“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” I said, speaking in the language of the White Wombs.

Sinaya’s face, still pained from my glaive in his gut, twisted past minor agonies to award me a comforting smile—I didn’t deserve his smile nor his comfort. Though both, I suppose, came by way of his own volition; the language of the White Womb we’d faced before had gone undetected by anyone but me. Meaning, my mouth moved and his ears couldn’t listen. A minor blessing, as my own words were senseless—truth and lie braided together.

I wanted to hurt him…when, “him,” was the Angler Knight. I’d never want to hurt him…when, “him,” was my gentlebutch, Sinaya. Two truths, two lies, and my heart unfurling like the wreckage of his helm, floating in the wake of this devastating revelation.

He raised a gauntleted hand to my face—the same hand that’d crushed Melissa’s head. That had turned lives into bloody smears. The hand that had gripped my hair when we fucked. That fed me grilled meat. The hand that I pressed my head into, and hated myself for doing.

Sinaya asked, “Orchard, why do you look so sad?”

“Cause if I knew…”

“You’re the rare dragon who got to slay a knight,” he joked. “Though I suppose I should be calling you Nadia, huh?”

“No,” I said, “just keep calling me Orchard. Please.”

Please, don’t wed the halves of ourselves that hate each other. That was the thought which ran through my mind. A bitter irony that saw me come undone by how one love couldn’t see me—this Nadia—as Nadia, and in the other I would rather be anything else but Nadia. If I couldn’t escape that name, that self, that history then how could Sinaya escape his own as the Angler Knight? The halves of ourselves which loathed the other, and stood in opposition to the halves of ourselves which loved one another—Orchard and Sinaya.

His eyes drifted from my face, his head turned, and he regarded the pitiful lights of the towers above us that we fell towards. A beautiful despair settled upon him like a veil.

“Why didn’t you kill me?” he asked.

“Sinaya, you pigheaded idiot, I’d never—.”

“I would’ve finally been free,” he said. “You’d’ve won and I would be free of my interminable compromises—that you got correct. Oh well, it seems—.”

“What? What?” I asked, his words severed at the cusp of sorrow.

I followed his gaze up into the dark where there, cutting through these umbral waters, was a school of Abyss entities en route toward us. Toward me, if I’m being accurate. I was the intruder in their domain, the bright and sharp impossibility that disturbed the purity of this place. Sinaya gripped my chin, directing me back to his eyes that even then were patient with me.

“Nadia—,” he started.

“Call me, Orchard,” I said, pointlessly.

“I’m sorry for everything,” he said. “I’ve done too much and too little to ask anything of you, but please let me be selfish, just this once. Let me go—.”

“No.”

“And leave Brightgate. You have to leave before the third test of the exam,” he said, unable to hear my refusal—knowing him, that wouldn’t have changed anything.

“Alls below you fucking coward, I’m not running,” I yelled. “I’m not leaving you. Whatever is going to happen we can face it—.”

“I’m sorry, Nadia, but goodbye.”

Then he pushed me back with a pressure wave strengthened by the advantage the Underside gave to Sorcery cast within a Court’s domain. My glaive slipped from his body. Three of my arms—one Real and two Conceptual—grasped uselessly at the rapidly expanding distance between us. I wanted to crawl back to him, wring his stupid thick neck, grasp his cheeks, promise him that I wouldn’t listen. That I’d come back for him. Instead, I fell down moving back up the Staircase the axis mundi had created. Slipped through the shrinking portal into Realspace where I found myself ascending up into the air.

Sphinx’s wings battered the air until my ascent and oncoming descent were under control. I hung in the still manner of an ornament, observing as the Staircase closed and my view of Sinaya was shuttered. I drifted to the ground in silence—there wasn’t anything I could say or wanted to say. Sphinx—maybe because she could feel what I felt, at least somewhat—remained silent in support of my mood.

“You did it, alls below you fucking did it!” Lupe yelled.

I turned around just in time for her to slam into me. Her arms locked me in a vise of appreciation and disbelief, while she buried her head against my chest. An action which caused me to realize that I was taller than her. My mind was too focused during the fight to deduce how much taller I was earlier, but this served as a good enough benchmark. It was what I tried to focus on even as she complimented me on wounding the person who’d slain her people and who I unknowingly had screwed.

