“Leal?”

I can’t believe it. I’d planned to eventually go looking for her, but I’d never expected her to be here. On the other side of war.

I’m so happy to see her alive and healthy, but… why is she trapping me?

She’s older, taller than I remember. Her body now covered in the familiar glowing markings of a mage. Two distinct lines curve around her eyes, illuminating where it hadn’t nearly two years ago.

“Solvei… You appear to be doing well.” Between the gaps in the swirling water she traps me within, Leal walks before me.

“I…” How can I respond to that? Tell her things have been horrible? She’s still one of my closest friends. My first. I don’t want her to worry. “I’ve missed you.”

She laughs derisively before sneering down at me. Her near full metre height advantage makes me tilt my head back. “You missed me, did you? Well, I’ve missed my mother, but you wouldn’t care about that? Would you?”

I’m not sure why she’s acting like this, but her hostility stabs my chest worse than the spray of water. “What happened to Calysta?” I spent enough time around Leal to know how nice a person her mother was.

“You happened,” Leal growls. “You killed her, along with a thousand others in that fire.”

“What?”

No, that can’t be right. Only Gloria was supposed to die back then. I didn’t have control. The fire… my fire shouldn’t have spread so fast they couldn’t escape.

“No, I-”

I what? The possibility that the fire I started killed anyone hadn’t even crossed my mind. I hadn’t even considered it when I discovered how flammable people outside the wasteland were. Thinking back, it’s impossible to deny. Thousands likely died because I wasn’t careful.

I killed my friend’s mum. Put Leal in the position I’d declared I never would; I took away her family.

My ignorance isn’t an excuse. In my carelessness, I’d done the same as the Titan did to my family. Instead of protecting her from a situation like mine, I replicated it.

“I’m sorry.” The words feel empty even as they leave my lips. She has a reason to hate me, and words won’t bring her mum back to life.

“No.” Leal clenches her fists and scowls. “You don’t get to be sorry.”

The cage around me suddenly compresses. I’m forced to my knees as the water presses down on me. Pain wracks my chest and face as water mixes with my flames.

“This is unfair. You’re supposed to be evil.” She steps forward, dispelling the water cage and gripping her large hands around my shoulders. “So why are you the one crying?”

I collapse the heat of my body to not burn her. Leal’s hands grip me tight, but I don’t run. Tears well in her eyes as she tries to growl, but it only comes out choked. Her head drops and tears flow freely.

“I had so much I was going to say when I saw you again. I wanted to enjoy my retribution.” Leal drops to her knees and I’m engulfed in a crushing embrace. “I missed you, too, Solvei.”

What can I say? What can I do to make it up to her? I killed her mum. There is no way I can make up for that. Nothing I can think of will return things to the way they were, so I just lean in and return the hug, crying alongside my first friend.

We stand there, embracing on a battlefield.

“Solvei, I need your help,” Leal mumbles in my ear as gunfire diminishes. The pact nations’ army is losing, but I don’t care. My friend needs me more.

“Anything.”

She breathes a sigh and leans back. Even on her knees, she’s taller than me. She has bulked up since I last saw her, but still not to the same degree as the rest of her kind. Though thin for an ursu, she has more muscle than Bunny.

“They have my dad,” she says, looking into the dirt.

He’s alive? I’d thought for sure there would be no chance, considering how the war progressed before Hund’s intervention. If Gerben, the ursu that originally found me collapsed in the wasteland, is alive, then Leal still has family to stay by her side.

Did the Henosis Empire take him as prisoner?

“Who does? Where is he?” I ask, ignoring the water pooling around my boots.

Leal hesitates, her eyes trailing down the hill where her kind are cleaning up the remaining stragglers from the pact nations’ army. “The reksha are holding him at a gulag back in New Vetus.”

She lets me go and rises to her full height. I thought I’d grown a lot in the past couple of years, but it’s nothing on her growth. She scans my body and her jaw clenches. “Solvei, I can’t forgive you. Not for what happened to mum.”

