Rasp hoped that as the day progressed the heavy weight that had settled into the bottom of his stomach would lift. But as the hours passed and the shock of the events faded, the heaviness doubled. If it weren’t for Hop, Rasp wouldn’t have made it a few steps past the carnage. The putrid stench of sizzled skin and hair clung to the inside of his nose. His appetite was gone and the few sips of lukewarm water he’d managed to swallow down came back up relatively quickly.

Rasp was lying face down in his blankets with his arms pulled over his head. He heard the crunch of the brittle, curled leaves as someone settled onto the cold ground beside him. Their hand barely rested on his shoulder, as if they were unsure of whether a familial touch would help or hurt the situation.

“You had a difficult day.” Whisper stated this not as a question, but an irrefutable fact.

Rasp suspected Whisper had already been given the rundown by Hop. He couldn’t tell whether his mentor’s purposely blank tone was meant to disguise their pity or disgust but, at the moment, he wanted neither. Rasp pulled his arms tighter over his head. “It wouldn’t have happened if you’d been there.”

“The outcome would have been the same had I been there.”

Minus the part about the spontaneous soldier barbeque. “Not helping.”

“You made a mistake, little bird. The most you can do is learn from it and move on.”

Rasp rolled over and glared at the fae’s hazy shape. “That’s your advice? Seriously? The only thing I learned was to never trust my magic again!”

Whisper’s sigh was deep and heavy. “This is not the first time you have taken a life. I daresay, you’re quite experienced at it. Why was this incident any different than the others?”

“Because I cooked two people alive in their armor!”

“You did,” Whisper agreed. “And what are you going to do about it?”

“...Not do it again?”

“Might be a useful skill to harness.”

“No!”

“Mortals,” Whisper muttered. “I have lived amongst you for thousands of years and your loose sense of morality is still a mystery. Why is one method of taking a life acceptable over another? The outcome is the same, no?”

“It just is, okay. I don’t make the rules.”

“You don’t follow the rules either.”

“Can we change the subject, please?” Rasp heaved himself upright, gathering his blanket over his shoulders and pulling it tight. From the dimming light, he assumed it was nearing twilight. A frigid breeze rattled the sprawl of juniper bushes surrounding their makeshift campsite. There would be no fire tonight. The thought made his shivering worse.

Rasp adjusted his tone to something that sounded almost like he cared. “How was your day? Did you and Father find whatever it is you’re looking for?”

“I found the settlement. Whether or not the item I seek is being stored inside is yet to be discovered.”

“Oh. Well, good for you then?”

There was a moment of silence during which Rasp assumed the fae was staring at him with a hardened expression. Finally, after coming to some sort of conclusion, Whisper said, “We have been traveling for several months together.”

“Mhm.”

“And not once have you asked what it is I’m looking for.”

That would require caring. Something Rasp found himself in short supply as of late. “Picked up on that, did you?”

“It is the entire reason I am training you.”

As much as he would have preferred to dance around the subject for the rest of time, some minuscule part of Rasp’s brain signaled him to sit straighter. Ever since the events on the mountain, his life had felt aimless. Adrift on an ebbing tide without a purpose other than to do as he was told–go here, do this, stop putting that in your mouth. This information was probably something he needed to know. He hated to admit it, but an even tinier part of him wanted to know.

“Is this where you impart a bunch of vague nonsense disguised as wisdom and I just nod my head and act like I know what it means?” Rasp jumped when one of Whisper’s quills scraped along his ribcage. What? Just because he wanted to know didn’t mean he had to act like it.

“I chose you as my apprentice for a very specific reason, little bird. But in order to understand how it correlates to the item I seek, you must first understand that I am not like you.”

The fact that Whisper had quills, didn’t eat food, and never had to stop for a piss were all reasons Rasp already knew this to be true. Probably not what his mentor meant though.

“My kind is not brought into existence the same way as yours,” Whisper explained. “Fae are not born, but awakened. An excess of magic is required for a youngling to be stirred from stasis. Prior to my kind being hunted out of existence, it required the help of three or more fae–an impossible amount of magic by mortal standards, but for us, it was attainable. In order to breathe life into the new, the old had to surrender a piece of themself. The more magic that was given, the stronger the next generation would be.”

“Seven realms,” Rasp cursed as realization dawned within his hazy thoughts. “This item of yours, it’s not an item at all, is it? You’re searching for an unborn of your kind.”

“Yes. I was away when the mortals declared war on my people. I returned to find my ancestral city ransacked and in ruins. What they didn’t take, they destroyed. There was a special chamber where the elders kept the unawakened and when I found it, the door had been ripped away, taking the future of my kind with it. Hidden amongst the ruins, I found a single unawakened youngling.”

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Rasp wrinkled his nose. He recalled the day the winds were so strong it knocked the sparrow nests from the trees. That was the first time he’d ever seen an unhatched chick splattered on the ground. The mental image made his stomach churn. “Like, out in the open? All gooey and with no bones?”

“What? No! I told you, it doesn’t happen the same. To you, an unawakened would look like a blue pearl.”

Oh. Well that was definitely a lot easier on the imagination. “To me, they probably wouldn’t look like anything.”

“Are you done being a smartass?”

“We both know the answer to that.”

Rasp heard a soft rattle of quills. One of the few, telltale signs that Whisper was shaking their head in futility. “I took the unawakened and carried it with me, hoping one day to reunite with others of my kind and bring about the new generation. Alas, I eventually realized there were no others. I was the last.”

Rasp was probably supposed to feel sad about that, which, to be fair, he did. But things were starting to come into focus now and he dared not deviate from his current line of thought for fear of losing it completely. “So you need magic to awaken your egg?”

“Not an egg, but yes.”

“Like, a lot of magic.”

“Yes, little bird. A lot of magic.”

