Sometimes a wound can be a sound, each note like shards of glass against her throat, contorting her mouth into unnatural shapes. She struggled with it, as if to speak would be to bleed, such vitriol she held towards the man. Zenos, she says unwittingly, only when necessary, when conversation would allow no other recourse, the sound coming out hoarse, as if in the aftermath of a scream.

There is little she wouldn’t do to forget he ever existed.

But as fate would have it, she would not be allowed the mercy.

There were screams, chaos, the sound of snapping bones and the grate of steel against mail. Familiar, but no less distressing, duty and resolve settling her nerves like a well-worn coat. She sees Lucia launching herself onto the field, her body like an arrow let loose, plumes of smoke and snow adding to the confusion, until suddenly— Fandaniel, black tendrils, darkness more tactile than any she had known before, until her vision fades to black. The last thing she feels is the atmosphere pressing against her, until she is something smaller than before.

Her eyes open as if entering a nightmare.

The preceding tempest now silenced, it was as if she had entered the eye of the storm.

Before her is Zenos, his mannerisms a poor imitation of a man eating. No one would have believed it, he wasn’t capable of consuming anything with the restraint of utensils. Fandaniel stood next to her, and though she imagines her arm rising to grasp her cane, she feels as though there is nothing for her to move. She is both weightless and weighted, a thin, wispy version of herself encased in some sort of heavy, immobile cage. The meat before her seems to pulsate within the darkness, and despite the luscious appearance of the table, she can only smell the stench of a battlefield, blood and viscera and soil filling her nose until she could imagine a feeling like nausea creeping through her stomach.

There was silent terror creeping throughout her heart— throughout the very aether of her soul.

“Take a moment, too, to familiarize yourself with that borrowed flesh.”

She can see trembling hands coming into view as she struggles to lift them, as she feels her aether beginning to flow through deadened, unfamiliar corridors, heavy and slow and alien. Once the realization settles, she can feel a heart quicken, the rush drowning out Fandaniel’s incessant chittering, the spread of her aether allowing her for greater control over this foreign entity. The sound spills from foreign lips like an alien tongue, ragged and guttural and pleading—

“Give me back my body...!”

She cannot feel her blessing, cannot feel Hydaelyn’s light coursing through her veins, cannot feel the weight of Ardbert and Fray and Myste— Within her there is a silence unlike any she had ever known, and for a moment she thinks she must have perished at Camp Broken Glass. A cruel trick of the mind, her final moments consumed by some purgatory of her own making, Zenos’ ghost chasing her to the last.

And throughout it all, he dines.

Robotic, repetitive, unnatural. The clink of metal against porcelain, tender flesh rendered and consumed without a thought. He ate with dull, listless eyes, and Eithne wondered if even the pleasure of eating had been lost to him, too; if he ever had it at all. Did it matter to him whether it was leather or meat between the fork and knife? There seemed to be little difference between the cow and the hare, when served upon his platter.

There is a noise that sounds like growling, and it seemed to reverberate through the very marrow of those bones. Fandaniel calls it Daddy, and the realization spreads through this borrowed body like wildfire. There could be no other, so deep within Garlean lands. That she had failed to sense a primal a few yalms away slows the festering sludge that was that body’s blood to a crawl— despair.

Fandaniel proceeds to explain his designs, the summoning and expansion of Anima’s power, each word a thorn wrapping itself around a tattered heart. Her helplessness fills their lungs like water, each breath more difficult than the last, until Zenos’ voice cuts through the noise with his usual drivel.

“Does the pursuit of prey you have bested before excite you?”

Had she had the strength to stand, she would have struck him.

There was, quite possibly, nothing she cared for less than his obsession, the “hunt” of which she had been made an unwilling participant. Butchery, as he described it, the thrum of his voice extending the vowels, was not how she perceived it.

