Wren half-sprinted and half-fluttered to the shoreline as fast as she could, pushing aside the screaming ache in her shoulders and at the base of her wings. When the discomfort became too much to bear, she stopped behind a thick tree and opened her pack. She withdrew a pale white elixir and slurped it down.

It might have cost anyone else an entire life’s worth of savings, but she was still the chosen child of a wealthy silk-spinning family.

For a few hours, the elixir took away any sort of pain she felt, and she continued onwards to the shore.

The forest merged with the plain of obsidian shards. For the next day, she wove through them, continuously glancing over her shoulder to check if Nathariel was following her.

Nothing.

When she finally reached the coast, she gave one last flutter, carrying herself out to her small sloop. “Get us out of here!” she called to the captain. The entire crew first acknowledged her with a well-trained bow, then snapped to attention and took to their duties.

“Where to, ma’am?” the captain asked.

“Take me back to Silkhaven. I need…I need to rest…”

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Myrrir clung to a crumbling ledge for an hour. Then two hours, then three.

The lava ate away at more and more of the defenceless facility, and more of the lava-flow-facing wall began to crumble. He fell from ledge to ledge. Whenever he tried to haul himself up onto the floor and regain control, more of the ledge crumbled. He spent mana to hold his Bracing technique in place and keep his muscles from wearing out. His wooden fingertips clacked against the stone, and the starsteel wires surged with Arcara. They couldn’t hold the Bracing technique as well as flesh and blood, but they still channeled energy.

After the fourth hour, the lava flow faded. It gurgled away down the riverbed, leaving only a few dribbles of magma on the glassy black stone. The facility stopped crumbling.

Just as he was about to haul himself up over the ledge, a pair of leather boots appeared, mostly covered by a long robe. Myrrir looked up. Tye!

The man crept forwards carefully, holding an arm out in front of him.

“You couldn’t have gotten here any sooner?” Myrrir grumbled.

“Not all of us are God-heirs,” Tye replied. “If I fell, I could not cling to an edge for hours. I cannot risk falling.”

Myrrir rolled his eyes, then muttered, “Old man…” Still, he took Tye’s hand.

“Old man, indeed.” Tye hauled him up to the ledge. “We must leave.”

“What happened to the Mediator?” Myrrir demanded. “Where did she go? What about that God-heir bounty hunter? Where did—”

“She is gone, and so is Nathariel. You need a surgeon—not another fight you cannot win.”

Myrrir sighed, then stepped back from the ledge. He scrunched his nose up, and tightened his fists. The image of the Admiral charging through the hallway towards him had been burned into his mind. His techniques had seared Myrrir’s Arcara channels and burned a hot red scar across his stomach.

Myrrir took a wheezing breath—more than usual—and stepped back.

“Myrrir, your father will hear about this,” Tye warned.

“He can hear about it all he wants.”

“He’ll be angry.”

“He’s already banished me. He doesn’t seem willing to kill me. What do I have to fear?”

“Karmion.”

Myrrir spun around, flicking the tails of his coat. He cycled Arcara through his channels, hoping to at least soothe the burning spiritual pain he felt. It only made them sting worse. Instead, he concentrated on the pain to keep himself on his feet—to stop from passing out from exhaustion.

“Myrrir, it would not be wise to show your face in a populated star system for…a long time.”

“If I bring father the Mediator, none of that will matter…” He trailed off, then blinked. For a brief flash, he saw an image of the orange-haired phoenix, writhing on the floor, her arm and legs severed and her clear blood pooling beneath her.

The same could happen to him. Karmion would have his own, more powerful hunters.

Maybe, maybe, Myrrir could take the time to recover. To plan, to advance, and to prepare for his next encounter with his quarry. A month or two couldn’t hurt, could it?

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

With a conceding exhale, he looked at Tye and said, “Alright. We’ll hide for two standard months. We’ll take the time to recover, and we’ll come back stronger than ever. Do you have place in mind?”

“We will head back to the Hyovao, and we will plot a course,” Tye said, his voice growing more firm and commanding. Myrrir didn’t have the will left to argue with the man. “The crew has been severely diminished, and everyone will need to work double watches.”

But, as Myrrir followed Tye through the facility’s hallways, Myrrir had to argue with himself. Spikes of guilt shot through his feet, trying to anchor him to the ground and make him turn back. He should be chasing the Mediator. Every second not spent pursuing his goal was a second wasted.

Is this what you really want…?

Her voice had been so soft, so weak. He could have thrown her in the canister and never heard it again, but he’d hesitated.

Keeping his voice low, Myrrir whispered, “Tye…thank you for staying. Thank you for coming back.”

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Vayra didn’t know how many hours passed in the Harmony’s infirmary. It took her a few minutes to recognize the room, fading in and out of sleep, and another hour before she could even stay awake for more than a few minutes at a time.

