Keoni was sweaty, overwhelmed, and most importantly: in horrible pain. Her thoughts were all jumbled and Kaedin was just trying to explain what happened. Their words seemed a bit less jumbled than normal, and for a first, what they were saying actually made sense. Keoni figured they had plenty of time to think.

“Your Mir-Link was about to sever.” Kaedin sighed. “Caste saved your life.”

“Now we’re even,” Keoni mumbled. Her face was numb. She did, however, know that Caste took shelter in her home and she let him, possibly saving his life from the Quuarks actively hunting for them.

“Keoni… That was a whole two weeks ago.” Kaedin said worriedly. It was a little annoying how they could hear her thoughts.

“Y’know, you have to keep your mind clear and your balance in check when you’re in Limbo, especially when a Mir-Cognate isn’t using their magic to keep your condition stable. Otherwise, everything in your Mir-Link starts going crazy, like what happened just now.”

Keoni already understood that from hearing Caste explain it to Ryley. She changed the subject a little. “Kaedin, you’ve been acting strange.”

“Says the person who almost died by acting differently.”

Keoni shrugged off their odd behavior. If anything, she could ask Qaye later about it, or to see if it was normal.

She moved on again, ignoring her existing headache. “So explain to me the whole light/dark thing again. About emotions and stuff.”

Kaedin brightened up. “Light thrives in peace, and dark thrives in chaos. Dark can get out of hand, especially when you’re so exposed to it. In the Mirae, it gets very uncontrollable, which is why Mir-Cognates are so ‘calm’ all the time in the Mirae. In the Physical World, calmness can get out of hand. Someone who is too peaceful cannot be reached, or touched, which is why Phys-Conidae are so emotional. It’s natural.”

They motioned between the two ‘worlds’ with their hands, then closed them together. “In Limbo, the two must harmonize. If they do not, you can either get too emotional or too serene, which is what can kill you.”

“People in the Physical world aren’t always too emotional, Kaedin.” Keoni told them, to which in response, they shrugged.

“People in the Mirae world aren’t always too calm, Keo… Tejh.” They settled down onto the ground. “Now, how are you feeling?”

“I…” Keoni reached up to rub her head. The aches in her body were slowly, very slowly starting to fade away. She was still overheated and she felt like she was going to throw up, but it was subsiding, ever so slightly.

“Good.” Kaedin said, not letting her finish. “Just keep relaxing. Let your Mir-Link return its balance.”

“Kaedin, leave Keoni alone. I know you’re talking to her.” Caste said from across the room. Kaedin gasped and ducked.

“They're fine.” Keoni muttered the best she could. Although, it was strange why Kaedin was so afraid of Caste all of a sudden.

Did something happen while I was knocked out? Keoni thought, trying to make sense of everything. Everything was still off.

Kaedin slowly rose back up to check and see if Caste was still looking in their direction. “Can you put me back into the Rune please?” They whispered.

“Why are you so afraid of him?” Keoni asked, not listening to their request. She wanted to know exactly what was so scary about the Mir-Cognate.

“His… strong magic fluctuations… ummm. Mess with the Rune. My head gets this really fuzzy feeling and it’s not… not great.” Kaedin stuttered.” They twiddled their thumbs.

Keoni let out a long sigh. “Alright,” she said, touching the Rune to her head and watching Kaedin disappear. It didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but then again, they knew a lot more than Keoni. She could ask Caste about it later, though she was sure he would say the same thing.

She heard Caste sit down on the ground. “Bother me if something happens.” He told Ryley, leaving the room to linger in silence.

Keoni’s mind started to wander. Her thoughts trailed back to how it felt. How the battle felt.

She felt guilty now, but then… She felt… dominant. She was confident in every thought that was coursing through her. For once in her life, her mindset was perfected, her use of magic: perfected.

