Three.

I don't find out until the next morning. Despite everything I've done thus far, I'm not one of the few allowed in the room during the battle itself. I spend the night pacing, then I write, then I pace more, then I sit down and write a short freeform story about a world where none of us die before realizing how utterly fake and saccharine it reads. I'm not one to torment my characters anymore than necessary for the plot, but when you're living what feels like one of their stories, you begin to realize how much the punches you used to dole out hurt. That's how being outside HQ feels like that next morning, half asleep and pacing again.

Marie steps out, catches my eyes, and her ears prick. "Aves."

I blink. Is that Sweep? Am I delirious? I've definitely stayed up later, and I got at least a solid half of my usual sleep allotment, so this seems extreme. "Since when do you call me that?" I ask.

Marie does not flush. Clinically, she admits, "Sweep and I have been attempting to communicate more. Her... dialect might be rubbing off on me. She speaks of you often."

"Oh," I whisper.

A silence stretches out between us, one neither of us care much to bridge. A bitterness like the aftertaste of sweet foods eaten days ago creeps over my tongue, an awful hunger that I have no real desire to quell.

Well, I can't say none. I came, didn't I?

"How many... did we win?" I ask, rolling between worst case scenarios.

"We won." Marie confirms.

"Okay." I say. "Okay. So how many-" I shake my head vigorously, trying to snap myself awake. "Marie, who died?"

"Anthrax, Suma, and..." Marie stops. She looks into my nervous eyes. "Avery, three is really low for a raid like this. Even with Torch's outburst, no one expected three. Not even the Defenders we sent in."

Torch's outburst? "Who else died?" I ask.

"Skye. There was an incident with the scout patrol we sent out."

My face falls. My ears ring with noise and the sleeplessness and pain fall on me like a great wave of anxiety. "I killed her." I say. "Verhamera's tails, I killed her."

"Avery." Marie says. "Someone always dies. It's war. You didn't kill her, she went into this-"

"She did not expect to die." I snap back. "It was one of her first official missions as part of the larger Defender force. She didn't deserve this. She shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have put her forwards. She..." I've run out of things to say. My mouth is dry and my eyes are welling up. "She, she, she..."

"You can come in if you want." Marie offers, propping the door open. "Come on. Calm down. I know this was your first time, I know it's tough. I cried too. We all did."

Numbness shoots through my body. "I can't go in there. There were three casualties and one of them was directly my fault."

"No one thinks that but you."

"Stop-" I yell, wings spread, and Marie's ears slide back. Her countenance goes from maternal to mildly frightened. "Stop trying to comfort me. Please."

"Alright." Marie says. "No problem. Sweep?"

Sweep emerges from the room. From within, I can see a worried Plumeria and the usual assortment of figures, a dull blur in my hazy vision, their conversations an equally formless blur. The door slams, shielding them from my view, and I feel a bit of me shake with it. Sweep steps forwards and moves her head to mine, comforting me as she nuzzles my cheek. "It'll be okay, Aves."

I suck in another breath. "Sweep? They'll bring her body back, right?"

"Of course."
"And they'll... they'll have to tell her family."

"Avery. Her family won't hate you either."

"I guess I'll just have to hate myself, then, for her sake."

"Aves, I know this is hard, but this is being a strategist. Back in Evelsca-" Sweep lowers her head from my side, moving back so we can look each other in the eyes. I'm still tearing up. Her right ear, the torn one, twitches. "-when they made battle plans, I was trusting them with my life, but I was also trusting them with all of our lives and the fate of the mission itself, and all the lives that would save. Your plan could have brought us down from five to three, or some even larger number. Skye would be proud to know that."

I nod, my head throbbing.

Sweep puts a wing over mine. "Let's get you back to bed. You can come back to work when your head is clearer."

I stay under her wing the whole time, inhaling her scent and letting it calm me. As I look at her side, I see scars littering her side under her wings and around her legs, usually covered by feathers or fur. Her wings are missing feathers themselves. She is quiet, unusually so, and when she pauses before my room I catch longing in her eyes. "Sweep?"

"Go to sleep, Aves."

I lie down in my bed and stare at the cieling. Sweep lies down near the exit, watching her paws, and I do not see her eyes once. With a silent motion, I drag my pencil from my bag and open a page to begin a story.

Once there was a gray Canira with eyes like lightning...

Could I get any more cliche than that? I kick the blank scroll across the room, where one of the ends hits the wall with a weak thump. Its innards spill across the room, trailing back to me, and I flick it away again. I attempt to bury myself into my bed, even though the cloud-like denning is claustrophobic, and I watch Sweep at the edge for a while. One of her copper eyes stares back, unblinking and full of pity I don't want. When I close my eyes, they refuse to open again.

When I awake, Sweep is gone, but Plumeria is in the doorway in her place. Her purple fur is disheveled with lack of maitenance, but she retains that high-held head and dignified expression that ooze professionality. "The Auspicia has requested a meeting with you."

