Limbs ached. His mouth was fuzzy and dry. A persistent pang pounded through his head. But at least the light wounds he’d sustained had slowly been driven away by his magic, restoring him to proper health.

Time passed at a crawl. At least he still had two carving blocks to practice with, although for a long time Kosta struggled so much as to touch it. What could he possibly create with the broken remains of his home right there?

But Kosta’s hands followed his heart. Magic focused and cut and shaped and smoothed.

From the boundless potential of the block, a simple echo of Clymere’s face, so similar to his own, took shape. A lump formed in his throat and Kosta wanted to scream down curses at the Hesperian the moment he realized what he was creating, but could not. Instead, he simply continued.

Much had been lost. The one thing he couldn’t bear to lose was his memory of his sister. He had always been a visual person, but Kosta knew how swiftly the details might fade. There was a reason he used models, after all.

Could he ever forgive himself if he forgot his twin’s face?

Kosta didn’t think so.

It was crude. Imperfect, whispered in his ears. Not quite ugly, not when he managed to replicate a ghost of Clymere’s cocky grin and the set of her jaw and the delight in her wide eyes when she saw something new to set on fire.

Kosta clutched it tight.

He had nothing but time as he waited, and so he refined every possible detail. In the end, he stowed the mask into his pack. Kosta poured his soul into the mask, investing it with every possible resilience, but when the act of loving creation was done, he couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

Not without remembering that moment.

So he watched the valley instead.

Kosta felt sick as the storm ended and hundreds of Hesperian men and women (but no children, likely due to the risk of the Dipoli’s retaliation) slowly filtered in from the west in a great caravan—many were rough and ragged, hard-faced from difficult lives, but their expressions eased as they came to the valley. Song spilled forth from the long columns of people, joyous in the face of their victory.

Wagons were piled so high with cloth, medicine, food, and other necessities such as wood and stone for building temporary shelters that they must have been enchanted. They would crumble beneath the sheer mass otherwise.

Oxen grown and nurtured to be supernaturally strong, swift, and resilient pulled them with ease. Hundreds of livestock followed, easily corralled by laughing Hesperians with simple treats or tricks of magic. Glowing threads looped around herds, guiding chickens and sows and sheep across the green valley.

The lands beyond Dytifrourá’s walls were host to dozens of farms, each vast enough that a single farm was sufficient to fulfill the small frontier town’s needs. Magic made farming easy. All the surplus was sent to help feed the millions upon millions of hungry mouths in the grand Dipoli of Argyropolis and Khrusopolis, although their contribution would only be a single drop in a vast bucket.

Crews set out to harvest whatever crops hadn’t been destroyed by the Merakian’s storm or the artillery barrages from Dytifrourá which had hammered down upon the Hesperian army. A single crew of ten could sweep across an enormous field and pile huge heaps of wheat, barley, olives, grapes, nuts, and fruits high. It was soon partitioned, organized, and separated out for the new Hesperian families to claim.

All the bounty of Dytifrourá was stolen and repurposed…they truly did intend to claim the battered skeleton of the town for themselves. Perhaps Clymere’s flames and razing of the town had only been a convenience for them. She had intended to leave them nothing but ashes, but had only provided fertile ground for their new city instead.

Even the treasure they’d claimed had been divided up for the new settlers. Much of the hoard, particularly the finest pieces, had been sent westward the day of the battle to enrich the Hesperian cities, but a significant portion was offered to the newcomers by heavily armed Hesperians. The couples laughed and cried as they held up riches in their hands.

They would search their new lands soon, sending forth scouts to survey their reclaimed domain. As much as he wished to flee the ashen wastes of the valley, Kosta couldn’t leave yet, not with the Leukopyr and his master still about. Keen griffin eyes would seek him out in a moment, but he couldn’t remain for long. They’d find the corpse of the Hesperian below, and then they would find him.

