The Child—Oria—really was quite pissed off, practically snarling as she chased Emilia through the city level, hurling ice magic at her as they went.

“Hey,” Emilia called as she dodged another attack, “can I ask you a question?”

A huge, rolling snowball barrelled towards her in response. Rude. All she wanted to know was whether the girl had acquired her magic through a heartcore gift or if it was a result of her real-world, core-based abilities. She’d asked Conrad something similar, of course, and he’d told her it was all natural talent and years wandering through raids—both legal and blackaether—that had allowed him to master this world’s magic system so quickly.

Given the pair probably had similar histories within raids, maybe it was a good thing the girl wasn’t talking to her. Dealing with one type of magic was annoying enough, the last thing Emilia needed was to remind the girl she could call forth other elements as well.

Behind her, the girl screamed about coming back again. In terms of which of them was saying stupid things to the other, Emilia figured the girl trying to scream her into ceasing her running away was definitely up there with her continuing to think of the girl as, well, a girl.

Woman. Oria was a woman, despite her tiny form and the veritable tantrum she was breathing over the world. The other girl had been the same, hadn’t she? Filled with more anger over her disparaging remarks about her parents—well, mostly her father—than vengeful love for the fake-silverstrain sibling Emilia had killed.

On the surface, that wasn’t strange. These were only temporary deaths, after all, and it wasn’t like she’d tortured anyone with a slow, painful death or anything, the trauma from such an experience chasing them into the real world. Yet, they claimed their entire reason for chasing her and Conrad down was the deaths they had caused and ignored, respectively. Aside from a few brief moments, however, Emilia couldn’t help but think their anger for momentarily dead family members was preformative. It was strange and pointless and more than a little confusing.

Even now, with this girl screaming and tearing through the city, Emilia was sure she was more upset about being called old and the remarks about her father than anything else—if anything, she’d bet Oria didn’t give a shit she’d killed any of her family members. Sure, she and her brother still would have attacked her and Conrad—as they had—but where those attacks had felt passionless, these current ones were so impassioned it was actually rather concerning.

Surely, the girl realized she had only said those things to piss her off? When her brother had spoken to her, before Conrad forced his way between them, he had certainly known Emilia was just goading Oria. Yet, that hadn’t mattered—the fact that her words were so obviously poking at tender spots for the sake of rattling her opponents seemingly didn’t help to lessen the sting of her words.

They were such an odd lot. Emilia knew full well how many people would fight for the sake of allies, even if they would rather not, even if they didn’t really care about the person, even if they hadn’t really been harmed at all. There was an expectation in war that you would fight for comrades, even if you disliked them—and Emilia had definitely had the sense when she’d first overheard the group that most of them didn’t really like each other.

Emilia also understood that sometimes words hit their mark, and even if you knew the intention behind them, it wasn’t always easy to shake those words off.

Except, this woman was older than her—far older, if the tone she’d heard in Conrad’s voice were to be believed—and that age wasn’t even taking all the extra years she’d earned inside raids into account. Oria had lived through the war—possibly even fought in it. So how were her emotions over this so unregulated? This thing with her father would have occurred at least 15 years ago, if her probably-half-brother were on the younger side. Emilia knew trauma did some messed up things to your body, but something about the whole situation between the kids, their probably-half-brother and parents seemed off—off in the way that made Emilia’s skin crawl with suspicions that even though many of the children were old enough to leave the toxicity of their mother’s love, they weren’t able to.

That… made it a bit uncomfortably, to yell vitriol back at Oria, knowing that whatever anger she had at Emilia was likely fuelled by beliefs her mother was violently forcing on her children.

The sound of The Mother’s hand slapping across Livia’s face, when she dared try to avenge one sister rather than come after this child—this full-grown woman who should have been able to defend herself, who should have been able to control herself enough to not run off in a panic in the middle of a raid, who shouldn’t have been allowed to enter the raid if her mental state were that unstable.

The look in The Gangly Boy’s eyes, the way he had seemed so desperate for the love of a mother who wasn’t his biological one and seemed to not give a shit about him.