Could she slaughter him without a care, without dooming this star to face the end without its warrior, she would have done so— No, all she could do was make certain he would trouble no one but her. She would play the part of prey, all white silk furs and lithe feet, the long months of battle for Ala Mhigo having taught her the most efficient way to avoid becoming the slab of flesh upon his plate. There was no one else who could avoid his blade, and even so the Warrior of Light was still unable to save Garlemald from getting caught in the crossfire.

His eyes stared deep, pupils dilated. His gaze went past the soiled armor, leering through the rotting flesh, until she felt the cold ceruleum flame of his eyes boring into the very essence of her. As if he could see every wisp and tremble of it, her aether coiling in on itself in desperate self-defense, to be appraised and deliberated upon— She couldn’t look away, trapped in this unending nightmare.

“Do not let your disdain deprive you—” the sound of his voice snakes into her mind, “—deprive us—” he intoned with a quiet frenzy, a hint of the madness rippling beneath the surface.

Suddenly, she is in Ala Mhigo, mouth filled with blood and grit—

She is struck down in Doma, Yugiri looking frail for the first time before his mighty blade—

Shinryu’s monstrous body, coiling and shuddering with fanatical furor, destroying the very ground beneath her feet, launching her heavenward towards oblivion—

“My gifts to you.” He says, as if reading her thoughts.

She feels the words more than hears them. This body may not hold the memories of every agony, every death, in its foreign, festering state, and so she would not feel the goosebumps or the shiver down her spine; but her soul remembers. Even in its decay, the borrowed vessel shuddered, her aether frantic with fear.

Woe betide the man who stands with the Weapon of Light, the memory echoed in her mind.

Zenos’ pupils seemed to contract and expand slightly, her fear like blood ringing sweet in the water.

She struggles to keep her mind steady, to hone in and remain focused on his voice. She tries hanging onto each raspy consonant and over enunciated vowel, in the hopes of finding a clue to escape— She mustn’t think of the Scions and her allies, lest she lose what little composure remained within her, and yet Zenos seemed to approach a dreary form of delight in pulling from her these memories. Arenvald, Nidhana...

She must stop these fears from feeding into themselves, mustn't allow herself to imagine how Alisaie and Alphinaud’s proud faces might crumple, how G’raha Tia’s lip might tremble, once her disappearance is confirmed—

 “I have only just begun.”

The threat pulls her away from the memory, her gaze following him as he walked away from the table; slow, languid steps taking him to a darkened area of the room. Once again she felt the limits of this foreign body, as she strained her eyes against the darkness— Until she saw it.

The innocent hare within the wolf’s maws, all silken white hair and leadened legs sitting atop a sinewy throne.

There she was.

The body moves forward, stumbling out of the chair and towards what should be her’s by birthright, the one thing granted to her and only her when she first took breath upon this star.

She runs, and Zenos smiles.

The wolf’s maw snaps shut.

There is nothing that could describe the sensation of existing outside of one’s body, much less to see it contort by a force not your own. There is even less precedent for the feeling borne out of Fandaniel’s announcement. Eithne tries to stop the bile rising, the feeling of disconnect between a parched, spasming throat and her terror-addled aether tinges her sight red, small dots of darkness flickering in the corners. Once she sees herself rise, sees the wrongness of her own face, twisted in a sneer, staring back at her, there is an itch that begins to spread underneath the skin; like a neverending shiver.

The wolf swallows, and the hare is gone.

In her mind she sees herself flayed, each tendon exposed. Between, beneath, crawling across each strand of flesh is rot, white wriggling flecks burrowing between the fibers.

In her hand a knife, in her heart a prayer.

Cut away, carve him out.

She begs to examine every inch of flesh, to pick out the pieces of his wretched self that wormed themselves in; to rearrange her face, her posture, her limbs, to what she had been like before. Get out...!, her heart cries, but there is no familiar symphony of voices to soothe her, no breathy chuckles, no golden eyes that pierce through the shadows.

The body convulses.

She could scream, could she find where the lungs and the windpipe connected, but before that happens there is an Oh dear! behind her to pull her scattered mind away, and Fandaniel’s vile voice slithers its way in through the wounds Zenos had opened—

Her friends.

