Niold first dawns hot and humid, but a cool breeze off the river makes its annual festival more bearable. All the nobles are out in their finery, ready to start the winter season of balls and parties and revelry.

To mark the occasion, the three most prominent Houses in Aradia provide courtesans as entertainment. Fleauria House, of course, is at the top of the list--so Den and Yemia are dressed in scanty, frilly costumes, dancing among a gaggle of flora girls down the main street.

Den actually enjoys dancing, but not like this. Not for people who only see his body and not the beauty behind the art.

Needless to say, the festival is exhausting, and Den is glad when it's over--not that the festival's end marks the end of his night.

Iralaae, still furious about his 'failure' the previous month, has been keeping him extra busy. Normally that would be a good thing, because the more money he makes the closer he is to paying off his debts--but she also finds new and horrifically intrusive ways to make him spend that money before it's even in her coffers.

Den has four clients lined up the night of the festival. Sometimes he wonders at Iralaae's faith in his skills--but he doesn't complain. At least two of them are at the same time, which makes his job a little easier.

By the time midnight has passed, Den is ready to curl up in a hole and die. He's exhausted--mentally at least--and he could really, really use a cup of coffee. Instead, he finds himself in the Lady Atiel's bed, and there's really no place he wouldn't rather be.

Atiel has paid the extra--and very extravagant--price for access to Den's ears, and there's nothing he hates more. His body is one thing, but his ears... elfin ears are special, super-sensitive. Even the air on them feels like pressure, and Den's ears are more sensitive than most.

He hates it, hates the control it gives others over him. But he endures it, and pretends that he enjoys it as she plays with him, and somehow manages to make his sickly moans of protest sound like pleasure.

He hates his ears, hates their hypersensitivity and the fact that they pick up every sound, even the smallest of whispers. Maybe it's because he doesn't speak, or because he's supposed to be able to focus on spatial frequencies.

Whatever the case, Den can't focus, can't breathe when someone is touching them. And an unwanted touch, the touch of someone he doesn't trust... Den is very, very glad when the hour Atiel paid for is up and he can slip away from her mansion, ear guards firmly in place once again.

Den would like to believe that it's that distraction, that revulsion that keeps him from hearing her screams until it's too late.

By the time he reaches Yemia's sequoia, it's already burning. Other nymphs and Fae--both gods-Fae and lesser-Fae--race around trying to put it out. Nothing seems to be working, and the smoke chokes everything, blurring Den's vision.

He goes inside anyway, ducking past the city guards who try to stop him. He can smell her in there, knows she's in there--and even if only for the moment, she's still breathing.

Sparks and embers burn his skin and sear his eyes as he darts through the flames. The fire started on the inside, and most of Yemia's belongings are already ash. The fire has gotten into the roots, and Den knows there will be no saving the tree.

But if he gets Yemia out, they might be able to save her. They might be able to sever her connection to the sequoia before it's too late.

He dodges falling debris and covers his nose and mouth with his shirt, coughing against the smoke. He tries to say her name, tries to call for her--but he can't. His throat won't work, his lips won't form the word.

So he screams instead, racing upward through the burning tree, doing everything he can to avoid being burned alive. If only he could portal, he'd have her out already! 

But he can't.

So he runs, as fast as his legs will carry him, trying to scent her through the smoke.

Den finds her on the upper balcony, and his stomach lurches at the sight. She's unconscious, and it isn't the fire that did it. It isn't the fire that... he wants to vomit, but snatches her into his arms instead. The fire is encroaching, the heat so intense that Den can feel it burning his skin, singing his hair and eyebrows. He searches frantically for a way out, but the stairs are gone and the platform is creaking as if it too will fall soon enough.

If he doesn't get out, they're both going to die.

He tries for a portal, tries so hard to focus--but he can't find the frequency, can't seem to hear the right vibrations even though he can hear everything else. He curses violently in his head. The only way to go is up.

