"Oh, savat, eavesdropping?" Sovanna glared.

Stopha held up his hands. "Hey, hey. Couldn't help but overhear." He quickly continued, "I think what he's trying to say is they respect their leader and their decisions, so they would follow you regardless. He's trying to say they know you. They will understand you. They're not stupid that you can't tell them why you let your sister live. They know it all comes from the good of your heart."

Rokki nodded and crossed his arms. "The Scale gets it."

Stopha curled his upper lip. "Ooee, I thought we on name terms, Rokki."

Rokki stuck out his tongue.

Understand me? Sovanna realized with a jolt she never saw lower Kaunlutha as anything but that—a group of Kaunlutha who lived a lower lifestyle. Simple, peaceful, and all they wanted was to live that way forever. Detached from Rukkatukin, they were never in her sight. Not a concern. Not a consideration. Did they love and laugh? Did they have siblings? Did they know what Sovanna was like? Could she be friends with them?

Maybe once in a while she would think about what village life was like but not all the time. She was fulfilled in Rukkatukin. Never once did she think about being in lower Kaunlutha.

Never saw them as individuals.

Rokki spoke next and his voice was calm. "So, I'm sad, what trying to say." Sovanna looked up at him and he turned to Stopha.

"Sad that he sees ya, but ya don't see him," He nodded, "Look, Sovanna, at Rokki. What ya know about him?"

Sovanna stared at Rokki. She really didn't see much of him. His calico mane, dark brown fur, his frown, and the way one side of his mouth had laugh lines for his crooked smile, but those were all visual things that anyone could see.

"Villager? Soldier?" Stopha said and rested a hand on Rokki's shoulder. "Brother or a twin? A friend maybe? But really looking at someone and seeing their scars deep inside, different story. That's when you truly understand them. And those villagers," he said as Rokki twitched his tail tip in annoyance, "and this one? Yeah, they see you. They really see you. Maybe not all, but more than you think, probably. That's what it's like being a leader. Others know you more than you might think. Weird, really."

It striked her then, his words. "You've been leader?"

He gave a light chuckle and he squinted up at the canopy as if glimpsing a distant memory. 

"When I was really young. When Humans first came and when I was assigned my first Human. My lil' Oli. After that, she helped get me promoted to Chief status. I was a leader to some Krokeys. Naja would remember what I was like then more than I do meself. He was my second-in-command. It's weird. You start seeing them all as others. Move them here. Move them there. Order this. Order that. 

"And they really see you. See all your laughs and frowns. They remember your bursts of anger and all the moments you cried. They remember who you like and who you hate. But you're too busy being a leader and setting an example. Blind sighted, until the day when it's over. When you lose it, then you see it. I want you to see it now. Rokki does, too."

Stopha patted her on the head. "Should be going soon. Get yourselves ready." He returned to the fire. Taro was waking up, stretching his arms and his wings. She wondered if, being a prince, it was the same for him. She thought she knew lionkind and what they were like and wanted.

Detached. Blind sighted. She pursed her lips thinking back to what her father didn't do for them. Her sister was wrong in killing their father for that. But she wasn't wrong in what she saw. Rathana had made the connection. She saw the villagers. She even fell in love with one.

No, they fell in love with her. Goes two ways.

If the villagers truly saw them as symbols, they wouldn't try to make any connections with royalty. Sovanna lived a secluded, privileged life, spending most of her time in and around Rukkatukin.

"Guess, savat, I'm stupid one." She looked up and Rokki's lips twitched, but he didn't smile. "I don't want to kill Rathana," she said, "I want to save her. Killing Papa was wrong, but she didn't think she had a choice. She knew what to fight for. I didn't. I do now. Help me save her?"

Rokki bared his fangs. "If she's even in Drazlesk."

"Why still so angry?" she shot back.

"You were looking at Taro again."

"Why's that matter?"

He bristled. "You don't know? Don't get? You're," He paused and flattened his fur, "too special for him."

"Special? For him?" Sovanna's voice cracked, and she cleared her throat, "I'm not friends with one of you. I'm friends with both."

Rokki closed the space between them. "How you this naïve?" he said with a smirk playing on his lips. Then he hit the branch above her, jumping away as snow rained down on her head. Sovanna shrieked and quickly grabbed a chunk of snow to hurl at him, but she missed and the snowball bounced off nearby branches. Rokki laughed away.

"Savat!" she yelled after him.

She didn't understand his sudden playfulness. One moment he was trying to tell her some serious things and the next, he was pulling pranks. But he returned then to help her get the snow off.

