"Ymbril!" he screamed, feeling the High Priestess' weight crash against him on her way down. He grasped at the blood flowing out of her form, attempting to put it back in. "No. Please, no."

Shaky hands grappled against his hold, stilling him. "Malin. Malin, listen to me," she rasped. Urgency flashed across her features as she tightened her hold on his hands. "I will be alright. Do not worry about me. Run."

Malin summoned his magic and sent all of it into Ymbril's wound. Nothing happened. The world was unfair like that. The same wound that killed his father now snuffed out the life of the only person who seemed to care for him as if he's her own. "I will not burn you in a pyre today," he sobbed. "I promised."

This happened because he was young. Too young to know the ways of the world. And because he was weak. Youth and weakness always went hand-in-hand, and Malin was dealt with the most horrible way of coming to terms with it. Now, he realized this must be what his sister felt when she watched their father take his last breath, fighting for a cause that never fought back for him.

The noise of the battle blurred in his ears. Nothing mattered. Not anymore. It was all a cycle of hunt or be hunted, earn or die without a grena to one's name. For the pursuit of wealth and the desire to survive, it's always the weak who were preyed upon. Those who couldn't fight for themselves, those who dared exist without a grain of power, influence, or luck—they were always found at the sharp end of fate's stick.

Why fight it? Why bother standing up when all the world could do was to push them down?

Ymbril smiled at him and eased out of his grip, bringing herself to the ground as if defying the heavens' will one last time and choosing how she would meet Pidmena. "Run, Malin," she urged. "I will be alright."

Malin wiped against the tears blurring his vision. Why would he start thinking of giving up now? Ymbril needed him. The Temple did too. His friends, the acquaintances he had gotten to know over the weeks—anyone who had never seen the cruelty of the battlefield needed him. To be strong, to brave the dangers, and to be a living proof that death shouldn't be the end post for the weak.

For the people who would rather sacrifice themselves in exchange of saving those they deemed worthy, he would stand up, the world be damned.

A shadow fell over him, and a muzzle edged in his periphery. He whirled to find a Civil Guard smirking down at him. He must be thinking of the awards he's going to get when he reports it was he who killed the High Priestess. That smug smile told Malin everything. The Civil Guard also knew he had won against a child staring up at him with enough venom to poison an entire city. He had won, and it would be over as soon as he clicked the trigger.

The blue-coat fired.

Malin screamed as pain exploded in his form on his way up. His hands reached out and closed around the rifle's snout. The Civil Guard gave a surprised yelp, wiggling his weapon to dislodge Malin off. Malin dug his nails against the metal, letting them scrape and scratch against the dark sheen coating it. The Civil Guard gripped the stock for a tighter grip, a finger hooking over the trigger. Malin gritted his teeth and pushed upward, applying the Guard's force against him. The rifle swung up just in time for the trigger to click off.

The muzzle met the blue-coat's chin. Flesh squelched as the bullet lodged deep into the Guard's chin. His hold loosened and he slumped forward, leaving his weapon in Malin's hands. Slick blood dribbled down the length of the rifle's snout, trickling past his fingers, his palms, and his sleeves. What...

Even while knowing they'd kill him without batting an eye, panic seized Malin's gut. Did he...did he kill someone? The rifle clattered to the ground as his hands started shaking. His chest heaved lungfuls of breath but did little to breathe out. The wall slammed against his back on his involuntary retreat. Bloodied hands gripped fistfuls of hair and attempted to pull it out. Tears sprung from his eyes, showing no signs of stopping.

Murder was the last thing he wanted to do. He just wanted to save the Temple and those who found solace under it. Bloodshed wasn't something he wanted to see ever again. Just...make it stop. Let fate and the natural ways of the world dictate their lives no further. They could do away with destiny and write their stories the way they wanted to. Malin didn't want to see suffering inflicted on the defenseless and being used as a weapon to assert dominance. He didn't want to see another death, even if it was an enemy.

Was there nothing to help him now?

Warmth built up from the darkest parts of his soul, rushing upward without him calling for his magic. A gasp filtered out of his mouth as the warmth turned into scorching heat, flowing through his veins in blazing trails. He slumped forward, tears and breaths blurring most of what transpired around him. His fingers clawed against the ground, past the puddles of blood staining it. What...

What's happening to him?

A voice ripped through the expanse of nothingness, blaring loud and clear through his mind. Rise, young one, it said. Malin raised his head to check if other people heard it too. Blood continued to be spilled; the fighting didn't cease. Take what's rightfully yours and wield it to change your fate.

His vision cleared enough for his gaze to rest upon the rifle he dropped. It's the one that killed the Civil Guard who shot Ymbril. While he thought of it as justice, death did nothing to fill the numbness in his veins. Even if he killed an endless number of blue-coats, blood spilled could never bring back the dead.