Her words tapered off into mirthful sobs as too many emotions struggled to flow at once. With three arms—two Real and one Conceptual—I held her close, and with the fourth, I stroked her hair. If anyone deserved comfort, it was her. Though I lifted my head to spy Amber and Melissa standing at a remove as they held each other up. As a team they inched forward—Amber was enraptured, Melissa was…wary.

Melissa asked, “Nadia, is that you?”

“Of course,” I said, doing my best to scrounge up any shreds of confidence to put her at ease. Only to remember that she couldn’t hear me. Melissa tilted her head in confusion, but Amber’s smile grew wider.

“Princess, who else would it be?” Amber asked.

“I don’t know,” she said, “the curse?”

“Nothing this beautiful could ever come from that curse.”

I blushed and looked away in joyful shame—at least I was beautiful in some capacity—only to catch a glimpse of myself in a puddle, the remnant of my battle. In the still and clear water, I saw what my transformation had done to me. Scales that matched my spiritual musculature’s Metallic nature crept up my neck, teased my cheeks, and framed my eyes. Eyes whose pupils had become white four-pointed stars. Two of which, one I shared with my second face that overlapped my own like some spectral reprint, had left behind the illusion of being a physical organ to instead become barely constrained pools of chalcedony fire that flickered like torches. The light of which competed—yet failed to outshine—the silver sickle of a horn that curved from my brow forming the center point of a halo of four-pointed stars that made subtle connections to one another while jutting outward to pierce the air.

My reflection grinned—my fangs had gotten longer as well—and I allowed myself the escape of self-appreciation. A mantle of feathers made of fire bundled at my neck like a gorget, and within them swam a score of eyes. Metallic scales, the hue of cooling steel, speckled across my breasts, stomach, and thighs. Whereupon they coated my calves in their entirety like greaves before my feet terminated in the form of talons that would belong to some raptor. The sight of that departure from the human shape I was acquainted with, incited my tail to whip back and forth in anxious indecision as I didn’t know how to feel. My tail itself was scaled at the base before giving way to an explosion of catlike hairs at its midsection that too looked like fire itself.

Lupe tapped at my side—a sign she was ready to extricate herself from my embrace. I let her go and allowed her to lead me by a claw to where Amber and Melissa stood. I rubbed my free hands against myself to remove the nonexistent sweat that had built up. Licked my lips—which revealed my tongue had forked.

“Temple, how do you feel?” Amber asked.

“Fine, just fine,” I answered, then realized there was no point in answering. “Not like you can hear me, or help.”

“Why can’t we hear her?” Melissa asked.

Lupe asked, “Is she talking?”

“Her mouth is moving.”

“Maybe it’s just in a range we can’t hear.”

Melissa shook her head. “Trust me, if she was I’d have noticed. I have a hearing range that goes up hundreds of kilohertz.”

I rolled my eyes—it didn’t matter what they did, they wouldn’t hear me.

Amber said, “Nadia, you look upset. What happened down there?”

Lupe scoffed, “Why would she look upset? She won. You did win, right?”

Did I win? A bitter laugh escaped my lips. I closed my mouth, thought to myself, keep it down Nadia, just keep this feeling down—and failed.

“Sure, sure, I won,” I said.

I stepped back from them all. Threw my arms out wide as if to embrace the glory that should be awaiting me for my cursed victory.

“I stabbed the Angler Knight in the fucking gut. Unmasked the bastard, and discovered he…” I struggled, “...discovered he was my bathroom hookup. Alls below, could anyone win more than me? Anyone? I didn’t even kill him. For everything he did—I saw and heard him do—I failed to kill him. I won and I lost, and you all can’t even hear me.”

Amber said, “Nadia, it’ll be okay. You just have to calm down—.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down!” I screeched, wings unfurling, flaming feathers and fur standing at attention, and my claws ready to rend all in the perfect threat display.

They stumbled back, and I saw the ghost of their fear return to their faces, the expressions they held when I woke up, muzzled and in a cell. Though now I was out of my cell, and I looked ever more the monster. A thought that doused my rage, but failed to keep my heart from spinning my emotions into a pyroclastic flood of tears. Each of which sizzled as they burned against the stone floor of Fort Tomb.

“I’m sorry,” I said to no one, myself, but really no one.

