Sey gave me no warning. The moment we’d passed below the ridge and entered the gentle slope of the valley floor, perhaps half a kilometer from the others, she struck.

Faster than a human, and much faster than before, she threw a punch into my side and kicked off me, angling her wings as if to fly away. Despite her newfound physical prowess, I was still just a little bit faster than was fair.

I caught her ankle. And, rather than clawing her up, I threw her. Down—and hard.

Crimson wings twitching, Sey rocketed down the animal path and collided with a small tree, shattering it into splinters overlaid with a puff of snow. I dashed forward to meet her down the slope, trees flashing by me and chunks of compacted snow flying up from my every step.

As I reached the lingering edge of the cloud, the wind whipped up, hot and furious. Just in time, I rolled to the side to avoid a barrage of blindingly bright feathers of holy light. They seared into the snow in a line, blowing holes through trees where they impacted.

Out from the wind, Seyari flew at me like a shooting star. My own wind tried to blow her off course, but her powerful wings fought it, glowing at their forward edges like twin blades of light. Unable to dodge completely even though I spun with my tail as a counterweight, I threw both my left fists forward in a double punch.

I caught her in her side, and she caught me in mine. White hot pain erupted from my shoulder to my hip, and I heard Sey grunt as my fists punched into her side. Bones snapped and she spun away from me, landing in a heap as I rocked back on my tail and took a knee.

Immediately, my left hands shot to my injured side. But… the pain was already fading. While my palms came away coated in crimson that steamed in the air, I could feel the wound stitching closed. It felt… not any worse than other magic.

Will I ever get used to this? Is this the edge I’ll need?

Unfortunately, while I was thinking, my wife was recovering. By the time I looked up, she had a blade of searing light held against the side of my neck.

“Yield,” she said.

“I yield,” I answered, shoulder slumping.

Sey looked over where my wound had been and her silver eyebrows shot up. “I thought I’d hit you better than that.”

“Can I stand?” I asked, already pushing myself up. Sey nodded, so I stood fully and continued, “I think you did hit me better than that. I felt it in my bones. And speaking of bones, is your healing faster?”

Seyari waved a hand in a so-so gesture. “A little? Mostly, I just feel like my old self again…” She glanced skyward.

“That’s not true, is it?” I ventured.

“It’s… I don’t know. I don’t want to be anything other. I want to be me, to be free.”

I pulled her into a hug, and jolted as her wings wrapped around me. “You said you were though.”

“I am, but. Well, I—”

“It’s hard to really think it’s true? That the nightmare could really be over?”

“Renna?”

“Yeah?”

“You know what that’s like, don’t you? Damn.” Seyari pulled away and plopped down on the ravaged earth, surprising me by pulling her knees in close. “I guess it’s not just that. It’s that I feel like I woke up, but the good parts of the nightmare are still there and I shouldn’t have them.”

“You deserve them,” I replied, sitting down next to her and leaning my shoulders against hers. “And more besides, but that’ll come in time. So… what about that ‘self’ comment now?”

“I… have my strength back. But my wings are crimson and I’m getting used to not biting my tongue with my new teeth or tearing whatever I’m trying to grab with my claws. Really, how the fuck do you get by with those daggers on your fingers?”

I splayed a hand out in front of me, tracing along one obsidian claw with another. Are they a little longer? “I got used to them.” I shifted the blades away. “And I cheat. But no changing the subject.”

Seyari sighed and pushed at my tail with one wing. I shifted the big limb over us and she pulled it behind her knees, wrapping around it to lay her head against my warmth. “What I’m not sure how to say is that it feels the same but different. And even though I know that’s not the case, that this me is just me, I’m worried it’s your influence. In a bad way. That I’ve traded one master for another.”

“But you know you haven’t? I can’t feel any sort of magical tether to you other than that magical feeling I get when you pose just right.”

Sey laughed tiredly. “Yeah. I just… wanted to be past this.”

“You are.”

“I’m not.”

“You are. It just never totally goes away. You can’t stop remembering.”

“Do you…”

I nodded. “But I’m not going to make this about me.”

Sey exhaled through her nose and closed her eyes. “Thanks.”

“Sey, if there’s anything I can do for you, I will.”

“Me too.”

I blinked.

“Felt like I should say it. Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

I nodded.

“You know what you can do for me right now?”

