Crow dropped to his knees, as much from regret as exhaustion. The sun embraced him in its warmth, crowds filled his ears in their excitement, yet he barely felt either. Grime and frigid water still clung to him completely enough to kill the heat.

He knelt for what felt like days.

Slowly, his eyes were drawn upwards to the other contestants. Studying his own team and the enemy, almost fearful that they might be uninjured enough to prove him the weakest link.

Astra caught his eye first, lying flat on her back and breathing more heavily than he’d ever seen. He might have thought her dead, were the ragged gasps not so obvious. Instead he couldn’t help but turn to her enemy, Amelia. Felt his heart still at the girl’s casual, unscathed appearance.

She stood tall and proud, yet apparently indifferent to all around her. Eyes on the sky, feet moving fidgetively. Placid smile on her face speaking of calm satisfaction rather than any thrill or excitement.

Crow stared at the girl for moments longer, eyes strangely stuck on her. Then a shrieking voice snapped his attention back around.

It was Faroah who’d called out. Faroah, the boy who’d fought him in silence even while bones were on the verge of breaking and teeth straining to stay where they sat. He stared at Unity with a hatred that might have burned flesh.

Unity met the glare unflinching, and Crow found a sudden dread at the boy’s sight.

Every inch of him was stained in thick grease, marked by rapidly drying red or clumps of darker, visceral grunge. Clothes, hair, face; not a scrap of him had been spared the mess- save for his back. As if he’d been covered in a single spray, striking face first.

It pooled at his feet, Crow saw. Sloughed from him in droplets by the rain falling from his clothes, leaving a coloured puddle around him, yet seeming to make his body no cleaner. Crow felt sick as he stared and watched, both with fear for where the mess came from and disgust at its volume.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?” Cried Faroah again. This time Crow understood the boy’s fear, and fury, for he saw no sight of Unity’s opponent. Terror took root in him as he stepped towards his teammate. The boy didn’t seem to even notice.

Just met the screaming Kanan’s eye with a vacant stare, shrugging as though it were a triviality.

Faroah took off in a sprint, boots cracking the ground as magic hastened them. Unity stared as he neared, watching him for each of the thirty yards. Still did nothing at all but stand.

Then there was a blur just as the Kanan seemed about to reach his target. Something tearing through air faster even than him, colliding with the boy mid-flight and bringing him to an instant stop.

When Crow’s eyes adjusted, he saw the Princess of Taiklos holding Faroah in a grip to shame vices. Fingers tight around his wrist, pinning one arm behind his back and holding the other out before them both.

He struggled impotently, mysticism no more effective than the might of a child. Alabaster barely moved an inch for all his thrashing, her face still a mask of steel and severity, murmuring something Crow couldn’t hear into the boy’s ear. It seemed only to agitate him further.

“Take your shit-stained skin off me, you fucking pith bitch-” Roared the boy, his struggling redoubled. Alabaster’s face turned harsh and sharp at the words, even Crow could scarcely believe he’d heard them. With a single twist of her hands Faroah was on his knees, crying out and pained past movement at her feet.

She leaned down, whispered to him again. This time the Kanan sagged, fight leaving him as his fists uncurled. Alabaster waited a moment before releasing him, then turned to Crow.

“Boy.” She called out, nearly stopping his heart with the weight of her focus.

“Yes?” Crow answered.

“Take your teammates back to the Crux and leave. Quickly.”

The urgency in her voice left him confused for a moment. Then the crowd’s roaring voices hit him like the stage’s winds had just minutes before. Furious, outraged. Dangerous.

To hear such anger held by so many at once left him stunned with fear, and it was only the Princess repeating her order that sent Crow moving.

Lavastro stared out into the hateful faces before her, felt a spark of fear in her gut at their sheer mass. A half million people meeting her gaze, and seemingly each one of them was on the verge of riot.

That there were doubtless mystics amidst them only added fuel to the flame of her worries.

