The sun of Kyros and Cathra’s fifth day rises and sets over a muddy sky.

A frosty breeze bites through the market square, hinting at the approaching end of summer. Kyros sits down at the base of the statue of Nranhana, onto the ring of stone circling the goddess’s feet, and sighs wearily.

“This is really not turning out how I was expecting it to. I thought we’d get somewhere by now.”

Cathra joins him on the stone without saying anything. She stares blankly at the crystal lanterns around the square, their pale blue light brightening as the sunlight disappears. The marketplace is quiet for a weekday; the only sounds coming from the merchants as they lock down their stalls for the night.

Kyros tucks his hands in the pockets of his trousers and turns his gaze upwards at the stars, watching them twinkle into view. Their beauty never ceases to amaze him; how can such tiny specks of light be so dazzling and yet hold so much unexplainable power?

“Hoshrie Amor,” he says softly into the vast, empty space above, “the Love of the Striking Star.”

Silence.

He glances over at Cathra Stelias.

Under the glow of the lanterns, Cathra’s usual sharp features seem almost gentle. She’s dressed in an unpatterned open-collar corset, black shorts over darker leggings, and knee-length boots that fit snugly around her slender calves.

Kyros has to remind himself not to stare. For the past few days, he has oftentimes found himself looking at Cathra in a different sort of way. Even his thoughts about her have begun veering away from their usual friendliness into more… intimate territory. Thankfully, he hasn’t really had the time to decide whether this is a good change or a bad one.

Cathra turns, peering at him from beneath long eyelashes. “What in Nranhana’s name are you mumbling about?” Her words are harsh, but her tone is far from it. She seems to be barely holding on from collapsing, in fact. Her eyes swim with exhaustion, and the circles around them have darkened considerably.

Kyros can only guess at how disheveled he must look. Neither of them has had a proper night's sleep since leaving the Lord Commander’s Sovereign Hall. But seeing Cathra so defeated, he again feels the urge to reach out and hold her. To do what, though, he isn’t sure. Comfort her? Let her sleep in his embrace? Undo her tight braid so that he can run his fingers freely through her hair…?

Kyros gives himself a mental shake and smiles awkwardly to cover up his embarrassment. “Hoshrie Amor,” he repeats, “is one of the phrases used in the ritual to pull a star from the heavens, and send it crashing into the realm of men.”

Cathra looks at him shocked. “That sounds like an S-rank restricted ritual. How have you come to know it?”

“I just know the two words,” Kyros clarifies quickly. “I learned them from an adventurer passing through the market many years ago. I think he told it to me as some sort of a joke. I didn’t know it was actually part of a real spell until much later, when I used it in a poem I recited for our annual Harvest Festival.” He laughs as he remembers. “Let me tell you, the South Gate captain at that time nearly had me arrested on the spot. I only managed to get off the hook by convincing him I was a hopeless romantic and it was something I came up with one night with the help of a bottle of mead.”

Cathra laughs too, and it is such a rare and wonderful sound that Kyros wishes he can save it into his memories somehow, and keep it by his side for the rest of his days.

“I didn’t know that happened,” Cathra says, stifling her laughter into giggles, which just makes Kyros want to make her laugh even more. “But that sounds exactly like something that old geezer would have done. He was completely the kind of person to make a fuss about restricted spells going loose, regardless of how difficult they are to actually learn. I cannot even begin to tell you how many times he instructed me to keep the archives locked at all times. He even visited me in my office one day, after I’ve already succeeded his role, to tell me just that.”

Cathra imitates her predecessor’s speech in a gruff and grumpy tone like that of... well, an old geezer. Then as if suddenly realizing what she's doing, her hand flies up to cover her mouth. “Don’t you dare tell anyone what I’d just said,” she orders Kyros, squinting at him. “It took me years to get on his good side. The poor old man will have a heart attack if he knew I was mocking him.”

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“I think we’re beyond worrying about things like that, Cathra,” Kyros says with a good-natured chuckle. He tries to recall the last time he and Cathra had sat down and chatted like this, but can’t remember when it was. Even though they’ve been friends for almost a decade, it occurs to Kyros that they seldom ever had time alone like this, just being themselves with each other, no sigils or armors or roles between them.

It took three years after Cathra came to the city for her and Kyros to meet officially, and Kyros always remembers that day with a certain fondness. He was eight years of age then, and ready to be recruited into the ranks of the Kesrockian knights as his father always wanted him to do. On the very first day of training, Kyros rose before the sun did. He threw on his clothes, laced his boots, and raced down to the training grounds, eager to be the first there.

