It had been days since the last beating. Or had it been a week?

Maybe the Big One, that idiot, brutish cyran had grown tired of smashing Eolh’s face in. Maybe they were bored, given that he’d never fought back. Maybe he’d been shipped out.

One can only hope.

Eolh sat on the floor of his cell, running his fingers over the key. Feeling the scratches in the metal and the gritted rust on his fingertips.

Such a small thing. When he closed his fist over the key, his feathers covered it whole.

How strange, to hold his freedom in the palm of his hand. And yet…

He hadn’t left.

Some part of his mind was screaming at himself. What are you waiting for? Why haven’t you left yet?

He didn’t need Agraneia’s help anymore, did he? Eolh could simply stand up, and walk out of here. Sure, he’d have to get past the guard, but that would be easy enough for someone like him.

So why are you still here?

Early morning, or close enough. The rains had started late this night, and when the clouds finally covered the stars, the constant drizzle started soon after. Humidity made all his feathers cling together, and his lungs fought to suck in the cloying air. Gods, I need to get off this planet.

Eolh pushed his beak through the bars of his cell. And whispered out into the darkness.

“Come with me,” Eolh said. “We can leave right now. The two of us.”

“I am not leaving,” came the rumbling answer from the other side of the wall.

“Why not? Why are you so determined to die in here?”

“I died a long time ago.”

“And yet, I can hear you breathing. What does that tell you?”

“It tells me the world doesn’t care enough to bury me. The world never cared about me to begin with.”

Eolh grabbed the bars. He wanted to shake them loose. He wanted to scream at her.

He settled for a harsh whisper. “Of course, the world doesn’t care about you! The world doesn’t care about anything. It just is. Only the living have the power to care, Agraneia.”

Silence.

Eolh sighed. Slumped against the bars, feeling that cold metal against his shoulder. He might as well be talking to a wall. Why am I trying so hard with her? Why can’t I just walk out of here?

He thought of Poire, somewhere out there on this gods-forsaken planet. And Laykis, who he hoped was out there with the fledgling, still protecting him.

Some guardian I am.

And then, for some reason he didn’t fully understand, thoughts of Ryke flew into his mind. The feathers, still growing across her pale skin. It had only been a few weeks since he’d last seen her. But it might as well have been a few lifetimes.

Leave! His mind shouted at him. Leave, you fool!

One more try, he thought. Just one more.

“Agraneia,” he said softly. “Is there no one else? Do you not have anyone else to live for?”

“No.”

“No?”

“She’s… Whatever we had… No.”

“But you took the key, didn’t you? You copped it from a guard, and you held onto it, all this time you’ve been waiting in here. Some part of you still wants to live.”

Again, there was that damned silence. It stretched on, and the rain came and went. And Eolh was still there.

Finally, she did speak. “I’ve killed so many. Few deserved it. I am nothing but a machine.”

“They made you into this.”

“No,” Her words were slow, and drawling. He knew what she was feeling. He knew that she was seeing each and every one of those faces. “Their blood is on my hands. I did this. And do you know what else? I loved it. I craved it. Even now, I can feel it in my blood. I want to… I want… Why should I live? Gods above, why won’t they kill me?”

“What a waste,” Eolh said. “What a waste that would be.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No,” he said. “I know all too well. You have made too many mistakes. They cut you, every time you think about them. Every time you think you can forget, they come back to haunt you. Do you know what that makes you?”

“Useless.”

“It makes you special. Who else has learned this? Who else now knows what you know? Who else wants to change as badly as you do, right now? What a waste it would be, if all of that were simply to cease.”

“I don’t deserve life.”

“Then who does?” Eolh growled, and gripped the bars. “Tell me, who deserves to breathe this air? To walk this world? Who among us is perfect?”

Certainly, Eolh thought, not I. Nor any avian. Nor the cyrans, nor any xeno at all.

All of us. Evil, awful, greedy, murderous. Yes. And bright, and brilliant, and hopeful, and helpful. From the lowest crowcaste to the highest royal. From the dullscales, to the Veneratian, and everyone they conquered.

Just people.

“There is no worth, Agraneia. There is no one worthy.”

“None but the gods.”

“Hah!” Eolh crowed a laugh, “Then where have they gone? We’re all that’s left, Agraneia.”

“If you’re not going to use the key,” Agraneia said, sticking her scaled hand out of the bars. Her forearm was thick with muscle. “Then give it back.”

His hand clutched automatically around the key. An old thief’s instincts.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Hand it over, xeno,” she growled dangerously.

