Her fist collided with his jaw. Stars popped in his eyes as Xan fell backwards.

“‘I’m sorry, Taika’? Is that really all you have to say?” she angrily yelled at him.

They both scrambled to their feet. Xan massaged the side of his face where she had hit him. He stared aghast at her. Taika took a step closer to Xan, anger burning in her eyes.

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew he wasn’t going to make it, didn’t you?”

“Taika, I—”

“Didn’t you?”

They stared at each other for a long moment. Xan let his hand drop.

“Yes, I knew,” he finally said.

Taika stared at him. Then she began to laugh mirthlessly.

“Everything makes so much sense now!” she cried out. Then she began to pace back and forth as her emotions spilled over. “You knew, so you had Shadow transport us to Vaimea. You knew, so you insisted on trying to get on an airship. You knew, so you agreed to Stell and Dee’s cockamamie plan to fly us there on a tiny little boat that barely withstood the journey. You knew, so you insisted on continuing through the night instead of making camp. You even insisted on walking the rest of the way after we crashed, because you knew! So why?!”

Her last word dripped with so much rage and sorrow that Xan actually recoiled. Taika shook her head at him, fresh tears flowing down her face.

“Why, Xan? Why did you try so hard to save him when you knew it wouldn’t work?”

For reasons he didn’t fully understand himself, anger began to flare up in Xan’s chest. He straightened himself up, his hands clenching into fists.

“Because I had to try, Taika. It was the only thing I could do,” he said.

“Oh, really? It was the only thing you could do?” Taika queried sarcastically. “Because apparently you’re a disciple of the Veiled Lady. Couldn’t you have prayed to your goddess and asked her to intervene? Or is that too far beneath you?”

“It’s not—I couldn’t—that’s not how it works!”

“Oh, well, then please, enlighten me! I would love to hear how a disciple of the Veiled Lady can’t even save one person from dying.”

“I’m not a follower of Sterre!” Xan shouted. Now it was Taika’s turn to stare aghast at him. Xan turned away, wiped his face with his hands, then turned back.

“I’m not really a follower of Sterre,” he reiterated. “That crystal you found with me – it’s a Spirit Sang crystal. I got it just before you and Katar found me. But I only learned what it was a day or two after that. That’s when I found out that your father was running out of time. But I’m no holy man, Taika. I don’t know how to use the Spirit Sang. So I did the only thing I could do: I put everything I had into getting Katar here.”

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

Taika stared at him for a moment. Then she folded her arms and frowned at him.

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this before?” she asked pointedly.

“Would you have even believed me if I told you? You barely even trusted me to begin with,” Xan said. Taika looked away angrily, and Xan knew he had struck a nerve.

“You still should have told me. Because if you had, then I would have at least been able to brace myself for this. I would have been more prepared to accept my father’s death. But, instead of coming to accept the inevitable, I’ve spent the last few days chasing in vain after a false hope,” Taika said.

“False hope?” The anger in Xan’s chest flared. But Taika continued as if she hadn’t heard him:

“But you know what hurts the most? It didn’t matter in the end. It didn’t matter how hard we tried. And now, my father’s gone. He’s gone, and there was nothing I could do about it.”

“You think I don’t know what that’s like?!” Xan exploded. Suddenly, all of the anger and pain he had been trying to ignore for the past few days boiled over. Hot tears coursed down his cheeks.

“My family is gone, Taika! My captain, my crewmates, everyone I have ever loved is gone! And you don’t think I tried to save them? You don’t think I poured every ounce of my being into trying to save them? And even now, you don’t think I go to sleep every night wondering if there was any way I could have saved them? Any way I could have spared them from their fates? And every time, I tell myself that there was nothing I could have done to change what happened – but I can’t bring myself to believe that, because some part of me still wonders if things could have been different.

“Oh, but please, do go on!” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. “Go ahead and complain about how none of it was worth it! How none of it mattered in the end! Because unlike me, at least you still have a family to go back to.”

Taika stared at him as he vented all of his frustration and anger, her mouth slightly agape. But at the mention of her family the frown returned to her face.

“My family? What are you talking about—”

“The night those Canidans attacked our camp, Katar asked me for a favor. He asked me to help you return to your mother’s family, at the Dawn Shrine.”

There was a long pause as Taika processed this. Then she simply asked, “Well, what did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything. I never got the chance to,” Xan said as he furiously tried to wipe away his tears. Taika narrowed her eyes at him, then turned away.

“Then you’re not obligated to fulfill my father’s request,” she said.

“That’s for me to decide—” Xan began to say.

“No, Xan!” Taika said, whirling back around, fists clenched. “It’s not. It may have been his request, but Iget to decide whether or not to accept your help. And I don’t want your help. I never needed it before, and I certainly don’t need it now.”

Xan was about to protest again, until he saw the look on Taika’s face.

“Fine,” he said. “If that’s how you truly feel, then fine.”

He turned on his heel and strode off into the trees. Taika stared after him until he disappeared from sight. Then she sat back down on the ground, quietly nursing the hand she had used to strike him.

Dee and Rowan had watched the whole exchange from afar. Now, as Xan strode off, Dee was tugging down on both of her ears, looking between Taika and Xan with dismay.

“Well this is a right mess, isn’t it?”

Dee looked up to see Rowan’s wife approaching them. She also had pale green skin and light brown hair, and wrinkles were just starting to form at the corners of her eyes. She stared after Xan, her hands on her hips. She looked back to where Taika sat by the pyre. Then she looked down at Dee with a warm, gentle smile.

“Don’t you fret, little mouseling. Rowan and I will get to work,” she said.

“What are you going to do?” Dee asked.

“The best we can to help ‘em,” Rowan said, giving her another – gentler – pat on the back. “Healing wounded hearts is what we do, after all. Just give it some time. They’ll come around again.”

“I hope you’re right,” Dee whispered.