Azun:

"Hello, pearl of wisdom." I stroked my crystal ball. "I've come to ask about Nathaniel, again. Show me a vision of my brother, so that I can bring myself to fall asleep this night."

The ball shimmered and I saw my brother for a moment. I didn't know when this was, it could be the past, present or future. That's the tricky thing about crystal balls, you never know what you're looking at.

Nathaniel looked like he just got out of war. He stood with a sword at his side and a shovel in his hand, burying the dead warriors.

That's something we didn't do on Malison. Here we would burn the dead and spread their ashes across the stars, unless they are royalty, then they are buried. On Earth, they give all the dead up to the Earth.

The vision changed for a split moment to the dead body. My focus was drawn to the pale face. The warrior looked so much like my brother that it could have been him if Nathaniel wasn't standing right above.

Nathaniel was only human until he matured. He would bleed, he would die. It killed me to think of that.

I placed my forehead against the crystal ball, letting my thoughts travel around my skull.

Nathaniel? I tried to use telepathy. Nathaniel, are you there? Can you hear me? It's Azun.

I never got a reply. I couldn't find him in the universe, I couldn't connect with him.

I was alone. I walked by myself down the road each day, where I used to play with him. Now I put a hood over my head and my hands in my pocket, slowly listening to the murmurs that roam through the street.

You have messed up, Azun!

You ruined Malison!

You killed my husband!

We all wish you would just die, Azun Watcher Zodiac! Nobody likes you!

You are the worst!

Then my father's voice came to my mind: I wish you would of died instead of my wife.

I blinked away the tears beginning to form. I was alone here. Nathaniel was gone and there was nobody left here to love me.

Mike and Luke kept on sending letters that they would be in contact with us shortly. They both! They wouldn't stop till they were at the top of the whole universe. Ames hated me for being born before him, Vestry got sent to who knows where, and Dustan is missing from action. My sisters didn't really like me all that much. The followed Ames around, mostly, who would teach them things they needed to know.

Like I did with Nathaniel.

My mind remembered the ten thousand men I had lead into the massacre. I heard these people speak to me of all their dreams that never got accomplished. I didn't even dare travel any further into my second biggest mistake.

My mind dwindled in my small knowledge of Earth.

I wouldn't mind being banished there if I got to be with Nathaniel. That's all I cared about at this point, not my career, not my power, not my life, just Nathaniel. He was burying the dead in the Earth.

The Earth was a weird thing, nobody quite knew how it got there, it just always was. Earth was my key power, yet it was useless on a planet made mostly of metal and entirely useless in space. But I didn't mind, I never wanted power anyways.

But the dead are given to the earth, for Earth to use. Earth and death may be more connected than I thought.

"You are all stupid!" I had yelled at Mike and Luke, the day I revived my power. "Don't you know that my power will only grow, and it may not be as cool as yours, but it is mine to be the judge of! I was going to train with you, but maybe now I might just train against you!"

I kept going to the river to speak with Dustan, even though I knew he couldn't hear me. I liked to believe he could, through his key power, water. I washed in the river rather then the shower, the icy liquid helping to wash off my pain of the countless scars from my dad.

I didn't even notice the tears on my face.

At night I couldn't sleep, Nathaniel's voice kept on haunting my dreams. He was screaming for me to save him and no matter what I did, I just couldn't. His ghost in my dreams kept me awake every night.

Mike and Luke had figured out what was inside of Nathaniel from the beginning, so they had tried to lead him down the wrong path, so he wouldn't end up like me, the disappointment. But Nathaniel had found me one day, meditating by the water. That was when everything changed in both of us. He took my advice and walked down the career path to become a doctor rather then a leader of Malison.

Now, Ames watched every move I made, despite my struggle just to get him to go away. I had been through darkness just to prove that I am was insane to myself. I knew my father's name and could speak it before I first met him. That was how little I knew my family.

Each time I thought I was alone, I'd turn around, and there Ames would be, watching me with a glare from the distance. He would get under my skin, full of jealousy and hate.

Each day I'd go back to the river to talk with Dustan, because I needed something to keep myself going. Dustan was the only thing I'd got.