What was the deal with that voice? Who was that? Why did it point Malin towards the rifle?

What changed?

A fervent scream brought him back to reality. Malin whirled to find a Civil Guard bearing down on a woman wearing temple robes. She sobbed and begged mercy, but it wasn't going to be given to her. Not while Synketros had power over Cardina.

Malin reached sideways and closed his fingers around the rifle. He rose to one knee and propped the scope near his eye. His heartbeats slammed against his chest and temples. Changing his fate...

Was murder really the answer to that?

The Civil Guard whipped his rifle across the woman's face, screaming at her to stop crying. It's an impossible demand, and he knew it. Instead, to gain his peace, he pointed the rifle down and clicked the trigger. Malin fired.

It was silent, unlike the explosive shots the other rifles around him gave. The next thing he knew, the Civil Guard flopped forward, his own weapon clattering beside his head. Was he...?

Malin stalked towards the enemy and lowered his vision to the trail dimension. A shaky gasp bled from his lips. Alive. The Civil Guard was alive. But...how? The bullet hit him. Shouldn't he be dead now? Or at least bleeding towards it?

The temple worker ducked her head profusely at him before scooting off to wherever she deemed safe. He propped the rifle on his lap. It still looked and felt like the original weapon he pilfered from the dead Civil Guard. Without removing his vision from the trail dimension, he glanced at the rifle. Wisps of bright colors streaked in and out of it, almost like a shower of lights against the night sky. This trail. This power...

A grunt caught his attention. His head whipped up to find the Civil Guard he shot writhing against invisible bonds, his arms strapped to his sides and his legs fused together. Malin raised an eyebrow. Paralyzed? The bullets from his rifle only paralyze?

Malin closed his eyes and sighed. Whoever that voice was, wherever it came from, it answered his most fervent wish. His eyes snapped open. Wish...

Before he could mull over that, a spell slammed into the part of the wall overhead. Malin gritted his teeth and grabbed his rifle from the snout and held the stock as if he had been holding it that way all his life.

Taking a deep breath, he leveled it against his shoulders, pointed it at the nearest Civil Guard engaged in combat with a temple worker, and positioned a finger on the trigger.

Then, he fired.

His legs gave out after what seemed like an eternity. His knees slammed against the floor but he kept his wits about him. He was tired. So, so tired he would start crying. Was it the rifle's fault too?

The fight had quietened to dull thumps. With steel-like arms, he heaved his weight up and crawled towards the wall. He dragged himself up and almost fell over if not for a grip around his shoulders holding him back.

"You better not think of walking after pulling that off," Pilqen's voice speared through the haze clouding Malin's thoughts. Slowly, he dragged his gaze from his friend's form until it rested on Pilqen's gray-white hair. It was him, alright, albeit a little rugged and with blood splattered all over his skin. "You are barely conscious even now."

His foul-tempered friend who hated lectures and arithmetic—the witch actually managed to live. He didn't dare hold it back anymore. He threw his arms around Pilqen, startling the half-blood into tapping Malin's waist. "What—" he sputtered only for Malin to tighten his hold around him. "Okay, fine. I got it. You are glad we are alive."

That made Malin draw away. " 'We'?"

Pilqen ushered him forward, letting Malin lean against him for support. They walked past the altar room and came to a stop near the library. The fighting hasn't spared it, either, judging from the burning tapestries and all sizes of debris and splintered planks scattered around. Standing near the line of injured temple workers and walking on two legs were Ela and Rathas. Their faces lit up at the sight of Malin. His might not be too far off, considering his heart leaped inside his chest in response.

He stumbled off Pilqen and crashed into Ela and Rathas' arms. Maybe they did three small leaps or something. Not entirely sure since his head spun and his whole form felt like it was being set on fire.

Ela was the first to notice, breaking away from their huge tangle of hugs and placing a hand over his forehead. "You are burning up," she declared. Ah, so that must be it. "Come on. We have spare potions for fevers."

Malin doubted it was enough to flush this kind of fever down. Using a throne in battle was hardly the best way to approach a conflict. He shook his head in a poor attempt to clear it. "Where was Ymbril?" he asked. "Was she..."

Dead, he wanted to say, but his mouth refused to form it like his mind and heart refused to accept it.

Rathas threw Malin's arm around his shoulder. "I will bring you to her," he said. "She is out there, dealing with the prisoners."

Relief washed over Malin. I will be alright, she had said. It seemed she was the type of person to make good on her promises. As they walked, Malin forced himself to ask, "What happened after Ymbril got shot?"