The storm moves towards Camp Broken Glass, and the tempest finds her again.

——————

Eithne wakes to a rush of sound, blood running hot in her ears, her chest.

The storm has passed, and the frozen hell of Garlemald’s streets fades into memory.

First there’s pinpricks of pain here and there, bruises and cuts from earlier battles, the familiar injuries still right where she left them. Then she feels the bile in her throat, when her eyes open to the sight of her friends surrounding her. They seemed so soft and haggard, haloed in the thick, white snowfall, the gray Garlean sky stretching endlessly behind them. She feels the crisp air in her lungs, her veins thrumming with life’s levin. Her eyesight is clear, stretching farther than it had in that festering, putrid, corp—

Breathe, a voice stokes the warmth in her soul, bidding her to relax, the flame burning an incandescent yellow in the abyss, just breathe.

“Is everyone alright?”, she croaks, despite herself.

Their words seem to bubble and echo, as if speaking underwater, as if the white puffs of condensation were dense enough to muffle them. All she can hear is her heartbeat, a jackhammer against her chest, burning with life, whole and hale and hers. She wouldn’t allow herself to think further than that, her head swooning as she stood, her motions mechanical and practiced in defiance of her mental state. She moves each major joint in her limbs, pretends to inspect herself, eyes glazed over and distant. Not right now, she thinks, choking back the lump in her throat, be strong.

It was a brief affair, all things considered.

Viewed clinically, the battle had not even lasted the day. She would have laughed, were she to ever read Maxima’s report, long after all was said and done: Minimal injuries, no losses. Morale is high after the Warrior of Light’s return. Infiltration of the Tower of Babil to commence at 2000 hours.

Whose morale, exactly? He could never have known how it felt, when Y’shtola looked deep through her flesh to the depths of her quivering Aether and said, “We must act quickly.”

All you do is want or need!, snaps a voice in a distant corner of her mind, and Eithne has to smother it lest it spit further venom at her beloved companion. She knows Y’shtola isn’t heartless. She is right, and there is nothing for Eithne to do but to keep moving. There are things much larger than her at stake. What is the cost of one young Veena, against the weight of Hydaelyn itself?

The question resonates through her, and in her mind she sees Nald’thal’s scales: her pliant, hollow body on a dark, flesh-like throne on one hand, and on the other the myriad faces of those she could yet save; her kind, tired friends, hands outstretched, full of light.

When all have dispersed, it is G’raha Tia who finds her again, retching into the snow behind one of the buildings, a weak palm against the wall shakily holding her weight.

“Wicked white,” he swears, his hands reaching out for her with none of their usual hesitance. “My friend, are you ill? Perhaps we— Perhaps I should—”

She feels his hands on the small of her back, and another surprisingly warm palm on her clammy forehead, pushing the damp hair out of her face. She wants to recoil at his touch, wants to push him away and curl into herself to stew in solitude, but her mind is eager to remind her of the horrors she’d just experienced, and she is forced to remain still to maintain her dignity in front of him. There is little tactile memory, but her mind is powerful enough to replicate those details. The thud of bodies against concrete, the terrifying whirr of Garlean machina— a dead man’s emaciated face, his body long turned cold, as she hastily palmed his uniform for a medkit, rations; anything that could be of use.

Suddenly the skin underneath G’raha palm burns as if licked by a flame, and her body convulses once more.

His hand rubs slow, steady circles into her back, the plush shearling of her coat warm and soft against her body. She tries to focus the sensations of her body, each repetition, down and up, in and out, until her stomach settles, and her shoulders cease to shudder. It is then when she realizes he had been speaking to her, softly.

“Breathe, that’s it.” He whispers, the gentlest sound she has heard since they stepped foot on these blasted wastes. “Slowly now, we’re in no hurry.”

In the back of her mind, she fears that somehow the glimmering scarlet of his eyes would shine blue against the Garlean frost, but she silences the doubt and gathers her remaining courage to look at him; he deserved that much from her, at least. Eyes their usual deep red, his rounded cheeks, a bit of frost on his lashes; she tries to focus on the details, to remain grounded in the present. His brows were knitted with concern, but he tried to smile regardless, and for a moment Eithne felt the wind chill’s bite soften.

