It finally seemed like winter was near.

It rained every day, all day long. The occasional heavy gushes of wind moved the puddles to their will, bent the trees, and shut the windows. Few people were out trying not to get swept away by the storms that were forever brewing, starting only seemingly and ending abruptly. The temperature drops were sudden, and they alarmed the citizens of Painron. They had come with the first rainfall. The citizens of Painron had heard about them and seen them in newspapers, but they never thought that the new red-eyed settlers would reach as far as their small town. They couldn’t, or wouldn’t, imagine that in their own town lived a man important enough to be monitored. It was all for him. And while the settlers were sneaking around trying to catch a glimpse of him, he spent his time making sure not to leave a single stone unturned.

Thomas Hammer had been faced with another choice: leave immediately without any knowledge of his destination, praying that whoever the Ravens would send him would have visited Iceleus before, or postpone his travels to learn and grow and so risk losing in the race with Elaine. It was an unexpectedly easy choice; his newfound faith told him he would get the chance to compete if he did things right. So, for three weeks he watched the rain fall from the city library, fighting the doubt that never left his mind. He would wake up at dawn and train until lunchtime, then spend the rest of his day reading and trying to come up with a plan.

Iceleus was a land living in an eternal winter, completely covered in snow and ice. It was located on the coast, between the ocean and Florus. Thomas was able to find in some old records that there was a path in Nowhere leading inside the royal castle which was where he was headed; he was, however, unable to find which door it was exactly. It seemed like there was still knowledge he had no skill to obtain, but he trusted that Kyla did. He trusted Kyla would know because Diane always knew. And if she didn’t, well, they would end up in one of the many cold deserts and freeze to death before any of the local monsters and animals could eat them alive.

Just as he was imagining his blood on the snow, someone knocked on the window next to him. He had been in the small local library since lunch, a library strangely well-equipped with the literature he needed. He knew she was the one knocking. He also knew she was the one who brought all those books to him, the one who couldn’t have him dying of hypothermia or being chopped to pieces. He debated ignoring her; he couldn’t understand what she could possibly want from him or why she still hadn’t left his hometown. She was like a runny nose, he thought, acutely annoying and completely unnecessary. But he still turned to his right, an act that, on the surface, lit up her soul. She smiled and then motioned him to wait as if she didn’t already know he would be there until nightfall. The front door was about three whole steps away from the only desk in the library so droplets of rain forcefully hit the left side of Thomas’s face as she walked in.

“Hello, Thomas! I’m so happy to see you,” Elaine greeted him unexpectedly enthusiastically.

“I see you have a new approach,” Thomas replied. “It won’t work. Don’t bother.”

She sat in front of him and opened one of the books in front of him. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

“For what, stalking me?”

“For getting you out of prison and providing you with soldiers and books so you don’t get lost somewhere and become food for…”

Thomas shut his book. “Trust me, I would have much rather done it on my own.”

Elaine smiled. “But you couldn’t.”

“Elaine, why…”

“Thomas, trust me, I really wish things weren’t like this. But they are. So the only thing I can do I make sure you stay alive.” She was hopelessly trying to sway him with her sweet voice, but every time she used it so he was reminded of the things she stole from him. Of the things she continues to steal from millions of people for the sake of some stupid conviction that wasn’t even her own. “I’m done hoping you would understand. Now I just want to do everything I can to save your life. Is that really such a bad thing?”

“Correction: it’s your ideal future you are saving, not my life. Don’t act like you give a rat’s ass about me.” Thomas knew provocations such as this one were pointless but he felt a nauseating urge to remind her of their positions every chance he got. Because he would never get to forget.

“Is it really so impossible for us to be friends?” she asked, her voice shaking and her eyes almost teary.

Thomas wanted to punch her in the face. “I don’t even know how many times we’ve had this exact conversation. It became impossible when you killed my mother and burned my house down to prove a point.”

“I wasn’t proving a point…”

“Yes, you were. You wanted to show Diane what you can do to her loved ones and to show me that siding with her would be the wrong choice.” He grinned at Elaine, teeth and all. “But joke’s on you because I have nothing left to lose now.” He slammed his book shut and all but jumped up, ready to leave her behind for the millionth time. He really hoped she would never show her face to him again, but she did, every time.

And she always had something to add. “Let us go together, Thomas.”

Thomas’s mind went blank. He turned around, pushed the desk to his right so it knocked over the bookshelves in its way, and pulled Eliane up by her collar like she was a child; her legs were dangling in the air, but she remained undisturbed. The librarian stormed out of the miniature improvisation even though he had known Thomas all his life. But that was not Thomas Hammer anymore, not in soul anyway.

“Put me down, Thomas,” Elaine said, looking straight into Thomas’s burning eyes, now a little less certain that he wouldn’t turn her to ash. “You don’t have it in you.”

Thomas squeezed her uniform even harder; only then did he notice she was masquerading as a Raven. “You really think I’m so weak, don’t you?”

