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AXION STOOD on his balcony, unfocused eyes on the city below. He never cared for the Evernight's capital - the Shadling homes, squat and huddled together, made of metal scraps and fallen branches. Most of the time the streets were abandoned, houses emptied as Shadlings scavenged the surrounding forests and plains for scraps to trade. It felt as hollow as he had after his mother's death.

It was a city of bones, but without blood and a beating heart, it was exactly as its namesake - a dying city.

Real cities pulsed with life, he'd learned. Exul was full of them. Exorbitant, loud places filled with ruckus and laughter. Where expressions weren't so solemn or scared. Feasts were held on days decreed by the royal family, celebrations swept the streets when the seasons changed, boat races and magick shows were watched with eager, apt attention. Hemmas lounged in the sunlight, they napped in the shade, and they had the most wondrous dreams under the moon.

Life was not about the struggle nor the sacrifice, but the very act of living itself.

And Axion's people would. Just like the mouse wizardess had planned, they'd been moved to Aelurus, where they would survive. Maybe after a few moons, they'd flourish. He hoped they would just as he hoped they would accept his abdication of the throne.

Axion turned his head, shooting a glower at the rubble where his father's throne had stood - looming and menacing, creating a shadow so big he thought he'd never escape it. For so long, it had kept him mired in the dark, afraid to show his light, to shine as brightly as his mother's blood urged him to be.

Abby had not been afraid to shine, and it was because of her, Axion had been freed from his father's reign of terror. He owed her a great deal, and though he'd arranged for her to meet her loved ones in the Hollows, it was a pittance compared to what she had done for him. He'd be in her debt for the rest of his life, and it wasn't the worst way to live, he supposed, repaying her kindness, protecting her from the shadows. He'd owed bigger debts to far angrier people, after all.

"Axion?"

He gave a smirk, Abby sidling up beside him. His stars twinkled with warmth, a soft golden glow peeking from his collar.

She leaned on the railing, beside him. Her scent was one of night roses, sweet dew, and starlight. Water dripped from the ends of her hair. She had bathed in the underground springs then. Good. The water there was said to mend the spirit, and steady the mind. They'd never worked for him though, but perhaps Axion's spirit had been too broken, his mind too troubled, for the water's healing properties to take affect.

"They're about to release the Dusk Stag."

He gave a quick nod, his fingers clenching and releasing the railing. "The Shadlings?"

"The last of them arrived yesterday. They've already settled into the temporary encampments. Margo expects them to be moved to their permanent residence by the next moon."

"Mmm."

Overhead, another star crashed to the ground, leaving behind a yellow streak. That's all that was ever left behind from a dead star - a streak of color that faded, and a handful of dust that got swept away by a gust of wind. And then it was if it hadn't existed at all. Axion's hands gripped the railing, his teeth grinding against each other.

"They've decided on a name." Abby glanced at him, hopeful. She had moved closer, her blouse - a flouncy, light blue affair that complimented her hair, and pink complexion rather perfectly - grazing his arm.

His stars rushed over his skin, colliding into each other as they raced to cluster around the spot, drawn by Abby's proximity. He needed to be careful, or he would become an embarrassingly open book, one Abby would eventually figure out how to read.

"Well?" Abby had craned her neck, staring straight into his eyes.

Axion was thankful he'd let his hair down, and that a breeze had blown through the city, lifting every dark strand into the air, veiling his nervousness from her. 

Unawares, she nudged him in the shoulder. "Don't you want to know?"

Axion's mouth split into a grin, playful and only a smidgen cruel. "You'll tell me regardless, I'm sure. That's the reason you came out here, isn't it?"

Abby's gaze dropped to her hands, faint pink cresting on her cheeks. "It's one of them."

"So? This name my people have chosen, don't tell me its something ridiculous. Or that it's named after Calleighdia or that silly cat king?"

Abby squirmed. "They didn't name it after," she took a breath, "Calleighdia, though she gave her life to save the Hollows." Sadness stuck to her words.

A nebula of annoyance swirled over his heart. "She killed thousands and she would have seen to the destruction of the entire Eridan, had my father not been destroyed. She's not worthy of your sympathy."

"She gave her life, and saved Margo's." Her eyes flicked forward, and she smiled. "I will always be thankful for that."

Axion was glad too the mouse wizardess had been spared, but he didn't think he'd ever stop being able to see Calleighdia as the enemy. A mass murderer, and his father's loyal puppet, determined to see Aelurus burned and the realms subdued and united under Shadow rule.

She had given her life, and her protection was holding. The Hollows would not fall when the Evernight's magick ran out. At the very least, the Archmage had done one good deed during her miserable existence, and he would not deny her that.

