There were few days I wished my phoenix heritage had gifted me with fire over smoke; today was one of them. Everywhere I looked, there was fire, and yes, that meant there was a lot of smoke for me to work with, but that was a small consolation.

Astor had responded to me robbing him of his bloody harvest by launching a frenzied attack, which had both Sephy and Bors scrambling to keep me alive. Waltz had capitalized on that distraction to coat the entire section of the forest in flame. While Astor had paid for his attack, suffering a number of wounds, the expanding ring of flames was now empowering them both.

I’d avoided being around flames too much as Regus. My phoenix heritage, and the partial resistance to flame it granted, would’ve been noticed otherwise. Right now, it was critical to my survival. I think if I’d been an average Bronze cultivator, I’d have literally started to cook.

We fought through the sea of flame, drowning in heat, the very air being robbed from our lungs, sucked up by the greedy fires. Our group had formed up into a tight trio; while common battle tactics against fire-gifted foes was to spread out to force them to waste their power by sending it in more directions, right now we needed each other for support as we escaped the inferno.

“Get down!” Bors’ shout cut through the chaos, and I threw myself to the ground. A burning tree branch twice my size sailed through where we’d just been. The tree pulled open the smoke, letting me spot Astor riding the flaming missile.

His face was now pale, the red having faded as he consumed his blood to fuel his attacks. The only red that remained was in his eyes, where he seemed to have burst every blood vessel. He held onto the wood by wrapping his left arm around the branch, that hand now gone. His other hand, still dotted with burns from where I’d exploded his boiling blood technique, was outstretched, ready to rain down attacks. His expression was a rictus of hate—if the heat wasn’t burning away every scrap of stray moisture, he’d be frothing at the mouth.

He’d really taken being denied the blood in the river poorly.

As he passed over, he lashed out with blood and flame alike, raining down attacks on the patch of smoke we used to obscure our movements.

The attacks randomly swept through our cover, Sephy catching the few that strayed near us on her nearly destroyed shield. The formerly shining steel was now warped, bent, and dotted with pieces of hardened magma from where she’d stopped Waltz’s attacks. She was as tired as her shield looked, and a blade of blood got through her defences, slashing down at my arm.

My cloak shifted, the formerly refined accessory looking little better than the starved pile of rags it had been when Ursul gifted it to me, launching itself before the attack. Death glamour, it turned out, was fantastic against blood glamour. Even with that benefit, my glamour was fighting up a rank, and that last attack drained all but the dregs of my cloak's reserves.

Astor sensed his blood being destroyed, his focus homing in on my location. Sephy yanked me across the ground, her glamour dragging me around by my armour. It wasn’t dignified, but as the fire crashed down on where I’d just been, I had to accept it.

Even if I was totally outclassed, it didn’t mean I couldn’t help.

Dragged along the ground, I threw her more ammunition—anything metal that had ended up in my ring was flung out for her to push back the rabid dog that was Astor. He dodged a ballistic alchemy clamp and pulled back, disappearing into the flames. Frustratingly, he retained enough awareness to have some combat sense.

The pair were whittling us down, trying to force us off our current path. We were trying to move parallel to the stream, far enough away that the forest wasn’t littered with wood to fuel them, and the water wasn’t filled with monsters. We’d barely covered any distance. Waltz and his lava excelled at pulling in heat over a wide area, creating hot spots and forcing us to change our course.

Astor harried us constantly. This most recent attack was just a repeat of his current hit-and-run tactics. I’d run out of ‘good’ metal to give Sephy two attacks ago when I’d thrown her the last of my arrows. Now I was scraping the bottom of the barrel and regretting not taking more of the armour we’d looted from Barclay Fos and his goons.

“We need something new, this is just prolonging the inevitable,” Sephy said, her breath short and her words tight. “Do we try the water?”

“I like swimming about half as much as I like flying,” Bors rumbled. The giant was stoic despite his wounds. He was down to five pyrite chunks, all of which were coated in rapidly cooling lava. His armour was splattered with dried chunks of stone, and he was limping as he walked, a huge dent in the armour at his thigh the only clue to what had happened. “I think that’s the last resort.”

“I think we might be at that point,” Sephy said, looking around, hunting for a solution and finding nothing. There was only fire. Neither was saying it but Gawain and rest of the team's absence had them worried.

I could still feel the pressure of those silver eyes. I still didn’t know what they wanted, but I considered beseeching the clearly fae presence for assistance. It was only a marginally worse idea than the alternative.

In death, I shall sow discord.

The words pounded in my head. My body ached with my unfulfilled intent. My soul yearned for it. My hearth, previously strong and balanced, felt uneven and weak without it. It was the solution to our problems—one I selfishly refused to take.

“Give me the Bard and I’ll make your deaths swift!” Astor screamed, his voice cracked and broken, the veneer of sanity burnt away. None of us replied. My smoke was doing a great job of keeping us hidden, denying them the precision to strike at us carefully.

Another series of attacks rained down on us. Waltz appeared out of the flame, sending out spears of earth that glowed red, as Astor threw endless balls of fire at us. Bors caught the stone while Sephy handled the flame. Still, our fatigue was showing—a chunk of rock exploding against one of the crystals sent shrapnel scything through the air. Some of it caught me where my armour was weakest, slicing my arm open.

