ADARA

If I let him leave now without saying anything about what happened, we won't be able to undo it. He'll never talk to any of us about what's on his mind if I let this go. If I let him go. It'll be just like with Tara where after she told me to not worry, I waited for her to say something, anything to me, and when I realised something was wrong it was too late. Adara clenched her fists at the sight of the carts being wheeled into the citadel, a bolster of supplies for the Burning Abyss, but he made her a promise. Yuven can think I don't learn, but I can and will learn. Into the citadel after her thoughtful walk around the caldera, she readied herself for what was to come, no matter what it meant. She faltered in the western wing, searching for bravery but coming out with nervousness at the sight of Yuven and Maria in what appeared to be a quiet debate. Grey feathers thinned out when Yuven brushed his nose without a second glance at her, with Maria burdened with boxes of tonics. Her fellow firecore sent a fiery glyph against the door to walk inside, with Yuven following after her.

Yuven finally started to trust me. The most I can do is prove him wrong. That I'm not that same, ignorant magickae with no idea how this worked. I do know people. Shawl squeezed around her shoulders, she forced herself to step away from the sick ward to face the situation she walked into.

Out of the western wing of the citadel, she came to a stop by the gigantic spiral staircase with the thickness of a marble trunk which pierced into the launch tower for Riders, all the way to the observatories. Wind brushed across her neck with a cold touch, her arms wrapped around Fenrer when they took flight and she tasted freedom from her twenty turns of faded memories. Onto the first step, she crawled downwards until the white alabaster twisted into glittered blacks lined with gemstones. Silver light hushed through them when she passed them, a reflection of her flames and in the dark, flaming wings of twilight hues.

The past. The present. The future I'm walking into, the future I've wanted but couldn't reach. Adara curled her fingers against her palm at the spirit's final words to her, half a warning and half a statement of her true power not found in the inferno blazing through the woods of Prunal with stolen lives of Magickae.

"Maybe you can make something of the chaos."

Heat oozed out of the walls, but vented out into thermal magitek generators by way of rune pipes. Far from the power centre the citadel carried, she came into the storage area. Several boxes piled against the walls, sorted with tags latched onto their sides. Some sat upon carts to join the rest of the carriages on the main level. Adara squeezed herself past smaller boxes full of elementia crystals. Her hand hovered over one, but she drew back when a crack sliced through the sudden glow of silver. It broke apart in her ears, and Yuven sent the shards up into the gale. A soft connection and the two falling stars. Adara closed the box with a click. Other boxes held Runic Expanders or empty phials.

Ahead, a door rested, half-open with a reluctant invitation. Through the gap, she frowned at the sight of Fenrer lining runestones into a box by a small window which revealed parts of the mountain she had yet to discover and trace on the maps. Nearest her, Fenrer abandoned a table full of stout phials with imperfections and cracks, resting on a safety tarp. Adara closed the door behind her, but froze in time with him when he squeezed one of the runes with a silent huff.

"You said you were willing to talk," Adara pointed out when he refused to look at her.

"You're in the way of the door, I can't back out now." Fenrer continued to pile up the runes into separate boxes by the stamped glyphs upon their surface. "I'm listening, Adara, but I need to get all these boxes to the lift. We're going to be very busy in a few moons." He swiped the box in front of him closed and sent his magick through the wood. Adara flinched when the vines twisted apart, and he sent his fist into the misbehaving expression of the flow. It glowed with jade-touched whispers, and he pushed it off to the side. "Or we can stand here silently and you can think it in my general direction, but I don't make it a point to break the law and minds can't be read like books." He hauled up a larger runestone into a fresh box. His shoulders pressed against his neck, and he twisted around to reveal the dark shadows under his eyes. "People like to assume that's what Aurus can do, but that's not how that works."

"I never said or thought that."

Fenrer returned to his box to throw another runestone into it.

"And you know I've never judged you for what you are. It's not like you chose to be that way anymore than I chose to be an Anima," Adara pointed out and stepped into the room. "It was you who told me that my magick wasn't a curse. It was a part of who I am."