So strange—it was so strange, especially when she brought Conrad’s mysterious brother into the equation. If he was as ethical as Conrad was always saying he was, why wasn’t he stopping this? Did they live in a Free Colony where removing children from an abusive household wasn’t done? That was certainly possible, but everything Emilia had heard about the man implied that he wouldn’t care about laws he didn’t agree with.

Maybe he just had a blind spot where his family was concerned, intent to let them be cruel to each other because he loved them too much to chastise them?

No. Something about that didn’t fit either, and it was aggravating.

It wasn’t the way people normally behaved, and even if everyone was marred over with trauma… something told Emilia there was something else going on.

“Stupid mysteries,” Emilia grumbled to herself, suddenly extremely thankful that she’d be meeting up with Conrad in the real world. She had questions for him—a family system to unravel and then possibly force her way into, if only so the children could have an escape.

She had friends in high places, and more than a few who would be perfectly willing to go to war with some random family—or even a whole Free Colony—if it meant getting some kids away from their terrible parents. They’d done it before, sieging into Chinsata to free as many slaves as they could without being noticed. Not that they’d had to—that she’d had to, even if she was closer to the situation in Chinsata than she usually liked to think about.

With Chinsata… there had been a connection—a biological obligation that had scratched at her for more than a decade, until one day someone asked if she wanted to do something about it, even if in the grand scheme of things the people they had managed to get out that day were but a drop in the bucket of suffering that Free Colony inflicted on its slaves.

She had no obligation to Conrad’s family, especially the older ones. It was difficult to get out of toxic families, but there definitely came a point where adults needed to take responsibility for staying in a shitty family, for continuing to inflict suffering on their younger siblings, for not protecting them from abusive parents.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Not that there weren’t a thousand little things that could make those things impossible, and Emilia really needed to stop thinking about this before she worked herself up.

Not everyone had fought in the war.

Not everyone was able to see how Baalphoria and other Free Colonies allowed their citizens more freedom, and even then, none of their homes were perfect.

Not everyone had had the opportunity to learn that while the Baalphorian government had effectively tried to deport all Free Coloniers whose home colonies insisted every citizen be returned home, regardless of what the citizen in question wanted, several Free Colonies had opened their borders to political refugees, Byshire and Norvel being two of the most vehement that they would start wars before returning refuges to their terrible governments.

Not everyone lived in a Free Colony they could leave, even if they wanted to.

Emilia’s heart squeezed, thinking of Ri, potentially trapped inside Falrion. Did he want to escape? Was he hoping one of his friends would come for him, despite the risk of death if they were caught? Or worse, causing a whole international incident or even a war?

They should go get him—take him away from that terrible place. There were a handful of them who would go, Emilia was sure. All they needed was for someone to say, “I’m doing this. I don’t care that he chose to return. I’m going to go get our friend. Who’s coming with me?”

Once, that person had been her.

Before her, it had been her ex.

And before even that, it had still been her, tugging Rafe and his brothers along on nonsense quests. Pulling Simeon out of his shell and giving him the confidence to say fuck you to his parents.

It had been her, pulling tiny, frightened children into her bed and making up signs with them, so they could communicate even when the adults caring for them screamed about speaking and behaving and being too much trouble.

So, why couldn’t it be her now? She felt more like herself than she had in a decade, so why couldn’t she be the one to lead them into Falrion, regardless of the risk? Wasn’t Ri worth it?

Of course he was.

Emilia laughed, and the woman behind her screamed, demanding to know what was so funny.

“Oh,” Emilia said, having half forgotten she was running from a crazy little girl who so totally wasn’t actually a little girl. “I wasn’t laughing about you. It was something else.”

“You have time to think about something else!?” the woman demanded, more incredulous than offended that Emilia had defaulted to autopilot while avoiding the icicles and snowballs being thrown her way.

“Uh, yeah,” Emilia agreed. “It’s not you! I’ve always been excellent at dodging attacks and thinking!”

The woman said nothing to that, but she did ask again what she’d been laughing about.

“Why do you want to know?” Emilia called back as she rounded a corner, eyes trained to her map as she planned her route.

The woman sniffed, telling Emilia that she was used to people laughing in cruelty during fights, but hers had sounded amused, if still in a cynical sort of way. Unfortunately, Emilia’s abrupt laughter—not to mention the fact that she’d grown so distracted with her thoughts that she’d ceased yelling insults back at the woman—had derailed most of Oria’s anger, but as long as she was still distracted with Emilia, it was fine.