And Caste, she thought she knew what was going on with him. He seemed annoyed by her standup, but the way he treated her so gently afterwards contradicted his ‘mood.’ Keoni wasn’t sure how he felt about the situation now. The magic, as she understood it, was telling her how dangerous he was, and that he was trying to harm her. But what did it really mean? Was there a deeper concept? What exactly was it warning her about?

Is Caste a threat?

She frowned, the movement of her face making a small brush against the couch. Of course not. Even when she first met him, he’d never done anything to harm her. Sure, she’d seen that he knew exactly how to kill someone, and how impressive his ability to use magic was, but he wasn’t a monster, surely not a threat.

Am I a monster?

Surely that couldn’t be the case. She wouldn’t, couldn’t do that of her own free will. Something had to have gone wrong in order for her to do that. She wasn’t thinking clearly because of everything that’s been going on.

Maybe it would be good to rest for a bit. Give her mind time to clear out and make sense of everything.

But… But Kaedin. How had Kaedin just controlled Poww, the Mir-Cognate, by telling him to get off Keoni. It was as if, all of a sudden, Kaedin was like a High Councilor. Keoni had seen how Caste addressed Ruka: with the utmost worship and politeness. Poww had been mortified instead. She couldn’t ask Kaedin right now, as they seemed too nervous now.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

And why? Why all of a sudden was Kaedin affected by Caste’s presence? Keoni racked and racked her brain, trying to come up with an answer, but nothing came to her, except:

Why wasn’t she infected with Mino, but Ryley was. An answer finally came.

Only those with low spectrum strengths were affected.

But that means Qaye doesn’t have a strong spectrum strength. She’d immediately noticed now that the light emitting from him in the Mirae wasn’t as bright as her’s or Caste’s.

A hand settled onto her head. “Hush.” She heard Caste whisper to her. He probably sensed how much she was thinking.

Keoni let out a shaky sigh. So many questions, so few answers. That’s how it’s been these past two weeks.

And it always ended in just hoping things would tie together.

. . .

Ryley watched as Keoni sighed, settling herself down as Caste gently let go. He’d immediately gotten up when he sat down. He probably sensed something going on in her head, or something along those lines. Mir-Cognate abilities were still a mystery to him, he was sure he needed to study and learn about them more.

“How long will this take again?” Ryley asked as the Mir-Cognate returned to the kitchen, looking a little frail.

Caste glanced up, fidgeting with his own hands. “I don’t know.” He answered. “She could take just a few minutes, or she could take hours.”

Ryley’s eyes traced back to where she was resting on her couch. Ryley didn’t have cool Cognitive powers to tell how she was feeling, or what she was thinking. He wished he could do anything to help his sister and friend. This must have been what Keoni felt when I had Mino. He thought. Helpless to do anything, only being able to sit back and watch as I suffered.

He sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, trying to think of something that he could do, but nothing came to mind.

“This is the worst.” He whispered to himself. Somehow, Caste heard him.

“Sometimes waiting is the best thing we can do.” Ryley looked over at him, and he was washing something off of his hands and arms. Probably his blood. This was taking a toll on the both of them, even moreso on Ryley than Caste.

For now, they could only let Keoni sleep under her blanket, recovering from her ordeal. Ryley just couldn’t find it in him to sit still and wait, so he tried meditating like the way Qaye taught him. He cleared his mind of all his jumbled thoughts, trying to organize them all into less of a mess.

How did I not see that Keoni was struggling?

All his efforts were thrown to waste as one intruding thought shattered his calm. Thoughts raced through his head as he kept thinking about how he could have prevented this from happening.

Why didn’t I actually talk to Keoni when she started getting aggressive? She never acts like that, so something was obviously wrong. All of this is my fault, I should have done something sooner.

"You shouldn't blame yourself for what happened, Ryley." He looked up, surprised. Caste was watching Ryley with a look of concern in his eyes as he wrapped his hands and forearms with bandages, staining them red. “Like I said; this incident usually doesn’t pin the blame on anybody. It happens almost every day in Finx. Ask me how I know this.”

“Do I even want to know?” Ryley responded, without moving from his position.

