Nania POV

The bells were ringing.

A comfortable thrum of ritual and ceremonial chants performed by the Crown-Son and his retinue were murmured around me as I knelt upon the floor, their voices rising, falling, and overlapping like ocean waves upon the shoreline. The last few weeks were hazy in my mind, a blur of things I was aware of but did not know, but I knew for certain that my trials had been passed flawlessly. Now there was only the ceremony to bring me into the temple proper as not just a Candidate, but a fully fledged Priestess. Soon I would truthfully be the Head Priestess, and I could begin to use my power for actual good. I could easily put aside my own feelings on the matter.

The Crown-Son—that is, King Lordrin offered an arm and a smile for me as the rituals came to a close, and I took it with a small murmured thanks. Slowly a procession of guards, priestesses, advisors, nobles, and civilians formed as all began to file out of the king’s hall. The sound of stomping feet echoed throughout the spacious hall, that even Crown Naruune might hear our celebration and participate. King Lordrin and I joined the very end of the procession, as it led us from the throne room through the streets of Gresha, and back to the temple.

Outside, the bells at the top of the temple were ringing. Loud, solemn clangs and peals which echoed in the empty air, soaring out into the sky and coming back as booming thunder. Foul aromas of ash and acrid smoke hung heavy in the air, as darkness blotted out the suns and livestock lay festering in the fields. I blinked, and saw that the procession had shrunk. Surely they were just disappearing into the darkness of the night as they scurried home. First a smattering of civilians, a couple of guards, then entire portions of the procession broke off and vanished. They knew better than to stay out at a time like this, I knew. They knew what the ringing of the bells meant. It meant that she was here.

The Sun Fiend.

“A joyous Rite of Sunset, Priestess Nania,” King Lordrin told me. “Care for a festival cake?”

I nodded, and placed the small pastry in my mouth. The normally sweet festival treat broke apart like grains of ash in my mouth as we approached the temple.

We were completely alone by the time we entered the temple and descended its many stairways into Crown Naruune’s earth. The darkness devoured those few attendants foolish enough to keep accompanying us. Flames and Fiend alike were left far behind, safe as we were in Crown Naruune’s sacred space, but the scent of smoke only grew stronger. Finally we reached the very bottom of the stairs, a place dank and dark. A secret place. Before me stood one final door which I needed to cross the threshold of. With a respectful nod King Lordrin unlocked the door, and handed me the torch. As I stepped forwards and he left the radius of the torch’s light, the darkness swallowed him too.

For a brief moment, I was alone in my little circle of light. The stones and rocks in the walls seemed to jump and dance under the torch’s light. This small flame could do nothing to make the cell less fetid, gloomy, and dark. Slowly my eyes panned across the room, watching how the flickering firelight made shadows twist and jump in a macabre dance. This strange effect made me wonder if it was deceiving my eyes at first, if my imagination had twisted the sight into something awful. But my stomach lurched as I realized no. No, they were really here.

Elian and Talon. Tied to the sacrificial pyres. Bruised and injured. Talon completely unconscious. Of course he was unconscious, he’d have to be. Otherwise he’d fight this fate to the end. But Elian was awake.

He was awake, but made no effort whatsoever to struggle. To live.

“Nia, you’re finally here,” he said, as if this were simply a casual meeting between friends. As if we had just encountered each other within the marketplace. He grinned his typical disarming smile. “You look good.”

Voice cracking, I asked, “What are you doing here?” but I already knew the answer. Like how the suns rose and the rain fell, it was the natural trajectory of the world. The Rite of Sunset ended with a sacrifice. A soul to amuse the Sun Fiend so she might leave the rest of us alone. Once a year, every year.

Elian smiled. He knew it too, and knew I knew it. There was no point to them answering my foolish question. “Come on, Nia. She’s waiting.”

“N-no. I can’t. I don’t want to.”

“You always were selfish.”

“So what!?” I shouted. “If it could be anyone, why do it have to be you?”

“Because it’s gotta be someone.”

“Maybe you’re selfish. You left your siblings and parents. Now you’re going to leave me too? And take Talon with you?”

“I thought you wanted us to leave.”

“Not like—” I froze. Elian wasn’t wrong. I had wanted him to leave. To leave me behind and go be happy elsewhere. With him leaving like this, to fight the Sun Fiend...it was just like him, wasn’t it?

Throwing their lives away on heroism and vengeance. I wrapped my fingers around the smoking torch.