“Here, let me find you something to drink.” He pulls on her arm gently to lead her elsewhere, the other hand leaving her back to root around his coat pockets, until finally he offers her a crumpled handkerchief. “Use this.”

Before long, she finds herself sitting by one of the few ceruleum heaters, her arms wrapped around her knees, coat pulled close around her; Tataru’s love embracing her across the uncountable malms between them. She tries to focus on the soft shearling, the warmth, rather than the incessant itch she felt underneath her skin. Breathe, the warmth in her heart seems to whisper, its flame flickering a warm, familiar amber-hue, just breathe.

No sooner did her breathing find its rhythm that G’raha Tia returned, steaming tin mug in one hand, a flask of water in the other. He kneels beside her, bidding her to drink first before availing herself to some of the leftover stew that had survived amidst the chaos. The water is easy, the corked flask familiar and safe to her, the taste crisp and non-intrusive; she feels it burn down her throat, scratched and abused by both the dry air and her previous exertions, but she drinks regardless.

It is the stew that gives her some difficulty.

She peers into the warm mug, the murky red color and dark chunks bobbing within it flipping her stomach once more, and reflex comes before she can stifle it. No sooner had she opened her mouth to gag, that Thancred’s resentful one-eyed gaze flashes in her mind, the tension in his hands around her shoulders, as he woke her from her second poisoning; and the bile rises again. Trickery!, her nerves screamed at her, the feeling when Fandaniel’s dark tendrils crept around her now snaking up her spine once more.

It was as if Zenos had cursed her. His aether had found the heartwood of her body eager kindling for his evil, setting alight every frayed nerve, sharpening every softened edge. Perhaps some smoldering ember of him had somehow remained within, wriggling under her skin, and she would never, ever—

G’raha’s hands come into view, settling atop her own.

“You must eat, my friend.” His voice is kind, a balm against the encroaching dark. If the moment reminded him of her Light-sickness on the First, he did not let it show.

Her lips part in protest, but her voice comes out as more of a wheeze than a word, and G’raha remains firm, even as he tried to soothe her, “You must, there is little anyone can do on an empty stomach.”

Instead he brings her hands and the cup slowly, cautiously, to her mouth; his eyes keeping her gaze on him and his unwavering smile.

Black pepper, garlic, she focuses on the flavor profile to distract herself, as if she were still at the Bismarck, a young culinarian eager for Lyngsath’s approval, turmeric, bay leaves, a standard mirepoix base.

G’raha Tia smiles proudly, when she shakily sets down her empty mug.

“Thank you, really.” Her voice comes in cracks, like shattering glass, her throat still aching. “But I, I’d like some time alone. Before we go.”

“Of course.” He obliges, ever the gentleman, with a small tilt of his head as he gathered up the cup and flask. “We’ll handle the preparations for departure, so you need only worry about recuperating.”

He seems to pause, briefly, before rising, lips half parted with some unsaid thought. She simply waited for him, arms once again tight around her knees.

“I—”, She sees the familiar set of his brow, the soft smile, tell-tale signs that he has found his confidence to speak from the heart. “While I may not have had the same experience, I know the... the feeling of losing myself, to a force beyond my control.”

“It is terrifying, and painful. But,” His smile belied the sad undertone of his voice. “We are all here for you—  You need not hesitate to reach out to us in times like these. There’s no need to go at it alone, my friend.”

She nods to him, unable to give voice to the gratitude, but hoping he could see it in her, in the way he always seemed to know her deepest thoughts without words. She hadn’t known this would be her only reprieve for a long while to come but, somehow, it had managed to be just enough.

——————

Zenos never strayed far from her path. Not for long.

