Standing on a cliff overlooking Aleara, Nira realized she had no idea how they were going to get to the palace. High up above the city, the gold-covered structure was glimmering in the setting sun, as was the jewel-encrusted statue of Irif at the top of it, stretching her wings and roaring. Nira used to think it was an architectural marvel, but after what Yorin had said, it felt more like a monument to Irif's ego.

"Ready to go?" Yorin asked, somehow managing to look both apprehensive and excited. "I hope Irif's in a good mood."

Nira frowned at the Eternal next to her. "Um, do you have an idea how to get inside the palace?"

Yorin copied her confused frown. "Can't we just knock on the front door?"

"No," Nira replied, not bothering to disguise her astonishment. "Not if you want to live. I know it doesn't look like it, but Enoria and Irithara are at war. And besides, there are snipers on the rooftops, all day, every day, wartime or not." Nira paused as she thought about it. "Well, I guess you could survive being shot, but I sure can't."

Yorin's shoulders slumped in disappointment. "I see. It wasn't like that before."

Nira was pretty sure those skyscrapers weren't there either when Yorin had last been here, but she decided to keep that to herself.

"And unfortunately, I don't think I would survive, either. Irithara controls the largest mines of othrin in the world. I have no doubt those snipers have been equipped with bullets deadly to me as well."

They stayed silent for a moment, trying to come up with something. A moment later, Nira got an idea and wanted to smack her forehead a little at how obvious the solution here was. "Just tell her through telepathy what's up, and she'll let us in."

Yorin suddenly looked like he was trying hard not to panic.

"Right?" Nira asked, frowning again.

Yorin made a series of uncertain noises while staring at anything but Nira. "N-no actually. You see, uh, the, uh, walls of the palace stop any kind of telepathic communication, so, I, um, can't actually talk to anyone inside like that."

"You're a terrible liar, you know," Nira commented, folding her arms at him. Yorin sighed miserably.

"I know, I've been told."

"What, are you afraid she'll kill you? If she wants to, she'll just do that anyway, won't she?" Okay, that sounded a little mean, but Nira was so tired of Yorin avoiding questions. She just didn't have the patience to be kind anymore.

Yorin looked a little hurt by how blunt the question had been, but then he hung his head with a defeated sigh. "I was hoping that me bringing you back to her would maybe change Irif's mind."

Oh, so that was why he'd agreed to help her. Nira wasn't angry, though. She hadn't thought Yorin had done it out of the goodness of his heart. Still, it would have been nice if he'd told her outright.

"Well, maybe it will. Tell her that through telepathy, then," Nira suggested, and while Yorin still looked a bit unsure, he seemed to be more on board with this plan.

"There are millions of people in this city, we'll have to get close to the palace if I'm to find her and contact her."

"How close?"

"Just the general vicinity," Yorin replied, gesturing towards the palace's surroundings with his index finger.

"Right. I guess we're taking the bus." Then Nira realized she had no money on her, and no money meant no bus ticket. "Do you have money?"

"No, of course not. I have no need for it," Yorin replied, sounding confused by the question. That happened quite a lot, now that Nira thought about it. Did he not realize that taking the bus cost money?

"Well, then I guess we're walking instead. Which should take just a few hours." Why was Aleara so huge? Sure, it was the capital of Irithara, but it was ridiculous. Nira wasn't looking forward to walking so far with these shoes, but what else could she do? It wasn't like Yorin could fly them there.

"Oh, I see, public transportation costs money," Yorin said, sounding like he'd just figured out the cure for cancer. Actually, it was entirely possible he had done that already, given his nickname. "My society had a different social system, so it was paid for by the country."

"Fascinating," Nira remarked because she had no idea what to say to that and watched Yorin with a frown as he brushed snow off the ground and picked up a decently sized rock.

"I've written a book about our culture, politics, geography, anything I could put together before I forgot it all. You could borrow it later if you'd like."

That actually sounded interesting. Reading about a country that fell apart fifty thousand years ago while some of its people lingered on to this day had to be fascinating, but Nira was focused on something else.

"You forgot your country?"

