Zadia and I cross the ravine on a mist bridge, spears and swords promising to catch us if we fall. But we step safely to solid earth, and I dissipate the glowing bridge, leaving us as silhouettes under the stars, unembraced by blades.

No one comes to attack us. Maybe all their guards are on the other side of the ravine, launching attacks to the north or south. Maybe they're overconfident that the Waiters on the Dawn are dead or fleeing. So we stroll through the night warrior's camp, tracing boxy tents fluttering in the sky's breath, tiptoeing on paths set out in square grids. We slink by some tents hallowed with conversation, and I don't recognize the voices--yet they still set my mind racing with memories of obsidian arrows whizzing around me and Kael shouting at me to duck; the bars of a sewer grate an echo on my cheek.

I could squash their tents, easy. None of their piercing arrows could hurt me, if I did. But it would raise questions, send a ghost of an alarm via bird wing or salamander leg back to the Obsidian Castle before us.

Let them think they have a victory on these plains tonight.

Zadia and I sneak onto the dry, dark prairie beyond the camp, the chill wind chasing us. I've heard animals can pick up your scent when downwind, and wonder if Zadia can taste the reek of the night warriors, or the carnage from the opposite side of the ravine. If she does, she doesn't shiver, doesn't flinch, just nibbles on her lip until it starts to bleed.

In the night's ninth hour--according to the Silly Swan constellation about to sink below the southern horizon--Zadia and I collapse behind a tall rock, lying down to sleep with our packs for pillows, the shifting air our only covering.

But I don't think either of us sleep. She keeps tossing and turning, I keep staring at the gray rock rising like a dented helmet from the ground, wondering how many camps the night warriors destroyed tonight. If I didn't shoot down Chondra, how long could she have lasted? Should I tell Zadia that I killed her, and her guards (and therefore her dads)? Where did Kael and Nomsa go--did they sleep in the tunnels? Did they hear us shouting at Berrtie?

We didn't announce where we're going, but do they know anyway? Are they going to chase us?

The sun comes up. I sit up against the dented helmet and get out my water, and Zadia sits up too, even though I've done nothing loud to wake her. She eats hard biscuits, water, staring at the white horizon. I ask if she has any extra food.

She just points at my pack and raises an eyebrow. So I show her the contents; dirty socks, mostly unused soap, Kael and Nomsa's palm-sized rocks.

Her gaze flicks between my face and the rocks. "Are those what I think they are?" she whispers.

I turn my pack back to me, leaning it on my knees. "What do you think they are?"

"Those rocks they named."

I nod.

"Get rid of them." She shoves a biscuit into her mouth.

So I dump them onto the ground.

Zadia snaps through a biscuit then drinks. I put my water container away, and stare at the rocks.

They're too colorful. In the gray and brown dirt, they glimmer with too many hints of green, red, amber.

"But I can't." I touch one. My finger, from the water container, leaves a wet trail, highlighting crimson flecks and wavering black lines in the rock. "It's not like I hate Kael...I don't want to ditch their rocks in the middle of nowhere. Or..." The wet trail dries out, and I look up. "Maybe I do?"

My fingers slide over the smooth pebble, thumb and pinky gouging furrows in the soil to curl around the rock. It's warm. I place it in the pack, and it slides down the thick canvas to thump at the bottom, by the wrapped soap. I scoop up another one. Zadia stares at me. "I don't know why I'm doing this," I say. The rocks clink together. I don't even remember any of their names.

"I believe the phrase you're looking for," Zadia says, "is mind control. Nomsa probably told you to keep them safe or something."

I don't remember that. "Maybe."

My hands put all the rocks back, one by one, clinking and looking dull away from the dirt. Or maybe my heart does it. I don't know. I don't know, even when they're all inside and these fingers tie the flaps shut.

"Great job," Zadia says. "You did it." She hands me a single biscuit, and we stand and leave the boulder we pretended to sleep next to. "We're going to have to ration our food."

We trudge across the plain, half-asleep, my stomach growling. The sky grows brighter.

"I killed my mom," I say, out of nowhere. "Apparently."

The sun beats warm on my hair, and a wind blows dust in my eyes.

