“You’re nervous about something.” Chaths said, trying to keep his voice steady as he spoke. Steady like pearlsteel, yet as warm as a blanket.

It was a balance he’d practiced little, difficult enough to attain that each attempt left him with a new awe for Kaiosyni’s mastery. By the sharpness of Ajoke’s eyes, he came no closer than usual.

“If you hadn’t noticed,” The girl snapped, “I’m about to charge out and fight a monster twice as powerful as me in front of a million people. Some might say that’s cause enough for a little nervousness.”

“Some might not be the child of an Immortal. Some might not have spent more time pitted against mystics or magical monsters to prove their worth than they did resting easy as a child. Some might-”

Ajoke cut him off with an irritated growl.

“You’ve made your point.” The Írìsi barked, sighing as she leaned against the curved wall.

There were mere minutes until she was expected in the arena, but both Ajoke and Chaths had grown accustomed to spending such time with leisure. The tunnel was dark even near noon, thick stones shielding it from the light outside. Still some of the sun’s fingers traced the surfaces around them, sneaking in through the entrance fifty paces ahead to warm their skin and catch their eyes.

It was perhaps the nicest day Chaths had seen reach Udrebam. Clouds proving scarce in the sky, cold banished far from the city. After weeks of darkness and frost, it almost reminded him of Jyptia.

Were he the sort to put stock in omens, he might have taken it as a good one.

“Did I make my point well enough for you to actually tell me what it is that’s made you so nervous?”

Chaths tried a different strategy, abandoning force and severity altogether. Plastering his face with the smile that had moved so many lips and coinpurses before. As usual, Ajoke didn’t even blink at it.

“Have you considered that, in spite of your masterpiece of a face, I may simply not wish to share this with you?”

“I’d assumed as much.” He answered, honestly. “But I also know you well enough to be certain you’ll tell someone eventually. Given the extent of your nerves, it’s something to do with your family. So you’ll want to talk to Remi about it.”

He let the rest go unsaid.

Chaths had no doubt she’d confide in her brother a thousand times more readily than she ever would him. But so too was the boy separated from her by ten thousand leagues, while Chaths stood mere feet away.

It didn’t take long for the mask to crack, weight of her troubles proving too great to restrain.

“You can’t share this with anyone, understood?”

“I understand.” Chaths answered, solemn.

Ajoke’s face had softened as she spoke. The strong edges deliquescing as worry and trust stripped the hostility from them. Her brown eyes smouldered, filling Chaths with a disquieting sensation and forcing him to avert his own after only a moment.

He could flirt like an expert, but even after years of knowing someone, sincerity and beauty was a combination too great to withstand.

When he looked back, Ajoke seemed to have replaced her emotional guard. It was a relief. Just the moments of seeing it lowered had brought back memories of pressing her coal-dark skin against his own.

“It’s my father.” She said at last, waiting half a moment more before pressing on. “I made a mistake, and he’s given me a task as punishment. I don’t have the option of failing.”

“And I suppose being as vague as possible is vital in success.” He cut in, dryly.

The look passing across her face made Chaths’ mistake clear in an instant.

“I’m sorry.” He added. “Please continue.”

Ajoke glared suspisicously for a moment, then exhaled with a slow frustration before doing just that.

“I need to end this year’s Sieve in second place, at the worst.”

There was a true, raw fear in her voice as she finished. Clear enough to infect Chaths.

“What’s the price of failure?” He asked. Ajoke turned from him, hiding her face behind the mass of curling black hair as she began to walk.

“Death.”

Gem hissed as she sat, feeling her tortured ribs shift by agonising millimetres with the motion. It was as if they sat in bags of sealed agony, tearing them open and spilling their contents with the most minute of displacement. Insufferable even a week after her defeat.

“Are you okay?” Asked Crow, concern obvious in his voice. More, unhidden entirely. He placed a hand on her shoulder, leaning over and affixing her with such a piercing look from his emerald eyes that the annoyance was burned from her entirely.

It was impossible to fault the boy for his patronising worry. Had Eden made the same blunder, Gem would have assumed it stemmed from malice. Simple negligence at best. With Crow, she realised it was mere simplicity. He didn’t see sympathy as something to take humiliation from receiving, bless him.

A man couldn’t be faulted for blind protectiveness, she supposed.

“I’m fine.” She assured him. “Just jarred myself for a moment, it’s nothing to worry about.”

“We can head back to the Crux if you’d like.” Crow pressed, apparently unwilling to let the matter rest. “There’s no need for you to remain here if you’re in pain. In fact I’d much prefer you rest properly and heal faster.”

“I said I’m fine.” Gem repeated, unable to keep the annoyance entirely from her voice. “Don’t fuss over me like a child. I’ll tell you if I’m truly hurting.”

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

The perpetual softness of Crow’s face, endless warmth of his eyes and light, tufted hair gave him the air of a young child at times. Seemingly whenever Gem tried to aim a harsh word at him. It was almost impossible to chastise the boy without feeling guilt sprout in her belly.

“Sorry.” He mumbled, taking a seat beside her. Gem sat in silence for all of ten seconds before the urge to move past overwhelmed her.

“What do you think about Deka?” She asked.

Crow seemed surprised by the question, though it was difficult to tell with his eternally widened eyes. He certainly took his time in answering.

“You mean her chances?”

“I mean everything about her.” Gem answered, noticing the sudden caution in the boy. “Her chances, of course. But also her motivations. Her capabilities, perhaps most importantly of all. She seemed far more confident than her power warrants, didn’t she?”

It wasn’t lost on Gem how rich it must have been to hear such a thing remarked on by her, but Crow made no mention of it. Whether polite or merely oblivious, she wasn’t sure.