Be it in the tower, on the moon’s surface, or deep in the dark, where, even had her sleep been dreamless, then the sound of fire and terror threatened to rob her of it regardless. Exhaustion would weigh down her eyelids, until she would awake again with a start, hands resting atop that wretched dinner table. Zenos’ eyes shining across from her, sometimes a cold, silent blue, and at others a fierce ceruleum fire; yet always they pinioned her, hot or cold, to where she sat.

The spread was always beyond imagination. Bone china laden with rich, decadent meats of mystery— a Pâté here, blood sausages, an arrangement of ribs there, slabs of marbled steak overflowing with red liquid, oozing onto the mats of white lace beneath. If she looked too closely at them, they would shift in shape, their contours warping until they became too familiar for comfort, and she’d look away before she could put a name to the flesh. Next to them would be a tart, the glazed apple flesh glistening in the candlelight, then plump grapevines filled to burst, a cornucopia overflowing with soft stone fruits and grain; always a veritable garden of opulent delights. 

It was as if each plate and display was interconnected, forming a maze, and at some point she would realize there would be a small clear pathway connecting them amidst the jungle of the banquet table.

“Whence rises one’s true strength?” It always started on familiar territory, words she had heard before stitched together into a patch-work quilt of a conversation. Sometimes he would be eating, others drinking, and rarer still he would be standing, hands atop his chair’s backrest, and somehow she could feel their weight, the ghost of their touch, on the back of her neck. “The flesh? The soul?”

Zenos was not one to engage in wasted movements. His eyes would not wander, his breathing coming in measured, timed intervals. He would not run a hand across his plate, and the way he cut into the meats more akin to a chirurgeon’s incision than a man partaking of his dinner. No openings for attack— no weaknesses to exploit.

No room for escape.

There was but one thing, something granted to her by her gift; something he could do in turn, by his strength.

“It fills you even now,” He spoke in near whisper, the purring voice right next to her ear, despite the yalms between them, “The hunger.”

The nightmares vary wildly from there. Come the dawn they would fade, only inscrutable images remaining in her mind’s eye, the terror settling into a migraine, remnants of the wound her magicks alone could not heal.

Sometimes, she would open her eyes to find herself in pitch darkness, save for a Veena sitting opposite to her, the sight of her familiar silken white hair and golden gaze causing her heart to swell. The eyes would be wide and ravenous, the ferocity in them strong enough to make her blood thrum with levin, the promise of symphony, their danse macabre. From her chest rumbled his voice, from her mouth his words, “We have but one candle to burn.”

An end. Pitch-dark. Her blood slowing into cold-stillness.

In her ear a whisper, “You live for these moments.”

Then fire, tempest, her blood like a rushing river in her ears, drowning out the world until all there was left was the cane burning in her hand, and the blue of Zenos’ eyes meeting her own.

Shinyu’s Domain, high above the sands of Ala Mhigo, whirling with the winds of the wyrm eikon’s fury.

The feeling of falling upwards, of the ground rushing down to meet her.

“To bite down against my jugular,” Zenos’ smile, his bloody blade pressed against his neck, Lyse’s hopeless cry fading into nothingness.

The table seems to contract, yalms becoming ilms, until their plates touch with a quiet clink, his hair falling upon them like sheaths of wheat as he leaned towards her. In his hand a bisected pomegranate, pips overflowing, mottled red and black stains across his large, marble sculpted hand.

An offer. A promise.

She remembered the sweet smell, a hint of tart on the far edge of it, “You and I are one and the same.”

Be it awake or asleep, she was always fighting. The self-same fears consuming her star also invading every aspect of her mind, only the light from her allies strong enough to keep the terrors at bay. Just enough to light the path forward, to put one foot in front of the other, to continue the struggle to protect their unending journey.

Until finally, she arrives at the edge of creation, the heavens’ vast emptiness leaving her body chilled and numb, yet in her breast the flame persisted, enough warmth and light to banish the darkness.

Just as her journey continued, so too did the hunt. Therefore it was not so surprising when—

Wind, tempest, her blood like a rushing river in her ears, drowning out the world until all there was left was the cane burning in her hand and the lurid flame of Zenos’ primal eyes meeting her own.