Clymere had thrown herself upon the Leukopyr so that he may live. He would not squander that. Part of Kosta wished to go down and strike them all down with whatever power he had left, but no…

At least hunger didn’t trouble him.

Eneas—Aretans above, Kosta hoped the old baker had somehow survived—saved him with the rations he’d provided. Quite a large portion had been used up during the battle to sustain their forces, but plenty had survived, and it would go a long way outside of battle.

A few bites of his lovingly crafted buns was sufficient to keep Kosta full for a day, although with the fine texture, fluffiness, and sweet taste of the bread it was difficult to restrain himself from devouring it in a few greedy bites. The food restored his strength and let his mind grow strong again.

Water was more of a problem, but he’d managed to use his magic to pool the little beads dripping down the bronze trunk of the great tree and refill his waterskin. It held more than it should, a keen little working of magic, and would keep him sated for several days more.

Magic pulsed smooth and steady through his veins once again. The flow was still a little erratic. A little fractured. Angry. But it was his power, and it would rise at his command.

The storm had ended last night once the Merakian completed his scouring of the polis and washed away old life, old memories, and old construction. Stelios had drifted down, carried by great gales, and joined with his people. But the stormcaller hadn’t abandoned Dytifrourá yet. His terrible griffin, large enough to bat the old, mighty mount of the Leukopyr around like a kitten, still soared freely on the winds, singing a sad song.

What right did it have to mourn?! Kosta glared at it as the griffin’s somber notes reached him in the boughs of the dendrac. Headsman Linus had slain one Nephonaut, the cocky man with the great lance and blue lightning, and his mount, but that was a cheap blood price.

They had taken so much more.

The Hesperians had begun to organize their dead beneath the shrouds. Black rage filled him as they wept and sanctified the remains once more, the settlers and warriors alike weeping as they stood in attendance upon a hillside.

He spotted Stelios, the lone figure so much smaller than he had seemed amidst the clouds, and the Leukopyr next to him. The white-garbed old man stood nearly a head taller than the Merakian he served, but paled in comparison to the storm that brewed within his master. Just his distant presence left the clouds stirring and the air charged with energy.

It was almost thick enough to feel, nearly tangible against his skin.

Despite Stelios’ slight figure, the mane of brewing storm clouds which sprouted from his scalp demanded attention. They echoed with flashes of lightning and low rumbles of thunder now and again, though the Hesperians hardly seemed to notice.

But Kosta only had eyes for the Leukopyr. He could see little of the man from such a far distance, but he remembered the lines on his weathered face. The milky eyes, half-blind, which had settled upon Clymere. The tired, resolute expression.

More rage. More hate.

Kosta had to get it out. He had to make it real. He had to manifest it.

And so with the second block of aspen wood, Kosta did. He made a second mask, a pair for Clymere.

It was not his best work. The lines and angles of the Leukopyr’s face were choppy. He’d cut too swiftly and too hard, anger driving his magic. Each wrinkle was carved with a dagger. His eyes were empty sockets scooped out furiously. The Leukopyr’s parted hair was little more than two rough cuts.

But as he clutched it tight enough to leave his fingers aching and white, Kosta felt that it was enough. The Leukopyr could never be beautiful, but the mask could serve a purpose.

He would remember him.

And one day…

Kosta stowed the mask away, but wrapped it in a roll of linen so that he wouldn’t have to look upon it yet. He took care to keep it as far away from Clymere’s mask as he could, hidden in a pocket otherwise crammed full with the little coin he’d managed to save from his workshop.

As he watched and waited, Kosta pulled the phaetra core from his pack. It was so warm and heavy in his hands, the size of one of his fists, and it banished the chill which fell over the verdant valley as a new morning dawned. The sun hadn’t yet peeked out beyond the clouds. Kosta suspected it never would so long as the Merakian remained.

The phaetra’s power was enormous, but still raw and untamed.