“Every day.” Caste snorted. “Mir-Cognates that have just gotten out of the hospital, or come back from a traumatic event, or from their Zunnox often have the same responses. As a Defender, I often spent a lot of my time trying to calm them down. If all else fails, I knock them out and drag them back to hospice. Obviously, I’m not going to do that with Keoni.”

Ryley still hadn’t moved. He did, for once, know what Zunnox meant: he’d read about it in the book of common terms and words. It was a form of punishment in Finx. Instead of serving in jail, people would full-on be forced out of Finx and not allowed anywhere nearby for years. Ryley wasn’t quite sure how they enforced the proper behavior outside of Finx, or how they stopped a hundred or so Cognates being horrible around Finx, but he didn’t feel up to asking. Caste noticed Ryley’s lack of response.

“I’m not helping much, am I?”

Ryley didn’t respond. Again. He didn’t feel like he had the energy to respond. He couldn’t stop blaming himself for what happened, being unable to accept any other explanation. There was just no way that this wasn’t his fault.

He didn’t notice when Caste made his way over to him, he just felt weak.

The only way he could tell that Caste sat down next to him was when he tilted from the divot in the couch.

A set of soft arms wrapped around him, feeling almost the exact same way that Keoni did. He removed his hands from his face, and even though his vision was blurry with tears, he could make out the form of Caste next to him, his body heat half-close. He realized that he didn’t know what Caste had smelled like. It reminded him of petrichor and lilacs mixed together. It was nice, despite the very faint hint of blood and infections.

When Caste spoke after a while, it was barely a whisper.

“The fact that you feel this way means that you are a good person. You are able to realize your mistakes, and are capable of legitimately regretting them. You just need to be able to learn and move on from them. And it gets easier, the older you get and the more experiences you have in life.”

The dam in Ryley’s eyes finally broke away. The reservoir of his guilt, fear, and despair was quickly drained away as each tear fell, his body quivering. Everything was emptying away from inside of him, making things easier to process. During this, Caste rubbed his back, continuing to comfort him through his breakdown.

The warmth left, leaving Ryley feeling colder. His vision was still blurred, so all he could see was the light making way for Caste’s shadowy figure in front of him. He felt hands hold his face, cradling his cheeks in their embrace. Two fingers cleared the tears from his face, which felt good. Ryley could see clearly now, and looked directly into Caste’s eyes.

They were full of compassion and empathy, something that normally one wouldn’t see in a male.

“It’s going to be okay, Ryley.” It was less of a reassurance and more of a statement of a fact, which helped calm Ryley down. He could feel as his heartbeat returned to normal, his chest still aching from how hard it was pounding before.

“I can tell that you’ve never felt this way before.” Again, Caste’s voice was barely a whisper. He looked down at the floor guiltily as he spoke. “It’s my fault, really. I barged into Keoni’s life, which is basically yours as well, and told her things she was probably never meant to hear.”

“I think she was.” Ryley said, glancing over at his sleeping sister. “You said how powerful she was, and Qaye always spoke about how much potential she has. That has to mean something, right?”

It was Caste’s turn to not respond.

“Either way, she needed to know about her sister and what happened to her family, which she would’ve never learned otherwise.” Ryley reasoned.

Caste nodded his agreement. “Nobody should have that happen to them.”

Nobody indeed. Ryley knew very well now that Caste had been through quite a bit involving the Quuarks in the last ten years. It wasn’t obvious, but Ryley could tell some things still affected the Mir-Cognate. The way he stared uncomfortably at some of the technologies that were starting to appear in Everton said it all.

It was quiet afterward. Eventually, Caste went into the Mirae, saying he’d try to sneak some sleep in. Ryley stayed by Keoni’s side. Though she was now unconscious, his presence would hopefully soothe her. He’d be staying up for probably the whole night, but if there was one thing he could do right, it would be staying close to his friend and sister.

As long as she needed him, he wouldn’t leave her side.