“At the end of everything I find you, my friend.”

The light of the stars connecting beast with prey, a path amidst the heavens’ abundance.

“I had assumed you would be above something so banal as despair. Am I mistaken?”

For the first time in their dance, it is not fear he would find when he peers deep into her soul. Whether it was defiance or confidence, she would not be able to say herself. Still, the sight of Shinryu is akin to levinstrike in her veins, the fire in her heart burning a brilliant gold all her own— “I don’t need your help.”

The battle is both eternal and instant, the stalwart allies beside her both old friends and new. Even her father had answered her summons to fight beside her, his arrow striking true across time and space. His song of hope and deliverance rang brighter than the Endsinger’s requiem, the love in the strum of his harp the answer to the questions she had carried with her throughout most of her summers. Ties of love and sweat and tears and blood brought them all together, each bringing their all to bear against absolution; for those they might save, for those who’ve yet to live.

A hero’s battle, righteous and true.

Beneath her Shinryu’s body shuddered as it raced towards oblivion, and once the final note of the Endbringer’s song faded into nothingness, Eithne would find herself face to face with Meteon.

“May we please... be friends?” Meteon asks, her shadowy hand outstretched.

An offer. A promise.

Like a comet, she is here, then gone in an instant. Before her, a trail of radiant gold, the promise of a new dawn within reach.

Behind her, Zenos. Inescapable.

His voice is calm, its low raspy undertone forcing her to focus on every syllable. “Hear me then. Not as a hero, but as simply— you.”

Eithne had run as far as she could. Avoided his blows, disarmed his schemes. She sustained the torture, the humiliation, of his sadistic hunt. There was no road left in front of her, and no quarter to retreat.

“This is the sole pleasure I know, and it is the sole pleasure I have to share.”

She had denied him, shunned his existence as nothing more than a soul lost to insanity; a creature more machine than man, incapable of feeling in any way that mattered to her. It was easier, always, to imagine him as a blight upon the star, the way a healer might think of an infection; a virulent disease lacking in sentience. She did not begrudge the tumor, she did not hate a malady, no matter how she may fear it. He was to be excised, smoked out, scraped and sutured and doused until he became a shiny pink scar; a chirurgeon’s examination question, a White Mage’s feverish nightmare.

She had been no different than a woodwarder, protecting her motherland without question. At the time, it seemed that to think any further was the easiest way to court disaster; and there had been enough slavering beasts nipping at her ankles as it was.

“There is more to you than that.” For the first time, she understood that his smile had always been genuine. “You know this to be true.”

She would ram her head against this lesson, time and time again. Just as when she failed her friends in Ul’dah, in Ishgard, Ala Mhigo, Doma, Norvrandt— when she failed to see her feelings for what they were, every time, until it was too late. She was a Weapon, with all her efforts expended on being the sharpest blade, lest she be cast out.

She thinks of Papalymo and Lyse; of Alphinaud, Alisae; Thancred and Y’shtola and Urianger; Estinien and Y’sayle; G’raha Tia and Haurchefant.

She thinks of Minfillia, the gentleness in her eyes lost for eternity, for even in her memory they now burned the sharp crystalline blue of the Mothercrystal.

How many hardships could she have saved them from? How many of them would have been here today, had she learned this lesson earlier, if she hadn’t denied herself and the world of the multitudes they contained?

“As surely as you know the thrill of pushing your body and soul to their limits—”

A man is no parasite. Zenos was not a cancer.

He was not so alien either. He was no Ea, nor Omicron. In their breast thumped the same heart, its blood the same red. From the Moon she had seen it clearly— the lands of the star showed no borders, the Empire and its people but a speck like any other. Only the scars she saw— If she looked close enough, a little Loporrit beside as her guide. She could see the dark stain of Carteneau, the orange dots of Mor Dhona. Memories of conflict, her children fighting amongst themselves, unaware of its futility.

All had carried that same gnashing, aggravating desire for fulfillment. The same desire to be understood, to find meaning in the blank pages of their lives.