It was too late to fit into the walls and assume its proper purpose, but it wasn’t too late for it to find a new one.

After a time, Kosta dared to scramble down from the branches. His power could not mark the tree, but he was able to stick slightly with magic to make his climb easier. He glared once at the Hesperian corpse, shoved down his reservations, and hauled it away so that it wouldn’t be the first sight a Hesperian scout caught when they approached the dendrac.

The same great presence which had stirred when Kosta first ran here in his blindness flexed again. Slow, sleepy, but watchful. It nudged him. Kosta turned to look at the crooked brass branch which had struck the Hesperian’s head.

He knelt to pick it up. The branch fit neatly into his grip, the perfect size for his fingers to wrap around. The metallic wood was sturdy in his hand, knotted yet smooth. A few bronze leaves still sprouted from it, although when Kosta grasped the length they twitched and fell away.

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Kosta quickly gathered them. Magic sang within their flat sheets. He could surely find some use for them, be it a new creation or for trade. But he would not waste the dendrac’s gift.

That’s what this was, wasn’t it? Brass limbs creaked and groaned above, seemingly in agreement. The sleepy presence waxed until the Merakian’s stormy power faded from Kosta’s skin.

He nearly wept in its embrace.

But he didn’t dare remain on the ground for long. It was awkward to climb up the dendrac and reclaim his previous perch, but Kosta managed with a bit of magic. As he did so, Kosta fed a steady drip of his own power to the dendrac, hoping that it would sense his gratitude and appreciation.

That great presence pressed down once more, and Kosta knew that it had accepted his offering.

Kosta clutched the branch, felt the same simple, sturdy power within the brass bark and the vigorous life it protected, and cast his power through the limb. It was as tall as he was, heavy, and Kosta allowed himself to breathe as his own soul filled it.

Cut. Smooth. Perfect. Beauty. Power. Resilience.

Magic swept over the branch. Kosta’s strength would never be sufficient to cut away at the magical metal of the dendrac’s bark normally, but here it yielded easily. It was largely perfect for his task, but it was still of the dendrac, not of Kosta. His power might be channeled through it, but until he shaped it with his own desires it would never belong to him.

His will was stone as he ground away the nubs where the bronze leaves had once clung.

A portion of the top was cut cleanly off to render the branch a few inches shorter than him. He would save that too.

Kosta did not straighten the branch entirely. He left some of the knots, some of the gnarls. It had been living once. Some part of the brass branch would always remember what it had been. But he smoothed portions. He added his own touch.

One small section was cut away almost entirely, still thick and sturdy but left with a few smooth grooves to act as a grip.

The bottom was left thick to support him.

Most of Kosta’s attention drifted to the head as inspiration struck him. His grey magic ran up the length of brass wood to focus around it, coalescing into a haze as Kosta’s other hand reached for his knife. While his will was sufficient for the broad, sweeping strokes to shape the majority of the branch, this next act needed precision.

His knife cut slowly and carefully. Even enchanted metal would normally break upon the bark armor of the living branch, but the strength of his magic and the compliance of the dendrac enabled him to make progress. The work was glacially slow, but progress nonetheless.

Notches were cut. Each angle was deliberate. Controlled. There could be no mistakes.

Kosta carved out a few flat angles to be set into the head. They delved deep. His careful use of power focused entirely upon the new creation, guiding his cuts to be exactly what he desired..

Pointed thought and planning directed him, but it was long years of experience and simple instinct which guided his hand and blade. Brass peels of bark came off in slivers. He cut deeper and deeper.

And when his standards were finally met after nearly an hour of labor, when the gnarled staff was perfect, Kosta pulled the unattuned phaetra core from his pack. It sent a flush of warmth through his hand as light danced within the petrified flame. He held it tightly for a moment, embracing the preserved energy of summer, and then carefully slotted it into the finely carved staff.