If anyone could understand me it was the White Womb I’d killed or the ones that were yet to be decanted—if ever they would be. I threw my glaive head first into the stone floor where it sunk in to its base. It was clear of the girls, but they still jumped in fright—the action was rather sudden after all. Then I grasped at my halo—my crown—with all four hands like it was the bars of a cell. Which, in some respect, it was. Whatever dreadful inheritance this was, however useful in a fight it was, I didn’t want it. Not if it meant the only ones who could understand me would be monsters. Abominations that would never experience love—I wonder, was the reveal of the Angler Knight’s identity a punishment by some unknown Sovereign for the crime of existing?

So with all my strength, I wrenched at the stars that circled my head. Pulled and pulled to be free of this barrier between me and my human loves. My muscles burned in the strain of tearing apart Sorcery by brute force, but I’d done it before and I knew I’d do it again if it meant being able to put the girls’ fears to rest. If it’d let me tell Sinaya that I wouldn’t leave him and I’d make sure we’d both be free of our cells one way or another.

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Then, the halo broke. Stars scattered like beads on a broken friendship bracelet, winking away in the air. My Conceptual limbs and face went up in flames before disappearing. Scales and feathers fell from my body only to discorporate before ever touching the ground. Gone went my tail and talons. While my sickle-horn melted back into my forehead as if it was never there. The fangs remained though—they’d been there before the change after all.

I blinked rapidly as I reoriented myself to my original height. Glanced up from beneath my brow to the girls, and offered them a weak smile as compensation.

“I don’t know how you handle all the shapeshifting, Melissa,” I said.

She released a sigh of relief—she could hear me again. “It helps to do some Mutations on your brain first, to trick it into treating the changes as smoother and more natural than they are.”

Amber asked, “Temple, what happened?”

“Down there?” I asked, trepidation quivering in my voice.

“We don’t have to talk about that bit if it’d help,” she said. “I’m more interested in how you turned into that.”

Lupe and Melissa both nodded in agreement. I stretched my back and shrugged—it wasn’t like I actually knew how it happened. Let alone how to tell them without sounding a little “out there” considering part of the process was me talking to something in a cabin inside myself. It didn’t make much sense to me then to be honest.

“I…don’t actually know,” I said. “I dualcast my Inviolate Star, and it kind of went from there. Happened really fast too. I promise, I don’t really know.”

“I don’t like the fact you used that spell,” Melissa said. “I get it was necessary, but who knows how hot you’re burning now.”

“Once we get off this island we can head straight to a hospital,” I said. “This whole condition of mine is probably so weird they’ll pay me, but we should be fine for now. I canceled the—.”

My words died as I choked against what felt like fingers from inside my throat. Nails raking at my esophagus like how Melissa’s cats would claw at their scratching posts. Melissa gasped and Amber’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Alls below, what did your spell do?” Melissa asked.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Lupe said, “Nadia, it looks like there’s a person inside of you.”

Before I could say anything more my voice was cut off again by those fingers. They didn’t scratch at the inside of my throat—no, whatever those fingers belonged to had already learned that wouldn’t work. So this time they pushed. Tenting my skin as it stretched taut beneath their administrations. I clapped my hands at my throat to fight from the outside against what was struggling to pierce my flesh.

In its own countermove, the thing within me began a rapid assault of jabs against my skin from the inside. Tenting the flesh of my arms, my legs, my stomach, everything in search of a weak point where my body would just give. I tried in vain to clamp down where it pushed, but it was like trying to stall the assault of a thousand mosquitoes with only two hands.

Amber ran over to help me—how she would, I don’t know, and wouldn’t find out. The instant she laid a hand against me she withdrew it just as fast, her skin’s outer layers already burnt away, the fat inside popping like lard in a pan. She kept her composure though, and threw a question to Lupe right after.

“What’s Nadia looking like right now?” she asked.

Lupe said, “Bright? The thing in her is brighter even than that, and climbing really fast. So fucking fast. Nadia, I thought you turned the spell off?”

“I did,” I said.

Sphinx, I turned the spell off right? I said telepathically.

From within my spirit, Sphinx replied, “You did, technically, but Nadia just because you douse the lighter doesn’t mean you kill the blaze.”

Well, help me kill it then.

She whispered, “By treaties more ancient than Time, I am not allowed to interfere with a Canonical Path, Nadia.”