“She’s waiting,” King Lordrin echoed as he crept from the door to my back. Or was it something else? A Restless, a demon, the darkness incarnate itself? “Are you going to make her wait any longer, Head Priestess?”

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” Elian asked. “To use this power for something good. But you need to wait for the right time to make the full impact. If you give them reason to suspect, if you throw all this away…”

My mind fractured into a cracked spider’s web of possibilities. Toss the torch upon the fire and cry into King Lordrin’s arms. Trade Lordrin for them, and serve the Crown-Son’s smoked flesh as an offering to the Fiend. Burn myself, foregoing any choice at all. But no. What I wanted was…

Was…

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It was foolish, selfish, stupid, and rash. But if I didn’t do it, who would?

The first time, I told myself it would simply be a goodbye. We three would have our closure, as I went my separate way from them and gracefully matured from a flighty and foolish girl into someone more responsible. Someone who’d sacrifice her own happiness and freedom for the greater good, joyfully. For a short time afterwards I thought I could simply make do without, but instead everything had gotten worse. My nightmares became more frequent as my worries and anxieties spiked. Often my new teachers would lecture me for chewing my nails down even in my private lessons, but I could barely even focus on them.

It had been only a little over three weeks since I had last seen them, but I had to do something. I had to do something or else I would drive myself insane, worrying that the two people I cared for most in the world were dead. Telling myself that they were strong was simply not enough; no one was stronger than the whims of the world and fortune. So I decided to pursue them.

Once the two suns had fallen and night had enveloped Gresha, I exited the window at the end of the hall the way I always used to, and my for the Deep Woods.

Alone.

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Talon POV

I couldn’t stay, once Hallow Zaya had seen me cry.

Immediately upon return, I began making preparations to go. Those preparations did not include saying goodbye to Elian. He...if he did not wish to divulge the truth, then there was little I could do to persuade him. He’d tell me when he wanted to, and trying to force him would only waste my time.

And...and maybe there were other people with whom I should be making amends.

After crying so hard, it was strange. I almost felt lighter. As though I had carried heavy armor with me for years, without ever knowing it. Now with it shed, I felt raw and vulnerable, like even too chill a wind might bite and hurt. Without the armor, it was harder to deny that my prickling guilt was digging into my heart and hurting me. It was hypocritical to be upset with Elian when I was unwilling to tell the truth, evil. To myself and to others. I needed to seek closure with Nania, and with...with Kite. And I needed to seek the truth of what I wanted from myself. Then I would speak with Elian. Then I would know what it was I should—wanted to do next.

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If I were going to confront these things, however, I realized I should try and grasp the source of them. Know yourself, know your enemy, as the old saying went. I thought it was enough to just know my body, its strengths and its limits, but Hallow Zaya had lectured me about how I had been pushing it beyond its limits. Clearly, if I wanted to defeat the Sun Fiend, if I wanted to prevent myself from becoming a second Sun Fiend, I needed to change my strategy. Failing to kill her, or becoming a tyrant to replace her, both would mean I had accomplished nothing. Either was as good as letting her win.

And...I needed to understand what her goal was. What role Elian played in it...and how much Elian knew. He needed to get over this and just tell me. I didn’t like what it might mean that he didn’t.

Curiously, the Phoenix chose to leave with me. For some strange reason it had taken a liking to me? When it came time for me to leave, and the Phoenix was still following me around, I finally asked Hallow Zaya if the Phoenix had a name. She only shrugged, and said, “Maybe. I don’t know it, so I just call it Phoenix.”

That was stupid logic, and if it was coming with me, then I was going to give it a name. “Crim,” I decided. From the noises it was making, the phoenix did not seem to have any objection to that. Elian would probably dislike the name, I knew. He’d call it too plain, and try to change it to something more fanciful and pretty. But Crim was easier to remember. It looked like a Crim to me.

My mind drifted away from Elian, and back to Hallow Zaya. It was something I had been trying to suppress, but her knowledge of herbs, her straightforward manner, her friendship with the Rootkin. The way she presented empathy not as a weakness, but as the obvious and rational choice, a choice only a fool would avoid making...it reminded me of someone. No, not ‘someone’. I couldn’t allow my mind to keep shutting this part of me off. It was something I had to face and overcome.

She reminded me of Asha.