"So, this new name my people have chosen for their new home?"

Abby straightened out, her furrowed brow smoothing over. "The Glittering Glade."

Axion's stars shot to his eyes. "The Glittering Glade?"

"Margo convinced the Cloudian Elders to share their technology. Apparently," she explained. "They have a machine that projects the sky underground. It's how they can have sunrises and sunsets. It'll give the Shadlings their stars. Something familiar to gaze upon, while they get settled."

"I'm sure it'll bring them comfort. I'll have to thank the mouse wizardess."

"You'll have to apologize to her first." Abby's lips pulled tight. "She still won't look you in the eye after what you said."

"Ah," said Axion, turning to face her. "I was rather cruel then, wasn't I? In all fairness, though, I was being held captive in a dungeon."

His words extracted a long, positively defeated sigh from Abby's mouth. "You wouldn't have been in there if you'd just explained yourself."

He shrugged and his grin widened. It gave birth to a scarlet planet, one haloed by twin moons. "Ambiguity is part of my mystique."

She frowned. "It's what makes you frustrating to deal with."

"But frustrating in an incredibly handsome way, yes?"

Against her better judgment, which usually happened when she was around Axion, her mouth curved, and she chuckled. Such a joyous sound, brief as it was, didn't fit with the Dying City's suffocating atmosphere. Leave it to an Aureate to seed lightness where there was none.

"You're exactly like–"

He pressed a finger to her lips. Her eyes widened, his stars blinked. "Don't you dare compare me to him. We are nothing like." He lowered his head, his mouth near her ear. "You know my handsomeness is superior."

She let his words evaporate without satisfying him with a response. He straightened and moved away. To his great surprise, Abby's head shone as ruby as his newly conjured planet.

"Goodness," he said, feigning shock and pointing at her face. "Is that a rash?"

Her hands flew to her cheeks, where they began frantically poking and prodding. Her eyebrows scrunched together, her lips puckered.

He erupted in laughter. Though she lacked his stars she was certainly as expressive as someone with them. Axion imagined he could be quite content watching her mouth twitch and pucker, lilt and dip. Pressed flat when she was at her most angry, quivering when she was at her saddest, threatening to split her head in half, because her joy simply could not be contained.

After satisfied with the outcome of her face's inspection, she threw her arms over her chest. "Not funny."

"Oh, it certainly was funny. You just need to be standing where I am."

She harrumphed, whipping away from him.

Axion was left to stew in the silence he'd ushered forth by executing, in his humble opinion, an excellent jape. Abby could have left, he half-expected her to leave, but she remained at his side, though she'd anchored herself well out of his reach, and made it a point to avoiding looking his way.

He appreciated the company, nonetheless.

The horizon was already reddening, the Evernight's sun readying to make its final appearance. In a few hours, the Dust Stag would be released, the Evernight gone. Kept alive in fragile memories, and exaggerated stories. Would the trees' roots, he wondered, be as vicious and hungry as they had been in truth? Would the stars be as varied, as vivid, or would they grow muddy and dull, given enough time? Would the Shadlings that know only Aelurus, feel an emptiness when they gazed up at the sky, knowing it was not under those stars that their ancestors had lived or would they endeavor to make that sky, and that land, home?

"Glittering Glade," he mused, Abby finally looking at him. He tilted his head. "It's not a bad name, is it?"

She shook her head, blonde hair tumbling down her shoulders. "I like it."

With the sun blossoming on the horizon, Axion's and Abby's shadows made pools at their feet. Grinning, Axion spun around, toe on a squirming shadow. He held out his hand.

Her eyes dropped to his hand, upon which swam a dozen gold stars. "Axion...?"

"When the Dusk Stag's returned, all magick will fail here. I imagine I won't be able to shadow-step anymore." He lifted his hand. "Let me take you to my favorite place."

"It's not a sandwich shop, is it?" She cocked an accusatory eyebrow. "You've dragged me around to plenty already."

"Afraid, I don't have much of an appetite today. Come with me?"

"Usually you just kidnap me."

"Yes, it seems the imminent destruction of my realm has me out of sorts."

"Oh, Axion–" Abby grew flustered. "I didn't–"

"You told me once you liked the Evernight's song." Abby blinked. "I know a place where it sings its loudest."

She pressed her lips together and suddenly Axion was overcome with the urge to just take her hand. But he had done so already; without thinking about her, appeasing only himself and impulses he hadn't quite figured out what caused them. 

"Please," he added, imploringly.

Abby shuffled toward him, placed her hand in his. He promised he would never harm that hand, or take it unless it was offered again.

He gripped it gently, folding his fingers around hers. The shadow expanded at their feet, reflecting the stars overhead. Together, they fell.