“We have just witnessed a great tragedy.” She said, forcing her voice level and washing every inch of the shifting masses with her eyes. They made noise enough that Lavastro feared her words wouldn’t reach them, even enhanced by the Sieve’s magic. It proved a pointless worry, for embittered voices soon answered her proclamation.

I can speak to them. She thought, forcing herself to focus on the fact. If my words can reach their ears, they can reach their wills. There’s still a chance to use this.

And so Lavastro spoke. Briskly, swiftly and clearly. Fearing that just a Taik’s sight might be spark enough to ignite the crowd’s rage and give way to violence. She sang the dead boy’s praises, spoke of the Sieve’s failure in saving him. Allotted blame, claimed responsibility with shaky enough reasoning that all would soon cease to believe she was at fault. Slowly moving towards her true goal.

This is where I make my move.

The thought left her mouth dry. It was one thing to passively defy her fellow organisers, quite another to move against the Alliance with impunity.

Lavastro pressed on regardless, raising her voice and burying her fear.

“I imagine you’ve all heard tell of Unity Eden’s exploits before now. There is no shortage of rumours surrounding the boy, most of which I myself have heard. Some of which are true.”

She paused, let her declaration sink in for a moment. Continued.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“I had more than enough information to be aware of his nature, and still I failed to act. Failed to fight for his exclusion or control half as much as I should have. My failure cost a child his life today, and I will live with that forever. But I intend that today’s death be the last.”

The protesting cries and roars began to die, giving way for conspiratorial whispers. Wondering, no doubt, what exactly the signs were.

They would continue wondering for days, perhaps weeks, until Lavastro retracted her statement, claimed to have misspoken from shock and grief. Having waited long enough for her words to let hearsay spread like gangrene through all of Unix.

Words, and whatever else she could bring herself to do. However much damage Lavastro could inflict against Unix’s poster child.

“I’ll cut this short.” She called out. “For there are far more important things in this world than a speech, and far more pressing matters than my promises. Good day.”

Lavastro left the arena without another word, moving briskly. Adrenaline making her legs quick beneath her, sharpening her senses and thoughts to a blade’s edge. She’d barely turned a corner when crimson eyes met her own, halting her through sheer presence.

Unity Eden’s brother stood before her, face like a thunderstorm.

“That was fast of you.” The man snarled. “But then you’re He’aran’s daughter through and through, aren’t you? Never slow to snatch an edge, regardless of where it comes from.”

She had little time for him, circling around as she answered. He moved with her, following shoulder to shoulder.

“Did you expect an apology from me?” Lavastro asked. “That I would seek forgiveness?”

“I don’t, I know you’d never give it. You’d need to see your actions as wrong for that to happen.”

“And my doing so is hindered by the fact that they were entirely right.” She shot back, unable to resist.

Boots rang out behind them, near silent even in the corridor’s echoes. Kleidra.

“You think it’s right to try and burn down a boy’s life for what you know was an accident?”

“An accident.” She spat. “You speak so surely. As if it’s to be accepted without thought.”

“Don’t insult your own intelligence by faking doubt. We’ve both touched Atirstam, both know the effects it has. Unity was burning half his potency on that alone, and his situation was hardly a normal one to begin with. There’s plenty of fifteen year-old boys who’d make worse mistakes with less cause.”

She grunted, acknowledging the point.

“Nonetheless, Eden is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“For what?” Unison growled. “Your own reputation?”

“My empire’s.” She corrected, then stopped herself before adding more. Stopped herself too late.

“Oh.” The boy murmured, as if thinking aloud. “Of course. You’re playing a longer game. Undermining the Alliance however you can, this is just one attempt among many.”

She didn’t miss his disapproval.

“I wasn’t aware you had any loyalty to your own empire.” Lavastro remarked. It earned her an icy laugh.

“Oh I don’t. Not compare to yours. The child you condemned to damage it, on the other hand, is my fucking brother.”