“Not until you promise to live.”

“Damn you!” She grabbed the bars, making her knuckles go pale as she screamed. “Just leave me alone and let me die!”

There was a sound from down the hall. A guard? One of the other prisoners? Eolh was certain that someone was listening.

But he thought that he was getting close with her. He hoped.

“I know what it’s like, Agraneia. To be a slave to your own thoughts. You think if you walk out of here, everything will be like it was. Or worse. But I can promise you this: nothing will ever be the same again, because you’ve seen it. You’ve seen what is, and what could be. Everything will change for you now, if only you’ll let it. You don’t have to stand still anymore. You don’t have to be who you were.”

Her hands went limp. Let go of the bars. And slipped out of his view. He could hear her feet, scuffling over the stone floor. Going silently back into her cell.

Eolh spent the rest of the morning, sitting. Thinking. Running the conversation through his head. His back was to the bars, as he stared up at the window.

He heard the guard open the door to the prison block. Shuffling down the corridor. The guard’s keys jingled, and reminded Eolh that he wasn’t supposed to have his own key. Quickly, before the guard rounded his cell, he tucked it in a nook in the mortar of the stone. He sat down again, as if he hadn’t moved at all.

Heavy footsteps, and the sloshing of bowls filled with old fish and bad stew. The guard's footsteps stopped behind Eolh. Odd.

He wasn’t going to turn around, until he heard the voice. “Did you miss me?”

The Big One was standing in the hallway. Wearing a guard’s uniform, and a big, shit-eating grin on his face.

Eolh’s heart sank. Suddenly, the cell was far too cramped. The air, already too hot to breathe, was now insufferable. Eolh flexed his feathers. Trying to think of what he should do. No way out.

Not now. No way out.

“That’s right,” The Big One said, still grinning as he pulled at his new uniform. “I’m on guard detail now. Means I’ll be here, every single day of the rest of your life. Which, come to think of it, won’t be so very long.”

Eolh stood up. And took a few steps back, as the Big One shoved a key into his cell door, and let it screech open.

The Big One blocked the way out, rounding his shoulders.

“Come on,” the Big One said. “Come here and stand, you weak little coward. Fight me.”

Even if he wanted to, there was little Eolh could do against the Big One. He had a weapon, Eolh did not. He was in good health, and Eolh was broken from the last dozen times.

The Big One did not pull his punches this time.

When it was over, both of Eolh’s eyes were swollen. His whole right side was singing with pain. And when Eolh had curled into a ball, the Big One stomped his boot on Eolh’s foot, cracking two of his talons.

He didn’t even hear the Big One leave. Didn’t even feel his spit on his face.

Eolh could only lay there, gasping in the late morning light. Unmoving. Unable to sleep. Drifting in and out of darkness. Morning became evening. The suns rose and fell. And rose again.

A hard voice spoke from the other cell.

“Why do you let him do this to you?” the voice said.

Eolh managed to sit up, gasping with new agony that started somewhere in his hip, and forked like lightning into his heart, and back down to his leg.

“He will kill you,” Agraneia said. “You have to leave.”

Eolh didn’t bother to stand up. Not yet. It was too painful. He spoke, right where he was. His voice a dry, rasp.

“It’s so easy, isn’t it?” Eolh’s throat gurgled when he spoke. He coughed something up, and spat it on the ground next to him. “It’s so easy to feel sorry for yourself. To feel alone. To revel in despair. It almost feels good to be disconnected from everything. As if suddenly, you know the truth that was always there. But it’s not real. That feeling doesn’t matter. The truth is, everything is right here.”

“He will kill you.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe.”

And he closed his eyes.

When he woke up again, he found he could stand. His thighbones were bruised, but not broken. As long as he limped, he could walk. He steadied himself on the bars of his cell. Hauling himself over to where he’d hidden the key in the nook of the mortar.

It was cold, the coldest thing on this planet. It felt good. Powerful.

Tonight.

But first, he would try. One more time.

The fluid filled his throat again, and he had to cough it up before he could speak.

“Do you know what he found, when he woke up?”

Silence.

“I’m talking about the human. He’s a fledgling, Agraneia. Just a young child of a god, who slept through the ages. When he woke up, he found that he was alone. I was the first person he met.”

She made a derisive sound. Doubting.

“Have you ever heard of the Cauldron?” Eolh continued. “My city was built on the ruins of another. Of many cities, if the stories are to be believed. The sewers tell the story well. Go all the way down, deep under the surface. That’s where you’ll find the ruins of his old home. That’s what he saw, when he woke up. His whole city, in ruins. Forgotten by everyone.”

