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Tessia Eralith

“It’s your fault, you know,” I said softly, leaning my back against the cool stone outside the cell. “None of it would’ve happened without you.”

The target of my words didn’t respond. She didn’t shift or speak. But she never did. Still, I’d been coming down here for the past week, just talking. Accusing.

I tilted my head, my silver bangs covering an eye. “I asked myself why. And I realized… Your people… you had to enjoy it. I don’t see how else you could do so many horrible things. Kill so many and ruin so many good things.”

People people people, Willow crooned within my core, shifting slightly. Good good good.

I’d said the same things over and over. Maybe if I said them enough, it would start to hurt my enemy. Start to really get under her skin.

But as I chanced a glance into the cell where Mawar was chained, I knew none of my goading words had any effect. The Retainer’s pale skin was clammy and sunken from a week of deprivation, her cheeks hollow and white hair disheveled. Yet her red eyes were empty and devoid of inflection.

It had only been a week. Only a week since… since Art—Grey?–-declared himself King. And I still didn’t know how to… didn’t know if I could process it all. Things seemed to happen around me, fading into the background noise as the world parted like a stream around an uncomprehending rock.

When I was a child in Elenoir, a human merchant showed me a toy popular in Sapin. It was a wind-up bird with a gear on the back that you twisted and twisted, and once you let go, the little toy would bounce and peck at the ground as if compelled. But there was no thought behind the action. It was just that: mechanical. Preordained.

I felt like one of those toys. Every action I took nowadays was like the peck of that toy, driven forward by tension and gears within my soul. My bones were brass. My muscles gears, and my blood oil.

But there was a time when I allowed myself to think. When I gave myself a chance to try and remember being Tessia.

“It’s tiring,” I said quietly, slumping against the back of the wall. “Fighting all you Alacryans off. Day in and day out. Before you, things were getting better, you know? The races had fought for so long. Even back in Grandpa’s day. But we were making progress toward peace. But then you swept in, like a plague.”

“We aren’t a plague,” Mawar said suddenly, shocking me. I blinked in surprise, baffled to hear her voice at all.

I shifted, inspecting the inside of the cell. Mawar turned away, seeming to belatedly realize she had spoken.

Plague, I thought with dark humor, noting how this was the first time I’d ever heard the Retainer unsettled. She doesn’t like being compared to the rot her people are.

“You are a plague,” I bit back, glaring into the cell. “A rot that creeps up into our healthy flesh, withering and decaying and breaking it all down. That’s all you’ve ever been when you landed on our shores.” I laughed humorously as I watched Mawar cringe inward, each of my words striking her somewhere deep in her mana core.

It was so amusingly simple. She’d remained stalwart against all my taunts and words so far. But really, plague?

“Even the men you attacked my family with—attacked my mother with—only served to infect our veins with poison. That’s what you did to my Grandpa,” I hissed. “That’s what you did to my mother.”

Mawar turned away, cringing inward as the word mother echoed around her cell. She looked weak, like a chained scarecrow. No longer was she a dark shadow, the same one I’d fought and battled over and over in my nightmares.

Battle battle battle, Willow echoed. Over over over.

And as I stared at the broken figure as she tried to shy away from me—as if I were a burning fire—I suddenly felt a swell of guilt. I remembered how I’d moralized and belittled other children at Xyrus, leveraging my perceived high ground over them.

But I ground away that guilt: because this Retainer was exactly what I accused her of being. She wasn’t some sad, broken girl. Her actions had consequences.

“My mother will come,” Mawar finally said, trying desperately not to look at me. As if the very outline of my figure would burn her to her core. “She’ll take me from here.”

She didn’t seem to convince herself of that, either. I thought about how I could reply. I didn’t know who Mawar’s “mother” was, but Uto’s mind had been shattered months ago, and he had found no salvation. He had discovered no respite from the demons crawling about his wretched head.

I could make that point, grind it in even further. But as I stared at the Retainer, I realized that she already knew that.

She would never see the light of the sun again, and no words I uttered would hurt her more.

I chuckled darkly, wondering where this vindictive, hateful side of me had come from. Had it always been there, or was this what war did to people? I didn’t know.