“What?”

“Let me train you. Hard. I know that’s an old uniform because it has that one sauce stain on it. And I know your clothes don’t tend to survive. But it’s not anything I haven’t seen if it comes to it. Same goes for you to me. I’m tougher than I probably ever was, even if I’m decades out of practice.

“So let me show you how to fight demons and angels and humans alike. Kartania can take care of Joisse for now. Give me one day out here in the wilds.”

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“Sure!”

“I’m not done. There’ll be more than just fighting. I’m going to hurt you Renna. I’m going to go for your weak spot and I need you to tell me you understand that until the sun hits its midpoint tomorrow that everything is just training. No matter how dire.”

Now, I was worried. “Uhhh…”

Seyari opened her eyes and looked up at me. “Your heart is your greatest strength and weakness both, my love. Corny as it may sound, it’s absolutely true. You can—will—be a great leader in a way I can’t be. But you need to harden your heart.”

“But—”

“More.”

“There are lines I won’t cross.”

“And I’ll help you find those. Because the last thing you want to do is realize you’re stuck at a critical moment. Or worse… realize you’ve crossed them and there’s no going back.”

“Sey…”

“Not now, Renna. You’ve already helped me move on. Just promise me this. Promise me this right now.”

“Promise what?”

Seyari reached up and ran her hand along my chin, holy-magic-laced claws lovingly scouring lines into my flesh. “Promise me that you’ll train for the next full day without break or mercy and that you know I love you.”

“I promise.” I nodded solemnly.

“Good.” Seyari stood and threw my tail to the ground. “Now get up and face me. We’re going to start with my version of the basics, including some spell forms. You have wind magic now, and your fire is still either raw or haltingly constrained. Your training starts now.”

I scrambled up after Seyari. “I’m ready.”

***

I threw a feint spell after Seyari, then ducked under, going again for her wing joint. She saw through me, but my tail was ready and forced her out. Earlier, she’d called my fighting style “feral,” but she’d also told me to lean into it.

At the same time, I lacked reach, and using my tail and my magic could only go so far. Without weapons, however…

Seyari blocked one of my incoming hands, but the other raked her side. In return, powerful feather-shaped lances of light drilled into my side and the arm I’d used to cover my head.

As far as I was concerned, she really was trying to kill me. And she’d given me little choice but to return the favor. At first, I’d worried about her, but she’d proven her decades of experience quickly.

It was incredible how much her fighting style was determined by her wings. And she was unarmed still.

We pushed apart, circling in the air. My wings were still inefficient—half a day wouldn’t change that—but Sey wasn’t going to fight me on the ground. I looked at her, burned, battered, and bright-eyed under a stern expression.

She didn’t smile when she fought. Didn’t revel in it. But I wondered how much of that was a mask.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t wonder for long. She divebombed me again, though my fire burned ever closer. I’d thought of lighting up the sky with my fire to get her, but if I missed, I’d end up stuck on the ground.

And I still don’t want to kill her. She’s not going to be able to change that.

I had no choice but to descend, flying low into the scorched impact crater my butt had made when she’d shown me what trying to ignore her wind could mean. The boom from that impact still rung in my ears.

My wings flickered. Truthfully, I was still fine for magic, but I’d played the long game since we’d started, feigning a lower mana capacity. With how much it’d increased the past few months, I had to hope Sey bought it.

No other game would get past her.

So when I kicked up off the ground, the slowest point of my maneuver, Sey fired. A veritable torrent of slicing light blew around me, caging me in and closing rapidly.

My own control over wind wasn’t great enough to break it, and she knew that. I didn’t, however, use wind to break through.

I used fire. Air had a tendency to behave less well for wind magic with a torrent of my flames punching through it. I readied my hands, surprised at how clear my mind was as I set up the spell I’d only just learned. My aura sight just barely showed the bright blob where Seyari was through her spell.

Right as the blinding gale reached me, I fired.

A column of crimson fire, wide as I was tall, erupted out of the wind. I watched its blinding aura impact Seyari’s. Immediately, the spell around me faltered. My wife’s aura flickered, and she started to drop.

In an instant, panic gripped my heart. She couldn’t have… That wouldn’t…

I tore through the last of her spell, uncaring of how it burned into me as I half-sprinted, half-flew toward where she was falling. Half-burned crimson feathers fell in a trail behind her.

