Keyla’s laughter faded to chuckles and Elion’s face ached from grinning. Under other circumstances Elion might have been embarrassed, but lying exhausted on the shore, he was just grateful to be alive.

“Nice armor,” Keyla said, wiping tears from her eyes.

Elion looked at his shining loincloth and shrugged. “Protects the most important parts,” he said. He touched the place on his ribs where the scavenger had shot him. A black and purple bruise blossomed there. Another bruise formed on his thigh, looking like a welt from a paintball gun. “And I guess I got some protection from their bullets, too,” he said.

“What happened to your clothes?”

"I have no idea,” Elion said. “Might have saved my life though. I don’t think I could have made that swim if I was bogged with boots and my hoodie.”

“You’d better figure it out soon, before someone comes looking for us,” she said. “There’d be a scandal.”

Elion blushed and closed his eyes.

“Praxis,” he said. “How do I get my clothes back?”

“Wow,” Keyla said. “You’ve really never done this before? You didn’t even know what would happen when—”

“I had an idea,” Elion protested.

“So you’re really not a normal Aurelian, then,” she said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, you didn’t go to their school or whatever. You weren’t trained by them?”

“No,” Elion said. He shook his head sadly. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea what I’m doing. I didn’t join the Knights of Dawn until I got here to this island.”

“Is that what you were doing at the Altar?” she asked.

Elion nodded.

“You came here for that?”

“Well, not exactly,” he said. He started to shiver as a light breeze picked up. “I was trying to help my sister, but, I guess I really messed things up.”

Keyla wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered. “I’m sorry I’ve been snapping at you.”

“It’s okay,” Elion said. “I’m not upset.” His teeth chattered as he spoke.

“Disarm, probably,” Keyla said. “Or maybe restore? You could try power down…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Commands. Every follower of a Sentinel has an Ascended state. Artificers generally use mental versions of ‘power up’ to activate it and ‘power down’ to deactivate it. You said ‘Manifest Arms’ or something, so I’m just guessing what the opposite would be.

“Um,” Elion said, covering himself as best he could. “Will I be naked if I—”

“I don’t know,” Keyla said, eyeing him curiously.

Elion shuffled over behind a bush.

“Disarm,” Elion said, and he felt a tension slacken inside of him, like a rubber band dissolving. His golden loincloth disappeared, his boots, pants, and hoodie rematerializing around him like a warm hug, all totally dry.

“Ahh,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Pity,” Keyla said. “I was enjoying the show.” Elion blushed, hard, and turned away from the girl.

“Not fair,” he said. “Just when I was starting to think you might not be a jerk.”

“Come on,” Keyla prodded. “You were asking for it.”

“Shouldn’t we be getting back?” Elion asked, scowling.

It was Keyla’s turn to shiver, her torso shaking and teeth clacking in her mouth. “Easy for you to say,” she said. “I kicked my boots off so I could swim.”

Elion surveyed the steep slope rising away from the river. Large, craggy rocks stacked atop one another led up the side of the island. It might be climbable without a rope, but littered with sharp rocks and gnarled roots, it did not look like an easy path with shoes on.

“We were really lucky to get here,” Elion said.

“There aren’t many other places on the island where you can get out of the current,” Keyla agreed.

“What should we do?”

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“They’ll run patrols along the perimeter of the island to make sure that none of the scavengers made it ashore.”

“So we just wait then?”

Keyla shivered again, her wet clothes still dripping on the ground. “Yeah, probably.”

“Do you want my hoodie?” Elion asked. “I’ve got a shirt on underneath.”

“I’m fine,” Keyla said. “You don’t need to baby me.” She shuddered.

Elion rolled his eyes and stripped off his coat. “I’m too hot with it on.”

"Fine,” she said. “I’ll take it.”

He handed the hoodie to her.

“Turn around,” she said, undoing the straps of her overalls. Elion turned, clapping his hands over his eyes. “I swear, if you peek, I will cut your throat and dump you back into the river,” she said.