My arms fall to my side and I turn my gaze away. I give her a nod of understanding. I wouldn’t forgive myself either. For me to hope things return to the way we left them would be far too greedy.

“They’ll consider me a traitor for not killing you here, so I need to get my dad out before they send the order to kill him,” Leal says. “I can’t get him out alone. I’m not strong enough.”

“I told you I’ll help. If we need to leave right now, I’m with you.”

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“Thank you.”

“First, I need to meet with a friend.” I grab her hand and run back up the hill.

The encampment is in chaos. The ursu’s surprise attack is nothing if not effective. Only the mercenaries appear to put up a proper defence. All others are left to fall under the coordinated offence. Besides a few odd pops, the sound of gunfire has ceased.

We find Grímr struggling against a trio of ursu. His damaged chest and missing wing giving him far more issues fighting them than it usually would, but he holds his own. An ursu lays dead beneath his talons.

My flames surge forward, ready to burn those attacking Grímr. A squeeze to my hand makes me hesitate. The golden flames instead encircle Grímr, forcing the flammable ursu to back off.

I lead Leal into my blaze. She tugs against my grip, but I don’t give her the chance to pull away. Her reluctance disappears as soon as we are within the blaze. Tongues of flame roll off her fur without burning.

“Solvei, you’re okay!” Grímr relaxes as I walk into sight. “We need to leave, now. We can’t… uh, who’s this?” he asks as his eyes fall on the ursu I’m pulling along. He doesn’t act immediately hostile, thankfully, despite the rest of her race attacking us.

“This is Leal. She’s a friend.” I create a path of flame to the north. “Let’s get moving.”

With Grímr’s current inability to fly, we have no choice but to walk our way out of the battlefield. My flames should scare off most of the ursu army, but I’m certain they’ll also attract the water mages.

“Leal, do you think you’d be able to stop any water mages as we escape?” The only solutions I have for the mages are both painful for me and deadly for them. After discovering the death I’ve already caused around Leal, I’d rather avoid what I can.

“I’ll be able to tear away control from a few of them easily, but there’s nothing I can do about the more experienced mages.” She shakes off my grip, keeping her hands free. A dim glow flashes along the thin lines winding her fingers. “I won’t be able to do so for long.”

“That’s fine. Just long enough for us to get out of the encampment.” I twist to Grímr, who’s hobbling alongside us. His injuries mean we’re limited by the speed at which we can run. “Grímr, once we’re out, will you be fine returning?”

As I keep my senses strained, picking through the ursu I can feel and looking for those heading toward my flames, Grímr narrows an eye at me. “I’m not about to leave you here to fight a war alone.”

“No. I’m leaving the battlefields,” I say. “Leal needs my help, and we need to move quick if we want to save her father.”

Grímr watches me in contemplation, likely determining if I’m being truthful. He turns to inspect Leal, who is running in silence, but obviously listening.

Unlike the last ambush, I feel the waiting ursu long before they can douse me.

“Leal, two ahead of us. On our right.” As soon as I give her the warning, I pull back on my flames, extinguishing them before any water can come near them.

In the same moment the two mages ahead of us blast identical streams of compressed water toward us, Leal shoots out a pair of thin streams of her own. Leal’s are far thinner and have nowhere near the power that the opposing mages have. Why isn’t she using that wave of water she used on me? What can those two tiny things do?

Leal’s and the enemy mages’ streams collide into one another, and, as expected, Leal’s flow is overpowered with ease. She still managed to capture me, so I have to assume she has more planned.

Thankfully, she does. The enemy ursu’s streams curve down into the earth within a couple metres of the point Leal’s water makes contact. Each stream soon cuts off, and Leal’s hands glow once more. The new pool of water explodes into a thick mist that blocks sight to the mages.

We rush out of range before they can find us again. I don’t reignite the path ahead. We’ve come far enough that there aren’t many people around. Ursu nor the other races.

