They were forced to stop for a while to see to Rask’s injuries. They weren’t too severe, but it would make movement and fighting burdensome for him. They found a way to rip up his cloak to bandage his neck well enough so it stopped bleeding, then scouted around some more for a safe way to reach where they needed to be.

At some point while they rested on the rooftops, Rask stared out over the city to a spot near the coastline. “Your grandfather’s old house was over there,” he said, pointing. “It’s gone now. Your mother used to live there.”

“Aris would have liked to see that,” Ral said.

“Nilda lived in this city most of her life,” Rask continued. “She thought… when your parents were engaged, she thought your mother would abandon her in this city. She thought she would die in this city as well.”

“She ended up dying in the middle of nowhere,” Ral said dully.

Rask blinked and looked up at him. “Before she died she made me promise to keep you and Aris safe. Both of you meant the world to her.” Rask looked down at his hands. Ral started to see they were wrinklier and more weathered than he last remembered. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do to fulfill that promise to her because both of you mean the world to me as well.”

Ral gripped his mentor’s shoulder. “You have kept us safe. You’ve already kept your promise. Let Aris and I do our part now.”

“I understand,” Rask stood up with a grunt. He gave Ral a strange look, then smiled slightly. “If I squint, I could mistake you for your father. Your hair, your voice. He would be proud of you. I hope you know that.”

“I gave up on his legacy. I doubt he would be that proud,” Ral replied quietly. “It was Aris who was intent on taking Caelis back. I am….”

“A man trying to form his own legacy on his own terms,” Rask said. “And I know the Solaris. He would be proud of you.”

The rest of the way to their target building rooftop held no further difficulties. There were several more dangerous jumps but not nearly as dangerous as the one with the statue. When they finally got to the spire, Ral and Verne took turns climbing the spire and lashing on the base of the ‘ladder’ to the configuration they had back at the dock.

“This is ridiculous,” Verne muttered at one point. The contraption looked completely unsafe and haphazard tied to the spire. At some point they decided they needed to knock off the thin top-most part of it such that the flexible ‘ladder’ could bend back properly.

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“As long as it works.”

“How much time would we have once you see it?” Verne said, tying on more segments of the ladder.

“I don’t know. Probably not much time. I doubt Mind would want the weak spot exposed for long.”

“We can’t even practice,” the Sekrelli continued. “And how are you going to land?”

“I’ll land,” Ral assured the other man. “Somas training. It’ll hurt but I’ll survive it.”

He hoped he sounded assuring. In reality he had no plan. No, right now, he couldn’t think, all he could do was focus on the task at hand. Make the ladder. Survive. Destroy the solute. Everything else had to wait.

In truth what Rask was saying about Nilda and his father almost shook him out of that confidence. He was so close to being that little boy again, the one that followed the Freerunner around the empire. The one that cried all the time and needed Aris to comfort him. He had wandered through adolescence trying to find what he needed and finally - finally he found it and now life was asking him to give it all away.

It was nearly enough to make him want to turn back. To go back to Mikol and run away together. They would spend the rest of their lives sleeping under the stars, waiting for the sun to bloom over the horizon.

But he watched Verne sure-handedly tie together the ladder and he knew he couldn’t do that. Aris was up there and Verne was waiting for her to come back. Camaz and Laell were back at the docks, waiting for everyone to return. Everyone was counting on them. The empire needed them to succeed.

Every place you go, you find something to tie yourself to.

Sun curse it, it wasn’t that he was tied to these people anymore. They were a part of him, much like Aris was always a part of him. And it was then, tying the last parts of the ladder when Ral finally accepted Rask’s words. Perhaps his father would be proud of him because while he couldn’t call the people around him his people, he loved them.

He would do anything for them.

Ral finished tying up the ladder. They did a few tests to make sure it held together (without Ral being flung in the air), and then finally decided they should settle and hide until the signal came… if it came.

They sat where they could on the uncomfortable roof shingles, careful not to be at a spot too sloped so that they would fall off. Verne tried to clean off Rask’s injuries while Ral stared up at the eye in the sky: it stared back at him. His renewed sense of purpose also made him more emotional.

Aris was still in there. They were two halves of a whole, both needed to fulfill a singular purpose.

“I’ll be here, little moon,” he whispered, wishing she could hear him. “I’ll be right here.”

Then he leaned back to face the sky and waited.