“I think you’re a good man,” she replied softly. “A little misguided and ignorant, but loyal and brave.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s the truth.” She didn’t use her sweet voice this time; she looked straight at him, deeply, like she did once before; Thomas wasn’t sure when. “Now let me go.”

It took Thomas one deep breath to let go and get to the door. But he couldn’t leave. Her sighs, her eyes, her presence, there was something haunting about her, something maddening, something that made him want to burn the things around him. She was so small, so fragile, and hid her evil so masterfully Thomas always had to remind himself it was there. They were so similar, Elaine and Diane, and Thomas saw it so clearly now. The only difference was that one was the queen and the other a maid. One was born for greatness, the other to sweap floors and waste her potential. And it must have been maddening.

“I trusted you,” Thomas whispered.

“I know.”

He wasn’t looking at her, but he imagined her tearful eyes and pouty lips. “When you told me to go with Diane, to tell her those things… You wanted me to break her because you knew you couldn’t. You never saw me as anything more than a toy you would discard as soon as you could. And now you come to me with all this bullshit about friends and choices. Aren’t you sick of yourself?”

There was silence, long and heavy, filled with blood and fire. Thomas turned his head slightly to his right to check if she was still there. She was just standing straight, like a statue, looking at his back. He couldn’t possibly imagine what she was thinking, ever. She had played all these games for years, used people, manipulated them with her sweet voice and now she was back to the beginning. No, this was worse; she was moving backwards. All her plans had failed. She couldn’t twist a queen’s mind enough and now she was at that queen’s mercy.

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“I know what you’re thinking. But there wasn’t another way. Diane Hunster doesn’t know how to love because she has never been truly, purely loved with no hidden motives. But she has been hated. All her life. I had to make her feel. Hate me. And Clara. Because if she hated us, she would do anything she could to make us suffer. She would destroy our future. Which would make our future a reality. That is why I had your mothers killed. So she would burst. Because I thought she still had you to lose.”

Thomas stared blankly at the door, couning crevices. He knew all this, he did, yet having Elaine say it herself made him feel like it was a dream. Her words were warm all over his skin, making little dents, pinching him a little, until it felt like he was being boiled alive.

She opened the door so they could both watch the wind shape the rain into tides as they stood side by side. As their clothes were getting soaked, as they choked on the water, Thomas felt his hatred grow.

“Let us go together, Thomas,” Elaine repeated.

This was his last straw. After months of fighting himself, telling himself he was not the that type of person, he just couldn’t stand it anymore. He couldn’t have her coming back to him to remind him of her existence, of the house he let burn, of the mother he didn’t protect. He couldn’t let himself bury his feelings anymore and let people do whatever they wanted with him.

Just because Diane did it, didn’t mean he should.

Thomas Hammer was a member of the Six. Due to his circumstances, people seemed to forget that. People, or Elaine, seemed to forget that he was not just a Flamer. So, when his arms burst into flames and he went for her face with the inhuman strength he had only discovered he possessed a few months prior, he would have crushed her skull if she weren’t a member of the Six as well. Just before his skin touched hers, every single droplet of rain that had fallen over the course of the past few days rushed toward the library creating an enormous wave and, just as he felt her lips on his palm, it crashed against the library, breaking the walls and completely erasing the structure from existence. Thomas moved away from the Aquarian and tried to stand firm as the wave crashed into him, his feet breaking the concrete under him, only to be submerged in the mountain of water that came after the first one. As he was being tossed and turned, he swore he could hear her laugh at his incompetence. His world was a circle again with no visible endpoints; he had never been without his feet on the ground and now that he was being tossed around his mind went blank. He couldn’t open his eyes due to the force of sprinting water and he prayed, this time wholeheartedly, that he wouldn’t smash his head against the ground. He remembered all the blood he had spilled at the bakery and concluded this must have been his punishment. But then, the water stopped moving. He remained floating for a movement, still unaware of the change due to the spinning in his head. As the water level was dropping and he was coming back to his senses, he felt the tingling in his fingers he had only felt once before. At the bakery. The tingling spread to his arms, then legs, then his chest, and by the time it arrived to his face, all he could do was smile. He was now lying on the concrete, looking at the sky. Then he sat up, his eyes wandering and his brain too focused on the tingling to control his body. He stood up and marched straight, towards Elaine. She wasn’t moving.

“How about a break?” she offered, but he was too far gone to interpret it. So, she sent another wave. Only this one just got split in two upon contact with his body, like he was some insuperable obstacle. Then she sent another one, then another one. But he would just keep walking, like there was nothing but air in front of him.

Elaine couldn’t see anyone in that body anymore, like some instinct had taken charge, so she turned around and started spnting away from him. With each step her heart beat just a little louder because she could hear him coming nearer. She turned around and yelled, “Thomas, stop!” But he just kept chasing after her, ready to see her brains on the floor. She turned the corner a few times, vaguely remembering the town’s layout. She hoped to get to where George’s house used to be, thinking, for some reason, that it would wake him up. But then, as she turned left, his fingers wrapped around her ponytail and he pulled her back, making her lose balance and almost smash her head against the concrete; she put her hands next to her head and used them to push herself backward before her head met the concrete. Then she twisted her body and wrapped her legs around Thomas’s neck, so her chest slammed against his face.