“She did.” The boy agreed, nodding hesitantly. “And I think she’s too smart to be that confident without a reason. It seems to me like she’s hiding something, or at least privy to something the rest of us aren’t.”

“She’s spent few or none of her credits before now.” Gem noted. “Perhaps she’ll enter the arena wielding enough relics to even the playing field.”

Tension seemed to leave the boy as he nodded.

“Perhaps.”

It was all Gem needed to see. He’d no true faith in Deka, no true hope she could succeed and prove her own confidence justified.

Gem had suspected his vote had been to curry favour in the girl. The reaction all but confirmed it.

“Are you alright?” He asked.

“Yes.” She lied, turning back to the arena. “Just getting tired of waiting for the task to begin.”

A silence fell over them soon after, pressing hard against the constant buzz of the crowd beneath and lasting right up until Elijah Sorafin strode out into the arena’s centre. It still felt strange to see him stand where Karma had; wrong in a way. Gem wondered what her friend was focusing enough to forego her duty.

She barely paid the event any attention as it dragged on; Ajoke Balogun entering first, followed by a giant of a Unixian boy. She perked up as her own team’s turn came, staring to watch as Astra Tempora made her way into the arena.

The girl moved unimpeded by her injuries, making it clear to Gem in an instant that she’d finished off the last of her own credits on restorative relics.

Her blonde hair was tied back like the tail of a horse, olive skin seeming flushed in the harsh light from above. Every step the girl took seemed hesitant, her former confidence nowhere to be seen.

Gem suddenly felt a great pity for her, sorrow more acutely still.

She looked back to the childish bickering they’d indulged in, how immediately her and Tempora had been at one another’s throats. She’d thought the girl stuck up, at first. Arrogant and bearing dreadful delusions of grandeur.

But their talk had opened her eyes painfully wide. With a stark clarity she realised how fortunate the order of events had been. Had Astra been wounded and humiliated first, Gem would doubtless have lorded the fact over her. She ought to have been thankful to see the kindness she did when her own destruction came.

No wonder we were so at odds. We’re impossibly similar. Gem mused. No wonder we’ve fallen into some semblance of civility. She differs from me in all the ways that count.

Thinking back to Karma’s words brought a needed warmth to her thoughts, dragging them from their pessimistic depths, yet leaving her yearning to speak with her friend again more than ever.

Even that, she knew, was a long way off. Duty and disaster separating them as surely as the sea had just months prior. Gem’s mood soon sank again as she mulled over the misfortune that had assaulted her so endlessly in Udrebam.

Astra’s introduction had ended by the time she focused on the event once more, but Gem steeled herself against further distraction. Her concentration returned just in time to see Deka emerge.

The girl had changed since Gem had seen her last, the passing of mere hours transforming her with a startling completion. Her features were no different; skin still ebon, hair still acorn-brown and tustled, body still slight and minute as only a luminar’s could be.

And so clear was the unseen, ephemeral disparity in the girl that she couldn’t have doubted it if she’d tried.

Deka had a strength to her, suddenly. Deeper and more tangible than any Gem had seen, save perhaps in Karma. A whim took her, and she tightened her focus to peer at the girl with eyes of magic rather than substance. She wasn’t surprised by the result.

“Pit.” She whispered, excitement building in her. “She has the flickering.”

“The what?”

Crow was leaning towards her now, sounds of the crowd having grown enough to leave conversation all but impossible otherwise.

Gem explained quickly, almost certainly poorly. She’d no patience for trivialities at the best of times.

The boy leaned back in his seat as he listened. Paying unbroken attention while she spoke of the flaw that left so many mystics with such a variable grip on their power.

“So she’s stronger now?” He asked.

She almost considered telling him to be silent and turning away, seeing from the corner of her eye how near the task was to beginning. Instead Gem nodded.

“How much stronger?” He asked.

Turning back fully to Deka, Gem let her eyes take in the vortex of magic wrapping itself around her. Technicoloured, discordant, unrestrained and wild in every sense of the world. Creation itself splitting and bleeding around her.

It was half again as much power as she’d observed all those weeks ago, when she’d first met the girl. Had Gem seen it back then she’d doubtless have dismissed the girl no less readily.

“Much.” She said at last, not turning to him as she did. Not able to bring her eyes from the beautiful aberration of Deka’s power.

They both fell silent as the ceremony’s conclusion drew near. Gem felt a sting she’d not expected as she watched; hope.

***

Deka’s heart drowned out the crowd somehow. It beat too loud to be recognizable. Too loud even to resemble a drum. Every thud running through her like meeting mountains.

She took solace in the sound, for however little it hid the crowd’s chatter.

“Are you all ready?” Asked the man, scraping the contestants with his icicle gaze. Deka shuddered as it passed over her.

All nodded, all seemed to wear a mask of steel. Deka eyed the competition carefully, Ajoke Balogun and the towering giant both made a fierce sight. She wondered how much truth lay behind their facades, how strongly urged they felt to show the trembling and shuddering of fear.

Then her curiosity was crushed as the organiser nodded and began to move back.

“Then it begins.” He said quietly. Surely heard by the contestants alone.

Deka felt mountains move in her once more, this time one of fear grinding against the mass of her composure. She fought to steady her breathing, fought harder to steady her face. Hardest of all to keep a hold on the meagre scrapings of magic that had finally trickled through the cracks in her spineless stupor.

It was chance that saw her eyes lock with Astra’s, and a fortunate one. Deka saw a cool, steady acceptance in her friend. Felt it seep through their matched gazes to freeze the fear and panic swelling in her.

Then the magic around them rose to a crescendo, world closing in like parted water and snatching them through space.