I stumble to my paws. "O-on it." I am the least on it I have been in my whole life.

Plumeria guides me back the way I came, diverting at last to the Auspicia's corridors. We pass few decorations, as we've come in from around where the stairs to HQ are, and these halls are less about spectacle and more of a testament to the power of the Defenders. The tapestries show mythic events from the view of the army, a swarming sea of Canii and Canira with few other Sentients. Felii and dragons, once our foes, fall back en masse. Plumeria does not let her eyes stray from the path. I can't bring myself to look forwards.

When we reach the doors, Plumeria places her paw atop mine. "Best of luck, Avery."

"I- do you know why she wants me?" I ask. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Your name has reached her in the aftermath of the mission, but outside of that, I don't know anything." She opens the doors. "Be brave."

I feel loads better. Shaking with gratitude, I dip my head to Plumeria and enter the room, where the Auspicia sits alone atop her throne. She is tired, darkness rimming her eyes, but her expression is that of a polite scowl with no teeth, which lessens to neutrality as I approach. I want to hide from her light eyes, which are a nearly hazel shade of brown, but when I come close enough that I can see her jowls, I fall into a bow.

"Get up."

I do so.

"You're not in any danger." Heilin says. "If you were concerned. In fact, I brought you in here primarily to inform you that you'd done nothing wrong, and to ask your forgiveness."

"My forgiveness?" I blurt, and my tail tucks between my legs.

"Yes. I was afraid what I'd done might have been too much. I've placed you in a certain position largely without your personal opinion on the matter, and I am well aware that you were in no place to contradict me."

"N-no," I say, all the words that had deserted me now rushing out and over my mouth. "This is everything I ever wanted. I'm just not good at it yet, but I can be. I can be better. I'll-" I can't make myself say I'll get over her. "I'll-" I can't cry in front of a demigod.

Verhamera, I'm pathetic. Are they going to have to pick me up every time I'm down? Is this all I'm ever going to be, the slightly-above-average strategist who falls to pieces every few days? Is that anything worth being?

She is still and cloaked in fire.

"Heilin?" I ask, and her chosen name rings from the walls: Hei-lin, Hei-lin, Hei-lin. "Out of everyone in the castle, why would you choose me for this?"

"Do you remember when I first bought you in here?" she asks. "Perhaps not here, but rather to my personal study. I had to ask of you something I'd considered ever since I first found you. There was a world that went on all around you, a dark undertow beneath the shallower seas most of the help treaded, and I could sense you longing to taste them. I knew then that I had found, perhaps, what I was looking for, and when I asked... you didn't hesitate for a second."

"I didn't." I say. I remember the pup I used to be, just a few seasons ago, and her wide-eyed optimism. "But that's not enough. Why save me at all? I can't be the only young Canira out there."

"No," Heilin admits, "Though in my young age, saving strays was a calling of mine. I read old stories, the documents of Rose Eudica, and I thought I could save the world one Sentient at a time. I still believe that there is much to be said for the method, at least when everyone takes such a duty upon themselves, but with my position? I do what I can."

"Me too," I say. "I mean, I want to. I don't know if I can. Save anyone. I feel like everyone is just... trying to save me all the time."

"Avery." Heilin says.

I look up. It's hard to stare directly into her face for too long, like staring at the sun, but I am caught like a moth at the edges of a bonfire. "Am I just a pet project who happened to turn out well?"

"I had believed for a long time that you were the first of a heartline, and now that I better know your magic, I'm certain this is true. Late aptitude emergence and low magical ability are two of the larger symptoms. You are no one's reincarnate. You have never existed before in this world."

I had believed for so long that my powers would bloom when I was older, but now, hearing it from her mouth, I breathe out the old dream. It dies with no fight- I had let go of it long ago.

"But that's not a liability. It is, in some ways, a blessing. When heartlines are long, like many here are, they entangle in certain ways over and over again. You have no patterns to perpetuate, no ancient ghosts to attend to, only yourself and your dreams. You are fully the master of your own destiny, in this moment. An event like this is so rare, especially this late in our history, that it is more often that stars are born from cosmic nothingness. You have emerged in the space between stars, the great darkness, and you illuminate a patch of sky that has never before seen light."

"Then what do I do?"

"Shine."

I close my eyes at last, the afterimage of her features speckled across my eyelids. When I reopen them, they no longer burn from her face and I am filled with resolve, not only for Skye but for those still living who have given so much to get me here. Most of all, I think of a smaller Avery, who dreamed of being the heartline of one of the heroes she read about, and swear to her that I will be that hero in her stead.

The Auspicia, too, glimmers with light and confidence, and I can even imagine a kindred spirit beneath the demigod's frightening exterior. "Thank you." I say, and incline my head to her. "I'll do my best."