"I..." she started, but couldn't finish.

This wasn't her. Who was this strange, inept girl? Where had that proficient warrior run off to?

She'd never thought she would ever venture into this territory again. The last time she'd felt this way had been with Deiyu, and that relationship hadn't gone as she had once hoped.

Reo waited patiently for her. She decided it was like making amends with a teammate for an improper wrongdoing. She tried again.

"I wanted to apologize," she said, clearing her throat, "for my...indiscretion yesterday."

Reo's eyebrows drew together in confusion. Then, she watched as realization dawned. His face melted to surprise, before drifting to reticence. His eyes fell to the small campfire again, and he gave a cool, nonchalant shrug of his shoulder.

"It's alright," he said, too quiet that she knew it wasn't, in fact, alright.

He had been afraid from that kiss, she remembered, and she had felt that terror as cold as a night wind. Here she was, afraid of the sun warrior betraying her, when in actuality, she had instigated his betrayal of Sera's trust. Maeyune cringed at the hypocrisy she had committed.

"You are with Sera," she went on, "and it was entirely wrong of me to have behaved the way I did. I'm sorry."

Reo didn't answer for a long time. She didn't think he would, until he murmured, "Sera's not the reason why I had to push you away."

Maeyune wasn't sure what to make of that, but she waited for him to continue. His eyes remained on the fire as if the words he was looking for were inscripted on the flames.

"What happened between us," he said, his voice soft, "I thought it wasn't real, that it was our energies reacting together. I thought it was something happening between Yunra and Shivra that we couldn't control, so...I was afraid."

His gaze lifted to hers. She blinked, then blinked again, attempting to analyze that information. She remembered the way silver and gold had meshed in the air between them, entwining like compatible partners.

"It was our energies," she said. She had never sounded so hesitant before. "It was real. At least, it was real to me."

There.

It was as much a confession as she could muster.

Her voice had gone quiet, and she thought he hadn't heard her. But something dashed across his face--shock, perhaps--before it disappeared again into uncertainty.

"I felt your energy overpowering mine, so I thought--" He didn't finish. His eyes widened, and he appeared as if he had spoken the wrong words by mistake.

Maeyune took notice. Her brow furrowed with concern. "You thought what?"

He didn't answer, and again, he searched the fire.

Maeyune's thoughts simmered. Overpowering him? What did he mean by that?

If Sera hadn't been the reason, then what else could it have been?

Overpowering, luring, enchanting....

The words were past her lips before she could thoroughly register them herself. "You thought I beguiled you," she whispered.

She had assessed him as a good liar, what with his arrogance and charm. But it surprised her when he looked up at her and did not lie, did not even try to deny it.

It was true.

The bolt of remorse inside her molded into humiliation. A curtain opened wide in front of her eyes, and in that horrible, heartbreaking moment, she was all-seeing.

"You think I put some telepathic spell on you," she muttered, her voice sounding dazed.

"Maeyune, I'm sorry--"

She bristled at his apology and climbed to her feet. Sitting had suddenly made it impossible to think, and standing seemed the best thing for her to grasp control again.

"Sorry?" She shook her head, unable to believe what was happening. He thought she had tricked him into kissing her.

Her voice rose a little higher than she had intended.

"I never had any power over you," she said, vexation stirring. "Do you think we would be here right now if I could influence your mind like that?"

His lips parted in surprise.

"You are the only person who is--was--invulnerable to my ability," she went on, "the only one who hasn't betrayed me. Yet." She spoke the last word with malice.

He frowned at her accusation of a betrayal. It was his turn to rise to his feet—but he moved slowly, the same way someone would to keep from startling a slumbering predator. He made no other movement, and the fire remained between them, a necessary barrier.

"I would never betray you," he said quietly.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Her anger came as a volcanic deluge. "How am I supposed to believe that?" she questioned. "First, the Beran Head Councilor resorts to madness on his quest for power, and then your friend murders mine because he couldn't kill you himself. And you--" She let out a curt, low laugh of disbelief. "You have tried killing me twice already. Isn't this enough reason not to trust you?"

Reo didn't hide his shock. It was full blown on his face.

"And yet, despite everything," she said, "I continued to put my trust in you. I cannot believe that this entire time, you did not have that same trust in me."

She held his gaze with fierce animosity and dared him to look away. He didn't.

"What about now, Reo Castell?" she pressed. "Do you trust me now that the moon is destroyed and my powers are lost, now that I am no longer a threat to you?"