"Yes, unfortunately. Or I would have if I hadn't written it all down. Even in this metaphysical form, we don't have infinite memory," Yorin explained, studying the rock in his hand before throwing it away. "You must understand that it's been thousands of years since Agrya fell to ruin. And I haven't spoken to any of the survivors in at least hundreds of years. You wouldn't happen to have a pencil, would you?"

No, Nira still didn't understand this guy at all. "Uh, no, why?"

"If we had some graphite, I could turn it into a diamond. Those are expensive, correct? There doesn't seem to be any useful mineral in the stone around us."

"You can turn graphite into a diamond?" Nira wasn't even sure why she was so surprised. Eternals could do a lot of impossible things.

"Of course," Yorin replied, smiling at her. "We can, to some extent, control and modify matter. That is how we can change our form. Rearranging atoms is a simple task. You see—"

"I'll take your word for it," said Nira, way too tired for a complicated explanation she would barely understand, anyway. "But pencils are cheap. I think I can put enough change together to buy one."

"Excellent," Yorin said as Nira started searching her pockets. She came up with about two kornuls, which was more than enough to buy a single pencil. Nira scowled at the dragon talon depicted on each of the coins. She missed aurens.

"So, shall we head into the city, then?"

It didn't take long to find a shop that sold pencils. They just went into the first supermarket they found. Yorin seemed to be impressed by the variety of items offered, and Nira had to physically drag him away a few times, otherwise, they'd get nowhere. Especially once he'd noticed tampons and started lamenting periods.

Like she didn't know how annoying those were from personal experience.

"I mean, it seems like such a huge evolutionary flaw. How do you deal with it?" Yorin asked, and Nira was so close to yelling at him to shut up. Not only was this a topic she didn't want to talk about in general, but Yorin had also been talking for five minutes straight and it was killing her. "It frankly amazes me how far you've gotten with how fragile and vulnerable your species is."

"Easy for you to say. You're immortal," Nira replied, sighing as she finally spotted some pencils. Since only the graphite would be turned into a diamond, she immediately went to check how much the thick ones cost. She was happy to find out she could afford one.

"Well, yes, now I am immortal, but even before then my species had much better natural defenses than yours."

Nira wanted to snap at him to stop bragging, but then she stopped as she realized what Yorin had just said. "I'm sorry, what? You weren't always like this?"

Yorin raised his eyebrows. "Oh, you don't know. I really need to lend you that book. To put it simply, much like your species evolved from mammals, mine evolved from lizards."

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

He said it so casually as if it were a completely normal thing to mention.

"In many respects, we were very close to you. Intellectually, I mean," Yorin continued, not bothered by how Nira was staring at him with astonishment. "Plus, we had scales, large teeth, sharp claws—although many clipped them—and talons on our feet that allowed us to run at a much faster speed. And we were hermaphrodites. As I said—much better equipped to survive than you."

"And yet most of your people are long dead," Nira said, but there was no malice behind it. It probably would have been better not to say anything given that now Yorin was looking at her like she'd just ruined his favorite gadget, but Nira still had trouble wrapping her head around the fact that there used to be a civilization of lizard people, so there was too much on her mind right now to worry about things like emotional sensitivity.

"Yes," Yorin said, looking down at his boots. "The universe has a rather cruel sense of humor."

Yorin stayed silent after that, and Nira groaned internally. She'd wanted him to shut up, but not like this. To distract herself from feeling guilty, she spent the rest of their visit to the supermarket by guessing what Yorin had looked like as a lizard person. She wondered if they had had feathers or hair as well as the scales and then started thinking about why they even had scales. Wouldn't they lose those once they started wearing clothes? Had they even worn clothes if they had scales?

Nira quickly stopped herself before she thought about that too much.

As Nira and Yorin walked out of the store, she followed him into the alley behind it. Yorin most likely wanted to avoid being seen using his powers, which was probably smart. Who knew what would happen otherwise?

Nira watched him grip the pencil tightly, and his eyes started to glow. In just a few seconds the tip of the pencil changed color, becoming clear. Even though she knew it would happen, it still left Nira amazed.

