Sara didn’t like lying. She wasn’t good at it. For that reason, she simply didn’t tell people information, avoided discussions that would release information, or made vague promises if she needed to. That’s what she would’ve done if Andy had found her five minutes after she left Elizabeth. Yet the blonde beside her was with Tara and Helen the night before, and according to the account she got on the trip back to the castle, Elizabeth was the one who clubbed Helen. Worse—

Andy’s eyes widened, and he turned to Elizabeth. “Hey! You were behind Helen, weren’t you?” he asked coldly. “What’s going on?”

Sara’s heart pounded in rhythmic thumps as she opened her mouth.

“Let’s get something clear,” Elizabeth said with equal frigidness, saving Sara from the conversation. “I saved Helen’s life. Matt was going to kill her, so I knocked her out to defuse the situation. So fuck off.”

Andy looked at the ground, blinking as if he had missed something or if he had gotten horribly gaslit.

“Elizabeth just informed me about their betrayal,” Sara said, joining in. “I’m going after them. In the meantime, I need you to keep everyone in check.”

Andy looked at Elizabeth and then at Sara. “Just tell me what to do.”

2

Sara, Andy, and Elizabeth walked into hell the moment they entered the dining hall. The floor was lined with meat, soup, and bread, and two of the tables were flipped. Unconscious guards were strewn on the ground, and the rest had backed away, knowing that they were like unarmed humans facing a pack of grizzly bears. As for the heroes, they were all in the corner of the room, and Wiles and Darius were pounding Tim and another one of the dissidents into the floor as the others screamed on.

“Stop this!” Sara yelled.

The fighting ceased when she strode into the room, putting one hand on a table that could seat thirty. Then she flipped it onto its legs in one motion, making the room boom when it landed. That demonstration froze them stiff, and the heroes slowly dispersed. Tim was on the ground, coughing up blood, welted with fist marks.

“People have betrayed us, and I want to know who they are,” Sara declared. “But if someone’s here, it means they’re not with them. So stop treating everyone like they’re the same. You’re like a pack of wild animals!”

Wiles and Darius got off Tim and the dissidents and backed away, and Emma—who was sobbing uncontrollably—rushed forward with Emily to heal the wounded. Raul was sitting at his table, running his fingers through his hair. He clearly hadn’t moved. Sara imagined that he rationalized that she set it up, or there was a genuine betrayal, and thus, there was no right or wrong in the situation. Moreover, after battling Jason, he—like Sara—had grown more apathetic to dissidents and idiots, so he wasn’t as phased. That was a relief because now that the heroes were unified, she, Raul, and Emma would be starting a party—and distrust and unwillingness to take decisive action destroyed groups.

Sara strode to Wiles and Darius and said, “Explain yourselves.”

“Matt and Riley went to everyone’s rooms to get them to betray the kingdom,” Darius said, turning away.

“All of them?”

“Most of them,” Wiles said sheepishly.

“And they didn’t go?”

Wiles and Darius fell silent, and the others did the same. They looked away in shame.

Sara panned her gaze on the heroes. “We’ve established that there were—in fact—people who betrayed us.” Then she looked at Tim and the others. “And we’ve established that there were people that didn’t. So let them go. We treat swine like swine—not our own.”

Sara looked at Emma and craned her head to the table she just flipped back into place. Emma nodded and led the vetted dissidents to the table.

“We don’t tolerate enemies,” Sara said. “They’ll corrupt us, rip us apart, divide us, and eventually force us to fight them. There were enemies amongst us, and we’ve found them. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is. We’ll face them in time. In the meantime, we must unite. So treat each other with respect and focus your efforts on the people who left. Got it?”

The heroes nodded under her sharp gaze.

“I’m compiling a force to find the traitors as we speak,” Sara said. “That’s their job—not yours. Your job is to protect this kingdom in the spring. If you have to face them then, so be it. But for now, focus on your training.”

“But Lady Reece!” Andy pleaded. “Please let me—“

“You’re coming,” Sara said. “Raul and Darius, too. The rest of you…. Act like humans while I’m gone.” She looked at Emma. “Take care of our people.” With those words, Sara walked out the door, leaving the others in a state of shame.

3

Raul watched Sara assemble a conspicuous force of soldiers right in the courtyard, ensuring the other heroes could see her leaving and going after Matt and the dissidents. It was all a grand demonstration and—

(he looked into the castle’s window and found the heroes watching with anticipation in their eyes)

—it was working.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Find them!” Sara yelled.

The soldiers grunted, putting their fists on their chests in unison before going on a forward march. A dozen silver gliders shot into the sky, and Sara mounted one.

“Just follow your party,” Sara said to Raul. “If one of the groups finds them, be ready to intercept them.”

“Got it,” he said.

Sara rocketed into the sky like a war goddess on a harrowing quest through the pits of hell. As Raul watched her fly off into the distance, he couldn’t help but feel a twisted sense of admiration. Perhaps Sara was right all along—

—she wasn’t someone to be friends with. She was someone to respect and fear, a larger-than-life symbol. That made him feel… sad for her. But it beat the alternative—questioning Sara’s humanity every time she lied. If he had to do that, he couldn’t lie about his own dwindling humanity.

“Let’s move,” Andy said.

Raul looked over and saw Andy and Darius looking at him. Three against eight—not bad odds when you’re not trying to find people, he thought abstractly. He didn’t know that for certain, but he’d call her bluff and go all in.

4

Sara and the others got a mile out from the city when the silver gliders broke off in different directions, leaving her alone on the hour-long flight to The Spring. She landed two miles away and hid her silver glider in a cave. Then she ran to the building under the cloak of invisibility. Once inside, she unlocked the hidden array and entered the downstairs basement.

Tyran sat in the living room on an armchair. When he saw her, he put his book down. “You look like shit.”