*

The cave had been a secret, shared only between his mother and him. Before, Axion had thought a place beyond his father's reach couldn't possibly exist. But when he'd run from the castle, to escape his father's admonishments or his brothers' mockery, they never followed him there. He was never retrieved and returned to the castle by one of his father's guards.

He would have stayed there forever, if doing so wouldn't have put his mother in danger.

His mother taught Axion to listen to the Evernight's song. She said it carried in its notes, the desires, the yearnings and dreams of its people. That a good king would not block out the song, but memorize it, and allow it to guide his hand and shape his rule. That it was only when the song was ignored, that a realm succumbed, and its people suffered.

It was only a hum now, though it echoed off the walls. The notes low and baleful. The melody broken, parts lapsing into silence. It had been so long since he cared to listen, but he did so then, trying to discern what final dreams for the Shadlings it conveyed.

"It's a good song." Abby ran her fingers over the cavern's slick walls. "Cautiously hopeful. I'm glad I can hear it fully."

Cautiously hopeful, like his people.

Axion sat against a boulder. "Mother thought the song good too. I always thought it was too angry, too spiteful." He tipped his head back. "Maybe that was just me - too angry, too spiteful."

"Your came here with your mother?" She shuffled toward him, sand dusting her trousers.

"Sometimes, when my father was distracted with some beheading or hanging he had to oversee." He dragged a finger through the sand. "She said it reminded her of her old life."

"She was..." Abby crinkled her nose. "An Aureate, from the Morningtide?"

He nodded. "She was raised in a castle too, knew how confining it could be. She often snuck away with her sister, to the nearby caverns along the coast. Together they'd watch the sun rise, and listen to the Mother's song - that's what they called it there."

Abby sat beside him, legs folded. "Did you mother love your father?"

At this, he cackled. It shook the cave, stones breaking from the ceiling and clattering to the ground. "Gods no. But after my grandfather attempted to take over the Eridan, mother offered herself in hopes of forging an alliance between the two realms, to stem the flow of war. Her sister, who had been recently crowned queen, refused at first. My mother convinced her to bless the marriage. Shadow could not exist without light, she always said, but my father managed to carry on just fine after–"

Axion squeezed his hand, stars bursting over his skin. Abby took it, and he relaxed.

"There's no more Morningtide, and now there will be no more Evernight. Where does that leave me?" He ran his thumb over Abby's skin, his touch icy but not unpleasant. "A remnant of two dead realms." He sneered, a hollow chuckle falling from his mouth.

"I used to think," began Abby. "That once you lost something, it was gone. It could never be reclaimed. I had lost my home, I had lost my family. I resigned myself to thinking I would never have those things again." She leaned back, and smiled. "But I gained a new family. I found a new home. I'll never forget my father and Mimi, and Reynold - they raised me, they loved me. But I have Lucy and Margo. You–" Her eyes flicked to his face, and he felt a supernova explode over his chest.

"And Sebbi," he added.

A dark shadow flickered over her face. Her gaze dropped to her hands. "I'm starting to wonder about that." Axion turned to face her. "Sometimes I think it's a fool's errand, searching for him when I have no idea where he is, or if he's alive."

"May I remind you, if he was dead, you would have seen him in the Hollows."

"Maybe." She grimaced. "But I don't know how that would be possible. No magick can resurrect the dead. Maybe I'm too hopeful, or too stubborn to accept the truth."

Behind them, the sun crept over the horizon, making the shadows blush.

"Besides, restoring the Eridan's magick should be my top priority. The realms depend on the stags being reunited, on magick continuing yet–" She dropped her head. "Am I being silly?"

"Yes," Axion said sharply, eyes narrowed. "For doubting yourself. For merely entertaining the idea of giving up. Abby, I cannot pretend to know you for as long as Lucy and Margo have, but I do know you, your stubbornness, your strength, your endless, and sometimes grating, optimism. It's what I admire about you." His skin was almost blinding with how white his stars shone. "Sebbi is out there, and he is alive, and granted he's not the brightest star to twinkle in the sky, he is no fool. Wherever he is, he is trying to get back to you. I know it, for..." It's what I would do. He held his tongue, his stars a pale pink. "You can't give up now."

She nodded.

His eyes drifted to the mouth of the cave, and the slowly reddening sky. "Lucy told me they'd release the stag once the sun rose." A few shadows balked at the emerging light, retreating deeper into the cave. "I'm guessing our time's run out." He got to his feet, dusted himself off, and once again, offered his hand. "Let's go home."

Abby took it easily, Axion's stars erupting into a myriad of colors. "Yes. Home. Let's head home."