Yorin made short work of the wooden part of the pencil, breaking it off and throwing it away, which left only the diamond stick in his hand.

"Wow," Nira said, mostly because she didn't know what else to say and didn't want the silence between them to continue at the same time. "Um, where are we going to try to sell this?"

Yorin blinked at her, looking surprised as if he hadn't thought about that until now. "A pawn shop, perhaps?"

"We can't sell a diamond in a pawnshop," Nira said, making Yorin confused.

"Why not?"

"Because this thing is probably worth like a hundred thousand kornuls, so they won't believe it's real," Nira explained patiently. Yorin nodded as he listened to her, looking pensive.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of that."

"What does that mean?"

But Yorin was already walking out the alley and down the busy street. Nira sighed, exasperated, and went after him, trying to dodge people as she did. She was really glad that Yorin had given her that parka. Even though it was always a bit warmer in cities in general, they were even farther north than she'd been original, which meant she'd probably be dead by now.

That was a nice thought.

Just as Nira thought she'd lost the Eternal, she noticed exactly what they'd been looking for just a block away from her. Seeing as she couldn't find Yorin anywhere, she was pretty sure he was already inside the pawnshop. Damn, that guy could walk fast. Then again, she'd experienced first-hand how fast a person could go with as much power as Yorin had.

Remembering that incident made her heart beat more rapidly, although she had no idea why. She suddenly felt like there was something missing, but the feeling disappeared a second later, so Nira just shook her head and finally arrived at the pawnshop.

Looking inside through the window, she could see Yorin already talking to a woman behind the counter. Great, with how little skill Yorin had when it came to social interactions, this was surely going to end well.

But as Nira continued to watch the scene, she was shocked to see Yorin turn around with a stack of banknotes in his hand, looking very pleased with himself. Nira continued to stare at him as he left the pawnshop, making him frown again.

"Um, is there something wrong?"

"How the hell did you do that?" Nira asked, becoming suspicious.

"I may have abused my power over the mind a bit," Yorin admitted, sounding a little ashamed, but then he grinned again. "I have the bus money now. So we can go see your mother."

"You could have just manipulated someone into giving you their money instead of the whole turning graphite into diamond thing," Nira said, a bit annoyed that they'd wasted time with this. Sure, she didn't particularly like the idea of stealing from someone, but if Yorin had no problem with it....

"But...that would be stealing. What I just did was the opposite. This is only a fraction of the price," Yorin defended himself, gesturing with the banknotes. "This way we get what we need, and the owner of the pawnshop will have enough money to more than make up for the inconvenience of mind manipulation."

Nira scowled, not liking the fact that Yorin was probably right from a moral standpoint. "Fine, let's go."

They didn't say much to each other as they bought their tickets and got on the half-empty bus, sitting down next to each other in the back. The closer they got to the palace, Nira noticed Yorin seemed to get more and more nervous, and he'd also seemed to want to say something several times now but always decided against it.

Nira kept looking out the window, realizing that she could barely remember the streets they were going through, but then again, it was getting dark and she'd never stayed away from the palace that much in the first place—maybe she'd never been here in this part of Aleara at all.

Flicking her eyes back to Yorin, she saw him open his mouth only to shut it a second later.

"What's up?"

"N-nothing," Yorin muttered, looking away from her, and Nira tried again.

"Come on, what is it?"

"I...I'm just a bit concerned Irif will have me executed the moment she sees me."

Nira's expression hardened. She hadn't known Yorin for long, but she had come to sort of care about him, and she definitely didn't want him to die, especially since this would be at least partly her fault.

"She won't. You're bringing me back to her, remember?" Nira said, unable to suppress the bitterness in her tone, but Yorin didn't seem to take offense. "And besides, once I tell her what Relioth had done, I'm sure she'll be glad she'll have you on her side."

Yorin smiled slightly, relaxing if only a little. "Thank you. I needed that."

Nira was pretty sure he was lying because he didn't seem all that relieved, but she decided not to say anything and only smiled at him.