The carved icosahedron fit perfectly and soon lay nestled deep into the staff, only its top half emerging from the brass wood. Its flat planes jutted pleasingly from the staff, glowing brilliantly like a torch as its power enmeshed with the dendrac’s gift. A great heat that stopped just shy of painful pulsed down the length of wood and shot up his arm.

A touch of power sealed the phaetra core within the staff, yet Kosta’s job wasn’t quite complete. It needed something else. Kosta’s hand pulled away from the core and darted into his bag to seek out some of the bronze leaves which he’d taken from the dendrac’s branch. They were cool and tough, yet flexible.

Just what he needed.

Kosta’s hands worked swiftly. Perhaps even frenzied. But the joy of creation had broken through the black fog in his mind, and for a short while this was everything. His home was forgotten. His workshop. The battle. His—

Perhaps not all slipped from his mind.

But Kosta lost himself in the simple pleasure of crafting nonetheless. He carefully twined the leaves around the sides of the icosahedron, admiring the beauty of the metallic leaves as the phaetra’s merry light danced beneath their sheen and bled through the bronze membranes.

Power left him yet again.

Integrate. Bind. Return to what you were. Become as one.

Kosta’s will became reality. The bronze leaves shuddered and flowed into the dendrac’s branch, merging into the brass bark and forming a proper cradle for the phaetra core. He brought a finger down to it and gently cut and carved away at the staff until the bronze leaves had been shaped into a gorgeously wrought head for the staff and the precious phaetra bound to it.

And with that, he laid one hand upon the brass staff and another upon the phaetra head. A bit of nervousness leapt up in his chest, but Kosta didn’t allow it to linger. This was the first time he’d truly attempted this, let alone on an artifact of such power as the phaetra core, but this was no time to balk or shy away.

This was a time to create. To take two beautiful things and merge them. To make something more than the sum of its parts. His soul leapt at the opportunity. It felt right.

So he did.

Kosta fed himself to the phaetra core. The light of his soul, grey and hazy and resolute as stone, bled from his hands into both items and infiltrated the brilliance of their existence. For a moment Kosta felt part of himself flood them, drive deep, and he was immersed in the duality of the strong, sturdy brass, still stubborn and half-alive, and the paradox of the petrified flame, so eager and hungry and luminous, yet dead and frozen.

The power of the phaetra core was truly immense. Truly great. It seemed an endless sea of fire, summer, heat, and life trapped in the cherry-gold stone no larger than his fist. Yet it didn’t push back. The core already knew Kosta’s touch. It may be greater than him, but he was the one who had shaped it. He had plucked it in its rawest form and seen the potential buried within.

He had made the core what it was today, carved for countless hours until each facet was perfect, each angle precise, each detail exactly how he had intended.

Kosta had left his mark on it, invested a little bit of his soul into that creation, and the phaetra core had not forgotten it.

As he fed endless currents of his magic to the phaetra core and brass branch, binding them forever and shaping a tether between them, Kosta felt a sense of purpose. Both elements of his staff were paradoxical, so utterly different as to be nearly incompatible, but he saw the rightness in their joining. All things were linked, and he forged this one himself. Kosta made them one.

His spirit was exhausted. His limbs ached. His head pounded.

Kosta gave everything to the act of creation.

And in doing so, he finally attuned the icosahedron core.

Not to the sturdy, protective presence of the dendrac which loomed all about him. Not to the purifying waters of the Ischyrópota, flowing swift and strong to sweep away corruption.

No, Kosta attuned the phaetra to himself. It was an artifact of fire and flame and life set into the brass staff that he had fashioned, and now they had become one in full.

His fingers wrapped around the grip and Kosta nearly gasped as power surged through him. The staff was warm to the touch, lit by the phaetra’s energies, and the brass glimmered beautifully in the light which bled from the rosy gold of the core at its tip.

But for all the phaetra’s might and brilliance, the dendrac balanced it. That slow sturdiness, that purpose, that presence, all mitigated the raw power. It soothed the phaetra’s great magic. Channeled it. Soothed the wildness of summer with the vitality of spring.