So, Emilia answered her.

“I was thinking about a friend of mine, from the war. He ended up in a locked down Free Colony. I was thinking that we should go get him, regardless of the risk.”

“That sounds like a good way to start a war,” Oria said, the air chilling as snow began to fall, quickly layering over the grey city street.

Annoying, especially without proper snowshoes, but Helix had taught her how to walk as well as one could in the snow, without proper gear, and as much as Oria had created the snow, she clearly wasn’t used to walking in it either.

Emilia laughed and agreed. It really did sound like a great way to start a war. “That’s what’s funny, though? Right now, my friends and I are having to weigh the lives of so many people against those of ourselves and our friends. Not just visitors—our lives obviously aren’t worth anything here—but some locals as well. I want to save the locals—they're mostly kids, for one thing—but I also don’t want to leave Clarity free to rampage through this world once we’re gone. That’s the name of the group who runs this city system, did your Enclave sponsors even bother telling you that?”

Huffing, Emilia stopped, turning back to find the woman-child panting as well, standing in snow that went above her knees. Oria shook her head, snow dancing off her long hair.

“No,” she said, swallowing as she sucked in heaving breaths. “We didn’t really get much information before coming here. Only that—” Oria cut off, looking this way and that, like she wanted to be anywhere but here, and Emilia thought she really did. The woman didn’t want to be here—not in this city, nor even in the raid.

“Only that your uncle, and maybe me, were here?”

Oria nodded. “Is the person in the Free Colony worth more than the kids here?”

“No.” The response was immediate, unquestioning. “I might have known my friend longer—through over a decade of war—and love him, but I love the kids I became friends with her as well. I love your uncle, too, in a weird way,” she added, only to gauge the woman’s reaction.

Oria’s eyes widened, and she searched Emilia’s face for the lie. She wouldn’t be able to find one. Conrad had grown on her, despite the way they had met. He had carved himself a hole in her heart, with how oddly sincere he was, with how he carried her and teased her and didn’t bother to hide his dismay with her—with the way he had let her ramble while they returned to the Ingogia estate as well, despite already having known he could likely suppress her then-uncontrolled aethervoice with his energy. Still, he had let her mind wander and not complained. Maybe it just because she had secrets within her, but she didn’t think so. It had felt more like with V: that he liked hearing her thoughts, regardless of how insane or incomplete and winding they were.

“What’s the difference, then?” Conrad’s niece asked, tilting her head and looking so much like the child she was pretending to be.

Emilia gazed up to the ceiling, grey and dreary. “I know we would win in the real world.” Her eyes flicked back to Oria. “Even against an entire Free Colony, I know my friends and I would tear the entire place down, getting our friend out.”

“Then why haven’t you? It’s been a decade since the war ended.”

Something in the woman’s voice was cutting, not just her words or the sentiment, but something more personal—something that told Emilia that she too was trapped, waiting for someone to come rescue her. Oria wasn’t crying, but the way her hands had balled into fists, her lips pressed tight, told Emilia she wanted to.

“Because my friend chose to go back, even when we begged him not to. We let that control our actions, but we shouldn’t have—I shouldn’t have. We wanted to respect his decision, no matter how much we disagreed with it. Yet, we knew he had little choice in returning, and we should have gone to get him, the moment that place locked down. But, I’m weak, and the war broke me. I’ve spent a decade running, and I’m only just putting myself back together now. It’s not fair to my friend that he had to wait, but I also know I wouldn’t have been able to save him, even one real-world day ago, and I know that if we were to rescue him, we’d need nearly every member of our unit to do it.” Some of them weren’t in a position to help, not yet. Could they get there, soon? Could James pull himself together in order to get their friend? Would Helix risk his anonymity and the reputation he had cultivated for himself these last ten years?

Of course he would, and even if James was broken, he would still come, just like she still would have gone, if anyone else had organized a mission to go get their friend.

Emilia blinked at the woman, taking a chance that may very well bite her in the ass. “Do you need someone to rescue you?”

Oria blinked back at her, mouth opening as though she were about to say something, when the universe began to scream.