“They study the gods in Cyre, too.”

“Wrong. I’ve been to Cyre. I’ve seen your stories, carved into the walls. Fantasy. You don’t know anything about the humans. It’s all gone, Agraneia. Everything he ever knew. Every one. Gone. He’s the very last one. The last human alive.”

Outside, a peal of thunder rolled in the distance. The suns were setting, and the light was fading. And so came the rains.

Eolh limped over to the cell of his door. Slid both hands through the bars. With one finger on the key, one feather outstretched to silence the sound of the metal, rasping on metal, he slid the key into the lock. He could hear his heart beating. Slowly. So slowly, so the clink of metal would not be heard over the rain. And turned it. The bolt clunked open, releasing the door.

His heart sang.

He looked up at the stone ceiling. Thought about uttering a prayer of thanks to the gods. And then, thought better of it.

Eolh stepped out of the cell. And slowly, pressed the door closed. Muffling the lock again with his hand, so that when it clunked shut, it was hidden by the thunder.

He shuffled to the next cell over, still testing the strength of his legs.

She was sitting on the floor, staring down at her hands. Not moving. Not saying anything. She was huge. Muscular. A giant of a cyran, and however many weeks or months she had spent in prison had done little to atrophy her body. The scales that ran down her neck glittered in the late dusk, like jewels half-buried in scales.

“It’s good to finally meet you, Agraneia,” He said.

She lifted her chin, ever so slightly, to look up at him. Eolh half expected her to wrinkle her face in disgust. Isn’t that how all cyrans reacted, to xenos?

But she didn’t. There was no reaction at all.

He knew that stare.

Cold.

So close to death.

I have to try.

Eolh leaned against her bars, gathering his strength.

He spoke to her, not taking his eyes off of her.

“Do you know what the human did, when he found out he was alone? Stupid child ran, right beneath an assassin’s bullets. No regard for his safety. He doesn’t understand our world in the slightest. Every chance he got, he went looking for his kind. He refused to listen. He refused to let us tell him how the world worked. He showed me things, Agraneia. He did things that shouldn’t be possible. Poire made the city come back to life. That’s how he saved all of us. And now, he’s somewhere out on this planet, trying to find a way to save himself. That fool refuses to give up. And so will I.”

“Why Thrass?” she asked.

“I have no idea. Something he kept calling, ‘the grid.”

There was a reaction, at that last word. Her mouth twisted, as if she was angry. Angry at him for lying. But Eolh wasn’t lying, and slowly, she seemed to understand that. Slowly, her anger turned into something else.

“Then it is real,” she said.

Eolh shrugged. “It’s hard to question him, when he keeps proving me wrong. The only thing I know is this: everywhere he goes, change follows. All the worlds are changing. We’re going to need people like you, Agraneia. People who want to change with it.”

Silence.

“Please,” Eolh said. “Come with me.”

Her head dropped to her knees. She was gone, again.

Eolh sighed. “If you change your mind,” He pulled the key out, and slid it through the bars of her cell. “Remember that the only one holding you back, is you.”

Eolh was about to leave, when he heard the sound of a heavy, oaken door swinging open. The light of an oil lantern poured into the darkness.

A huge figure stood at the end of the prison block. The Big One, with a big, fat grin on his face.

“Oh, I thought I heard something,” the Big One said, almost laughing to himself. Almost salivating. He had a club in his hand, and was smacking it into his open palm, as if he had been waiting for this moment. “I knew you were faking it.”

The Big One took a step closer. Eolh took a step back.

Even if he could run, which way would he go? The prison block only had one door. There was no way he could fly past the Big One, and he had no weapon.

The Big One took another step closer. “You afraid now?”

Another step.

“Good,” the Big One growled - almost purring. “Good.”

Eolh steeled himself. If I can go for his eyes-

The Big One slammed the beatstick into his shoulder, dropping Eolh to the floor. He brought the club high into the air, holding it with both hands. Raising it over his head.

It moved slowly. Dead. Arcing up. I’m dead. Arcing down.

A third hand wrapped around the shaft of the club. Bright, blue scales. Holding it in place.

Agraneia’s cell was empty. The door ajar, with the key still in the lock. She was standing behind the Big One, towering over him. Her arm wrapped around the Big One’s neck, and made a quick, gentle twist.

Eolh heard the crack.

The Big One dropped to the floor with a mighty whumpf! Agraneia was still holding the club.

She turned to Eolh, her chest heaving. “Now what?”