"I would never,” he declared.

He heard sounds of Keyla undressing; squishing noises as she rang out her shirt.

“What’s taking so long?” he asked, hearing the wet whipping sound of overalls being removed.

“I’m trying to ring out my pants,” she said. “Unless you happen to have a spare pair?”

“I could always put my armor back on,” Elion said.

“What happens if you put on clothes while you’re Ascended?” Keyla asked. “Would they disappear when you Power Down and come back when you Power Up again?”

“I don’t know,” Elion said. “You’re the expert here. What happens when you do it?”

“I’m an Artificer,” she shot back. “My clothes stay on all the time.”

“Well I’m not a magical stripper if that’s what you’re suggesting,” Elion said. “I’m a Knight of Dawn.”

“Yeah,” Keyla said. “You have to do something about that armor if you want anyone to take you seriously.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t make fun of my clothes when you’re literally wearing them.”

“Okay I’m done,” Keyla said.

Elion turned around, opening his eyes. She had put his hoodie on underneath her damp overalls. A few stray strands of hair had dried, freeing themselves from behind her ear and floating around her face. Her blue eyes shone, as she gazed at him with an intentness he hadn’t seen before.

Her face did not harden as she looked at him. Their eyes met, and a silent understanding passed between them. The lingering tension in the air drowned everything else out. Keyla bit the inside of her cheek, her eyebrows furrowing slightly as freckles danced across her cheeks.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Elion said. “I feel like a motorcycle you’re about to repair.”

Keyla laughed and glanced down at the ground. “Thank you for helping me,” she said. “I judged you harshly when you showed up, and I was wrong. You were really brave to fight those scavengers without even knowing what your abilities were.”

“Thanks,” Elion said. “I am curious, though. The first time I ever saw you you glared at me. Does it have something to do with that other Aurelian who was here?”

Keyla nodded. “I thought you were just another Aurelian, like Prator.”

“What did he do?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Keyla said. “A lot of people followed him, believing in his lies about rebuilding New Kairn Tol. My mother went with him. I worried that you were here to do the same. But that’s besides the point.” She wiped a tear from her eye. “Thank you for trying to help. I don’t think Prator would have done that.”

Elion sat on a branch beside Keyla, folding his arms across his chest. “You did the same for me, running out to provide cover.”

“Hah. I was just worried about protecting Gorman’s equipment.” Keyla gasped, clapping her hands to her cheeks.

“Yeah… about that…” Elion said. “Is that what caused the explosion? Or was there something else in the dock house?”

Keyla clasped her head in her hands. “He’s going to kill me! He’s going to be so mad.”

A strange urge rolled through Elion; and he nearly wrapped his arm around the girl’s shoulders. He resisted, imagining Keyla punching him in the throat.

“Would the other crates have blown up like that if we dropped them?” Elion asked. “I just don’t think I fully grasped how careful we were supposed to be with those.”

“Maybe,” Keyla said with a shrug. “Gorman said to be careful with them.”

“I’m sure he’ll understand,” Elion said, but he was thinking about the way that Keyla had frozen up on the docks, standing there, letting the scavenger woman shoot him.

“What happened back there, anyways?” he asked. “Why did you stop shooting?”

Keyla shrank into herself, tucking her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

“You can’t tell anyone,” she whispered. “You can’t tell anyone that I froze up.”

“I won’t,” Elion said.

“Promise!” Keyla demanded.

“Okay, fine, I promise! As long as you promise not to tell anyone about my armor.”

“You mean your underwear?” Keyla asked with a smirk. “I was going to get a lot of mileage out of that.”

“What happened on the docks stays on the docks,” Elion said. “You don’t tell, I don’t tell.”

“Deal,” Keyla said. She glanced around, tongue working in her mouth as she searched for words.

“I thought that scavenger—that woman—was my mother,” she said finally.