When she managed to stay awake for more than a minute, Nathariel pressed a glowing blue vial into her hands. It was slightly warm, and after a few seconds, she realized it was an elixir.

“Drink,” Nathariel commanded. “Your Arcara channels have been ripped open. This will help seal them and prevent the destruction of your entire spirit.”

So she did. She cycled it out into her limbs, and she half expected it to reach the invisible tips of her missing limbs. It didn’t. The moment it passed into her arm—now wrapped in a thick layer of bandages—it stopped. The Arcara channels in her limb closed up where her skin ended; where the stump lay.

She pushed it down to her leg, and the same sealing process began.

“I don’t mean to interrupt,” Mr. Spawlding said, glancing nervously at Nathariel, “but is Phasoné alright?”

Vayra gulped. Phasoné would be suffering from the same wounds, and although she was a Goddess, her enhanced healing wouldn’t help her regrow limbs, nor would it be enough to seal her wounds—not while Vayra was so weak, at least.

And the Goddess had been awfully silent.

Without giving Mr. Spawlding an answer, Vayra slammed her eyes shut and pulled herself into Phasoné’s void. The blank white plane enveloped her. She fell, but this time, when she hit the ground, she only had one leg—not enough to stand on. She landed hard on her stomach, but there was no time to question it.

“Phasoné?” Vayra called. She pushed herself in a circle with her one leg, until she spotted the Goddess’ dark form collapsed on the floor.

Clenching her teeth, Vayra pushed herself closer to Phasoné. Mr. Spawlding had clearly given her some sort of painkiller, and it was potent. She could barely feel anything, though, not even the pressure of the ground against the palm of her left hand. She kept pushing herself along until she was only a few feet away from Phasoné. The Goddess had suffered the same injuries—arm severed, leg severed. The missing limbs were nowhere to be seen.

“Phasoné!” Vayra yelled. “Can you hear me? Hello! Hey!” She slapped the ground beside Phasoné’s head, but it didn’t even make a thud. Golden blood leaked out from her wounds, but not as much as Vayra would have expected. She supposed it was a by-product of such an enhanced body.

But, despite the slow leak, Phasoné had been bleeding for a long time.

The Goddess stirred for a moment, her eyes half open, but she shut them again soon after. “I…didn’t want to make you worry. There was nothing you could do…”

“If you die, I die.”

“Then get help…”

Vayra opened her eyes, and outside the void, barely a second had passed. She whispered, “Phasoné needs a patch…then you can worry about me…”

For the next hour, Mr. Spawlding and Nathariel helped her provide Phasoné the medical attention she needed—bandages and tourniquets for Vayra to take into the void, as well as medicines and a weak healing elixir that Nathariel had on hand. Supposedly, that would be enough to keep Phasoné alive. Her enhanced healing would take over and do the rest, even if the limbs would never regrow.

Most of it was a blur. Vayra tried to focus, but she was just as tired, and she needed to sleep as well.

When Nathariel assured her that Phasoné wouldn’t die any time soon, Vayra let herself slip off back into a deep sleep. She didn’t know how much later she woke up, but from the grumbling in her stomach—and from how dry her mouth was—she guessed it had been a few days. She did her best to spring upright.

A makeshift prosthetic had been attached to the stump of her leg—a simple wooden peg, with a cup that meshed with the stump and a belt to keep it in place. Her arm…was still gone. She’d lost too much for a simple hook-hand to do the trick.

Everything…everything would be different.

Immediately, one of the surgeons’ mates handed her a cup of water, and she gulped it down as fast as she could. She drank two more, before finally collapsing back onto the cot. She looked up at the roof, and at the swaying lantern. “Phasoné, are you alright?”

‘I’m…awake,’ the Goddess responded.

Vayra immediately shut her eyes and pulled herself into the void—peg leg and all. She fell on it, and landed upright, but she couldn’t stay standing for long. After a few hobbles, she fell onto the empty white floor. This time, she could crawl along with almost two legs. When she reached Phasoné, she dropped down onto her side, panting from exertion.

Phasoné lay on her back, staring blankly up into the void. Vayra couldn’t bear to look at the Goddess’ mostly-healed stumps for limbs. She pushed herself to Phasoné’s left side, so she didn’t have to see a constant reminder of it.

Then, Vayra flopped onto her back and stared up at the empty white sky.

A few minutes passed. Phasoné said nothing. The silence pressed against Vayra’s eardrums like it was about to split her head in half. She couldn’t take it anymore. Her lip began to quiver. “Phas, I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…I should have trusted them, and I should have listened…and I—”

She broke into an uncontrollable bout of sobbing. First, raw grief seemed to bubble up from her stumps, a reminder that she might never walk again. Then, pain and embarrassment and sorrow and everything that she should have done differently…if she had just been willing to listen.

And now it was all—

“Vayra,” Phasoné’s voice softly interrupted the spiralling thoughts. “It’ll be alright. It will. I think Nathariel has a plan…”