Thankfully, it was at that time the two divine cultivators retreated again. I could feel them moving glamour around, preparing something.

“Close that wound. My control’s so messed up that any drop of blood that isn’t already under my control, he could grab,” Sephy reminded me. I’d offered to give her some of my blood earlier, but she’d warned me off. She couldn’t afford to drop her focus on her metal gift, while Astor could give his all to blood if he wanted to. That meant that even if she was right next to me, the second the blood left my aura, he could get hold of it.

I cursed and grabbed scaldingly hot ash. I swept it over the cut, cauterising the wound as I fought not to scream. That small slip of focus let the intent try and slot in. I fought it again, pushing it away.

In death, I shall sow discord.

The words pounded in my head. I’d denied them the first time, and it had been easy, but with each use of my glamour, each wound, they repeated. Each rejection got harder, and my scramble to fix it became more desperate. There was a missing piece that would make it work—I could feel it in the depths of my mind—but the harder I fought for it, the further it slipped from my grasp.

“Taliesin, you must have an idea!” Bors called out to me. His faith in my wits scared me.

“I do, but it’s not a good one.” I couldn’t lie. I could curse the fae for taking the power from me, but today I wouldn't have wanted to. It was bad enough to have a solution, but to hide it? That'd would've been unforgivable. Yet I couldn't give voice to it. How long was I going to look for another? I couldn’t let my friends die.

“Is it better than being cooked or becoming chum?” Sephy growled.

In death, I shall sow discord.

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“Better from a certain point of view, worse from another,” I replied, trying to put off what was starting to feel inevitable. Should I accept the intent? I could fight the future I’d seen, what it would try to form into, just like I’d fought the Harkleys. I looked at my worried friends; they faced out, waiting for the next attack.

Bors and Sephy both had their backs to me. Both trusted me completely to have their backs. That broke something in me. My resolve shifted.

In death, I shall sow discord.

If they died and I lived, there was no chance I was avoiding the worst of the future I’d seen. My rage would be endless, I doubt it would be sated even if every last Harkley lay dead at my feet. I shifted the lute into a blade, having lost my spare sword in the chaos.

In death, I shall sow discord.

The intent knocked again. I might give up being a Bard, but at least I could be a death knight with friends. I was about to bring the blade to my neck when I stopped myself. My resolve had not faded, but a chilling question screamed for my attention.

What would happen to my blood?

I didn’t know exactly how long that moment between my death and rebirth lasted. Would my aura remain? Would my blood briefly become unbound? Would I rise to find Astor had slain them with my very lifeblood? Even if I warned Sephy, could I stop her from trying to save me?

My blade hesitated, and in that moment, their next attack came, and it was titanic. I yelled out the warning, neither Bors nor Sephy sensing the shifting air that disturbed my smoke, until it abruptly felt as if the world was falling on us.

We’d been getting closer to the sky-scraping tree stripped of most of its branches by Ursul’s awakening. Battered as it was, it had done better than the tree over the water, which was broken in half, and still sported a fair few branches on its trunk.

One of the bastards, I suspected Waltz, had manoeuvred us into position and then dropped one of the remaining branches, one that rivalled a century-old oak in size, on top of us.

Bors dived left, while Sephy jumped right, pulling me along with her. I almost lost grip on my blade as I was jerked off my feet, having not allowed her to control it like she had my armour.

Still, our luck was running out. A branch as thick as my thigh slammed down on my legs, even reinforced by my hearth and supported by Sephy’s control over metal, my armour crumpled beneath the sheer force of it. I was pinned to the ground, my legs crushed.

Sephy tried to drag me out. I screamed in pain, the weight was too much. Honing in on my cries, Astor bore down on us.

“I’m going to take your blood and drown your friends,” his deranged shout gave Sephy enough warning to get her block up and stall his attack. Her strikes drove him back, lacking his blood-infused strength, and with only one hand, his sword couldn’t stand up. Their blood battled, both used small whips here and there to augment their attacks, but their stocks were low.

Only by relying on the abundance of fire, and by consistently sending flames at me, did he hold her at bay. Each strike against me that she blocked robbed her of a shield she could’ve used for herself.

Astor started to laugh. “I’ve already broken his legs, I’m going to pull off this little bird’s wings right in front of you.” A spike of flame hurtled towards me. Sephy’s shield moved to intercept, but the flames shifted at the last second, crashing into her. She cried out.

In death, I shall sow discord.

I ignored the intent, the pain, and that those silver eyes’ attention was nearly crushing me. I had to help. I had a blade but little I could do with it. Freeing myself was impossible, the branch was thick and alive enough to hold on to the glamour that reinforced it. Accepting my intent, and bringing about my temporary death, was an unacceptable risk—anything could happen to the blood within me.

Sephy emerged from the flames looking a little scorched but mostly okay. Steam rose around her. I guessed she had used the last of her blood to block him.

She needed blood to win this.

In death, I shall sow discord.