"Lucky," she snorts. "I tried to duel my pa, but he beat me."

"When?" I lick my lips. "I mean, how?"

"I tried to stab him while he was shaving in their bathroom. But he spotted me first and wrapped me up in mist, then told me I'd better not make him ruin my handsome face with his razor."

I swallow. I got rid of any sight of facial stuff with skin magic when I was barely fifteen. "How old were you? And is that where..." I glance at the scars up her cheek.

"No. I was twelve. Also a few years later, I tried stabbing my dad, but he told me that wasn't funny and took the knife away, then forgot to give me food for a week. So I started stealing from the kitchen."

"That's terrible. I was maybe ten seconds old. I don't remember it, but that dead spirit showed me."

"Is that what happened to you in the sleep circle in the tunnel?"

"Yup."

"Ah. We just had incoherent spirits in the pillar rambling at us about Gardeners and unlocking powers and accomplishing something important."

"I guess Nomsa did that alright."

"Yeah I guess."

We keep walking. My feet are tired.

"I also killed Chondra. And her guards."

"Just like that?"

"Yeah. I was having some weird vision thing."

"So when it went dark..."

"That was me. I don't really know why I did it. But..." I shrug.

Zadia throws her arms to her sides. "Are you obsessed with power, Troy?"

I puff out my cheeks. "Are you?"

"You answer first. Honestly."

I kick some pebbles in my path. "Probably?"

She glances at me, raising an eyebrow.

"But not like I want to be in control. I'm just tired of people holding their power over me. Making me do what they want."

"Obviously." She tosses her head. "Come on, are you really as shallow as that?"

"I'm not just talking about Nomsa or Kael." I glare. "I'm talking about my whole life. Somebody's always there, yanking me somewhere they want me to go. Even this destroyer self does it to me."

"Always?"

I sniff. "It's your turn."

"Fine." She goes quiet, footsteps slowing, and I glance over.

"Did you forget the question?"

"I," she says, "am obsessed with not being obsessed with power."

"Is that why you asked if I'm obsessed?"

She shrugs, things in her backpack clunking.

"So you have a shallow answer too," I say.

"It's not shallow. Haven't you noticed how messed up all the Waiters on the Dawn are?"

I have often wondered how anyone lives in the fort, but... "Messed up how?"

She rolls her eyes. "I'm not saying I'm above it. But everyone threatens to kill each other on a semi-regular basis, the generals bicker with each other constantly, and nobody gets along. They're all after power, all the time."

"That's not just how non-Night Warriors are?"

"I have no clue what Night Warriors are like. But the Waiters on the Dawn are crazy. I went and lived in a city for a few weeks, and nobody tried pranking me, or stabbing me, or shouted about my general incompetence, for days. Families actually lived together and didn't treat each other like threats."

"You lived in a city? When? How?"

"That was super easy. I told people in the fort that I was off to the battlefront, and I just didn't go there. No one even noticed. And I would've stayed, but I didn't have money, so when I ran out of supplies I showed up at the battlefront. I thought about going back to the city, but figured someone might notice if I kept disappearing."

"You should've started finding ways to get money. So you could go live there permanently. Not even I wanted to live in the fort that long, I couldn't go anywhere. Apparently after Livia died"--I check sideways, but Zadia doesn't react. Nomsa or Kael must've told her that--"people set traps in almost every hallway."

"Yeah, I don't want to go back there either," Zadia snorts. "But I can't actually live in the city. What would I do there? All I know how to do is fight people. You could go there. You could make a living off healing people."

I wrinkle my nose. "I don't want to live in any city. Too many people around, watching you. And I will vomit if I have to heal as my job anymore."

"Anymore?" She swats at dead, yellow grass stems in our way.

I nod. "Ever since I was little, that's all I did. I put together night warriors' skins so they could go back to fighting."

"A vicious cycle."

"A vicious cycle," I say.

Zadia bursts out laughing. "What are we doing, talking like we're out to make boring lives for ourselves? Talking like we're going to bring peace to all these power hungry wackos?"

"As if we're ever going to settle down in a city." I grin. "Money or no."

"Nope, never."

"What Destroying One just settles in some boring city?"