I turned around, feeling darkly resolved. I rolled my shoulders, my eyes tracing the damp ceiling high above. The stench this far below was horrible. The kind that clung to your skin and clothes and nose and wouldn’t leave without a thorough shower. “Sometimes, Mawar,” I said absently, “your parents—your mother—won’t come to save you. You think they’re the most powerful, greatest thing in the world. But sometimes you fall, and there are no arms to catch you.”

And all you can do is haul yourself back up, I thought, feeling my mind finally clear for the first time. All you can do is take action for yourself.

—

I took a shower after that. A deep, cleansing shower that seemed to draw the stench and sweat from the very pores of my pale skin. I lingered there for a time, letting the steam twist and warp around me like the mists of Elshire.

When servants came to clothe me, I allowed them to pat me down with scented towels, but I reserved my selection of dress for myself. There was a balance I needed to maintain between the soldier and the princess, especially for what I planned next. The vague idea that had been sifting through my mind had finally cemented into something truly concrete.

As I walked through the halls of the flying castle, my mind—seeming cleared of an effervescent fog—picked up on more than it had in the past seven days. The march of guards and the movement of clerks and servants were subtly different. There was an aura of uncertainty within each and every shifting soul as they trailed through the castle, but there was also something else. Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

A shuffling servant gave me a short, respectful bow as she passed, a handful of papers in her hands. “Princess Tessia,” she said, before making a step to move away.

I caught her by the arm before she could, causing her to freeze in surprise. “Easy, miss,” I said calmingly, releasing my hand as she stared up at me. “Could you tell me what you’ve been doing these past few days? Not just you, but your department as a whole?”

I recognized her as part of the information division from the patch on her shoulder, but as I thought about it more, dredging up deeper memories, I realized I’d seen a lot more of the information division recently.

“Oh, Princess,” the woman said in a hushed tone, looking both ways. “Well… the new King has been ordering things differently. He said that our network was inefficient, or something. He made a lot of nobles angry, my lady. But he’s forcing us to change how we report and deliver information. Miss Alanis Emeria is in charge of the reorganization as acting secretary.”

I asked a few more questions of the nervous woman, before giving her leave. She rushed away with a strange mix of anxiety and inspired drive. My brow furrowed as I took the time to digest all of the things she’d told me.

Things are being restructured. Before, many of the information networks that served to deliver reports to the Council were threaded through a dozen different nobles in appointed positions, but from what I gathered, those had been summarily pushed from their positions with an iron fist and different men placed in those positions. And sometimes the entire branch is just… closed. Like he’s cutting off an unneeded limb.

I stood there in the hallway for a time, just thinking about all of it. Grey… he’d done this before, hadn’t he? Or something like it? I’d never seen a coup d'état in my life, but as part of my royal upbringing, I’d read about them. They were usually messy, bloody affairs filled with carnage and chaos.

But this was so orderly. Efficient, like an unerring spell that shot toward a target.

I felt a bit of a looseness in my bones. Did I ever really know Art? I wondered. Is this him? Is this Grey?

Willow’s soothing balm across my mind didn’t help this time, but I’d already made my decision. I smoothed out my clothes—designed more for battle than for aesthetics—and resumed my march toward my destination.

I reached the council doors easily enough. Those looming monoliths always seemed to mock me in days long past. Look at the little Princess, they’d say. Look at how she seeks to enter a place fit only for her betters. Turn back, pane of glass, they’d continue. Turn back, and go do something fit for one of your fragility.

But as I stared up at those doors, I saw the truth. Those doors kept themselves locked to keep me safe. To protect me from whatever was inside. They didn’t want me to dip my toes into the blood, lest I submerge myself and drown.

I pressed my hand against the door, feeling the smooth texture of the metal beneath the pads of my fingers. The entire council room was warded, of course. Warded by magics and powers unfathomable to even the greatest of Dicathen’s artificers. I couldn’t hear anything inside, but that wouldn’t stop me.

I exhaled, then called on my Elderwood Guardian Will. The power flowed through my veins like morning dew. Willow rose to the forefront of my thoughts, bolstering me as I exhaled.

And as my power—my insight—deepened, I could sense the rhythms that flowed through the air beyond me.

