Airya's three broken toes pulsed with burning pain, making her want to scream. She couldn't look at them. The last time she had, she almost vomited.

Stilk had told her that all of this was for Stilgar's sacrifice.

The Solocs were here now. Coming into the temple. They were watching Stilk in silence. Airya could have sworn that she saw regret in some of their eyes. But she wasn’t sure because she had cried so much that it was hard to see anything clearly.

But she did notice the one Soloc who had thrown her around Atta. When he saw her looking at him, he stared deeper into her. His eyes taking her in before he turned to Stilk with his palms opened up in question.

He did not look happy at with Stilk.

Was it because Stilk hadn’t killed her yet, or because Stilk hadn’t waited to torture her until they got there so they all could watch?

Stilk yelled to the Soloc in their language that she didn’t understand, anger seeming to swallow up any satisfaction that Stilk had gotten from torturing her.

Then she saw Obsviden again. Hidden in a corner watching. He cringed when he looked at her toes, openly showing his teeth in a display of mock queasiness. But then he rattled a black velvet bag he held in his hand. One with a mark whispering red on it. In a brief memory, she realized that it was just like the bag that the man Sir Eli had.

Obsviden pulled something out. It dazzled orange and then green in the shadows. Because Stilk and some of the other Solocs were fighting, no one noticed it as it sparked and jutted out small spikes from Obsviden’s hand. He smiled at it, no indication of pain, as his blood slipped slowly to the stone floor.

Then he let the object slip and roll toward Stilk.

The moment it left his hand, he was gone.

After a choke, Airya yelled at Stilk to get away. She didn’t trust it. She didn’t trust Obsviden or Stilk with whatever that was. But the way it was blackening the floor as it rolled had to mean it was dangerous.

It took her screaming for Stilk to notice it. The other Solocs backed away as the thing continued to roll, its spikes guiding it straight to Stilk, who stared down at it. He then stepped toward it and let his foot meet one of the orange-green glowing spikes.

As soon as it pierced Stilk’s skin, the object flipped to black as if all it had taken was one’s touch to snatch all its power away. It exploded in a cloud of black smoke before it disappeared completely.

Stilk examined his hands. There was worry crossing his features, then pure anger. He clenched his fist and slammed it into the ground after a beat.

The other Solocs backed away further.

The stone broke that Stilk had hit. Blood leaked from Stilk’s hand. Blood that ignited into an orange fire that didn’t burn. When Stilk looked at her, hate flared in his eyes. His cheeks began stretching, and his hair tufts spread. He opened his mouth and screamed as his body lengthened and grew until his head almost hit the temple ceiling.

His scream turned to a roar.

The Solocs scattered away, not paying Airya any attention. They took off. All running. All trying to get out of the temple.

That was when she saw it. The monster in Stilk’s giant red eyes. A monster reflecting her own. For in his eyes, she saw her. She saw her hatred. The hatred she held for him reflected there distorted on her face. Hate that matched his and made her pause. In his eyes, she was the monster.

And the other Solocs, they didn’t understand.

He lashed out. But it wasn’t in pain, no, it was in anger. Anger heating his every movement as he lunged, not for her, but for another Soloc, grabbing the poor Soloc up in his grasp.

He shoved the Soloc into Airya, making the Soloc grab around Airya’s waist, trying to cling onto her as the chains strained. The Soloc was pulled off of her and brought to Stilk’s face for him to scream.

They didn’t understand. They didn’t understand Stilk’s deep anger that had turned him into this. But Airya knew. Airya understood. There was a grinding bitterness and penetrating strife when it came to being misunderstood. There was pain when there was no one to understand loss and legacy.

The Soloc Stilk held was whimpering.

Stilk threw the Soloc and it was only in luck that the river had caught the poor being. Airya leaned toward the Soloc, trying to get loose. She didn’t know if the Soloc could swim. She didn’t want it to drown.

But then someone was there pulling the Soloc out.

It was Aesha.

But how?

Stilk grabbed ahold of Airya’s chains, rattling them. Airya’s attention was torn away from what had to be an illusion. She was forced to look at him, and when she did, he finally stopped. But Airya’s heart that was beating in terror froze. Stilk’s giant fingers were now three times the size of Airya’s head. They were coming toward her, possibly to pinch and twist her head around.

Airya closed her eyes and held her breath.

But there was a screech and an irritated growl deep in Stilk’s throat. She opened her eyes to see he was trying to swat at a bird that was trying to scratch at his face.

Hethei.

Airya’s chains rattled again and one of her arms fell forward, throwing her in a threatening arch toward one of the pillars, until someone grabbed her around the waist and steadied her.

It was Desmond.

There was a blur of gold in the corner of her eye. In one swift pull, Aesha tore the other chain that was tied around her wrist. The chain disintegrated in her hands.

The hands around her waist loosened and she found herself running to Aesha who held open her arms for her. Aesha took her in and held her tight. Airya’s toes protested her being on them. She felt off-balance in their embrace, but she didn’t care.

