Sadie stared at the Druid with unbelieving eyes. That disbelief was partially clouded by the man’s gruesome injuries. Despite spending more than an hour constantly healing, one of Elijah’s legs had still been quite crooked, so he’d had to re-break it before setting it properly. That had not been a pretty scene, and Sadie was certain that the sound of the man’s bones breaking would haunt her nightmares.

In addition, he’d been forced to remove his armor in order to treat his wounds – or to remove the blood and gore beneath – and when he’d bared his torso, Sadie had gotten a glimpse of the full extent of his previous injuries. Not only was his right arm covered in rippling burn scars, but his chest and back were crisscrossed with fainter, paler evidence of old wounds. Clearly, he hadn’t spent the past few years strolling across a paradisical island, as she had imagined.

In fact, the scars were so extensive that she couldn’t help but wonder how he’d gotten them. With magical healing, most injuries were mended before they had a chance to mar a person’s body. So, he’d have had to have experienced some truly horrific wounds to disfigure his body so thoroughly. They were badges of his struggle, and Sadie knew she would be stupid to dismiss what they signified.

The matter-of-fact way he endured his most recent injuries said a lot about him as well. He was not some untested fighter who’d lucked out and found a cheap and easy means of progression. Indeed, his scars, as well as his stoicism told an entirely different story altogether.

But most of all, Sadie remembered seeing how unhesitantly he had acted, severing the rope connecting them together, then throwing himself after Dat and Kurik. That was not the action of the selfish man his aura of sin suggested him to be. A man with that cloud of darkness clinging to him should have taken one look at his falling companions, then moved on with seeing to his own safety.

Instead, Elijah had leaped after them, and what’s more, he’d managed to save them – at great risk to himself no less. That risk had been borne out via a series of gruesome injuries. But he had succeeded. He had saved them both, even climbing higher so they didn’t lose any ground.

It was maddening.

From where he sat beside her, Dat nudged her with his shoulder. It was a gesture of familiarity that highlighted how close she had come to losing the only true friend she’d ever had. Optimistically, Sadie knew that she was an acquired taste. She didn’t want to be cold. She didn’t try to be judgemental. But that was how she came off. Even when she attempted kindness, her abrupt nature tended to turn people away.

But not Dat.

Maybe it was due to their similar circumstances. He was Vietnamese, and she was Chinese, though most westerners looked at them the same. That had created a bond between them that was only strengthened by homesickness, isolation, and shared difficulties with fitting into a world that marked them as different.

That relationship had been further fortified when the world had been transformed. Since then, Sadie had lost count of how many times they’d saved one another’s lives. How many cold nights they’d shared behind enemy lines. He was more of a brother to her even than Niko.

So, if she’d lost Dat – like she’d lost her sister, Lisa – Sadie knew she would have spiraled down a destructive path. But Elijah had saved Dat, and in turn, he had saved her, too.

For that, she would be eternally grateful.

“You okay, bro?” Dat asked when she just continued to stare ahead, pointedly trying not to look at the still mending Druid.

“I’m fine.”

“You aren’t.”

She sighed. “Do you know what it feels like to figure out you’ve been an idiot?” Sadie asked, finally glancing at Dat. He bore no signs of his own struggles, instead looking just as content as always. It was a gift that she greatly admired, but could not emulate.

“All the time, bro. Did I tell you about the time I mixed up Star Wars and Star Trek? I was only four, but it still haunts –”

“This is a little more serious than science fiction stories,” she said with a small smile.

“Tell that to Trekkies, bro. Or Star Wars nerds.”

“You are a Star Wars nerd,” she pointed out. Indeed, he’d dragged her to every single one of the most recent films, much to her distress.

“Trekkie, too. I’m playing both sides so I always come out on top,” he said, tapping his temple with his index finger. “Smart.”

Sadie sighed, then leaned back against the cave wall. For only the third time since they’d set out, she had removed her armor, and she had finally allowed herself to luxuriate in the lack. She could wear it without much issue, but no armor was made for comfort. She had gotten used to it, but she could at least admit that it had probably contributed to her frequently foul mood.

“I’m talking about him,” she said, gesturing across the cave. Elijah had finished setting his bones, so he sat on the floor, his eyes closed as ethera – and rain – swirled all around him. Frustratingly, he was still shirtless. Either way, he was far enough from where she sat that she was confident he couldn’t overhear. “Do you know what I see when I look at him?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“A dashingly handsome murderhobo?”

“W-what?”

“I mean, the beard and the uneven hair don’t do him any favors. He’s kind of weird, too. But he reminds me a little of that actor. The one that married the actress from that movie you like so much,” he said. “The one with the woman from the American south who pretends she’s a fashion designer or something.”

Sadie blushed. She knew that liking romantic comedies was no source of shame, but she couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassment about her movie tastes. They just seemed so stereotypical – something she’d always struggled to avoid – that she felt as if she was betraying her principles by enjoying them.

But she couldn’t help what she liked, and the movie in question – Sweet Home Alabama – was, hands-down, her favorite. However, she drew the line at following celebrity relationships, so she had no idea who Dat was talking about. Though there was enough context to infer that the actor in question was considered quite handsome.

“That is definitely not what I see,” she countered. In fact, she’d barely noticed Elijah’s appearance. Instead, Sadie had trouble looking past the cloud of sin that clung to him like a black, foul-smelling aura. “You know about my ability, right?”