The courtyard was empty save for a lone girl, whacking away at a straw dummy with a wooden sword that was longer than she was tall. Kyros watched, stunned by the complexity of the girl’s movements. It was like she was locked in a dance, pirouetting around the dummy on the tips of her toes. And even though the dummy towered over her, the girl’s cleaves were strong enough to rent straw from its insides.

Cathra Stelias had grown taller, and was a lot cleaner, than when Kyros first saw her at the South Gate three years prior. But he still recognized her immediately. She was too focused on attacking the dummy to notice him standing there, so he approached her, too young to be shy then.

“Good morning!” he called out when he was behind her.

Cathra gasped and whirled around so fast her sword would’ve taken Kyros’s head off, if he hadn’t stumbled and fallen down in time.

“Never sneak up on people like that!” she yelled, pointing at Kyros’s nose with the tip of her wooden blade. Then she sighed, stuck the blade into the ground, and helped him up. “It’d be bad if I hurt you,” she added with a small but kind smile that warmed her steel-grey eyes.

“Show me what you’ve written again.”

Cathra’s voice startles Kyros from his reminiscing. “Maybe we missed something.”

Kyros hands his notebook over and watches as Cathra flips over the last few pages, the ones containing the interviews of the Blood Devil’s supposed victims.

Further away, down one of the cobblestone streets, the lanterns outside the Black Raven Tavern light up, and a plume of smoke begins to rise into the darkening sky. Kyros wonders if Danny and Tim will be in there tonight, drinking over women and stars.

Cathra reaches the last page, and goes back to the first. After repeating this process a few times, she thrusts the book back at Kyros and groans in wordless frustration.

“No one has actually seen the Blood Devil with their own eyes,” Kyros concludes for her, taking back the book without looking through it. “We have nothing to go on. No leads, no witnesses, no locations other than the North Gate where most of the attacks were reported to have happened.”

“I’m starting to think they’re all just lying for attention, or a sense of self-importance, or whatever it is bored rich ladies do to pass the time." Cathra glares at the ground. “What kind of answer is 'she was shaped like a human'? What other shapes can a Blood Devil even be?” She growls and buries her head in her hands. “We’ve wasted five entire days chasing empty air.”

The silence slips in between them like an unwanted third wheel. After three days of fruitless searching for the gold-haired girl, they’d turned their efforts towards getting to the bottom of the Blood Devil attacks. However, that has turned out to be a mistake.

“We could try the girl again,” Kyros offers. “It must be easier than hunting the Blood Devil, right? At least we know there is a girl to be found.”

“She’s likely gone.” The dread in Cathra’s voice is clear. “If no one’s even seen her since, what, ten days ago now? Then I doubt we’ll find her now.”

Kyros tries to be optimistic. “Maybe she’ll come back. She was last seen at the Guild, right? She’s probably an adventurer who went there to take a commission.” The more he talks, the more Kyros convinces himself of his theory. “It makes sense then, for her to not be seen again. All commissions are paid at the Guild, so we can go there and wait for her.” He wants to say more, but the expression on Cathra’s face tells him it will be in vain.

“I’ve thought about that.”

“And... what do you think?”

“It’s too late.”

Kyros says, “Oh,” and leaves it at that.

As the last merchant drags his goods away, the square transforms into a peaceful but not quite empty place. A few souls linger out in the open, mostly couples by the way their arms are around each other. They whisper and giggle. Some stop to kiss. Above them, the moon hangs still among the stars, the brightest thing in the dark night.

“Do you want to get a drink?”

Kyros looks over at Cathra, and can’t help but laugh. “Since when do you drink?”

“Since tonight,” Cathra replies easily. She stands and surveys the quiet square. “Where’s good, Sir Knight?”

“Uh, okay. Sure.” Kyros points to a tiled roof visible from where he is sitting. “The Black Raven is the most popular. But if you want a more private place…”

“The Black Raven sounds good,” Cathra says, and turns to offer her hand to Kyros. “First round is on me, how does that sound?”

The smile on Kyros’s face comes easily. “Sounds good,” he says, and it’s as if the last five days didn’t happen. No, the last twelve. Everything to do with the gold-haired adventurer, Sir Jernal, and the guillotine of exile which has loomed above his and Cathra’s head, is gone.

He is back to that day in the training courtyard again, watching a younger version of Cathra pull a younger version of himself up off the ground. When he took her hand then, it was like sealing a paperless contract between them; one that has bound them together for almost ten years.

If I take her hand this time, Kyros wonders as his fingers close around Cathra's, how many more years do we get?