Kosta felt his own will within the phaetra staff, forever bound. It responded eagerly to him. He shuddered as the raw power flooded his arm and spread throughout his core, washing away the exhaustion that his creation had left him with and invigorating him with its steady warmth.

His eyes closed for a moment as he balanced the staff upon his knees, then he looked upon it.

The gnarled, crooked branch gifted to him by the dendrac was no more. Its brass form had been shaped. Wild pieces had been carved away and smoothed out, though some knots and ridges remained. His creation was far from a smooth, straight rod, but that was no flaw. It was fitting, Kosta thought.

Atop it, enmeshed by the delicately carved remains of the dendrac’s bronze leaves twined about it, was the faceted phaetra core set into its socket. The rosy glow was dulled compared to its original form, perhaps more rose-bronze than rose-gold now, but it retained its great beauty.

That warm light scattered upon the lines and knots of the brass wood, glimmering elegantly and bringing to life all the grains and patterns inlaid into its surface. Kosta admired them.

Two disparate elements brought together. Both unified by his hands. Two halves, one whole.

Perhaps it wasn’t a masterwork by Papa’s standards. Knowing Papa, his father might take a look at the masterfully carved staff, sniff, and toss it out with the day’s trash as just another one of the failures.

But for once, Kosta didn’t give a damn what Papa thought.

He knew that the staff was beautiful.

No…the staff was perfect.

Tears burned in his eyes. He raised the staff high, luxuriating in the power which leapt at his command, and the phaetra core blazed bright, a light in the darkness.

Kosta’s eyes skimmed the broken town, passed over the Hesperian camps, and settled upon the mountains to the east. Argyropolis lay far beyond, Kosta knew, guarded by countless villages, towns, and satellite cities that fueled its enormous appetites.

He couldn’t remain here—the Hesperians would find him soon. Kosta would climb down and leave this terrible place once the Merakian had vanished for new battlefields.The journey would be fraught with danger, but what options did he have?

In his dreams, Kosta had expected to pay a small fortune to tag along with a well-protected caravan. Journeying through the frontier’s wilds would never be safe, but at least he wouldn’t be alone. There would be others to wield the swords and raise their shields in his defense.

Now? Kosta would be alone. Headsman Linus regularly purged the lands in Dytifrourá’s vicinity of ne'er do wells and monsters, but there was a great stretch of untamed wilderness between him and the nearest towns. Small villages might be scattered all around, but they were few and far between so far from the great centers of the Dipoli.

He would be tested.

Kosta pressed more magic into the mighty dendrac, grateful again for the beautiful staff which he held. Its sleepy presence drank it in, and Kosta yelped as a cone fell to land upon his lap. It was bronze like the leaves, hard and cool to the touch, but filled with an inner power that beckoned him.

The dendrac was just overflowing with gifts today, wasn’t it?

An enormous mind, alien and vast as the mountain, brushed against his own. His eyes widened, but he clasped the staff and felt its reassuring power fill him once again. Images rushed before his eyes.

He buried the cone far from here and nurtured new life. Offered a new beginning.

Kosta nodded, a little overwhelmed by the sudden contact as the presence, and accepted the dendrac’s quest, considering it a more-than-fair price for the gift he’d been given. He looked far beyond Dytifrourá’s valley and imagined the wondrous places he might find. Where might he give the dendrac a new beginning?

He watched for ages as the sun set, tracing out any route he could to take him safely beyond the protected valley, and at last his gaze settled upon the faded edges of Oroneiros as it beckoned. It had settled in the east today. It rose up far beyond the petty mountains of Dytifrourá, vast and dreamlike.

Kosta imagined that its wavering slopes were a little greener now.

Exhausted by his efforts and cradled in the bronze boughs, Kosta finally closed his eyes.

He prayed for a good dream.