“–but the sketches you showed me… We don’t have any sort of chemical material that reactive,” the familiar voice of the mad artificer, Gideon, echoed out uncertainly. “I see how it could work if there were something like that! It’s genius, I tell you. To make the muzzle threaded to make the projectile spin–”

“Gideon,” Art’s voice—so stern and cold—scythed across the artificer’s rambling. “You say you don’t have the means to make the explosive substance?”

There was a grim silence following Arthur’s words. I could almost taste the discomfort as I pressed myself closer to the doors. Gideon coughed a few times. “Yes, er—Arthur. Everything else can be done: maybe even mass-produced as you wanted. But the powder…”

“It’s a simple ratio, Gideon. Seventy-five percent saltpeter. Fifteen percent charcoal dust. Ten percent sulfur. I expected this continent to have more advanced knowledge of chemistry, but I can understand why you wouldn’t.”

A hesitant voice spoke next. My father’s. “Arthur, I… I don’t see how this helps us. This new weapon of yours is great, certainly… But how does it solve the problems we face now?”

There was another beat of silence before Arthur responded. “The citizens of this continent are weak,” he said after a moment. “Weak, easy prey. The mana beasts from the Glades tear them apart as if they are ants at the bottom of the food chain. Agrona has reminded us all where the nonmages of this continent truly stand. What their true value is.”

A voice sneered in contempt, crackling through Arthur’s words. “For all your talk of being a good king,” Lance Bairon hissed, “That’s an awfully wretched way to talk of the people you’re supposed to be protecting, Arthur Leywin.”

A beat of silence. Two. And then the pressure radiated through and around me, suffocating the air from my lungs. I felt my hold on my Will slip as my legs turned to jelly, the mana itself compressing inward on me. Judging me. Holding me in contempt. It was as if the World itself had deemed me unfit.

Arthur’s intent, I realized, sweat beading on my temples as I struggled not to fall. And I’m not even the focus. How in the name of the forests–

“I am your King, Lance Wykes,” Arthur’s cool voice said. “And that I will be, so long as the Vritra threaten all of Dicathen. The very tether of your artifact is bound to me. You. Are. My. Subject. And in turn? I am your king.” A long, uncomfortable pause. “You will treat me as such, or you will not speak at all.”

Arthur’s intent lessened, receding back and allowing me to gasp for breath. I blinked stars out of my vision, trying not to stumble back or make a sound.

Bound bound bound, Willow communicated unhelpfully. King king king.

“But I have yet to answer Councilman Alduin’s question,” Arthur said after a moment. “Mankind is a fickle thing. Our bodies are weaker than those of mana beasts. We’re prone to death and disease. But what sets us apart? It is our ability to craft tools and solutions to solve the problems in our path. You know of swords and axes and shields, councilors. But you do not know what a little gunpowder can do to ravage the balance of a war.”

I leaned my back against the cool, metallic doors, trying and failing to process all that Arthur was saying. He was introducing some kind of weapon from his previous life?

“You are all dismissed,” Arthur’s voice cut through my thoughts. “You will attend me here tomorrow at the same time, where we will discuss how to inform the wider continent of the changes in their leadership. The morale of the people is low, and we need a way to make an… impact.”

I blinked, registering the words. Then I cursed, recognizing my position. I hastily scrambled to my feet, then conjured a swirl of vines around me. With a twist of willpower, silver flowers blossomed along their verdant lengths, before breathing cloaking mist along my form.

Hastily, I darted to the side of the room. I bent my legs, trusting I would be fast enough, before I jumped. I surged upward, before jamming my vines into the walls near the ceiling. The mist hung around me, hopefully making my presence difficult to sense.

The doors slammed open with the sound of a ringing gong, wind blowing in their wake. I watched with hard eyes as Bairon Wykes stormed from the room, little crackling nimbuses of electricity following him like fireflies. He clenched his teeth so hard I feared they might crack, his face red with fury and shame. His hair was mussed and in disarray, and his forehead was bleeding slightly. It appeared as if he’d slammed his face into a brick wall with undue force.

I had never liked the human Lance. He’d always come off to me like the arrogant noble kids at Xyrus, but aged up. That holier-than-thou attitude had always grated against my nerves.

Perhaps that was because I bore the same attitude, I thought as I watched the man stomp away. I wasn’t always the… most gracious of Student Council Presidents.