"It was too good not to," he said with a giggle in his voice, "Just, you were standing under most best tree with so much snow—"

She scowled. "Oh, savat, I'll get you for that. Hurry up now, servant."

"I hope that's jokes. I rather not be."

It was a joke, but his obvious annoyance and dislike to the idea showed in his scrunched face. She decided to tease him more.

"But you are soldier."

Rokki flicked off another snow chunk. "If needed."

"Then you serve me. Forever. By my side. As long as you live because supposedly, I'll be a Guardian live eternally."

He grumbled something under his breath.

She made a show of huffing and putting her paws on her hips. "What was that, Rokki? As servant you must speak loud enough for me to hear you." She wiggled her butt side to side, mocking him. "Mumble, mumble. Speak up."

Rokki copied her, putting his paws on his hips. "I said, in your dreams, Praenglutha." He even did her side-to-side wiggle.

Then, he turned his head and licked his shoulder.

Sovanna blinked, widening her eyes. She'd never seen him show feline embarrassment before. In fact, lionkind didn't often do it unlike the blue feline sub-species. She kept staring at him, seeing if he would do it again.

And he did!

A giggle bubbled up her throat. "You're kind of cute," she said and poked her finger in his cheek. Rokki licked his shoulder again and said nothing more, walking back to where the others were getting ready to leave.

"Didn't know you do it," she said, skipping after him.

"Fidni, for your entertainment, I do it on purpose, obviously."

"Were you trying make me laugh?" she wondered out loud.

"Think whatever you want."

And he said nothing more about it. She smiled, feeling lighter inside. Sovanna knew it would take her a while to adjust the way she saw Kaunlutha around her. Rokki was the first one to try to connect with her in this new way.

He understands.

"You'll help me, right?" she said, catching up to him.

He patted her head. "Not as servant or follower."

"As a friend? Best friend?"

He cracked a smile. "What kind of friend sacrifices his life? You're more than—"

"Actually, you don't have to because I have better idea," she said grabbing his arm. She pulled him toward Taro. "The magick transfer won't do it. I have to be the one, but there's a way to I won't die," she said quickly, "but you have to trust me when I do it."

Taro blinked at her and yawned. "Vanna, I just woke up."

"Splash face with snow then, because neither of you have to die. I have an idea. It's wild and risky, but it's the best idea. Let me explain."

Quickly she told of them of the plan in a hushed voice.

When she was done, Taro and Rokki exchanged a look she couldn't read. She decided she would chance it and create a fight or flight situation for herself to trigger the Ater. She also told them about Aurvandil wanting her for something and she could convince him to let her live.

"No one has to die," she whispered. Taro opened his mouth to say something when a scaly arm blocked their way. They were near the edge of the sinkhole. A void, large and open, wide and daunting, stretching into a dark abyss sat before them. Naja and Yavoa were working on creating a rope that pushed down into the hole. The darkness swallowed it up. Scilia was keeping watch of their surroundings.

Sovanna tensed as a magical sense wrapped around her body and clenched as if something were sending out a warning.

Or a threat.

"You'll take the rope down. We'll pull ya back up." Stopha began tying them with rope except Taro because he could fly down. "Keep your wits up. You'll find Drazlesk down there."

"You're not coming with us?" Sovanna asked. She thought he might come with them. There was no reason for them to bring all their weapons.

Stopha guided them to the edge. Rokki grabbed her paw.

"Not my prophecy anymore. This is as far as we go. Good luck."

"What's the point of all this way?" she asked, turning around. Stopha, Yavoa, Scilia, and Naja were all standing back from the sinkhole. Stopha and Naja held the rope, bunched up between them. Yavoa had his arms around Scilia.

"I said I want to help! Let me go!" She struggled against her brother.

"This is where we stop, Scilia," Yavoa scolded her. He pulled her away further, dragging her across the snow. A gust of wind came up from the sinkhole's darkness. Sovann's fur tingled.

"You tricked us," Rokki growled and then suddenly a loud groan, hollow and deep, came from the hole. A huge gust of wind burst up from below, knocking him off balance.

Another gust came from behind, pushing Sovanna. She noticed Stopha waving his hand. She didn't know, but he had magick. They really did come all this way for nothing but this.

"Cowards! You'll all cowards! Fight with me!" she shouted. "For what's right."

Stopha turned away. Naja set the ropes down and followed his brother. Yavoa somehow talked Scilia down and they turned their backs.

"Taro, do something!" Sovanna shouted as she slid with Rokki into the hole.