“Yeah, bro. You see all the bad stuff people do.”

“That’s one way to put it,” she admitted, running her hand through her admittedly greasy hair. She hadn’t had a proper shower in what felt like ages, and she felt absolutely disgusting. “With most people, I can ignore it. It’s just a vague stench. But with him? It’s hard to see anything but that cloud. And I can smell him from here. I know he’s killed hundreds. Perhaps thousands.”

“Maybe they were justified,” Dat suggested.

Sadie shook her head. “Sense of Sin wouldn’t react so strongly if that were the case,” she said, though she wasn’t certain of that. “I know all the terrible things he’s done. Not the details, perhaps, but –”

“But you don’t know anything about the good stuff,” Dat pointed out.

“What?”

“The good things. Does your ability give equal weight to good deeds? Or is it just about the bad stuff? Like, it’s not a scale, right? It only measures sin,” he said. “I mean, we won’t even get into what constitutes sin, but seeing only the bad…I don’t like that, bro. Seems like the ability is trying to push you into fanaticism.”

“That’s not how the system works.”

Dat shrugged. “You don’t know that, bro. But you have to admit that it doesn’t show you anything about the good people do. Like, he saved me. He’s been a good guy this whole time,” he said. “I’ve been trying to give you the benefit of the doubt so that you could come to your own conclusions, but what you’re doing – how you’re treating him – it isn’t right.”

“I’ve never been personable.”

Dat gave her another small smile. “That’s true, but this is worse. Even you have to know that.”

Sadie did, and she also recognized that Dat was right. In her experience, he usually was – at last so long as one ignored the man’s idiosyncrasies. Yet, it was so difficult to look past what her Sense of Sin told her about Elijah. It wasn’t just the stench. Nor was it only limited to the cloud of evil surrounding him. She felt in her bones – perhaps even in her very soul – the surety that that aura was the sum total of who he was.

And yet, her rational mind told her that Dat was probably right, that her own ability was manipulating her, driving her toward becoming someone she wouldn’t even recognize. There was potential for true evil there. She was certain of it, which terrified her as much as anything. Because Sadie was well aware that real wickedness didn’t come from people who knew they were wrong. Instead, it was characteristic of those who knew – beyond the shadow of any doubt or question – that they were in the right. Sense of Sin gave her that, and in a tangible way that was almost impossible to ignore.

If she wasn’t careful, she would descend into uncompromising zealotry.

Sadie refused to let that happen, and her resistance would begin with the way she treated Elijah. Despite the cloud of sin clinging to him, she resolved to judge him based on what she saw with her own two eyes, rather than an ability that may very well be compromised.

Tilting her head back, she said, “I’m going to have to make it up to him, aren’t I?”

“Probably, bro. But maybe not. He seems like a reasonable guy,” Dat said.

“You’re just saying that because he saved your life,” Sadie muttered.

“That’s true. Hard to hate someone who does stuff like that.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. It truly was difficult to aim her ire at the person who was responsible for saving her best friend’s life, and in a way she couldn’t ignore.

After that, they both settled in to rest and recover from the climb. There wasn’t much further to go, and Sadie found herself dreading whatever she might find at the peak. It wouldn’t be as simple as the task made it about to be. There would be complications, and if the climb had been as difficult as it had, then she fully expected the completion of the task to be far more difficult than any of them expected.

The hours passed peacefully until, a day later, Elijah opened his eyes and tested his mended limbs. “Not bad. Still a bit of a twinge,” he said. “But not bad. I can work with this.”

“You can take more time if you need it,” Sadie offered. “It is no problem.”

He cocked his head to the side, not unlike a curious bird, then said, “No. I’m fine. I’ve walked on worse. We’ve already wasted enough time waiting for me to recover.”

Sadie looked around, and seeing that the other two had retreated out of earshot, she decided that now was as good a time as any to offer her apology. So, she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and said, “I apologize for my demeanor. I’ve treated you unfairly, and for that, I am sorry. From now on, I will endeavor to do better.”

She’d rehearsed the short speech in her head dozens of times, and it had come off far more smoothly than she could have hoped.

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?”

“Oh. Sorry. Just unexpected is all. But it’s cool,” he said, reaching out to pat her on the shoulder. She resisted the urge to flinch away from his touch. “We’re all good.”

“That’s it?” she asked, confused. She’d expected indignation. Or anger. Or some other reaction. What she hadn’t anticipated was borderline indifference. And that definitely annoyed her.

“That’s it. I try not to dwell on these kinds of things,” he said. “Anyway, I think it’s past time we got out of this cave. It’s starting to smell, if you know what I mean. Small space. Unwashed people. You get it.”

With that, he held up his hand, a gesture that took Sadie a few seconds to understand. When she did, she reluctantly raised her own hand, slapping her palm against his.

“Awesome. Everything’s better with a crisp high-five,” he said. Then, he strode toward the entrance, his staff clacking against the ground with every step.

“That was brutally awkward, bro.”

Sadie didn’t even look at Dat before she said, “Shut up.”

Then, she followed Elijah, grateful for the increasingly loud wind and the distraction provided by the deadly cliffs. Without it, she might’ve had to consider how embarrassed she was.