Asha, who survived the fire, when the Fiend’s clash with her draconic spawn near our village led to smoke, and fire, and smoke...we survived the fight. The fire. The debris. But something went wrong. She fell ill, and no one would help her. They told me not to waste resources on the dying, to kill the enemy instead.

But they said I was too weak to go after the Sun Fiend. They wanted me to war with our enemies. Petty squabbles, at first. Then raids on Gresha itself. Still, I...I…

Focus. Kite. He was...he was weak. And annoying. And pathetic. He was too young to remember what happened to Asha. To realize what would happen if I taught him how to fight, allowed him onto the battlefield. But it happened anyway, didn’t it? It didn’t matter what I did or failed to do. Somehow I had failed to push him away from myself, and instead pushed him into Harrier’s arms. Weak of body and weak of mind. His face made me sick.

My stomach twisted. Weakness. When I envisioned it, I could only feel small. Pudgy hands and pudgy feet, an ant in the face of overwhelming power. Powerless. Helpless. Out of control. Crim nibbled at my pant leg, breaking me from my thoughts.

There were things I wanted to fight, to beat, to end forever. There were things I was incapable of ever beating. The weakness in my sister. The weakness in my brother. The weakness in Elian and myself. But they were also things I was incapable of ever beating, of accepting that I lacked control. I would, must, had to grow stronger, powerful enough to take control of this pointless world. To stand on par with the Fiend, it was the one thing that could make up for all this. I would subject myself to the pain, because that was when I could feel, feel alive, feel joyous and enraged and anything other than the horrid silence—

I wished the Fiend were here before me. Cackling laugh and vicious grin. Wished I could punch, bite, rip, tear. Tear her into bloody chunks. Until I was no longer powerless. Until she and all the problems she caused were no more. If only it were so easy. If only, if only, if only—

Crim suddenly honked loudly, causing me to flinch. “Hell is the matter?” I snapped at the bird, before realizing what I had done and trying to calm myself. It was just the bird. Just the dumb bird. I looked ahead, to what was causing Crim to make such a racket, and then I rubbed my eyes. Once, twice. No, she wasn’t a hallucination. She was still there. I was lucid.

“Nania?” I asked incredulously.

Without thinking, I had walked to the scene of my fight with the Sun Fiend. Those puddles and streams that had once dotted it were still evaporated, leaving only the pitted and cratered ground. The scent of smoke still hung heavy in the air, and Nania’s slim figure was striking against the broken landscape. The girl’s green eyes were wide, and her cheeks flushed and pale. Her wild hair had come loose, circling her head in a frantic frizz. “Talon! What happened? Are you okay? Where’s Elia—” She staggered to a halt, briefly confused by the phoenix squawking at her.

“Don’t mind him,” I said, picking up Crim and holding it away from her. Then something gave me pause. “Is that my bow?”

“Oh, yes!” She nodded, clutching the mentioned item. “I...I found it on the ground. I thought…” She took a shuddering breath, then admitted, “I didn’t know what to think.”

“We’re both okay,” I told her. “We’ve both recovered well.”

“Where is Ellie, then? Is he not with you?”

I took a moment to consider what to say. Hallow Zaya had made it quite clear she enjoyed her privacy and anonymity, and that saving our lives had been an exception to her rule, as a favor to the Rootkin. “Elian is a warrior. He's strong. It’ll take a little longer for him to return, but it takes more than that to kill him.”

A light punch hit my shoulder. “You always say things like that,” she muttered. “How am I supposed to believe you, when you always run out into dangerous, stupid situations?”

I frowned. “Have a little more faith in us. We’ve survived worse.”

“No!” she suddenly yelled. Crim chattered at her, upset, and though she quieted her voice, her tone was still distraught. “You don’t know what it’s like,” she muttered, a low tone of resentment lacing her voice. “You’re strong. Yes. If it were the two of you together, I wouldn’t need to worry. You’re the strongest people I know, but you’re not together. Every day, you join the opposite sides, and I have to worry that one of you may not return, that I’d have to pick between one or the other to survive, or lose both, if it makes me a traitor that this makes me feel so wretched—”

I kissed her. Crim fluttered out of my arms and onto the ground as I let it fall from my arms, then I leaned in closed and pressed my lips against hers. Soft, warm, tingling. Just as I remembered. She was surprised at first. I felt wet, warm saltwater press from her cheeks to mine. Then she hugged me tight, a feeling which sent electric shudders through my body, but it didn’t feel bad. It was nice. The kiss was a quick thing, but the hug lasted a while.