The rest of the councilors weren’t far behind. Mom and Dad trailed out uncertainly, but there was a solidness to their steps that told me they weren’t broken. Dad’s face was pinched slightly, and Mom looked somewhere between confused and hopeful. She’d finally been healed in the past few days, enough to rejoin the Council. It must have been a painful return.

Mom had talked to me, thanking me for saving her. She’d held me as I cried, weeping for all that was lost in so little time. And Dad? Dad had questioned me on… what Arthur was.

And I had answered truthfully: that I didn’t yet know.

Blaine and Priscilla Glayder were next. Priscilla’s normally even expression was taut in a way that told me she was restraining her anger, while the former human king just looked… tired. Weary and exhausted, with the slump of his broad shoulders and the hollowness in his eyes.

Elder Buhndemog Lonuid exited last, with Gideon clinging nervously to his side. The artificer always seemed frazzled, with his greasy dark hair and burned labcoats, but the man seemed especially nervous about the prospect of even looking back. A notebook was clutched tightly in his hands.

I prepared to lower myself to the ground in preparation for my plan. After all, the councilors had all left, and I knew Lance Varay and Lance Mica were stationed along Sapin’s southern border in preparation for a potential forward assault from the Alacryan-held capital of Darv.

But as I prepared to enact my plan, I felt the sudden urge to just turn around and race back to my rooms, pretending I’d never been there in the first place. Here was the point of no return, after all. I was afraid of what was going to happen. Afraid of what I might hear and learn.

I’d told Dad that I’d learn who Art truly was. Did I… Did I want that?

But then another person walked out. Elder Rinia looked like a simple gust of wind would blow her away, each individual bit of flesh fit to just dissolve into ash. Director Goodsky’s old bond sat primly on her shoulders. Yet when she looked up at me, seeming to know exactly where I was, there was a kindly smile on her wrinkled face. A knowing smile.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I opened my mouth to speak at how easily she pierced my veils—maybe to apologize or make some excuse—but she only continued on her way, acting as if she hadn’t seen me at all. The tap-tap-tap of her cane on the solid stones echoed as she heaved herself away, seeming to lose a bit more of herself with each movement.

I felt a surge of worry grow in my chest as I watched Aunt Rinia go. Grandma died because of overusing her divination powers, I thought, feeling a bit of adrenaline course through me. She saved Grandpa, but–

“You can come in, Tess,” Arthur’s voice echoed from within the council room. “I know you’ve been listening.”

That pushed away all other thoughts. And as I searched deep within myself for my resolve, I pushed away my earlier doubts.

I dropped to the floor without a sound, pulling Willow back into my core. I took a deep breath, straightening my back and squaring my shoulders.

I was the Princess of Elenoir. It was my duty to present myself as regal and capable, especially when facing other royalty.

I stepped through the wide-open doors of the council room, each door silently sorrowful that I had finally breached their barrier.

Arthur lounged casually on a throne conjured of ice and earth. He wasn’t elevated highly, but as I craned my neck slightly to look up at him, I felt something in my body tremble. The throne was intricate, splashed through with streaks of red fire, green wind, and bright electric patterns. It seemed to encompass the entire world in every one of its elemental expressions, even though it was barely larger than the other councilor’s seats all around it.

He was dressed deceptively simply. A close-fitting gray tunic hugged the sculpted muscle of his chest, and loose, combat-oriented black pants completed the ensemble. I was used to seeing royalty array themselves with gaudy jewelry and luxurious robes, flaunting their wealth and power. The Glayders wore priceless artifacts, and even my parents made sure that their robes were of the finest silks within Elenoir.

But Arthur didn’t need such ostentation. The aura he radiated was of quiet strength and surety. Jewels and precious stones would only sully the sharpness of what he was, diminish the authority he radiated.

He had cut his long, auburn hair. Where before it had trailed down nearly to his back, now it brushed his shoulders and hung in loose waves. A slight stubble the color of autumn leaves adorned his sharp jaw, which looked surprisingly fitting on him.

But his azure eyes… there was something cold in them that made me hesitate as he stared at me, one leg crossed over another with regal surety.

He looked like a king.