The words pounded in my head. I could feel the intent trying to guide me. It told me to rise and smite, to throw aside my fears about the blood. I felt so trapped, so powerless, only by taking that risk could I strike back. I only silenced it when I felt Sephy’s familiar power flow over me, looking for metal to use, discounting the armour and not even touching the blade that I held weakly.

Just as before, I felt an idea lock into place. A taboo I was about to break, an idea no normal cultivator would ever consider. Slapping aside the intent, I focused on what I needed to do. I wouldn't accept that fate to the very end, but its incessant whining had given me an idea. One that felt far more Taliesin than Regus.

Astor charged again, whips of blood and tongues of fire crashing into Sephy, who stood right beside me now. It was now or never.

Without hesitation, I brought the blade to the side of my throat and sliced into where my pulse beat hardest. Before a drop could leak out, I nudged my aura.

To let another through your aura, to entrust something it protected to them, was the ultimate sign of trust. It was used for healing and protection. Even the slightest doubt in the other could see your mind rejecting it. It wasn’t meant to be used like this. To deliberately empower and will someone use that power to harm you, to kill you? It was almost unthinkable. Almost.

For me, it was hardly a thought—I could think of no better custodian of my blood than Sephy. Besides, what better way to kill a Harkley than cursing them to die by my blood.

The change was instant. In the many vessels of my body, my blood stilled and then writhed. The sensation was far efficient, somehow more peaceful than the first time I’d been exsanguinated by the blood curse.

The engine of my heart pulsed empty, bruises were sucked dry, my cheeks and lips turned pale. A snake of blood streamed out of me. Sephy had her ammunition.

I remained conscious thanks to my refined body fighting the closing darkness. I could feel myself burning glamour to stay alive. A stray thought had me push off my storage ring; I didn’t know if it would survive my fire and subsequent rise from the ashes. Better to be safe. Too bad about my cloak, it was pinned in place with me. I liked that cloak.

My mind was going fuzzy, my hearing muted. Still, I watched as Sephy drove a glistening spear of my blood up and through a column of Astor’s flame, using his strike to conceal her own. The attack sliced his other hand from his body. The man stumbled back in shock, falling over the same branches he’d trapped me with.

I couldn’t see him anymore, and moving was impossible. Still, I could watch her close in, hear the edge of some final exchange between them. Then she ended it.

Using her shield and blood to absorb the torrent of flame he fired off to stave off the inevitable, she stepped forward and her blade came down. The torrent of fire stopped.

In death, I shall sow discord.

I forced down the intent one last time. I’d accept it in death, but I wasn’t about to let it win while I had breath in my lungs and blood in my–. Whatever, screw my gloomy intent, it could fuck off.

I felt oddly fluffy. Stars began to appear in my eyes, and my attention wandered. In that wandering, I found I could now see the silver eyes that weighed on me so. They floated above me, staring down at my soon-to-be corpse. My capacity for fear was drained as dry as my blood, so I didn’t shy away from them this time. I found them to be utterly beautiful.

The edges were made of living silver that reflected the dancing flames, while the iris was closer to a polished gemstone, a blue sapphire, carved with a thousand facets that caught and portioned out the dancing light. The centre was dark, just like a human’s, which, while otherworldly, made them feel alive.

It was the same kind of ethereal majesty the Lady had held. I longed to invoke such beauty in the world, and that longing roused me from the stupor of catastrophic blood loss.

As the last hurrah of my willpower flared, I could make out their expression. They looked confused. I was expecting anger, but I got instead a sense of frustration, maybe even regret. With my smoke, I could, for the first time, feel a vaguely humanoid void. Even if common sense told me the same I felt a surety, something I’m sure was hitched directly to whatever the Lady did to me, screaming that this was some form of fae.

It was either the blood loss or my general approach to all things beyond me, but I managed to rasp out with the last of my air, “Give me a minute to die, we can talk after.”

The figure stopped. I could only see the eyes, the sapphire irises turning the flames purple, and in the centre, two black dots met my gaze. They searched me for something, a small crease I read as surprise drifted past, and they, and the void in my smoke, melted away. The pressure of them relented. I tried to breathe a sigh of relief, but that was beyond me.

My view wasn’t long empty. Sephy arrived moments later, her concerned face appearing over me, lit by a halo of light from the endless fires.

“You can’t be alive. How did I control your blood if–” Sephy knelt beside me, hands hovering, uncertain of what to do. Her eyes glanced down to my armour, realising what I’d done. “No, you didn’t! There’s not enough left. I can't put it back. Why do this!?”

She sounded pained. I wanted to speak, but my lungs were empty. Even as the darkness closed in, I tried to reassure her with my eyes.

All I could see was the face of the woman who I considered my best friend. Her red hair wild and loose, her full lips bloodied and tight with worry. She was worried for me, she who stood stoic in the face of unending challenges, who was filled with suspicion, and pulled apart every problem with logic. In that face, I saw frustration give way to care. I saw the water gathering at the edge of her eyes in compassion. All of that paled in comparison to the moment her eyes met mine. They were all I saw as the edges of my vision ebbed away.

She saw me, recognized me!

It was the most beautiful thing I think I could ever recall. The most beautiful thing I would see in this life.

My eyes closed.