Forced to stop when he turned with a cold twist to his features, he raised his finger to point at the black band around his entire forearm. "It's not like I wear this for fun." Back to her, he slammed the next box with a bristle. "I thought you wanted to talk about what you did, not about whether Aurus magick is a curse or not." His eyelids fluttered, but he shook his head out and refused to look at her. "You don't need to throw my words back at me, I still stand by them where your magick is concerned. People are scared of you because you can put far more force into your glyphs without the use of blood magick and you showed they had no reason to be. Besides... it turned out the Anima aren't the reason we have Derelicts — but they sure are the reason an entire religion was built on a lie."

"What if they didn't mean for that to happen?"

"I fail to see how it wasn't by design. Magick becomes potent through two mechanisms. Ingenuity or belief. Why do you think for so long your magick didn't work?" he asked and twisted his heel to her. "Because you started to tell yourself you couldn't control it. In so doing, you subconsciously made it reality — because that was the narrative you told yourself because it was all you heard for the near entirety of your life. People prayed to the Ancients for deliverance, to keep the Infernal Gate closed from Crimson Dusks. We barely survived the Great Dusk. You think we'll survive another?" He released a tortured chuckle. "Our numbers are dwindling. People shy away from us... doubly so from Aurus." He rolled out his shoulders. "Now I'm complicit in the lie... I watch people go to pray to them everyday and..." His icy expression died into torment. "I still can't say anything. Who am I to rip them of that one light in their lives just because it was taken away from me?" He scowled, then turned his head away from her again. "It doesn't matter in the end."

"I know your faith was important to you," Adara pointed out as Fenrer took another box and ignored her. "But I don't think that's what you're really mad at. I've been travelling with you for a while, Fen... I could see this coming from leagues away."

"I'm not angry." He tightened his grip on the edge of the box. "It's not like my faith could change or do anything in the end except exist."

"Bullshit." Adara raised an eyebrow when he twisted to her, nostrils flared. "Bullshit," she drew out her own frustrated laugh. "I've seen you do so much with faith, not even in deities but in people. In us, and..." Her own truth fell upon her brow when his own scrunched with the fleeting edge of forcefully contained fury when her words came closer to the tempest in front of her. "I will not leave this room until you admit to yourself how much of what you just said was a straight up lie."

"I'm not angry."

"And I'm a nuglet." Adara brushed a brown tangle out of her face when he choked the box and stiffened further. "I know exactly what's bothering you, Fenrer Pyren, but I'd rather you say it to me. I don't even need to be a mindreader." Adara tasted the flames of victory when he let go of the box, hyperfocused. "I have seen you stand against the depths of personal hells and come out the other side to drag out those stuck in it, and last I looked, that was all you." Her own steps drew her forward into the large gap they both created. "From that tree where you rescued me from a Derelict to the King's Summit where you did the exact same thing again, but on me." Her hands smacked against her chest. "And again when you got through to Evyriaz, Fenrer, for someone with so much sight you have your eyes completely closed because you don't want to accept reality because you can't recognize it in yourself."

Fenrer twitched. "You should have told me the truth when I came to you. I was so scared about what Blackwall could've done to you after hearing what he did to Yuven," he said, drawn out through his lips. "What drove you to trust him when I asked you to wait?"

Finally.

"He gave me an ultimatum, my help for your lives," she said and stood him down in turn. "And if you were expecting me to stand aside ever again. I would never hide behind you or Yuven ever again. I wanted you two to trust me in turn, to let me make sacrifices. I care about you two too much even if it meant I had to give Blackwall exactly what he wanted." Adara threw her hand to the side, and a pulsating heat wave smashed into the empty, cracked phials, shattered with someone else's faith. "I saw what I did and understood nearly none of it except what it would've meant to you. I was wrong to not say something to you but don't be so thick-skulled. You knew Blackwall wouldn't have let you two go if I didn't." Into his space, he let out a huff. "You give so much of yourself you don't even know what to do when someone wants to give something to you. Say you're angry, Fenrer Pyren, because I don't need to be an Aurus because it is written all over your face. Say it so I can let you leave."

