein, "That's the commander, Regency. And I'm assuming that's his Prince. If they come to talk, I think we have a chance of this all working out."

"I don't have the faith you do, sister" Kannein grumbled at her as they watched the Sellexun Prince, watching him riding solemnly towards the trees. Shiar was watching himself ride beside Caelur to the faery-wood, a sombre expression on his features. Had it really looked like that, from this side?

"Well just let me do the talking then. I'll be there, translating anyways. Their translator is ok but has missed a couple things." She followed behind The Queen and her brother, blending amongst the other two white diplomats accompanying the Queen.

... Again things shifted and he found himself once more in the war tent, watching her face off against her brother. "I have to go."

"Aupana needs you here. We're not near done. You know that."

"I need to go, brother. I need to find out what's behind this, what sent them against us, and what's yet to come. Just play nice, I'll be fine."

"You're walking out on your country right now, sister. Out on your family, and everything that makes you Aupanan. Leaving this camp, right now, you're selfish. You're doing it for no one other than yourself."

She froze and ducked her head for a moment, letting out a soft breath. "I seem to remember you yelling those words at mother, when she named you Lord, and gave you control of Father's lands."

"You're leaving us, just the same as she left us."

"The war here is over brother. You will take no losses. Rael will see to that."

"These bastards tried to kill you, Nerini. And you ask me to play nice, believe in this goal that you've created, that you've convinced the Queen to support? I never believed in any of that, this is your peace, not mine." Kannein shook his head vehemently and glared at his sister. "You will stay and build this peace of yours. Stop using your shadows as a way to shirk your responsibility."

"It was our father's peace, Kannein. And our mother's, and those men you're talking to? Those are the sons of the ones they told us about."

He gasped and fell backwards, blinking and shaking his head as he found himself caught by Lord Kannein, back in his tent on the tournament grounds, amidst the smell of blood and dust.

Around him Lady Wyn, Caelur and Queen Rael stared at him in askance, he struggled to sit pulling away from the other man and coughing. "What was that?"

"You've been sitting like that for a while and suddenly you fell." Kannein muttered, standing up and watching him curiously, an odd expression after the anger he had just seen. 

Kannein had never been anything but cordial in the peace talks, restrained and haughty perhaps, but that fury and refusal of the truce had never shown through. "Are you alright?"

"No, I saw things that belonged to Nerini. You were really, really angry at me..." He looked at the other man, trying to sort things out in his mind, looking to Lyana, who was watching him with a thoughtful expression.

She stood up, covering Lady Nerini with a blanket as she did so, shrugging. "You saw her memories, brother, that's all."

"Oh, that's all. That's never happened before when I've helped you."

Lyana shook her head, frowning, "no, it doesn't usually happen. But she was weak, she was poisoned, her mind was open. I think that bolt was coated in something, something that opened her mind, made it weak, made her whole essence weak. That's why it took so long to complete, it was attacking her body. It's all gone now though. I need to sleep."

He nodded and led her to sit down against a cushion, wrapping her gently in another blanket, frowning softly as she drifted off almost instantly.

"I was angry at you?" Kannein queried, raising his brow, his expression cautious.

"Yeah. Yelling and ranting about ripping the entire Sellexun army to shreds by yourself, killing me, you know..." he offered a tired smile to the other man, trying his best to show he wasn't bothered by it. "Two years ago."

"Oh yeah, that. I was angry, I thought my sister was in danger."

"She's a warrior... she can take care of herself. I mean, she fought a shark, you know." He smirked sitting down next to his sister and stretching out his legs, suddenly feeling sleep dragging at him as well, laughing softly as he heard Kannein question him about the shark in alarm. He wanted to address the rest of it, ask Kannein when he had changed his mind about the peace talks, where Nerini had gone.

 What Nerini had heard about the unseen powers pushing them together.

But he was already asleep, even before he even felt the blanket pulled over him by someone outside of his blurred vision. All those thoughts drifted away as his exhaustion hit him

***

Wyn let out a breath and looked up from inspecting Nerini's wound, running her finger gently along the angry looking scar as she watched the Regents talking between themselves. "We should probably get them moved back to their houses."

Kannein nodded, moving to pick his sister up into his arms. "Wyn, can you get a carriage, we'll drop the others off on the way to my Villa. You're welcome to stay, you always have a room."

"Me as well?" Queen Rael smiled to him, her conversation with Caelur ending as the Prince followed Lady Wyn out to find a carriage. The two of them stood of a moment, looking at each other over Nerini's sleeping form.

Kannein gave her a gentle expression, "always, love. Though you'll have to share mine."

"You know that's a bit weird, when you're holding your sister in your arms." Rael laughed softly, kissing his shoulder and moving to gather up Lyana in her arms. She carried the small girl to the transportation that was waiting easily for them, Wyn and Caelur standing on either side of the  carriage door.

After placing Nerini's sleeping form in, Kannein returned to the tent to heft the large, armoured man onto his shoulders and haul him out to the carriage, thankful that the driver had felt no issues with pulling right through the tournament grounds for the Regents of Aupana and Sellexu.

END PART II