“You are not weak,” I said, trying not to think about what would happen if Nania were to face against the Fiend. “You are intelligent, and clever, and quick-witted, with boundless energy and a boundless drive to work and learn. You are.. You may lack experience, but you refuse to give up on either of us, you hold us together, when we just want to, just want to…”

Run. Push others away. Hide behind our power, our pain. Shy away from the pricking thorns and give the not-quite lost up for forever-gone.

Asha…

I swallowed. Throat dry. Elian’s words came back to me at that time. As much as they were pointed and sharp, as much as it hurt to try and disentangle the truth from the thorns… I couldn’t keep avoiding all of this. Even if I hadn’t figured it all out, something had to give. Could this help? New horizons, new challenges? Or could all three of us working, fighting together be the key? We were all weak. We were all scared. But if three weak people came together, could they cover each other’s weaknesses and become stronger?

Elian’s burnt, impaled arm and pale, sweating face flashed through my mind.

Or, if I let them in more than I already had, would I just lose them and fall deeper into rage? Become a worse monster than any Fiend? My heart was pounding, racing, slamming on the rage of my chest. Palms slick, sweating. What to do? What to say?

“Let’s leave,” I nearly whispered.

Nania’s eyes widened, as if she could scarcely believe what I had said. “Wait would you...we can’t,” she muttered.

“Let’s leave. Elian said it was your dream,” I said, a little bolder. My brain had kicked into a sort of high not dissimilar to the high of battle, a fire eating at my thoughts. “Let’s leave. Let’s not stay. Let’s keep going and going, and never stop until all the world knows our names, until our legends are told by our children’s children’s children, until we slay the Sun Fiend, and Gresha begs us to return as conquering heroes. And we tell them no.”

“I…” Nania swallowed. I watched the small muscles of her throat ripple. “Then let’s run away from them. All of them. Everyone who’s hurt us and dismissed us and belittled us and used us. Let’s have a little house. All three of us,” she said shyly, falteringly. “Our kids...if we want to...they won’t know neglect or overwork. They can have something...better than what we got…”

“...It sounds nice,” I admitted. “I’m sure El would like it to. Not the having kids, but he wouldn’t mind helping, would he—?”

Nania chuckled. “No, no, I’d be happy having them. And I’m sure he’d be happy helping.”

It was...scary. Exciting. Exhilarating. In a way unlike how it was on the battlefield. I wasn’t sure how to describe it. After the Fiend had always been a foreign concept to me. It just...never occurred to me that there would be an after. A time free of lethal purpose. It wasn’t even that I couldn’t think of what I would do; I had a hard time putting my mind to it all. But thinking of an after the Fiend, after everything, that was really just another beginning...something about it set my heart aflutter in an unfamiliar, but not unwelcome way.

Maybe I really did like her? Them? Both of them? But before I could do all this, I remembered with a pang in my heart…

“I need to go back to the village, one final time. Then we’ll go find Elian. There’s someone I need to find closure with,” I said. “Then we can—”

“Let’s just go find Ellie now!’ Nania said, tugging at my sleeve. “You don’t like it there. They use you and you hate them. You don’t like them any more than I hate the temple.”

“My family—” I insisted, but she cut me off with a scowl.

“I’ve never heard you mention your family once before now,” she said. It pricked at my heart in a certain manner I couldn’t name. She wasn’t wrong, but at the same time…

I stepped back away from her. “Still,” I said, a bit stiffly. “I should still say goodbye.”

She stared at me for a few moments, then huffed. “Come back soon, then. We should leave before the city notices I’m gone.”

I gave her a quiet nod. As our moment ended, however, I noticed that Crim had wandered off.

“Is something wrong? Where’s your bird?” Nania asked.

“Crim,” I grumbled correcting her. It only took me a quick look around before I began to hear loud and raucous squawking. Crim burst from the burnt foliage, golden tail streaming behind it, before a dark shadow pounced and clipped its tail, pulling from it some soft feathers. Moving on instinct as Crim flew over my shoulder and landed on a branch behind me, I yanked my bow from Nania’s hands and smoothly fired. The shot glanced off the monster’s scaled armor and it hissed, lashing its tail. It growled and baaed, as another joined it.

“Wait,” Nania muttered, “those are—”

Three monstrous chimeras stared us down, hostility glittering in their triple-paired eyes.