We face no more opposition as we flee alongside a dozen soldiers escaping the losing battle. The New Vetus army settling to solidify their hold on the area rather than chase stragglers.

“Are you sure you trust her? She is a water mage. I don’t need to tell you how dangerous she is to you.” Grímr looms over me, glaring at Leal, who can’t keep his gaze.

“Yes,” I say. “She had the chance. Plus, I owe her.”

Apparently satisfied, Grímr relents. “Alright. Don’t worry about me and make sure not to take on anything you can’t handle. I don’t want another Viisin situation.” Grímr pulls me into a hug with his sole wing. “Come back safe, okay?”

I lean into his side before breaking away. “You better have that body in perfect condition by the time I’m back. Also, save me some magnesium if you find some.”

Grímr huffs in amusement before nodding and turning. We go our separate ways.

It’s sudden and saddening. Grímr has been by my side for so long, and we hardly have any time to enjoy our goodbye. I shake my head to focus on the task at hand and turn to Leal.

She looks conflicted. An expression that seems to have made a permanent home on her features since I’ve met her again.

“Alright,” I start. “Where exactly is Gerben?”

“Across the isthmus, in the east of New Vetus,” Leas says. “We can’t use the new military rail. It’s too well guarded. But if we hurry through Zadok, we can sneak onto a civilian train.”

She plans to run through the Zadok Kingdom? “Won’t that take weeks?”

“Yes, but what choice do I have?” Leal kneads her hands before her chest. “I can only hope they don’t send the order back immediately.”

So she needs to get back faster than a train, but doesn’t have the benefit of flight? “Hmm. Give me a minute. I want to try something.”

She gives me an anxious look before turning over the sparse earth, her hands fidgeting all the while. We’ll need to cross the new front line her own kind have instated if we want to travel to New Vetus. That, on top of our uncertain deadline, must be at the forefront of her mind.

Well, if my plan works, then neither will be a problem.

I morph into a bird. Unlike usual, I don’t limit my size. My body grows double my natural height, wings spreading five metres from tip to tip. As I enlarge, I can tell I won’t be able to use my white fire anymore, my size too large to allow the density of that intense heat.

Before, I’d been limited in how far I could expand or shrink my form. That is another restriction surpassed by knocking down my wall and achieving the next stage of my flame. When I get time, I’ll have to test exactly how large or small I can force my form.

What I never expected, is for the transformation to only take a minute. Despite adding far more fire to my form than I’d ever tried before, the flames settled into my pictured form quickly.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot Leal gawking at my transformation. Right, the Void Fog was after I last saw her.

My form is just a sized up version of the same falcon body I’m comfortable with. I’d considered imitating Grímr’s alicanto body, but I figure familiarity will be important as time is of the essence.

“Well-” I cut off before I can even start after hearing my voice. Creepily low pitch, though still my voice. A quick change to my throat returns my voice to normal before the size up. “Climb up. I’ll get you to your dad before the first train even leaves the station.”

She stands there staring for a long minute before I step forward and crouch, nudging her with my wing. When she finally shakes her head and climbs on my back, gripping at my flaming plumage, I have to hide the sudden doubt I feel that this will work.

Leal is heavy.

Subtly, I increase my size. It’s a strain, but I manage another two metres to my wingspan. It’s not even close to Grímr’s fifteen metres, but even this makes me feel like I’m stretching too far.

I guess passing that barrier isn’t enough for me to become a Titan. Unfortunate.

I take a step, trying to get accustomed to the girl on my back that must be at least five times my weight, even with my new size. My talons scrape against the dirt and I stumble forward, not having lifted my leg high enough for the added weight. With spread wings holding me upright, I hope I’m able to hide the stumble.

If I can’t even walk, then how am I going to fly like this?

My neck twists and I watch Leal inspecting my long, burning wings with that same interest she’d had when watching my pillars of flame in our secluded space years ago. At least her mage curiosity distracts her from my embarrassing mistake.

This might take more effort than expected.