Seyari cracked through a stand of trees and into a patch of rocky snow. She lay there, wings and skin burnt, aura flickering. Her body was bent, but she was alive and twitching.

“Sey!” I shouted. “Oh, Dhias, no!”

She moaned, and I ran for her, hoping and fearing as her aura flickered again, growing dim. No way. No no no no no…

I reached her and propped her up, her skin warm and tingling against my hands. “Sey!” I shroud again, at a loss.

I can’t heal her. But… Joisse might be able to.

“Hold on!” I lifted her, and she moaned again.

Her skin was blackened in places, and her wings were scorched to bone at the tips, most feathers gone. Still, they twitched. She must have blocked with them.

I lifted her into a princess carry and summoned my wings again, uncaring for efficiency as they blazed to life and bore us skyward. I need to get to Joisse.

Tearing through trees, I shot up, and then over, flying with full magic. The air around me thickened into a barrier, and I poured the rest of my power into my flight, breaking through with a boom that shook the trees below.

Immediately, I felt the first twinges of mana exhaustion.

“Renna…” Sey murmured, only the echo of her voice carrying past the rushing wind.

“Yes?” I choked, looking down at her.

In my arms, Seyari’s aura flared to full life. Burned skin flaked away, and her hands, with blinding blades of light, flashed up and at my neck.

I barely had time to react—she’d never moved so fast. My hand came up to block, and I saw blinding radiance right as she kicked off me, using my own speed against me. My wings winked off and I fell. Seyari turned from a blur to a dot in moments, and I barely felt the trees that I smashed through.

I did, however, feel the ground. I impacted harder than earlier, bones snapping as I crashed against rock.

When the sound stopped, I laid there, breathing heavily and feeling the bits of ribs grind against each other as my exhausted mana tried to repair my body. The worst of it was the heat around one hand—I couldn’t even feel it.

When I managed to move the arm, I understood why. The hand I’d blocked with was gone. And the flesh of the stump was roiling, bone creaking. I guess I can regrow limbs.

But… not right now.

I fell back again, looking up at the innocent sky from my position in the crater. Seyari hadn’t faked those injuries. All she’d done was conceal her aura, feigning weakness just as I had. I should’ve known she wasn’t that close to depleted.

She’d tested me, and I’d failed.

So I leaned back and closed my eyes, pain keeping the blackness away as I listened for familiar wingbeats above me.

Honestly, I’m just glad she’s safe. This sucked.

***

Up in the sky above the crater, Seyari looked down at her love, watching the steady, but dim glow of Zarenna’s aura. She exhaled, then looked down at her shaking hands; the one that’d regrown was covered in blood. Just as much as Zarenna, she’d been testing herself.

And she’d failed. Failed in the best way possible.

I wouldn’t ever be able to bring myself to kill her, she thought. Just like Zarenna had stayed away from her most powerful magic, Seyari had stopped her last blow the moment it had gone through her wife’s hand. Even if Zarenna was now the first demon she’d ever seen who wasn’t vulnerable to holy magic, holy magic was still effective.

She’d watched, frozen, as the hand had fallen, trailing steaming blood. Her heart hurt at the image that was seared into her mind.

The Sovereign of Wrath should be able to regrow it.

Still. Seyari had hesitated. She wasn’t the monster she’d used to be, even if what she’d asked of Zarenna had been unfair and selfish. Her love had already learned that lesson.

Renna had just decided where her line was. And now, Seyari knew hers again.

And her line had moved.

Seyari descended slowly, wings still healing, and sat next to Zarenna on the shattered rock. She ran her hand through her love’s hair, long since flung out of its braid to fan out below her, and the demon opened her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” Renna said.

Seyari shook her head. “Don’t be. I asked you something selfish because I was worried about myself, what I’ve become.”

“Did you get your answer?” Renna asked, eyes falling closed again as she breathed deeply.

“Yeah.”

“Good.”

“Not gonna ask what it was?”

“Nope. I have a pretty good guess, and you’d be mad if we destroyed a forest for something I could’ve told you.”

“Do you now?”

“Mhmm.”

“Care to tell me?” Seyari leaned down.

All she got in response was heavy breathing as Zarenna drifted away to sleep for the first time in days. Already, Seyari saw that her love’s hand was starting to regrow.