“Of confronting ever-mightier foes, dancing ever closer to the precipice—” She heard the fervor in his voice, and realized it was not venom but emotion, a licking flame, an earnest wish, “wondering if this will be the one to finally, finally——”

In the back of her mind she hears the soft whirring of alien engineering, the clang of her boots on metal, Sir asking plainly, expecting no answer.

Why does it seek to continue?

“—fill the void.”

In the far edge of existence, after she had given her all to her star, to those she loved, she had found herself confronted by the one question she had sought to escape.

Minfillia’s hand, outstretched.

Haurchefant offering her a warm drink on her coldest night.

Twin charges, looking up at her expectantly.

A soul crystal like an ember, smouldering in her palm.

The memories flit by, each the span of an instant and an eternity. Every breath gifted to her, every step walked amidst friend and foe, every brief respite amidst her tireless path. The little Veena, holding onto their homecoming gift for their father, feeling him press a kiss upon their forehead for the last time.

Has your journey been good?, Venat had asked her.

Remember us.

“Such pleasures, you seek for their own sake, and no other reason.” Zenos reaches out to her, his eyes boring through the tattered livery, each faded stitch filled with humanity's hopes and dreams, to see Eithne as she was,

“Is this not so... adventurer?”

You’re going to get us killed one of these days, you know. The flame in the abyss flickered, its warmth spreading like rays of sunshine. Now go, and don’t look back.

With her own voice, she answered—her answer— for the first time.

“That, I can’t deny.”

It was at the boundary, the barren plains of life yet conceived, where she had found it. Acceptance, as he cried out in euphoria. What she had fought against and denied, what her journey had deigned important enough to remind her, over and over. Through broken shields, blood-stained auracite, Thancred’s last breath—————

Endure, survive, live...!

Acceptance was not forgiveness. She could never forgive Zenos, could never forget the horrors he had done, the memories that would always haunt her. Even as her blood sang with their music, the clang of his scythe against her staff, the lyrical accompaniment of her holy magic— in her heart burned the righteous anger for Eitherys, uncontrollable rage at his abuses, his selfishness, at the uncountable futures he had obliterated, both here and in worlds unknown.

But she knew now that she cannot separate her justice from her passion, that their dance amidst the blood lilies was mutual; in their clash she found what laid beneath the surface, what Fray and Myste had loved more than anything.

No longer Menphina’s blessed, or Hydaelyn’s champion.

Have you no rage left for me? No rancor?

Not a Scion, nor a warrior.

Have I overestimated your potential?

But finally—finally—Eithne.

Did you not wish to take my head?

She brought her all to bear. For every injustice, every broken bone and bleeding gash, for Ala Mhigo and Doma, for Garlemald, for her friends.

For Yotsuyu.

For herself.

With each shimmering clash her vision blurred, sparks of white refusing to fade from view. She could barely feel her throat, scratched raw with each prayer and incantation, and with her palms rubbed raw, she struggled to keep a firm grip on her cane, its metal body slick with blood. The candle burns, the wax and wick leaving not even ash in their wake, and then—

“It mustn't end yet!”

With the eternal wind blowing strong against her back, she rises.

It is barely a pause, more of a shift. Her heart coming to a standstill, color fading— then surging again. The dance continued, with Zenos’ frenzied cries barely audible to her amidst her incessant chanting. Burn, burn! He cried out, as she flitted between the wide arcs of his scythe, as the lily-shaped light of her offensive magicks shattered and remade themselves against his onslaught.

She was breathing heavily, in her ears a rushing river, in her hands a raging fire; alive.

He poised himself to attack, the earth trembling beneath the furor of the dark aether surrounding him. On her lips a prayer, on his—

“This is my moment! Our moment!”

Holy intercession— She felt the Light aether gathering before she saw it. Swirling geometric patterns, shifting and changing, an aegis of light holding strong against his dynamis-engorged scythe. The sound of the clash reverberating to her marrow, her flame flickering against the force. Behind her eyelids lay oblivion, and she fought to keep them open. No, not yet...!