So Den runs, leaping toward the branches, snatching limbs and ignoring the scorching in his fingers and hands as embers and flames lick across his skin. He makes for the furthest branch, the biggest one, and just runs and runs.

He runs right off the edge, Yemia clutched to his chest, and he wonders as he falls if this is what it feels like to die.

He closes his eyes and half wants to pray that Yemia will survive, but who is he going to pray to? Den is a god, or supposed to be.

And he's completely powerless.

They crash into a pool of soft-cool water held aloft by a few naiads, and Den rolls out of it running. He doesn't wait to listen to the shouts or the voices around him, doesn't stop moving. He runs straight through town to the nearest halarium and doesn't even slow before he kicks the door down.

The healers take one look at him--the burns, the cuts, the smoke and ash--and the dryad in his arms--broken, twisted, bleeding from a thousand places and branded--and rush him inside without any questions or complaints.

Before Den can even protest, they've hit him with a shot of anesthesia, and he collapses onto a carrier.

~~~

When Den awakens, the pain is gone. There are no scars, no burns, no cuts. Even the scent of smoke has disappeared without a trace.

He rolls off the cot they've left him on and moves toward the door, feeling the familiar stiffness in his limbs that comes after extensive healing. He'll be sore for days.

But he doesn't care about himself.

There's a vren in a nurse's uniform in the hall. She takes one look at the expression on his face and tells him to follow her between corridors to a blown glass door. Inside is an office, a man sitting behind the desk.

Why haven't they taken him to Yemia? Why can't he smell her, hear her?

Den doesn't let himself think about it.

The man--marked as a healer by the diamond tattooed on his forehead--looks up at Den with an unreadable expression and gestures for him to sit.

Den stands.

The healer says, "Are you Den?"

Den nods once, fists clenched. He still can't breathe. He won't be able to breathe until he sees Yemia, until he knows she's okay.

The healer swallows. A heavy, hard stone makes a home in Den's gut and refuses to leave.

"I'm sorry," the healer says, and his voice is rough. "We did everything we could, but..."

Den's hand finds the back of a nearby chair, but he doesn't know if it's for support or because he doesn't have the strength to clench his fist any harder than he already was.

"She talked about you," the healer says, softly. Den flinches, but the elfin man doesn't stop. "Someone... crushed her internal organs. The smoke inhalation..." he shakes his head. "We couldn't save her, but she woke before..." he rubs at his face as if exhausted. Den stares at him and tries to convince himself that this isn't real.

"She... wanted us to give you this. She kept saying that, over and over... 'for Den, for Den...'" The healer swallows again and there's horror in his eyes as he holds a paper out across the desk. Den stares at it and doesn't move.

It's yellowed and there is blood on it. The healer says, "I tried to clean it, but... it was..." Den raises his eyes at the strangled sound of the elf's voice. "Inside. She swallowed it, we think--she kept... patting her stomach when she spoke."

The healer's hand shakes.

Den takes the paper. It's grainy against his fingers, ashy. It must have been made from her tree.

Slowly, he unfolds it. The writing is clear as day--written in Perfect Ink, because Yemia never did anything halfway. He almost chokes on a groan.

It's a bank note, signed by Yemia and the bank manager. It's for the amount of two hundred million crowns--more than enough to pay off his debts.

And beneath her signature, in ink that hasn't yet faded from sepia to black, meaning it was written mere hours ago...

Den--

I wish I'd told you how much I love you. Forgive me.

The script isn't as neat as her usual writing. As if she knew what was coming, knew she was going to die. Knew he'd be the one to find her. As if she learned of her fate, and wrote the note, swallowed it, just before...

Den puts the paper in his pocket and doesn't even look at the healer as he leaves the room. He doesn't look at anyone as he walks out of the halarium, as he starts to run.

He doesn't stop until he reaches the ashy mess that used to be Yemia's treehouse.

There's no one around, the Fae and guards already long gone.

Den sinks to his knees and screams.