Confliction crossed his dark features. His mouth opened, then closed, then opened again. She wanted him to say something, anything that was so incredibly stupid and would give her a reason to continue yelling at him, to distract her from the pain that was tearing her apart from the inside out.

But he said nothing.

She swallowed down her heartache. It weighed like a brick. "Unbelievable," she said, and turned away from him.

Her legs protested, but she wanted to run, to leave him behind, to be alone to think.

"I didn't know what to do," he explained, "so I panicked when I know I shouldn't have."

"Let's get one thing clear," she said, facing him again. "I have never tricked you. I have only wanted to be your friend. In your entire life, you have always fought who you are, and that in turn keeps you from trusting yourself and trusting me. Your powers made you, and you need to accept that truth and overcome your fear. You cannot be anyone else, and you never will be!"

His jaw fell open, and for a split second, his eyes sparked gold. He was angry now. Good. She wanted him to be. There was a kind of senseless satisfaction in infuriating him.

She had often found that truths had a tendency to spill when anger was a driving force. But this was not a manipulation of his emotions to get answers. She was angry, too—and hurt and confused. Her thoughts were in too deep a mess for her to plan verbal traps or even think straight.

"Why do you always think like that?" he demanded. "We are so much more than just moving coffins for the gods! We deserve to be able to live, to be free from our ties to some predetermined destiny!" He threw his arms out to the sides to indicate the environment--to indicate the world.

Maeyune's eyes glossed. "Then who else is there?" she challenged. "Who else can do what we need to?"

"You act as if we're alone! We're not alone!"

Without taking her eyes off him, she jabbed a finger in the direction where they had walked miles from, where a hundred Berans had lost their lives. "People are dying out there. We are the ones who need to protect them!"

"People are always dying," he retorted, voice strained. "You can't save everyone!"

They had been spewing anger at each other from across the campfire. Reo was the first to move, taking a few steps around the fire and closer to her in order to emphasize his words.

"Both our mothers are dead because they traded their lives to help preserve Yunra and Shivra," he said. "You and I barely know what a childhood is. In fact, we killed people when we were still kids! We don't owe the world anything."

Maeyune glowered. He didn't need to remind her what they had been raised to become. "No, we don't owe the world anything," she said, standing her ground. "But it still needs us to save it."

Campfire light frolicked and made shapes across his face, so she thought it was an illusion when she saw his eyes soften. He didn't say anything for a while, only stared at her.

Then, he said, "You're not a weapon, Maeyune."

The intensity from his eyes had her turning away. Her voice fell to a quiet monotone as words left her lips.

"War is the only life I have ever known," she said, peering at forest shadows to see if her memories swam there. "With so much power, I only wanted to protect those who weren't able to defend themselves."

Her dark eyes flicked back to him. "I have never run away to go fight alley criminals for amusement or spend my nights at brothels."

Reo's expression traveled from surprise to pure frustration. She saw a muscle twitch in his jaw, and his eyes grew solemn. "That must've been a fun conversation with Jaysek."

Maeyune pressed her hands into her face, and for the first time in a long time, she wanted to scream in indignation. They were going in circles. No one had ever made her this mad before.

When silence surrounded them, she realized that even nature had stopped its nighttime music during their feud.

Her palms slid down her face, and she threw her hands to the sides as she addressed him again, her voice low. "What do you want, Reo?"

"Nothing," he replied tersely. "I just wanted to apologize and clear the air."

She wanted to laugh at the irony in those words. There was nothing clear about the air between them. If anything, the space had grown so thick with opposition that she could slice it into ribbons with a knife.

She knew now where the sun warrior stood with his beliefs. And to her greatest misfortune, he knew of her affections for him, too. She had exposed a vulnerability in her.

Unacceptable, came the whisper from the darkest corner of her mind.

They didn't speak for a long while, each retreating into their own thoughts.

Eventually, with her chest in turmoil, she asked, "So where does this leave us?"

"Let's just get to the base."

His impatient answer carried an undertow of weariness. He returned to his spot on the opposite end of the campfire from her and sank to the ground. He said nothing else after that, but his answer had been closure enough.

Maeyune sat down on her end, both body and mind fatigued. There was a stinging remark that she wanted to share with him.

Rest assured, Mr. Castell. Your heart is no longer under my enchantment.

But she could not find the strength nor the heart to speak those words.

Back and forth, and back and forth again. A stranger, a friend, and then a stranger in a never ending circle.

And you fell for him because you thought he was your equal, your destiny.

How could you be so naive?

She lay on her side, her back to the fire and to the Sun Goddess incarnate, and beseeched whatever deity of sleep to claim her.