I remembered that time when he’d looked down on the Trailblazers atop a mountain of mana beast corpses, his expression hard and empty. I’d felt worried and uncertain, then. Fearful that who I was looking at wasn’t my childhood friend.

And as I stared up at this new King of Dicathen, I wondered if I had ever known him.

Yet I froze in my painful introspection as Taci Thyestes’ olive-green eyes bored in and through and past me. The young pantheon asura—appearing younger than me—stood ramrod straight at Arthur’s left hand as he gave me a look I recognized was reserved only for enemies.

Arthur’s face wrinkled slightly. Sylvie—who had been looking at me with a sad smile from Arthur’s right—shifted.

“Taci,” Sylvie said, her smile fading away as she broke the silence, “follow me, please.”

Sylvie stepped out from Arthur’s throne, her dark dress swishing and the horns along the side of her head darker than night. She stared at Taci, quietly commanding. For the first time, I didn’t see a young woman. I saw something of the asura she was.

Taci’s eyes flicked to Arthur, who had remained silent, then to Sylvie. His brow wrinkled. His hands clenched. “I am your servant,” he finally said, though the words seemed to physically pain him.

Sylvie began to walk toward the doors, her amber eyes softening slightly as they met mine. She led Taci out the door, his intent sending goosebumps along my flesh.

And then the doors closed behind them with a subtle click, leaving me alone in the room with Arthur. Gazing down from his throne.

My mouth suddenly felt dry as I once again felt doubt about my plans.

Then, Arthur sighed, uncrossing his leg from where it rested on his other knee. As he stared down at me, I thought I could see something pushing through the cold apathy that burned in his pupils like winter ice.

The throne began to melt and crumble beneath him, the ice and earth and splashes of other elements fading away as he heaved a breath. And before long, we stood on the same level of ground once more. “I’m sorry, Tess,” he said, breaking eye contact and staring at something on the council table. “Taci will only listen if the orders come from Sylvie, and I can’t…”

“You can’t show weakness around him,” I finished, thinking of the charged interactions I’d seen between the two on that fateful day not long ago. “You need to… need to be a king.”

Arthur’s auburn hair shadowed his face slightly as he kept his intent focused on whatever was on the council table. “I do.”

The silence lingered for a time. I got the sense Arthur knew what I was going to ask. His shoulders weren’t quite taut like I saw in most warriors when they were worried or ready for battle, but that wasn’t how Arthur showed his worry. Throughout my upbringing in Elshire, I’d learned that Arthur didn’t tense up when he expected a fight, when he expected to be struck. He loosened instead, his body becoming limber enough to roll with each blow.

And as I noticed this—noticed the traces of things that could only be Arthur—I allowed myself to finally speak.

“Who was King Grey?” I finally asked. “Who was he, in this other world?”

Arthur didn’t respond at first. He had a look on his face that told me he was thinking deeply. It was etched into the lines of his jaw and the twist of his lips, only accentuated by his slight beard.

It made him look so much older.

“Could you come here, Tess?” he finally said, looking up at me. “I can’t just tell you if you want to understand. I need to show you.”

He asked for you to move, I thought, beginning to walk forward. Kings don’t ask. They command.

I thought I was starting to understand already. I walked silently around the table, before standing a few feet away from Arthur. Distantly, I was aware of a small dent in the nearby tiles and a splash of blood there, but Arthur paid it no mind.

I could finally see what he was looking at with such a fierce expression. A map of Dicathen, annotated and marked with a hundred different scribbles and notes. With a cursory glance, I noticed the places where beasts had massacred towns laid out with tiny pins, and another few pins where Aya had managed to disassemble the Alacryans’ attempted sentry chain through Elshire.

“You know what it is like to fight on the battlefield,” Arthur said, his tone soft. “To bleed and watch your comrades die around you.” His calloused hands brushed against the map, circling a town I knew. Slore. “And you’re a good person, Tess. One of the best I’ve ever known. You feel each loss of life in your heart, wondering if you could have done something different. Could have saved more people.”

I felt my chest clench painfully as I inched closer, staring down at the map. There were so many pins for each slaughter across Sapin. Easily a dozen.