Their world flipped upside down and down side up as they twirled around the air, tumbling into the hole. The roaring wind made it hard to hear anything other than her screams. Sovanna twisted her body to see the ground and felt Rokki's grip tighten on her paw. Anger and fear battled inside of her. She wanted to claw the Krokeys. They could've come with. Sovanna needed all the help she could get.

Then her momentum slowed as the rope pulled around her waist. The darkness broke around them and black ground came into view.

"Easy does it," came a grunt from above. 

Taro was straining against both her and Rokki's weight, pulling at the rope as much as he could. Gusts of wind pushed them side to side gently and they were lowered to the ground. Sovanna's feet met with cold, but not icy black ground as if someone made a floor out of coal and put it all over the land. Red light reflected of off it. She lifted her head to the black clouds and red lightning covering the sky without a break.

At a slight angle off to the right was a pointed rock piercing the sky like a giant spear tip—Drazlesk. Sovanna stared at it, wondering if what she was seeing was a mirage again. But it was clear and crisp, cutting into the sky.

They made it.

"Guardian's tongue!" Taro swore and she turned her head as a bundle of rope fell around him. He fumbled for it and shouted up at the hole. "You imbeciles!"

"They mean to leave us here," Taro kicked at the fallen rope and brandished the cut tip, "See that? Sliced. They mean for us to die here. We should've never trusted them."

And I thought Stopha was nice. Sovanna decided to now doubt all the nice creatures first. Even Oli. Maybe she was in on it, too. Besides, she didn't share the prophecy of the Krokeys. They were hiding it because they knew it would reveal how much the Krokeys were meant to help. If Sovanna had known, she wouldn't have let Stopha guide them. There was no point if they were going to be stuck down here anyway. She would have taken the map and come here without them.

Because it only hurts, savat. Like betrayal.

Without anyone talking, the land was hushed with only the sound of wind whispering across the plains. Then a commotion reached her ears. She pricked them in the direction and turned to Drazlesk. From here she couldn't see well, but it sounded like fighting.

"Maybe it's your brother?" Rokki said.

Taro nodded. "And look at that. Is that the sun?"

To their left, giving out little light, was a half of a red sun poking up from the horizon. All the light was from the lightning, flashing and reflecting off the ground like light did mirrors. Next to the sun was another celestial object.

"The moon?" she wondered out loud. No one said anything, but stared at the strange sight. Red sun, black moon, under black clouds with red lightning. The black coal-like ground, she noticed, had patches of snow on it. The closer to Drazlesk, the fewer patches there were.

Shock of white sprung into the sky above the pointed mountain.

Taro gasped. "Kukkiri!" he said and began to fly. "It's Kazo, my brother, he's using the powers. We should go. He's there. We need to stop him."

Sovanna and Rokki ran after him just as a growl came from behind.

"Sovanna, I knew you would come."

Bristya landed on the ground far from arm's reach, but still close enough to get them with magick. Rokki hissed.

"Let's run. We might be able to out run her."

Sovanna swore. "Savat, she can fly, if you forgot."

He pointed above. Vislo, the raven Guardian, was aiming his arrows at Bristya. He shot and she quickly drew her sword, cutting it away.

"Stand down Vislo. She's not worthy." Bristya growled and turned back to Sovanna. Rokki grabbed her and ran away. Sovanna stumbled after. She turned back to see Vislo standing between her and Bristya. Purple swirls of light wisped around Vislo's body as he readied another arrow.

"The eclipse is coming. Kukkiri must be destroyed. He'll doom us all!" he said as Bristya launched in the air with a shriek, creating spears made of ice. Her face turned into a snarl.

"He won't!" she said, hovering in the air.

"Don't make me fight you." Vislo brandished a sword. "You have to let go."

"Come on," Rokki pulled Sovanna and she blinked out of her daze just as the two Guardians clashed. Bristya's scream of 'no' ringed in her ears.

"Bristya was the one created Kukkiri," she said as they ran, "I think."

Rokki grunted. "Too powerful. Like Ater. Another problem of Guardians."

He was right. The Guardians must have created Kukkiri to stop the powerful Ater, but then the Kukkiri could only be defeated by Ater. They couldn't take either away themselves, so they had to give both to mortals and let them do the job. Sechalutha was the start of the Ater failing in the paws of mortals in the eyes of the Guardians.

Now Kukkiri was failing in their eyes, too.

"They're so stupid," Sovanna hissed.

"Don't become like them." Rokki briefly glanced over his shoulder at her. "Ever. Promise?"

She nodded. "I'm going to change everything when I become Guardian."