Fifteen #2
After a while, she gets up and takes a short sword from the weapon rack. Like the staff, it’s slightly too big for her, but she hefts it anyway, holding it awkwardly in both hands.
“I’m going to keep training,” she says, not looking at me. “I don’t think I’ll be able to hurt anyone. But I want to be less scared, even if it’s only for a minute.”
Kael would tell her fear is weakness. I think it might be the only thing keeping us human.
She plants her feet and swings the sword. The form is sloppy and she nearly loses her footing, but she plants her feet again.
I feel something close to pride. Not for myself, but for her.
She swings again, then again, each one a little more sure than the last.
I stand and head for the exit, but she calls after me. “Luceris?”
I turn.
“Thank you... but I won’t always need saving,” she says.
I nod, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
As I close the door behind me, I hear the thud of her blade against a practice dummy. The strikes echo down the empty hall.
I hope it gives her something to latch on to.
Some will to keep going.
Because I don’t think I could survive failing her too.
The numbers dwindle with every trial. The tables that once pulsed with false camaraderie now hold only scattered clusters of survivors, isolated and wary.
The Fireborn keep to themselves, a tight knot of dark red uniforms radiating heat. Atheron presides over them, face composed, hair tied back in a slick ponytail, as if I hadn’t launched him through the air only hours ago.
When I enter the hall, his gaze snaps to mine and holds, daring me to look away first.
I choose a seat at an empty table, out of reach but not out of sight. I hope Marissa shows up to keep me company, but I also hope she doesn’t. I hope she’s still training, too focused to remember dinner. Better to stay away while Atheron is here.
A chair scrapes against the floor, and I look up. Kael is here. He slides in across from me, carrying only a bread roll. Nyxen and Vaelis linger nearby, scanning for threats, protecting their prince.
“Busy day?” I joke, but I don’t really expect him to answer.
Kael’s mouth quirks. “It’s been—something.”
He’s evasive as always. But he doesn’t look like a predator tonight. Just another animal trying to stay alive. I wonder what he’s thinking. His face gives away so little.
We sit in silence, picking at our food. Everything tastes like dust, but I’m trying. Kael notices and pushes part of his meagre bread towards me. I take it out of politeness, and something in him eases.
It’s Atheron who cracks first, rising from his table and gliding over, flanked by Maleiros and Serraith.
He stops behind me, close enough that I can smell the perfumed oil in his hair.
I guess former Crowns have more time to gather supplies when they’re chosen.
He rests a manicured hand on my shoulder, the weight light but threatening.
“Enjoying a cosy meal, are we, lovebirds?” he purrs, addressing us both but squeezing my shoulder until it aches. “I see you’ve found yourself a bodyguard. I wonder what you’re offering for such privileges, hmm.”
I wince as the accusation finds a buried wound.
Kael’s eyes don’t leave Atheron’s face. “Did you want something?”
Atheron ignores the question. He leans down, lips almost brushing my ear. “You know, Luceris, I will have to pay you back for that little display in the trial. Still...” He tsks. “You did do me the favour of killing that poor Waterborn girl. Such a wretched people.”
I freeze, blood pulsing hot through my skin.
Kael stands. His chair scrapes against the hard stone, the sound violent. Shadows gather instinctively around his fingers before he forces them still.
Atheron’s smile widens slightly.
“Take your hand off him,” Kael says.
Atheron turns slowly, drawing out the moment.
“Now, now, Prince. We’re all friends here.” He smiles, but it is razor sharp. “I only came over to remind our friend here just how quickly things can change. I find that people get complacent in between trials. They start to get these grand notions that they’re going to survive.”
He drops his hand and straightens, turning his focus to Kael. “But you’re not complacent, are you, Prince?”
“Never,” Kael says, voice flat.
Atheron leans in, his voice low. “The quiet ones are usually the ones worth watching.” He flicks a glance at me. “Isn’t that right?”
He turns to leave, but Kael stops him with a word.
“Coward,” Kael says, soft as a curse.
Atheron pauses mid-stride, then pivots, face serene except for a single twitch of his lip, like a snarl kept leashed. “Do you have something to say to me, Prince?”
Kael doesn’t blink. “You only fight when the odds are in your favour. I’m not impressed.”
Atheron bares his teeth. “Well, perhaps I’ll just have to kill you next. Perhaps I’ll make you watch, Luceris. To prove a point. Would you like that?”
He looks at me, eyes burning. “The light trial is usually third,” he says, his voice turning sweet. “Let’s hope the Mother Shard follows tradition. Your darling prince will be ripe for the picking then.”