“How did-“ Airya tried to ask.

But then a foot stomped down, interrupting Airya’s thoughts. Both of them fell to the ground and rolled until Airya was on top of Aesha.

Hethei opened a portal for Desmond and then Airya did the same. She got up, grasped Aesha’s hand hard, and pulled her through to the top of the temple. Stilk ran out below. He looked all around for what he had lost.

Her.

Stilk roared at the Solocs who were running from him.

The power that had made him the way he was surged. Black spikes shot out of Stilk’s hands like thorns. He roared harder and lashed out even more.

He was going to trample his people. He was going to hurt the Solocs.

“We have to help them,” Desmond yelled. He was on his knees, looking over the edge, “Airya, I know your stance on them, but they are—”

She put her hand up to stop him from saying the rest. She knew they were people too. Beings that felt as much pain and sorrow as she felt. She also knew that she had been the one to make Stilk do this.

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Airya sat down, unable to take her eyes off the scene. The adrenaline coursing through her veins at what she was going to do, helped drown out the pain in her feet. “Desmond, I’m going try to open more portals than one. I need you to get the Solocs inside them.” She was going to send them back to Atta. To safety.

“I’ll hold him off,” Aesha said, rubbing her hands together as Airya opened a portal for them to jump inside that would take them down to the chaos.

The second portal waited below. The one that they would come out of.

“Are you sure?” Airya asked. She knew she didn’t know all of what Aesha could do, but she was still nervous. “Just… don’t hurt him.”

Aesha nodded and was the first to jump into the portal.

Airya watched her tumble out in a roll from the second portal right in the middle of the running Solocs. Aesha turned and held up her hands to stop Stilk’s foot from crushing anything or anyone underneath.

But Stilk still brought his foot down.

Airya’s heart jumped into her throat, but Stilk’s foot never reached the ground. Aesha was her own pillar of shimmering gold protecting the creatures of the land. She was holding the foot up with her strength. But Stilk lifted his foot up again. Aesha dove, rolled, and stood up in time to spread her arms wide and catch his foot for the second time. The true strength of a golden queen with god-blood in her veins.

Desmond went through the portal next. He ran to the Solocs, waving his hands, as Airya opened portals all around them for them to escape into. In that instant, she felt the portals start to drain her mind and her strength. This was the first time she had many portals open at once. She saw they were beginning to weaken, shimmer, and go out. With her mind splitting, she pushed through and opened more. Desmond looked to the new portals in alarm as he began to usher and push some Solocs inside.

It was the fresh pain from her broken toes that kept her awake.

Stilk saw what was happening. He saw that the Solocs were disappearing. He dove to the ground, shaking the temple Airya was on, to reach for them as the end of the Solocs disappeared from sight.

Airya let out a breath when everything steadied and she saw that Desmond was gone too.

“You take them!” Stilk screamed in agony.

Aesha, who had fallen aside from the quake, was scrambling back to her feet.

Aesha needed to get her out of there or Airya needed to get to her.

But by the time Airya opened a portal and was on the ground at Stilk’s feet, Aesha was in his hands struggling to get free. More spikes were being produced from Stilk’s hand that held Aesha, just like they had been produced from that orange-green ball that Obsviden had held.

One spike across Aesha’s arm, making it bleed.

“You take them!!” He spotted Airya and went to grab for her too.

But Airya opened a portal, escaping his grasp, and came out near his other hand that had Aesha. Stilk then fell to his knees and went to grab at her again, but she made herself gone once more.

When she reappeared, it was on top of his head. He dropped Aesha as he stood and roared again.

Before Aesha dropped to the ground, Airya opened a portal for her to fall inside of. She knew that Aesha would be angry at her for pushing her aside in this fight, but this was Airya’s fight and her fight alone.

Airya made herself gone and appeared once again not too far from Stilk. When he looked down and saw her, he ran to her. She made another portal and disappeared inside.

She came out a few feet away.

Her plan was to lead him to the temple.

She concentrated on Stilk whose skin was starting to wither. It was peeling and falling away in flakes from his body as if the magick was too strong for his body to withstand.

Although she did not want to die thinking of her parents as bad people or liars and did not want their memory destroyed along with their legacy, she now realized that they had been wrong. That she had been wrong.

She had seen it the moment that she had seen the reflection of herself in his eyes. She knew then that she would have done the same. That if it was her, she would be right where Stilk was now.

Her parents had put the Solocs through what Airya had seen in that world with the paddled fists and acidic, black warping water. Her parents had taken the Solocs’ homes and had disrupted their lives by forcing them out. They had made Stilk live the certain way he had to.

For Stilk and his people, Ausrine may have been so much brighter and more beautiful, like the forest that she had been to that fought to be untouched. Ausrine had been worshipped by them, loved by them in only a way they knew how, until her people had come and ruined it all.