"Reports vary, but there is one thing we can be sure of," Rathas replied. "We felt a boost in our magic, and it helped us curb the battle to our favor. I am sure it was the same thing that got the High Priestess young and spry again."

Young and spry? "As for you and that...strange rifle," Rathas continued, snapping Malin's attention back to him. "We had the privilege of glimpsing you deal with the Civil Guards around you. They fell like sempervivum fried by lightning, never to move again. They are gathered in the field outside the Temple. Ymbril is going to preside over what to do with them."

"How many?" Malin prompted, preparing himself to hear the answer. "How many did we lose?"

Rathas shook his head. "Only the High Priestess can disclose that," he said. "And right on time too. Because we are here."

Malin raised his head from the hazy patters of their blood-stained boots against the floor to find himself out in the Temple grounds for the first time since the funeral after the Cardina Coup. Traces of the fire he stirred up with the cart a few days ago still decorated the grass a few fortweres away. When he whirled in the opposite direction, his thoughts halted altogether.

Hundreds of blue coats and black-clad soldiers littered the plain. Malin spotted Master Yarin and Master Leneris milling through the crowd bound by twines, folded metal bars, and the magic from Malin's rifle, exercising their control over how much the prisoners could move their limbs. Standing at the lip of the crowd was none other than Welsha Ymbril, the High Priestess of the Temple of Magic.

Before he knew it, he had peeled away from Rathas and was scrambling towards the woman who had saved him from more doom than one. She turned just in time for him to crash into her embrace. "How did you survive?" Malin felt himself being drawn back at arms-length. A warm hand cupped his cheeks and rerouted the tears streaming once again from his eyes. He could never stop crying, it seemed. "I saw you on the ground, and—"

"It is all thanks to you," Ymbril said, cutting him off before he could blubber his way to oblivion. "I will get back to you as soon as we are done with this, okay?"

Malin could only nod and step back, watching Ymbril turn back to the crowd and raise her arms. Her magic sparked to life, proud and blazing as if she hadn't maintained an anti-magic barrier for days and weeks. Rathas was right. Something happened, and it returned her youth to her.

Then, murmurs arose from the entire crowd when Ymbril lowered her hands. She wasn't even fazed, her voice coming out strong and sure as she declared, "Synketros has kept you in its hold, whispering in your ears about what you should do to the Temple," she said. "I am giving you a choice now: accept the Temple's invitation or go back to your master's control."

Malin knitted his eyebrows. If he got it correctly, the Civil Guards were brainwashed all this time? Also, why was Ymbril extending the Temple's protection to the people who tried to whittle it down to nothing?

The muttering only increased until Ymbril raised a hand and a wave of silence rolled over the plain once more. "Once you have decided, inform our masters and we will send you on your way," she said. "If you act out against any of our people, I will see to it that you will not see the new light of day."

With that, she turned away and walked back to where Malin stood. She laid her hands on his shoulders and steered him away. Her robes fluttered between her legs as she sat him underneath the shade of a snedil tree. Up ahead, the sky had started to darken, the sun giving way to which moons would appear today.

"Let me see it," Ymbril extended long fingers towards something on his person. Her gaze landed on the strap slung across Malin's shoulders. Oh. The rifle.

He shrugged it off and handed it over. She turned it over, examining it. An uneven breath flitted off her mouth. "Unbelievable," she muttered. "A real throne—"

"That is what it is, right?" Malin interjected, snapping the High Priestess out of her reverie. "Somehow, I made a throne. Or rather, the voice made it for me."

Ymbril's eyebrows knitted together. "What voice?"

Malin told her, starting from the time she collapsed. By the time he finished, her features had grown more and more confused. "That is when I realized it," Malin concluded, tilting his head to one side. "This is a throne for the oppressed, for those who can't fight for themselves, or at least, those who think so. But...is it for the half-bloods? The humans? The fairies?"

"I am afraid I do not know the answer to that," Ymbril handed him the rifle. He studied its sleek finish and its unrelenting well of silent bullets. His magic flared and twined with it, even when he wasn't actively summoning it or aiming to use the rifle. Something told him he was somehow bound to this piece of raw power. To this throne.

What would that make him?

"What would you want to call it?" Ymbril asked out of the blue. Like him, she must have never been around when the first thrones were created and the first dynasties were established. Like him, she must be finding this whole thing anticlimactic and, at the same time, sacred. "Every throne has to have a name, you know."

Malin didn't need to think twice about it. Seeing as it answered the most basic thing he begged the heavens to do, he glanced at the rifle on his lap then back at the High Priestess. Under the shade of the blue flowers on a dark, humid day, he smiled at Ymbril. "Fatechanger," he said. "The throne will be called Fatechanger."