"Exactly." She slides her backpack down her arm, digging through clothes and crinkling bags. "So what's the Obsidian Castle like?"

"Way fewer traps. Way more rules and people expecting things out of you. Everyone's obsessed with being righteous, which I suppose makes them feel morally superior."

"Huh." She pulls out a water bottle. "I hope they have nice beds."

"Way better than prairie dirt." I nod. "If you like it dark all day long, of course."

***

When I fled the Obsidian Castle, I had a bruised nose, a dark blue healing tunic stained with blood and sewage sludge, and I barely knew I had light powers. I return to the Obsidian Castle, dressed in gray, dusty with the distance of the plain. I have Kael's rocks in my backpack, a thundering sun inside me unlocked by Nomsa's words, and Zadia at my side in white and magenta stripes.

"Everyone's going to call me One," I say.

Zadia frowns across the river, to the violet forest. "I wasn't aware we were going to be speaking to them."

I slide a boot over the edge of the ravine, sending pebbles to the roaring rapids below. Years and years ago, Humility and the others must have crossed the river somewhere with a shallower bank. "Do you want to do this a fun way, or a boring way?"

"Definitely fun way."

"Ah." I point upriver, to the sparkling obsidian walls, and the barred gate. "Shall we knock, then?" A grin spreads over my lips. "I want to see if they'll try capturing us, or just try to shoot us down."

Ages ago, Kael asked me if the night warriors kept prisoners or not, and I had no idea. Still don't know if they keep Waiters on the Dawn prisoners.

Zadia squints at the late afternoon sky. It's taken us a few days to walk here--we probably zig-zagged or walked in circles and wasted hours crossing the fields because we weren't checking the mountains at our back or the sun overhead--and our supplies are basically dry.

"If we knock right now, they'll have basically no power," she says. "They might try to arrow us before we have a chance to attack them."

"Hmm." I shut one eye, lifting a finger and measuring the distance across the river.

"What are you doing?"

I lower my hand. "Just thinking about how long it'd take some people on logs to swim across this."

"We're not swimming."

"I know." I turn and march along the riverbank, toward the castle and its bulbous spire tops, streaked with ornate etchings.

Zadia catches up. "So what's the plan? Specifically?"

"Specifically? I don't know. Generally? Don't get hurt. They have a bridge, which we'll drag over so we can cross the river. Then we go in and wreck them."

My claw of light waits within the furthest tower.

"Okay. I'll stick close to you, in case I run out of light." She hesitates. "You don't need someone commanding you to do that now, do you?"

I shake my head, and call a glob of mist from my breath. It whirls into an umbrella over our heads. "Nomsa snapped something open. Now I can see it inside me. I know how it fits."

She swats a hand into the umbrella, and since I'm not trying hard, it wisps apart in her wake, disappearing into thin air. "Nice." She exhales her own glob of mist, and sends it rocketing to the castle--we're still a solid sprint away from where the bridge would extend to--and slashes into the thick iron gate.

It sparks nightfire, resisting her. The mist dissipates. Then a shout rings out from the castle wall.

"Oof," Zadia says, and I reform the umbrella, solid enough to resist arrows. We keep walking. "I was not expecting that."

"But hey, we've knocked now."

A voice bellows from the castle wall, "Surrender, Sun Slaves!"

Zadia claps a hand over her mouth, holding back a bursting laugh. "Sun Slaves?"

"Yeah, that's what they call us," I mutter. Then I shout back, calling up a cone of mist to amplify my voice, "You don't remember me?"

An arrow arcs from the castle wall. Two guards stand up there, dark armor sharp against the cloudless sky. We keep walking, and the wind floats the arrow into the river. It vanishes under the white rapids.

Another arrow launches, actually on target, and thunks into the mist umbrella. It bounces to the dirt, obsidian shaft glistening.

"This is just sad." Zadia digs in the side pocket of her bag and pulls out a biscuit.

"I think I have a plan now." A third arrow thunks to the dirt behind us, quivering. "Have you ever heard that prophecy about the Destroying One sucking out the souls of whoever they kiss?"

Zadia pauses mid-bite. "No?"

"Hmm," I say.

***

author note: sucking souls out by kissing them? Hmm is this the fun way to enter the Castle?