“Grey isn’t really a person,” he said after thinking for another minute. “He is a weapon. A sharp blade that can be wielded to cut anything in his path. But steel doesn’t care what it cuts; not really. And steel can cut its wielder as easily as anything else.”

For the first time, Arthur looked up at me. That cold, dread apathy was gone from his azure eyes–and in its place, I saw another familiar emotion. One I hadn’t expected.

Fear.

“In my previous life, I was not a good man. After a time, I wasn’t even truly a man. Just a husk, going through the mechanical motions of life. But I left much in my wake.”

I remembered Aldir’s words to Arthur, barely heard as I struggled not to succumb to his leashed intent.

There are countless more dead in your wake than Agrona has ever laid claim to in this war, and even now, your mind is more pantheon than man.

I swallowed, trying to reconcile that with all I knew of Arthur. Of the boy I’d played with in Elshire; who I’d teased all throughout my time at Xyrus Academy. And I found I couldn’t. It didn’t make sense.

But if I twisted my vision, just a little bit. Whenever Arthur got angry. Got truly scary. Like when lounged atop that mountain of mana beast corpses like a king, or when he sparred with Grandpa when we were little. A dozen smaller interactions like that…

Arthur couldn’t do any of this. But Grey could.

“When I awoke in another world,” Arthur continued, his attention glued to the map where it listed the dead, “I found a second chance. A chance to be everything that Grey wasn’t and make good on everywhere he failed. I didn’t think I deserved it, but that didn’t stop me from trying. Trying to have a fulfilling life… with family. Loved ones. People I could call my own, that would keep me from becoming what I once was.”

I didn’t respond, still trying to understand it all. To make sense of how my world had been shifted.

I’d been worried, in the recesses of my mind. Worried that what I’d known of Arthur was all some sort of elaborate lie. That everything we’d shared had been fake; that his true face was Grey. But in a way, this was worse. Because I didn’t know how to respond, not really. If it were all just a lie, I could rage and shout and lash out at Arthur. I could have a target for my fury.

“And I can see him even now, Tess,” Arthur said, turning his head away from me. He stared at the far wall, his blue eyes sharpening as they caught on something I couldn’t see. “A phantom of King Grey, lingering always at the edges of my perception. Whenever I turn my head, he’s there in the shadows. I can feel the weight of his gaze on my back whenever I close my eyes, and I worry that I am growing mad. That something in me has broken.”

Arthur’s shoulders shuddered. His chest trembled, and suddenly all that sculpted muscle seemed to sink inward, unable to bear the weight that it was tasked with upholding. “Sylvie can’t see him, even when I share my memories. So I’m left alone to feel his judgment. To wonder if I will be able to win this war; to be what this continent needs. But if I’m already mad before I have even begun…”

The council room was silent. No clashing of of blades, no surreal mage king. Just a person not knowing what to do next.

And finally, I held out my hand, taking Art’s in mine. I interlaced our fingers, clasping them together like two halves of a locket shutting closed. He seemed surprised by the gesture, looking up at me with eyes deep as the sea. I found myself tracing the lines of his sharp features, admiring the beard he was growing out. It fit him well. Looking at him, I couldn’t imagine he was only seventeen, only a year younger than I was.

But I supposed he never was.

“Come on, Art,” I said softly, tugging on his hand. “I want to show you something.”

—

The trek to our destination could have gone faster, were we to engage our mana and truly rush. But I set the pace as I held Arthur’s hesitant hand in mine, feeling the intricacies of how his worn and calloused palms interlaced with my fingers. His hand was larger than mine. Much larger, but somehow, they seemed to fit together like a glove.

How can two hands so easily become one? I wondered as I gently led Arthur along familiar hallways. It doesn’t really make sense. It shouldn’t.

But the encompassing warmth of Art’s palm on mine did feel right. It felt right in a way I could never really put into words.

He followed near me in contemplative silence. I wondered, distantly, if he felt the same about the electric touch of his skin on mine. Did it feel right to Arthur?

Did it feel right to Grey?

We arrived at our destination far too soon. Arthur stared at the doors with an expression close to resignation and sorrow, as he no doubt had guessed where I was taking him. But I didn’t let it hamper me.

I strode forward, raising one hand as I pushed open the doors to the private suite.