She is pushed back, the cane slipping from her grasp, Zenos now repelled.

As she looked at his face, twisted in his rapturous frenzy, her mind was silent for the first time in her twenty-six summers. She grits her teeth, her instincts flaring, every nerve in her body pulled taut.

There is only one goal.

She feels the brush of his knuckles on her face at nearly the same instant as she made contact with his’; yet he recoils where she does not. There is no hesitation. She could feel the quiver of her heart, the wild flutter of the flame— There was nothing to do, but kill him before it was snuffed.

She flies forward, her fist aiming for the jugular once more. There is a brief memory— Sidurgu’s eyes widened in surprise, when she had done the same to him, in that wintry land so long ago. She feels a crunch under her knuckles, and the memory is gone.

He kicks at her, and another memory flashes briefly. Ala Mhigo, Doma. She doesn’t fall to her knees this time— she’ll never kneel to him again. Another punch, and she feels her body slowing down, and Zenos’ steps match her tempo. He spits out blood, and she feels her blood quicken. There is no reason to waste precious seconds on things such as satisfaction; her body knows, and that is enough. 

They clench their fists in tandem, her skin turning cold as she focused whatever fire was left within her into her palm. There would not be another— this was it.

A man had made her a promise once.

At the very ends of the stars, he had held their unwritten future, fist outstretched.

Our promises have always connected us, he had said.

Here and now, she grasped that thread tightly.

She can’t imagine what expression she might have made in that moment, but Zenos smiled fearlessly until the very end; until the Voidsent aether had faded, and the finality of it came down upon them both. The joy fading from his face, muscles relaxing into his usual disinterest.

“How... disappointing.”

The wolf was slain, the hare standing victorious. Then— the feeling of falling upwards, of the ground rushing down to meet her. Above her, the stars stretched for eternity, and she thought she saw one glint in the distance.

Did they regret it?

Did he crave another chance?

Did she wish to see another sunrise?

Her breath came in gasps, before slowing to pained wheezes— it was difficult, to continue to rhythm, to exert the effort. She tries regardless, like that surprisingly warm hand rubbing circles into her back, that gentle voice, had bid her—

“What of you, my mirror?” His voice finds its way to her, as it always did, but she had not the strength to feel annoyance. She was the only one who could remember his words, here at the ends of time and space. “Born into this world, bestowed name, bid to seek out strife and adventure...”

She feels the weight of her life settling into every crevice of her body. My mirror... If so, did he see this too? The tunnel into a sandy haven by the sea? The dappled sunlight amidst ancient oaks? Seaspray on her cheeks, the scent of brine. The feeling of frost in your lungs, the touch of metal against fingerpads in deep winter. Fragrant flowers, the low rustle of bamboo groves. Light reflecting off purple crystalline mountains, the air thick with moisture.

“Was this life a gift... or a burden?”

Did he remember that spiraling tower? Did he know the man standing proud atop it? That for the eons to come, he would be a testament to the strength of hope and mankind’s spirit?

Could the flowers have wept their gray tears for him, too? Could he have answered their final plea, as the world closed in around them— Was there a reason for living?

Did he miss them? Yearned for them as she did? Their pale all-seeing eyes, their robe of black satin adorned with golden chains, the pearly teeth peeking from their debonair smile, the two heads of hair as white as freshly-fallen snow, their gnarled hands wrapped around a spear, the peach-pink of their lipstick, the way their blonde hair captured the sunlight in each strand.

Eyes the color of a soft spring sky, their corners creased softly in a smile.

Eyes an ancient scarlet shade, overflowing with tears.

Had he loved them, like she had, too?

She cannot turn to face him, to put into words the feelings she’d held in her fist. Had his carried the same weight? She thinks of how it seemed to bounce against her, how it hadn’t even made her pause. Had she the strength now, she may have smiled.

“Did you find... fulfillment?”

I... 

“I...”

Plink. The silence is filled with a shrill beeping, only her heart beating in tandem with it.

Farewell, my enemy. 

My...