“That’s not how you address a queen,” Sara said.

“Then why do you appreciate it?” he asked.

Sara fell silent. If Tyran didn’t complain, she’d lose the last person who treated her like a human. “Let’s get started.”

Tyran nodded. “Lakow!”

The sycount came in and greeted them. Then, they went into the female dorm and brought Riley into the back room.

Sara took a deep breath as she put her hands on Riley’s chest, being reminded that a single shattered core would require her to kill all of them. “If you see me slipping,” she said to Tyran, “stop me.”

“I enjoy my head,” he said.

Sara nodded and began.

5

Elizabeth’s parents had sent her to fifteen doctors and eight different expensive therapists trying to get her to smile—and all of them failed. Worse, none of them could agree on what was wrong with her. By the time she was twelve, she was diagnosed with a cocktail of conflicting disorders, from autism and depression to schizoid personality disorder and alexithymia. Along the way, she had been put on Prozac, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Xanax, Klonopin, Zyprexa, Lithium, and a mixed bag of other mood stabilizers, antidepressants, and anxiolytics. Yet through it all—they just couldn’t get her to smile.

Elizabeth found it annoying because she couldn’t figure out why they even cared. Wasn’t she good enough? Was she so bad just because she didn’t smile? She did her chores and was polite. She just liked to be left alone. It wasn’t until she got into middle school that she understood what was wrong with not smiling—people were dicks when she didn’t. Unlike in Elementary School, where teachers protect their children with their lives, her teachers didn’t let her sit in the corner of the room and not talk to anyone. So, the bullying began. Elizabeth didn’t care so much about the maltreatment. Therapists couldn’t give her enough drugs to care about it. But she did care about the fact that no one would leave her alone. Once that started happening, it was officially a problem.

That’s when her mother gave her the best advice that she ever got in her life: They’re never going to leave you alone, honey, she had said, gripping Elizabeth with tears in her eyes, but if you just pretend enough, they’ll leave you alone more.

Elizabeth didn’t know why she thought about that when Tara walked up to her during practice time. When it happened, Elizabeth wished for nothing more than to continue sitting on that hill, breathing. “Hey, Tara,” she said.

“I heard you turned in the others,” Tara said.

“I did.”

“Why? You were ready to go with them last night.”

“I went with Helen to talk them out of it. Matt tried to kill Helen, so I knocked her out and reported them.”

“That’s what I heard.” Tara grabbed her elbow and bit her thumbnail. “But here’s what I don’t get: why did you go to her room immediately after promising me you wouldn’t go?”

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed as she watched falling leaves flutter in the wind, noting the end of fall and the onset of icy weather.

6

Sara took deep breaths. She was sweating, and her mind was getting hazy. There were eight dissidents, and she had only made it through six, but she had exhausted her mana. This is taking a lot more than I thought, she thought, looking at Greg’s unconscious body. His core was far more refined than she thought—or she was failing.

“You should take a break,” Tyran said.

“After I finish this core,” she said.

“No, now,” Tyran said. “If you break a core, you’ll ruin everything.”

Sara took deep breaths, annoyed yet grateful for his chastisement. Only then did she recognize her hands shaking.

7

Elizabeth looked at Tara. “I warned Helen not to go. She insisted on trying to talk them out of it.”

“Logical,” Tara said. “But what happened after you knocked out Helen? Where’d you go?”

“I saved my skin by going with them near the wall, then I ran away,” Elizabeth said. “They panicked and fled.”

“It was around midnight when they left,” Tara said coldly. “You told Sara in the morning. Where were you the rest of the time?”

Elizabeth imagined the castle’s workers raking leaves—removing the rot—and wondered if she’d have to do the same with Tara. That’s what Sara tasked her with, wasn’t it?

8

Sara sat down and drank a mana rejuvenation potion. It tasted like Nyquil, and the mana input was intense and raw, unlike the effortless cultivation of mana that came from breathing. She regretted even drinking it, wishing she had spent another hour meditating because her mana channels felt erratic.

“Where’s the wine?” Sara asked as she slouched in her chair.

Tyran furrowed his brows. “Now?”

“You know your body’s alarm clock?” Sara asked. “The thing that wakes you up the same day?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it’s a real thing. On Earth, that’s called the ‘circadian rhythm.’”

“Hoh? How interesting,” he said mockingly. “What’s your point?”

Sara sighed. “Well, there’s one for alcohol consumption, too. It’s called, ‘Shut the fuck up and get me the wine.’”

Tyran’s expression crumbled and he stared at her for a moment with dead eyes. Then he sighed, pushed himself up, and said: “You could’ve at least made it clever. ‘Shut the fuck up and get me the wine?’ How anti-climactic.”

Sara snorted and waited for him to return. He came back from a back room with two glasses and a bottle of helshma. “Are you sure you want this?” he asked. “You don’t look like you’re done.”

“You misunderstand, Lord Grollis,” Sara said, reaching for the bottle instead of the glasses, patiently demanding for him to hand it to her. “I need this.” She wasn’t joking about her body’s need for liquor after a certain point in time. Once it clicked on, her body demanded it like some people getting sweet cravings. Only it was more like nicotine fiending—and she couldn’t concentrate while she was thinking about it.

“As a doctor, I should advise you not to overdo it,” Tyran said as he handed it to her. He smiled, but his eyes were cold and serious. You don’t have the thirst—not yet. But one step too far, and you’ll never be able to quench it.”

Sara swallowed hard and accepted the bottle. Then she took a deep breath and looked at the wine glasses in his hand. “And one of those.”

Tyran smiled. “Sure.”

Once Sara finished two glasses, she felt far better. More confident. More alive. Then she put her hands on Greg’s chest. “Let’s get this over with.”