The scent of cleaning chemicals and the slight churning of the ambient mana alerted me to the medical equipment in the room and the painstaking measures that had been taken to ensure the health of the patient. The room was lavish–far more lavish than the occupant would have liked, but it didn’t really matter now.

Grandpa’s comatose body lay in the center of a large bed, half a dozen different mana artifacts and medical devices hooked up to him. His skin was sunken and pale, and his long, white hair seemed to have been drained of more color. It shouldn’t have been possible, but the man I’d always relied on to pick me up when I fell down looked even older than the mountains themselves.

His veins were dark, marking the corruption barely held at bay. The emitters had managed a sort of equilibrium, stopping the corruption from truly penetrating too deep and hurting him further, but his shallow breaths told me he wouldn’t wake up any time soon.

I’d been here often in the past week. Like clockwork, I’d laid myself limply into one of the seats, staring at Grandpa’s body. Hoping against all hope that he’d just open his eyes. Ruffle my hair and call me little one again. We’d laugh this entire thing off, this brush with death, and then he’d go back to doing what he always did. Giving me hope. Giving this continent hope.

But he had never opened his eyes. Even as the emitters on duty had told me Arthur had ordered for corrupted beasts to be captured, dissected, and studied for some way to reverse-engineer the toxin—and hopefully heal the infected—I knew that any results from our mages would take weeks to come back. Maybe months.

Arthur’s face wrinkled in visible pain as he looked at Virion’s body, and then he turned away, unable to bear the sight. His hand clenched mine for the first time as he failed to look our Grandpa in the eye.

“I always looked up to him, Art,” I said, releasing our hands as I moved over to Grandpa’s bedside. I sat on the edge of the bed, feeling as it swallowed me whole. I stared at the sunken eyelids of the former king of Elenoir, remembering how the eyes beneath had always sparkled with mischief and love whenever he spoke with me. “He was perfect, you know? I didn’t think he could do anything wrong. Not really.”

Maybe that was why I always pushed so, so hard for his approval. For him to accept and treat me as if I were worthy of the love he gave me. Because he was so perfect. Because Art was so perfect. And I was so not. I was so flawed and broken, while everyone around me radiated everything a person could be.

I felt tears fighting at the edges of my vision, but I didn’t cry. Now wasn’t the time for weeping.

“But Grandpa made mistakes,” I said somberly. Arthur made mistakes. “In this war. With me. With you.”

How ironic was it that it took a war to show me that those I idolized weren’t perfect? That there were cracks beneath the surface?

I turned, looking at Arthur. “And you’ve made mistakes, too,” I said softly. “Without Sylvie… without your family…”

Without them—without me—Arthur would fail. He wasn’t some immortal god-king, blessed by the asura and sent as a hero to rescue us all from damnation. He was a person. A person like Virion. A person like me.

“You need me, Arthur,” I said, echoing the resolution that had been building inside of me for so long. That had been whirring and growing since my failure to fight Spellsong, since my internment in Zestier. Since I had chosen to do my duty as a soldier before that of my personal attachments.

I stood slowly, moving to stand so I was less than a foot away from Art. The man—who had looked so kingly and regal and above earlier—now felt like flesh and bone as I rested my arms on his shoulders, looking up into his uncertain eyes.

I’d thought about this. I’d gone over everything we knew of what Toren Daen had told us. Over how I was a weakness in Dicathen’s line, a target to be taken at any point. I was Agrona’s end goal—but there was a way to solve those issues. To face them and conquer them.

“Make me your Lance, Arthur,” I demanded, finally echoing what was needed. “That is what this continent needs. What we need.”

At my words, Arthur shuddered slightly, taking a step back. I watched him as he processed my demand, seeing how his jaw worked and his mind whirled.

I knew he was smart. He had to see what I did, how it was the best way.

The other monarchs had all transferred control of their artifacts to Arthur, before he had used the scepter to bind them further to him and release the shackles on their potential. But he also had a power: the power to cinch shut their binding oaths and deprive them of life on a moment’s whim, should they become traitorous.

Should they be captured by the enemy.

The atmosphere in the room grew tense as Arthur began to pace back and forth. I stood still, watching him with a serene gaze.

“No,” he said at last, clenching his fists as he looked away from me. “No. No, I won’t do it. I won’t do this.”