Stilk had been fighting back this entire time like she had wished the blue-tinted beings would have done. Like the untouched forest had done. Like how Airya would have done. He was trying to restore Ausrine to what it was always meant to be.

She had no right to hate him for that. She had no right to hate him at all. If the Yellow Eyes, if she would have stopped for a moment and tried to understand, maybe things would have been different. Maybe there would not have been so much pain.

She arrived at the top of the temple yet again. This time, she wouldn’t allow herself to go anywhere. She would not leave this spot at all. She was done disappearing.

She let Stilk come barreling toward her, hatred and fury in each of his every giant step.

Why did her parent’s legacy get to negate his when his kind had been here first? When his kind had been here all along?

He had stayed at the temple with people he hated. He cared for that temple, his home. More than her parents or anyone ever had.

Why had her kind taken it from him?

He stopped. She could see that he did not want to crush the cherished place he had built. He did not want to destroy the home he had been trying so hard to protect. She could see that he knew that in order to get to where she was, he would have to bring the whole place down.

She looked down to Stilk's body. Sadness ached through her. For him and for his people. His people who could have forever lived in peace if the Yellow Eyes had never come to their world. All he had been doing all this time was trying to regain his kingdom.

Just as Airya had been doing the same.

Was it wrong that he had killed her people? Yes, of course it was. But her people had been wrong too. They took everything from them.

It was also wrong to think that every Soloc was the same. Stilgar had done what he had done because of his love for Stilk. Stilk had done what he had done for the love of his people. But his people… his people had done nothing and had settled into a life they should never have been forced to live.

It was time to right wrongs. And Airya would do that here.

She was ready to give in. Ready to admit he was right. That maybe it was her people who were the evil ones all along. That she had been fighting the wrong fight. Too much pain had been caused because of this fight. She had to be the end of it.

She had to give everything back and end the legacy that she never really had. The legacy that was never really her parents’ at all.

The legacy that had been stolen.

She portaled one last time right into Stilk’s hand. She could hear his hitched breath. She watched his unbelieving smile widen as he brought his hand up so she could look right into his eyes. Then he closed his hand and squeezed.

She was more than ready for a thorn to stab through her. She expected that to happen as soon as she said what she needed to say. Her life would end with the end of her kind.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Then she said it louder, “I’m sorry!” He deserved more than only hushes in this world that belonged to him. “I’m sorry!” she yelled again. “I’m so sorry, Stilk! I’m so sorry! I was wrong. My parents were wrong. My people were wrong. I’m sorry for what we took from you! If it makes you feel at peace, please take my life!”

She extended out her hands in surrender and refused to look away from him. He deserved to see the light go out of her eyes.

“I kill.” He stated, his lips that were curled in a snarl started to drop. “I kill your people. Your sorry?”

“My people killed one of yours.”

He nodded once. His shoulders dropped a little. He was lost in the memory. She could see the hint of rage there coming back to the surface.

“I want… I just want…” he whispered.

Airya knew he wanted everything to go back to how it was before. He wanted the bad things that had happened, for all he had lost, never to be. But that wasn’t possible. There was no going back from all of this. Now there was only setting things right.

“That’s why you need to kill me. End me and get on with life. Live how you lived before!”

“Stilgar…” his shoulders dropped even lower, bringing her a little closer to the ground.

“I’m sorry….” She remembered his love he had for his friend. The same kind of love she had for her friends, for her parents. She knew the hurt in never getting them back. “I’m sorry I made you this way.”

He looked away from her.

She had taken away his peace, his happiness, his love, his home.

“Not you. Parents.”

“But when you look at me, you see them. It’s all the same.” She didn’t actively make him do anything, but she drove him to it. She drove him to do the things that he had done. Things that if she was in his situation and had grown the way he had, she knew she would have done the same. And her parents, she and they had lived in joy and had benefitted from the Solocs fall. That had not right been right. It would never be right. “Please, let me right this wrong,” tears prickled her cheeks. She realized that she was standing on the ground now and that Stilk was so much smaller and shorter. The height he had been before.

“No. No right wrong.”

“Why not?” she was on her knees now. She grabbed his bloody hands which were still as big as her face. “Why can’t you end me?”

“I dying. Death magick.”

She sucked in a breath. He was right. The magick, it had been too much. She could see it in the peeling of his face as his skin started to turn gray. Another thing they could not come back from.

She stood up, wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and guided him up the steps to the temple river. She helped him sit down and insert his feet.

“You promise, fix.”

“Yes,” she whispered. She would fix everything except the things that would remain forever broken.

Pain to remember to avoid making the same mistakes they had made again.

No one but Airya saw Stilk take his last breath. When he did, his body gave up and fell into Airya. She let his head rest on her shoulder and cried. Cried for him, cried for her family, and cried for the fear misunderstanding brought.

She took him into the river with her and let the river of Ausrine sweep him away. He drifted to where she knew the river ran under the mountains. He would stay forever in the place that had always been his home.

She only hoped his spirit would roam free.