He sweeps away, Maleiros and Serraith in tow.
Kael sits back down, this time closer, his knees grazing mine beneath the table. “Don’t let him get to you,” he says, like he’s trying to convince himself.
I want to laugh. “He seems rattled.”
Kael nods, satisfied. “He’s afraid. You humiliated him in front of his dogs. He’ll want to make this personal.”
Eventually, Kael gets up to leave, whispering something to Nyxen before turning to me. “Make sure you eat something.”
I nod, but my appetite is gone.
Callen catches my eye from a table near the wall, Morwen seated beside him, and it’s enough to make me abandon my plate.
She doesn’t notice me at first. She’s staring at her hands, splayed on the table like she’s in prayer.
Callen doesn’t speak when I approach. He only shifts in his chair without looking at me.
Morwen finally glances up, her gaze flat and unmoving. A piece of parchment lies in front of her beside a pale feather shaped like a quill. She writes with no ink in sight, yet words materialise on the page. A gift from the Mother Shard, perhaps? She writes as I sit:
It’s not your fault.
I blink, startled. I want to believe her. I almost do.
She writes again:
Lyssandra was always the bravest of us. They called her the Willing Water back home. The most devout.
I nod, thinking of how little time I had with her, and how completely she had believed.
The feather scratches as she writes more:
But that time has passed. You must focus on your own fate. The water speaks to the children of the sea.
I frown. “What does that mean? Lyssandra said something similar.”
Morwen looks at me, then towards the door. She writes, carefully, her handwriting slow and deliberate:
You and the Shadow. You are bound like the tide. If one goes under, so too does the other.
Callen can’t keep the look of disgust from his face. But Morwen’s eyes shine now. She slides the parchment over to me and points to the next sentence:
The Water Dominion has a name for what you are feeling. They call it the Deep Current. It is the moment before love, when the current begins pulling you somewhere you cannot escape.
She looks at me, her eyes flashing with something between sadness and hope.
My pulse stumbles.
She writes one more sentence:
You are already in the current.
I blink rapidly, my hands shaking.
Morwen offers me a small, crooked smile. It feels like her way of saying she understands.
I stand, not sure what else to say.
Callen catches my sleeve. “Is Marissa okay?”
“You should ask her yourself,” I say.
I nod to Morwen. “Thank you.”
I leave them to their quiet and wander the halls. The words stick with me, looping in my mind.
The moment before you fall in love. Not love itself.
When you can’t escape.
It sounds so familiar it scares me.
Because part of me doesn’t want to escape.
The Embrace has become a maze of echoes. Every footfall, every voice, every restless movement resonates through its stone corridors and empty chambers. When I go looking for Alaris, I find him exactly where I expect: in the Dome, the largest, most hollow place of all.
He’s alone—he has no one left. His uniform is unbuttoned, sweat blooming dark in all the creases. The air is so full of Mana that I can taste it before I see him.
He’s in the centre, arms raised, channelling wind through his bones with enough force to rattle the lights lining the ceiling.
He isn’t just moving the air, though. He’s weaponising it.
Each exhale is a wave that smashes benches into walls.
Every flick of his wrist splinters some wooden object around him.
A weapons rack bursts apart, filling the air with dust.
He doesn’t see me at first, or pretends not to. I cough so he can’t ignore me.
He whirls, hair plastered to his face, eyes fury-bright. “Luceris,” he says, like an accusation. “Come to watch?”
His voice is hoarse. He doesn’t look like he’s rested since the trial ended. Maybe he hasn’t.
“You’re going to destroy everything in here,” I say, too soft. I have to repeat it, louder, to be heard over the wind.
He grins wide, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “That’s the point,” he says. “If I stop breaking stuff, then I’ll start thinking, and I don’t want to think about anything. Plus, she’ll just make more, you know. None of this is real.”
I nod, though I’m not sure I agree. “You’re—” I almost say scaring me, but that’s not helpful. “You’re much stronger than I realised,” I settle for, and it’s true.
He laughs, proud and hateful all at once. “I was just fucking around before, I was here on a gamble you see. And now I’m the only one left.” He exhales sharply, like something inside him is trying to break out. “I should have tried harder with Fen.”
I hesitate. There is no comfort I can offer him about Fen. I’ve pushed it to the back of my mind because I have to. I can’t keep picturing Fen’s twisted corpse.
“I got the bastard in the end, though,” he says, triumphant, but edged with spite.