Even if it breaks my heart too.

"How could I not be furious when you were never supposed to be in that position and neither was Yuven?" he asked, his voice lifting higher. "How could I not be angry when my actions led to that? Yuven, my best friend, tortured until it developed a darkness inside him that I did nothing about, or you, used as a tool like he warned you about." His eyes widened. "I don't know what Blackwall wanted to look for in that sphere or Yuven's memories, but whatever it was he has it now and you felt the need to carry that knowledge by yourself only telling Yuven when needed and making me hear it and you were never going to tell me if he hadn't pressed the issue? I am angry and I don't want to be."

Sweet, painful release, but she had opened the floodgates as he continued with sharp breaths, "How could I accept your apologies knowing the context behind it? How could I forgive not being able to do anything about it? Adara, I wasn't lying when I told you I forgave you. It's the situation I cannot forgive no matter how much I run it through my head because for once—" A tortured sob left his throat. "I don't know how to make this right and I want to make it right but I can't go back and do it right. I'm just left with the information that my Oathbound and someone I love decided that together that it would be better I never knew at all." Fenrer took a step closer. "I would never be happier in ignorance."

Adara let the pressure in her lungs go when Fenrer went quiet in surprise. "That's all I wanted to hear from you... If you want to leave for Sivaport... I won't stop you. I'm sorry I hurt you."

Fenrer stood in the center of the room when she went to step aside and let him run. Her heart squeezed when he stepped forward, then stopped in front of her. Adara raised her head to him and the sunlit shadows cast across his skin. His eyes narrowed, a separate plea within the deep jades. A sigh left his lips, and he shook his head. "So stupid..."

"I know." Adara stared through him instead. "I'm sorry."

Any tension in his shoulders left. Warmth touched her cheek when he brought his hand forward, a spot of hesitation clutching at him with a small tremble. "I wanted you two to have faith in me... I had faith in you two," he murmured, barely heard against the breeze over her skin. "I still want to believe."

I believe.

"It's okay to be angry."

"It's not okay to lash out at people."

Adara grasped onto his hand, causing him to jolt. "No, but it's still okay to be angry. Anger isn't what hurts people, but holding it in only ever hurts you because you're scared of lashing out only ever hurts you and leads to that anyway. You need to see that." Fenrer sank into his shoulders and didn't draw out of her grip. "I love you," she replied. "I made a mistake, but I never hated you. I never thought wrong of you because of what you are. Fenrer." Her hand found his arm and she drew herself closer to grasp his face, and he frowned. "Can't you see the good you've done in other's lives? Your magick isn't a curse. It's a part of you. You gave people a chance. You showed them a path on how to believe." Adara held onto him tight. "I want you to have faith in yourself to the same amount you have faith in people. You had faith in me, I have faith in you. It was never about the Ancients, was it?"

Remnants of his fury died with each breath he took. "I just wish you felt like you didn't have to lie to me."

Adara shut her eyes tight. "I wish I didn't either. Just... please don't leave it like this. You can go to Sivaport, I won't stop you."

A thumb brushed against her cheek, and she snapped back to the present which had once been an untold future. Under the light of the sunset in the window, where the flames blazed across the foam, she gave a start when he pulled her close and pressed his lips against hers. A melted wave of morning embers found at the edge of spring. His lips drifted off of hers after a too short minute. Fenrer let go of her, but she grabbed onto him in return to stop him from escaping her reach and the fires of love, then embraced him and burrowed in when he returned it.

"I love you," she said in her best Hanekan.

"I love you too," he repeated in the ocean waves. He took in a soft breath. "Adara... can you help me? I want to fix this..." Another sob left his throat. "I don't know how."

"Of course," she whispered. "We'll fix this, Fen."

Between the three of us... there has to be a way to fix this, to make sense of this world's endless chaos.