Sphinx, what are you talking about? Sphinx? Sphinx!

“Sphinx,” I pleaded, “what’s happening to me?”

Then the thing within me jabbed out at my temple. Stretched my skin to its limits, and sensing the weakness it sought decided to add a small twist of its finger. A puff of air. The skin of my temple sundered. With the roar of a conflagration now freed, chalcedony flame shot forth like a geyser from my forehead.

In the language of entities, we all heard in the crackle of fire the command, “Name me!”

Soon it became a chorus as more fingers of flame punctured my flesh, each gout repeating the same demand to name it? I didn’t know what it meant, and before I could hear anyone’s advice I had flame shooting from my ears. It coated my head—a curtain of Revelatory fire blinding me to anything beyond itself. Consumed my body in a rapid unification of burning borders until there wasn’t a half-inch of flesh in sight.

I stumbled about unable to see or hear. There was just the unending chorus of, “Name me,” being demanded over and over again. My unsteady steps became much steadier when I decided to run. I couldn’t flee from my incendiary coating, but I remembered that it was raining outside. With fragile hope guiding me, I pumped my arms and slapped my feet against the floor in search of the doors that’d lead me from the belly of Fort Tomb back outside.

There was no way for me to tell how long it took, but eventually, I felt my body slam against a door that was left ajar. It sent me spinning out into the pouring rain. Off-balance, I slipped in the mud. Collapsed and slid partially down the hill, Fort Tomb dominated. Rolled and rolled until all my momentum was exhausted, and I found myself on my hands and knees.

“Oh, you just look so sad,” a voice said. “I’m so sorry, that’s probably a weird statement.”

I looked around in worry—I couldn’t fight another enemy like this.

“Oh gosh, Nadia, sweetie we’ve already been over this. You don’t need eyes to see.”

Not an enemy then, but…no, I’d dismissed them all? I blinked on the Omensight—it still worked even then—and through my sheath of flame found myself looking up into a variation of myself. Albeit one with hair that flowed all the way to the mud. That burned like a carpet of fire. Whose expression was sad, aroused, and a bit shameful altogether.

“You…” I groaned. “I dismissed all of you.”

She bobbed her head side-to-side. “Technically, you dismissed us during that meeting from the immediate space of your spirit. We’re still of Revelation, Nadia, there’s not really a way to permanently say goodbye to us until you graduate. Besides, you’re the one who came to me.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

She crossed her index fingers against her thumbs forming small hearts in an Old World fashion. Gifted me a grand smile of serrated triangular teeth. Her eyes thinning in rapturous joy.

“I’m sorry—but also very touched—you’re being unmade, Nadia,” Revelation Unmaking said.

“No, I’m not, I…” I tried to argue, but I was literally on fire.

Revelation Unmaking settled into a primal squat before me.

“You are, but it was bound to happen eventually,” she said. “I mean, you knew your spirit was heating up after every use of the Inviolate Star.”

“But isn’t that spell connected to Revelation Isolating?” I asked.

Revelation Unmaking wobbled her hand in the air. “Sorry, but again only technically. Nadia, we’re all of Revelation. Which means every spell is all of us at once,” Revelation Unmaking said. “That little game, Ferilala Nu-zo played, was just the first step for you to consider how you feel about us—about Revelation. Though it is fair to say that the Inviolate Star has more of Revelation Isolating in it than me. In the same way that Atomic Glory has more of me in it than her. It’s all about proportions and emphasis.”

Slamming my blazing fists into the mud, I sputtered, “What about the spell resistance!”

She leaned back in a subtle cower. “Eeep. Don’t yell at me,” she whined. “You kind of did get it, but that was mainly to protect what was going on inside of you. Honestly, it was a byproduct of the Inviolate Star feeding the entity within you, Nadia. It couldn’t consume all that energy at once, so some of it lingered to help incubate it naturally and keep it from being potentially harmed before it woke back up.”

The flames roared, “Name me!”

In a sudden flare-up, they rocketed me down into the mud before relenting ever so slightly. I struggled back to my knees amidst the applause of raindrops sizzling into steam. Confusion bloomed across my face—if you could see it beneath all the fire.

“What do you mean, ‘woke back up?’” I asked.

Revelation Unmaking said, “Sorry, Nadia, it’d be against Revelation—.”