“Child.” Lavastro repeated. “You keep using that word, as if I should be swayed by his age alone.”

“Any half decent person would be.”

“Any half decent person would acknowledge a monster when they saw it, regardless of blood or youth. Do you think I brought attention to the rumours around your brother without reason? There are many. And I wasn’t lying to say many are true.”

“You talk as if rudeness and leachery are enough to condemn a boy at his age.”

“Not any boy.” Lavastro answered, turning to gaze fully at the crimson-eyed man as she did. “But some, without a doubt. Unless you’re among the intellectual cowards who lives in a world of mystics and inepts, only to claim all are born equal.”

“Magic is different from a mind and you know it.” He shot back. “Unless you’re one of the intellectual cowards who thinks the Alliance’s nobility are all competent as well as mystical.”

“We’ve both spoken to your brother enough to see his mind’s remarkable nature for what it is. Would you claim any could make a polymath at fifteen?”

“No.” He answered, almost begrudgingly. Lavastro continued.

“Then, if we agree that the principle that disparities in ability can be present from birth is sound, it should follow that other mental attributes can differ likewise.”

Unison laughed a mocking laugh.

“You’re claiming Unity is the way he is from an accident of birth?”

“Would you claim otherwise? Many have grown in his circumstances, few have mirrored his attitude or mannerisms. Save for other artificials. It seems to require the least assumptions, saying the boy’s mind is as wrong as his body.”

Unison said nothing for a few moments, then continued slowly.

“It’s Taikan philosophy to let the wheat rise from the chaff, right?”

She nodded.

“So what happens to the chaff?”

“It sinks.” Lavastro answered. “Dragged down by its own weight. Better, though, if it’s sacrificed so that it might do some good for the wheat instead.”

Unison stared at her with an intensity Lavastro had rarely seen. She mirrored it in answer.

“And what if you’re wrong? What if those you condemn had just as much potential, but were unlucky enough to wear it less obviously?”

“That’s why I was chosen as my father’s heir. Because the stupid or unremarkable can’t be trusted to make such decisions.”

“So you justify choosing people’s fates for them with the belief that no one could do it better than you. Forgive me if that system doesn’t flood me with confidence.”

“What would your alternative be?” She asked. “Difuse resources across all evenly? Waste what could be spent allowing those on the verge of excellence to reach their true potential, while still failing the many who are inept or twisted enough to waste your efforts?”

“If it means letting people choose their own lives? Yes.” He answered, a challenge in his tone. “Better that than all having their existences decided by the impression they leave as children.”

“And how far do you take that?” She demanded. “Do you handwave signs of a killer? What of actual deaths by their hand, how long would you force yourself to hesitate and deny certainty? How much would you be willing to ignore on the basis of youth?”

The man paused for a few moments, making no sound but the trudging of his footfalls. When he next spoke, it was with a lower voice. Heavier. More certain.

“Action is where I draw the line, not words or potential. That’s the only place anyone can afford to draw it”

“And what if you’re wrong? What if you interfere with no fewer lives than I, by subjecting them to a burdensome influence while denying its flaws?”

“Then I’ll have failed in doing the right thing.” He said. “Now what if you’re wrong in deciding what does or doesn’t indicate someone is beyond saving? How many innocents will be ostracised and condemned by your order in the time it takes you to figure it out?”

“As few as possible.” She said, finding herself suddenly quiet.

Unison met her gaze, eyes hard. Face granite.

“And how few is that?.” He answered. “When you’re making decisions this early, this totally?”

The man turned away down another corridor, leaving Lavastro to her thoughts without another word. She picked her pace up again after a moment, irritation suddenly worming its way into her.

From the corner of her eye, she caught Kleidra staring at her. Face unreadable, eyes cold.

It wasn’t hard to guess which side of the debate he’d fallen onto. An unpopular truth had always been her curse.