Half an hour later, they finally reached their stop and started walking uphill towards the palace. Nira really didn't like how intimidating the structure was now as it towered over them. It used to make her feel safe, but now she wished she was as far away from it as possible. Rationally, she knew she was doing the right thing, but that didn't mean she wouldn't give anything not to have to face her mother again.

"Okay, we're close enough," Yorin said, and Nira stopped, turning around to face him. They were still quite a bit away from the palace, but that didn't seem to matter to Yorin, who now looked like he was trying to concentrate.

All Nira could do was watch him as Yorin closed his eyes and hopefully started a conversation with Irif.

Nira winced as Yorin suddenly grimaced. Somehow, Nira had a feeling the talk wasn't going well. She asked what had happened but received no answer, so she just tried to control her anxiety caused by the thought of facing Irif soon instead.

What would she even say? Irif wouldn't pretend to be Nira's mother anymore since Nira now knew about the Eternals, so would she just possess her? Nira hadn't really thought about that a lot, and she wished she hadn't now because the thought of being a host of an Eternal sounded terrifying.

Yorin finally opened his eyes with a small gasp and looked at Nira with a slightly nervous smile. "She says we can go in."

"Really? Just like that?"

"Yes! Isn't that wonderful?" Yorin said, sounding more confident and happy now. He looked like a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders with the knowledge that Irif had taken him back, and while Nira was a bit skeptical, it was nice seeing Yorin genuinely happy.

He must have been really lonely to be this excited to see Irif. Nira's mother wasn't the nicest person. In fact, everyone was mostly afraid of her. At least it now made more sense to Nira since Irif could just kill anyone she wanted with a flick of her hand.

Nira wondered how many people in the palace knew about her real identity as she tried to keep up with Yorin. Her heart was hammering worse than ever before in her life, and a part of her brain was yelling at her to run away.

As they got closer to the huge gate made out of solid gold that led to the courtyard, the guards in front of the gate opened it without a word, which was a bit strange to Nira. Had Irif told them to do that via telepathy?

Well, at least they didn't have to argue with the guards, so it didn't really matter, even if it was a little unnerving being watched by the people on the street. There weren't that many of them because it was dark, now, but Nira could hear them whispering. She forced herself to ignore it as she and Yorin stepped into the courtyard, and the gate was shut behind them.

As they walked along the cobbled path, an overwhelming sense of nostalgia hit Nira as she saw the huge tree with white bark and blue leaves in the middle of it. It had been genetically modified just for the palace, showing the national flag's colors. It had grown even taller in her absence, and Nira realized she'd almost forgotten about it.

Suddenly, the huge ornate door of the palace opened, and out came a thin man in his forties, wearing an eyepatch over his right eye and what looked to be a very expensive suit. A second later Nira realized that the man was, in fact, her father.

Nira stopped dead in her tracks, unable to deal with the shock of how different he looked from when she'd last seen him. He didn't go out that much so he didn't really appear in newspapers, and Nira had actively tried to avoid looking up anything related to her homeland while in Enoria, so she hadn't seen a single photo of him during that time.

What had Irif done to him?

Her father seemed just as shocked to see her, as if he hadn't been told who he was meeting. Behind him two guards with machine guns walked out of the palace as well, seemingly telling her father something. He looked like he was afraid they'd shoot him, which was just wrong. Nira couldn't remember her father ever looking scared.

He kept his eyes downcast as he and the guards made their way towards Nira and Yorin. She looked up at the Eternal quickly, noting that he seemed a little nervous again, but not enough to stop smiling.

Nira turned back to her father. He looked even worse up close. Not only was he much thinner than when she'd last seen him, he was sickly thin. Like he wasn't eating enough, and who knew how he would have looked without the suit jacket.

Nira's heart clenched at the sight, particularly at seeing the eyepatch. Nira did not want to think about why he wore it. She had a feeling she knew the answer to that question, and really hoped she was wrong.

Finally, her father was standing before her, looking at her with so much sadness and hopelessness it made Nira's heart break. One of the guards gave him a warning look, and her father swallowed heavily, looking at Yorin.

"You are under arrest for committing high treason."