“Why not?” I asked, though I thought I knew the answer. “It’s what makes the most logical sense. I am a risk to this entire continent. By binding us together–”

“That’s exactly the problem!” Arthur exploded, raising his voice as he whirled on me. “You will be bound to me! Are you just ignoring that?”

I remembered the last time Arthur had erupted in fury at me like this. Way back when Master Goodsky had died in this very castle, I’d been taken by the childish desire to run out and avenge her somehow. But Arthur had exploded. He’d berated me for wanting to act for myself rather than for Goodsky. It was all an attempt to soothe my ego.

Arthur never raised his voice with me. Never, except when he saw something that terrified him. And this time, Grandpa wasn’t awake to separate us.

“No, I am not,” I dismissed, utterly calm and unfazed. “I’m willing to give my life for my continent. I’m willing to be a soldier beyond my childish desire to be a part of this war. I know every inch of what it means. And I know it’s the most logical thing to do. It is the best way to make use of my strength while curtailing Agrona’s ambitions.”

I strode forward, brushing aside my childhood friend’s intent as his azure eyes trembled with fear.

“You aren’t rejecting this because it’s foolish. You’re terrified of how much sense it makes. Because Grey would do it.”

“That’s the problem, Tess,” Art countered. “Grey is a monster. He’d take you and lock you away. Or kill you. And what I want to do…”

The man I’d known all my life turned away in shame, his expression breaking. Because he wanted to accept this, too. Because if I was bound to him, then he could hide me wherever he wanted, keeping me safe like some sort of glass sculpture to be protected.

It was so strange. I’d been so terrified, deep inside, that everything I’d known of Arthur was some sort of elaborate lie. But when I confronted him, he couldn’t help but be the sweet idiot I’d grown to love. His shoulders narrowed, no longer broad and powerful as he looked away from me in shame.

I sighed into the silence, realizing that if I pushed any further, it would be Arthur who would break. He was so fragile.

Break break break, Willow echoed. Fragile fragile fragile.

I slowly strode around Arthur, staring up at him from where he slumped. His hair shadowed his face and eyes from me in a curtain of auburn.

“You took the mantle of King because there was no other choice,” I said, my expression softening. Gently, I wrapped the man I’d known all my life in a simple embrace. “In a better world, we wouldn’t have to make these decisions. Maybe you could’ve remained a Lance. Grandpa would still be awake. We could fight this war on our terms.”

I squeezed my fingers along Arthur’s broad back, resisting the urge to bury my face in his chest. “But we don’t always get what we want. If I became your Lance and you decided to just hide me away, I couldn’t stop you. I suppose I couldn’t begrudge you either, considering how pushy I’m being. If you say no, I can relegate myself to Zestier, directing troops and filing away notes. I can find some way to be what I need to be in this great cog of war. But we both know why I ask this.”

Arthur returned the hug hesitantly, his arms loose and weak. “I can’t be trusted with that sort of power, Tess,” he said weakly. “Already, I’ve moved my parents away from the warfront to keep them safe. And the last time I was in power, I was a monster.”

I raised a hand, pushing Arthur’s auburn hair from his eyes so I could see those lakes of pure crystal blue again. “Then that just means you need to become something other than what you were. What you are.”

I’d seen it in that throne room, and I saw it here with Grandpa. Arthur tried to keep those parts of himself separate, shying away from Grey and hunkering like a man before a hurricane. But it was tearing him apart, and it had not even been a week.

“Neither Grey nor Arthur can be the King Dicathen needs, just like the Tessia I was couldn’t be a true soldier for this continent,” I said quietly. “We need to grow. We need to be something new. Something united. Even if it has the potential for us to hurt.”

I stared up at my childhood friend, sensing as his emotions warred within for supremacy. In this moment, despite the height of Arthur’s stature and the enormity of the shadow he’d always cast, he was just as human as anyone else.

Then he finally separated his arms from me, pushing away and holding my shoulders. “Just…” he swallowed, his eyes refusing to meet mine. “Just wait for me. I need to think. Please.”

I smiled slightly. It was a sad, acknowledging thing. “I promised to wait for you years ago, Art,” I said softly. “I’ll wait.”