“To just fucking tell me, I know,” I grumbled. “What’s going to happen to me?”

“Well, what I imagine should’ve happened a long time ago. This mortal sheath will be discarded having out-served its purpose, and changed to better handle the power of an entity. At least, I think so.”

“You think?”

She shrugged. “It’s my first time observing the beginning of a Canonical Path.”

“And that’s what? Becoming an entity?”

“Yes and no. It’s something grander than that. Though I hate to invoke my sister, it’s a bit like a quest,” she said. “An undertaking necessary to reaffirm a Court’s existence.”

“And the first step is to name the Court?”

“Yes,” she said, beaming.

“Then I’m not going to do it,” I said.

The flames flared again, screaming, “Name me!”

“I’m not and I won’t!” I screamed back.

Revelation Unmaking pouted, “Nadia, please do it, for me?”

“No,” I grunted. “I’m not taking that step, fuck the Canonical Path. Fuck losing my humanity.”

“You’re holding on to delusions, love.”

“Don’t call me love.”

She whined and wiggled her toes in the mud. Twisted the tips of her index fingers against one another.

“But, I do love you.”

“Sphinx loves me.”

“And she’s like, partially me,” Revelation Unmaking said. “Don’t break up with me. It’s not my fault.”

My ears must have acclimated to the endless screaming of the flames because for the first time, I heard Amber and the others call out my name.

“Temple, don’t give up!” Amber yelled.

“Nadia, you can fight this!” Melissa called out.

“Nadia, you stubborn girl you better not give in!” Lupe screamed.

They hadn’t given up on me. Which was hardly a surprise—even when I’d ripped out Melissa’s throat they hadn’t given up on me. It was because of them I clung so hard to the humanity that Revelation Unmaking had termed, “a delusion.”

A smirk crossed my pained face. “Okay, I’m not going to break up with you,” I said.

“Oh, thank you—.”

“On one condition,” I said. “Help me hold this back.”

Revelation Unmaking’s nascent cheer fell once again.

“Nadia, we’re past that. If you had graduated sooner maybe you’d have the spiritual density to wield and force this down, but—.”

“If you’re Sphinx, then you know how much it means to me to not be cut away from everyone.”

I reached out with a burning limb to grasp Revelation Unmaking’s hand—or at least I think I did. A blush crossed her face as she looked down at our clasped hands then away from them, her eyes flicking back and forth as surreptitiously as possible.

I pleaded, “There has to be another way.”

Revelation Unmaking squirmed in place. Sucked in her lips as if it’d help to keep her from spilling some sort of secret. Then whipped her head back to me.

“Fine,” she said, “technically this shouldn’t break any rules. The Sorcery of entities can’t interfere in Canonical Paths. It’s the oldest rule we all follow to make everything, well, exist. So, do with that what you will and maybe you’ll figure it out.”

“That’s it? Can’t I get more of a hint?” I asked.

She pouted, “Sorry, but anything more and Revelation might get sanctioned and we’re already not doing very well. Anyways, good luck hon, because like if you don’t figure this out fast you’ll probably explode.”

“Wait what!” I exclaimed.

“It takes like a lot of energy for entities to be created,” she said. “Though, it wouldn’t be like a big explosion. Just enough to level this hill. Anyways, I really hope you solve this.”

“Cause you’re invested in me not blowing up?”

She turned toward the direction of Amber, Lupe, and Melissa. The trio were descending the hill in a mad dash that saw their clothes drenched and caked in mud. Her shark-like smile stretched beyond human limits, distorting my face. Chin in her palms she batted her eyes in loving appreciation.

“Well, that,” she said, “and I just find the beleaguered path to be so romantic.”

I blinked, and then she was gone. Her parting words tumbling in my ear—that somehow this, me preventing myself from blowing up, was the beleaguered path. Though before I could attempt to make sense of that, Amber, Melissa, and Lupe slid into view. Their faces, visible to me again through the work of the Omensight.

Filling them in quickly I said, “Good news, there should be a way to stop me from burning to nothing.”

Amber asked, “And the bad news?”

“If we don’t I’ll blow up and take this entire hill, all of you, and everyone in Fort Tomb with me.”

“Fuck,” they all said in unison.

“After this, totally,” I said. “Now, let’s find a way to keep me from blowing up.”