“That’s why I’m here!” Rasp said. “You’re going to use my magic to help wake up your egg.”

“It’s not an egg!”

Rasp made a mental note to keep referring to it as an egg whenever possible, before moving onto his next question. “How do you know it’s going to work?”

“I don’t,” Whisper replied grimly. “But you proved yourself capable of awakening magical beings before, as you did with the entity on the mountain. My hope is that with enough time and training, you can learn to do it again.”

‘Perhaps without the disastrous consequences this time’, Whisper kindly omitted from their response.

Rasp was too exhilarated to let his own self-destructive thoughts bring him down. For the first time in many days, weeks, months even, his spirit lifted from the depths of its internal tomb. Like the almighty phoenix, from death born anew, his hopes reared to life, lighting a flame within his soul that Rasp had feared he would never feel again. A giddy smile pulled across his clammy lips. “If I give your egg my magic, that means it goes away, right? Doesn’t regenerate? No take-backsies?”

No more running for the rest of his life? No more training until his fingertips were raw and blistered? Or accidental soldier barbeque? Oh, how bright the future suddenly looked.

“Little bird, you misunderstand,” Whisper said softly. “I will not be taking all of your magic.”

Damn it. “Why not?”

“Because you have lived with it your entire life. Whether you like it or not, you have never gone a day without your magic. Taking all of it would be like tossing a fish onto dry land and expecting it to thrive.”

“Oh.” Rasp’s soaring spirits were already dipping back down, taking his smile and all hopes for the future with it.

“I see that disappoints you.”

“But you can still take some of it, right?” Enough to take the edge off at least? Maybe it wouldn’t stop Rasp from being able to light things on fire, but it could downgrade his powers from raging wildfire to controlled burn.

“Yes.”

Better than nothing, Rasp supposed.

“So where is it, this unborn egg thingy of yours?” Rasp said, deciding he wasn’t going to fixate on the cloud of darkness steadily closing back in around his shriveling soul. He had all night to toss and turn and wallow in self-pity, after all. No sense in starting early. Especially not with Whisper being uncharacteristically forthcoming for a change.

“That is what I am attempting to discover. With any luck, it will be in the settlement.”

“Ah,” Rasp said, as if he understood. “So you lost it.”

“I didn’t lose it!”

“Can’t find something that’s not lost,” he countered. “Not to point fingers here, but that was very irresponsible of you. You really should take better care of your babies.”

From Whisper’s notable silence, Rasp assumed they were debating between hitting him or giving up on the conversation as a whole. He offered a placating smile as a truce. “Alright, I’m done being a smartass. You may continue.”

“I told you how I was captured by a powerful witch and forced into servitude?”

Rasp nodded. Even he didn’t dare take a jab at that subject. It was Whisper’s original master who bound the fae to a powerstone and used it as a means to extort their magic.

“I had the unawakened on me when I was first caught. In that moment, I was left with a difficult choice. I could fight capture with everything I had, knowing that if I failed, it would render my kind extinct. The alternative was to use the last of my strength to disguise the youngling as something innocuous. I chose the latter. Even with the glamour spell, it still produced a faint magical frequency and wound up in a collection headed for the capital.”

Great. Now Rasp felt bad for teasing. He rubbed the tip of his elbow to ease some of the queasiness rumbling around the inside of his gut. “Sorry.”

“There is no need to apologize. It was long before your time, little bird.”

It was then he realized not all of the queasiness was on account of his brattiness. A new question gnawed at the edge of Rasp’s mind. “This whole time you knew how I felt about my magic, and had a way to rid me of it for good. Why didn’t you tell me all of this before?”

“I tried to tell you many times. You didn’t listen.” After a thoughtful pause, Whisper added solemnly, “Losing your magic is not something to be taken lightly. Had I offered to remove it sooner, you would have given it without question. I wanted to give you time to learn to use it, to wield it, in case you changed your mind.”

“Nope. Still hate it.”

“That may change.”

Had his attitude towards magic changed? Sure. Rasp now realized the existence of power did not inherently make something good or bad. Good or bad depended on the intentions of the person wielding it. He also recognized that the type of person wielding magic should, by all accounts, not be him. Reckless, impulsive, emotionally unstable, were not the cornerstones of a hero, but a monster. Getting rid of his power sounded much easier than having to relearn everything that had gotten him this far.

“What about the infection? It’s attached to my magic, isn’t it?” Rasp asked. If Whisper used his power to release the unawakened, was it possible that the darkness would infect the youngling as well? What happened when an inexperienced fae, gifted unimaginable power, touched the darkness? Would the evil spirit consume it too, as the entity had its previous victims?

Shit. Had Rasp staved one apocalypse just to start another?

“The infection will have to be addressed prior to the ritual. You are right to be fearful of what would happen if one of my kind succumbs to evil. But that is a worry for another time. Our first step is to find the unawakened, and then we can seek out how to rid you of the infection.”

Whisper’s answer was about as comforting as a blanket made from thistles. Suppressing the groan that built in the back of his throat, Rasp dropped face-first into his bedding. He drew the top cover over his head and burrowed deeper. He couldn’t do anything about the darkness in his veins, or the gnawing guilt that ate at him from the inside. He couldn’t even bury the feelings inside of him. Thus, the only logical conclusion was to bury himself, deep into his blankets until the warm, dingy air lulled him into a restless sleep.

Once more, Whisper’s hand touched his shoulder. “I’m afraid that is not a possibility at the moment. The revolutionists you encountered earlier are not the only ones in the area. Once they’ve had a chance to regroup, they will undoubtedly come looking for us again. And now that they have some idea what they are up against, they will use whatever means possible to capture you alive.”

“More running.” Rasp’s voice came out muffled by the surrounding blankets. “Yay.”