She wrapped her arms around his head, drowning him in blackness. “Thomas, breathe,” she said, out of breath.

He couldn’t see anything but her uniform anymore nor hear anything but her panicked heart beating against his head.

“Get off!” he yelled, pulling at the back of her uniform. But she was like a parasite, determined not to let go.

“No! Listen to me!” she screamed. “Isaac! Isaac!” Her hair was all over the place and her eyes wider than ever before. There were stray veins on her forehead and her cheeks were blood red.

Thomas felt a grip on his soulder; it was strong, belligerent, and cold. No pulling, no pushing, only warning.

“I think that was enough, you two,” a familiar voice warned. “You’ve made quite a circus.”

Thomas hand’t seen him in months; he had wondered where his once-almost-friend had been. Probably not anywhere near his future throne. Probably playing servant to a maid. Probably being charming and… empty. Thomas was completely back now, though he had never truly left. He saw and heard, felt everything. But her fear was so beautiful, so rewarding, he couldn’t bring himself to let her see him in his eyes. It was part of his revenge.

I have to do that again sometime.

Elaine jumped off Thomas’s shoulders and walked over to Isaac; she stood slightly behind his back, looking at Thomas with distrust. Isaac’s face was bright. It always was. He was like the sun in november. When he smiled, and he always did, Thomas had to look away; but after a while his eyes would adjust and he would see, over and over again, that there was nothing more than that flare to Isaac’s eyes, nose, and lips. But it was different this time. This time, there was a hint of a little something, an infinitisimal something, behind his pupils. It looked awfully like guilt.

“Hello, Thomas,” the prince greeted him. “I am glad to see you again.”

Thomas cleared his throat; he was still a bit dizzy. “So am I.”

“I am glad to see you got over your disdain for violence,” Isaac commented nonchalantly, like he didn’t know his arrow was going straight for Thomas’s gut. “I guess it is good I was here after all.”

Thomas could still feel Elaine’s body on his face and smell the soap she used in the air around him. It was that bland, clean smell, maybe like the ocean, or a bathhouse. Diane’s soaps were all scented. It was usually cherry, sometimes vanilla. She smelled like chocolate once. Thomas remembered it distinctly because he wanted to ask her where she got such an odd soap. Then he remembered she was the princess, the queen now, and that she probably never had to buy her own soap.

“Thomas, are you listening?” Elaine interrupted his memories.

Thomas flushed. “Yes, sorry. I was just thinking… A-About soap.”

“Soap?” Elaine let out, slightly disgusted.

“Yes, well,” he cleared his throat.

What an uncomfortable situation. I mean, we almost killed each other and now I’m thinking about soap. Diane’s soap, to make matters worse. What would Isaac think if I told him…

“...from Diane?” Thomas only caught the last bit of Isaac’s sentence.

“Sorry, what?”

Isaac tilted his head. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“Yes, I just never really tried to kill anyone before,” Thomas let out, once again without thinking. And what happens when people talk without thinking is that everyone freezes in utter shock; or at least it does in such situations. “I-I mean, I have killed people before,” Thomas went on. “Just about three weeks and some, what, two days and five hours ago. In Painron. In a bakery. I killed two Demons. But only because they killed a little girl and used her head to paint the display red. I didn’t want to kill them, I swear. Okay, maybe I did a little. But only because they killed the little girl.” Thomas grabbed the back of his neck. “So, what I’m trying to say now, Isaac, is that I would really like to talk to you. I mean, Diane is gone and Kyla is now gone too… But I couldn’t talk to Kyla about it anyway because she doesn’t understand such emotions.”

Isaac just kept staring at Thomas. “And what makes you think I do?”

Thomas’s eyes widened. “Oh, you do. I know you do. You’re that kind of person.”

“What kind of person?”

“The kind who listens and gives advice. I don’t need it to be real. I just need someone to listen. And you always listened to Diane, even if it meant nothing to you.”

A moment of silence ensued. Isaac’s face didn’t change, only his breathing quickened a little. Elaine caught it, of course. She didn’t know what it meant but she knew could use this bizarre situation. So, she smiled.

“You can always talk to me,” Elaine said.

Thomas’s eyes moved away from Isaac to her briefly. He smiled. He knew, they both did, how that encounter would have ended if she didn’t have her dog right next to her. But he was still so dizzy and the smell of her soap was getting stronger and stronger, so he only sighed. “Whatever. I’m going home. I’ll see you both in Iceleus?”

Elaine’s eye twitched. “Or sooner, I hope.”

He didn’t stop or turn around; he kept walking away from the two, toward his new house. “Trust me, so do I.”