From the moment Rhys Tamlin had been able to walk, barely tottling along, his parents had focused on training him to use his magic for battle.

At first, he’d hated them for it. Each day was long, hard and exhausting, culminating in a monotonous and friendless early childhood. It didn’t dawn on him until much, much later that it had been their skewed way of offering protection in a world without guarantees. When the children of his age group were placed into mandatory training due to the threat of oncoming war, Rhys had already been honing his magic for more than half his life. He’d already learned that the best way to be approved of was to be stronger than anyone else.

That was why, the day he met Iree Nobelis and was made to face her in a mock bout, he had beaten her into submission with brutal precision. Her magic was no match for his, but she wouldn’t stop getting up. The dusted dirt of the training ground became soaked through with water, and Iree kept slipping in the mud. Her blood dripped into puddles where red spread and clouded into curly pinkish trails, like rising smoke. The other trainees realized as they watched with horrified fascination that the battles they staged on that field were far more important than they’d thought. When Rhys was praised by the instructor enthusiastically, they learned that to become proficient in violence was to succeed.

For reasons still unknown, Iree seemed to think that their encounter made them friends. Rhys ignored her persistent efforts to engage him for a while, but he couldn’t help but be drawn in by her bubbly, raucous enthusiasm. By that time, Iree had already picked another best friend from the gaggle of doe-eyed future soldiers. With her insistence on adding Rhys to the circle, their lives were intertwined. Iree Nobelis, Rhys Tamlin, and Delladale, or Dale, Holmfen. An inseparable trio with the little lady in front, Dale marching beside her and Rhys trailing contentedly behind.

Rhys was thirteen when the war started, and he entered the battlefield with the other more valuable young recruits. Dale was among them, but not Iree. Rhys thought that having Dale there would make things easier, make him feel protected. When the struggle began, however, he was alone and wild. That was the desperation of the battlefield. Isolation. Survival. Animals hunting without satiation.

His first kill was locked within his memory, his soul, in blurred flashes. As the enemy advanced on him, he reacted on instinct. It wasn’t even a thought. Anyone whose terror and anger was directed at him with killing intent, he struck out at without pause. If he hesitated, he would be killed. That fact had been drilled into him over and over.

It was hard to describe it accurately to Dorothea. Rhys’ attack, a simple but inescapable slash of water, tore through the attacker’s chest and flew upwards, slitting their throat and dividing their face cleanly in half. The lips were ripped open, split apart into four flapping sections.The gums seemed to melt, red sliding over pink in a sheet as blood streamed, rooting between teeth. For the most poignant time since that innocent fight with Iree, Rhys registered how truly destructive he was. Monstrous.

He was told the details after the brutality came to a temporary close, congratulated for a phenomenal performance. Rhys smiled and nodded and acknowledged grateful thanks for lives he’d inadvertently saved with a warmth that seemed genuine. Truthfully, he felt hollow and confused inside. He’d only fought for his own survival; thoughts of saving comrades hadn’t once occurred to him. If they all knew how self-centered he really was, they’d be disgusted, not proud.

His thoughts began to turn over and over about how deadly magic was and maybe how inevitable it had been that the Ghurians and Sacerians would turn against one another. Wherever there was both power and opposition, even slight opposition, conflict would arise. He grieved over it, and it drove him apart from Iree and Dale, who knew it as well as he did but didn’t let it stop them. It was much easier to distance himself after Iree’s family fell apart because of her parents’ sympathies for the enemy, and she gave up on him for a while, hurt that he would use her plight as an excuse to avoid her. Dale, however, was persistent and always gave Rhys updates on how he and Iree were doing. Deep down, though he ignored Dale on these occasions, Rhys was grateful to be reached out to. He needed it, felt seen in those moments alone.

Two years passed from the first battle, these spent with Rhys avoiding his friends so they wouldn’t see who he was now and how he’d fallen. Then, by happenstance, Rhys was brought back into their fold. Just as she had broken into his life at the very start of their friendship, Iree would again.

Rhys met her at the hospital. The place always smelled of sweat and medicinal herbs, and to this day he took different routes across town so he didn’t have to catch a whiff. At the time his mother, Vinette, had been wounded. She’d survive, thankfully, but her face was permanently disfigured. Though she claimed over and over with her new grimacing smile that she cared nothing for her appearance, her eyes went bright with self-conscious embarrassment when she saw her husband and son. Rhys’ father, Fhaidel, still told her every day how beautiful she was.

Iree was at the hospital that same day and time getting burns treated. They were self-inflicted, a quick fix to seal wounds so she wouldn’t lose her life to blood loss. While juggling ointment and bandages with limited success, she’d seen Rhys as he stood outside his mother’s room, staring blankly ahead. Dale had snuck up from behind to put his hands over Rhys’ eyes, and he almost had his head busted open when Rhys swept his legs from under him on reflex. Iree, however, caught Dale in time, though the jar her ointment was in cracked and left a mess on the floor. All three of them had stared at it until Iree spoke to Rhys.

“Wow,” she declared. “You look like absolute shit.”

For her part, she looked incredibly different. Newfound hard edges were clear. The way she tilted her chin up and held her shoulders rigidly back in a posture of daring and defiance, the newfound predatory sense to her grins, it all spoke to how she had grown to suit her circumstances. She’d become beautiful, too, objectively speaking. Both of them had grown up well. Rhys found Dale more attractive than Iree, though his preference for men and women was largely scaled in favor of the latter. Here they were, aging and changing while turning in the same cycle as always.

Rhys laughed at Iree’s words, shocking himself, but she was already starting to walk away. He didn’t figure it out until later, but he rushed after her that day because he needed someone to anchor himself to for good. He wasn’t as strong as Iree was. Granted, his power was far more valuable, his kill count far more impressive, but he’d given up a part of himself to the fighting. Iree was blooming thorny and full in her struggle, and so was Dale. Rhys sensed that and reached out for a tether.

So when he caught up to her, he found himself saying for once exactly what he thought. “I feel like shit.”

“Me too.” She smirked up at him and gestured to herself, dressed in a sleeveless, tightly-fitted turtleneck and long skirt with her hair neatly combed and slicked back. “But as you can see, it’s no reason to let yourself go completely.”

“How do you do it? Both of you,” he wondered as they broke into the warm, sticky outside.

“Haven’t you ever heard of look good, feel good?” Dale asked, tossing his long, chocolate-brown hair. “It’s complete horse shit, but at least I’m pretty hot. Or so I’m told.” He grinned at Iree, who flicked him off. “It’s a reason to get out of bed, I guess.”

“I’ve got something I want to do,” Iree explained. “So I present myself in a way worthy of that goal.”

Something she wanted. A reason to get out of bed. Was that how it was supposed to go? “Your goal?”

“To become the next army commander once Cinder Creed retires, the old fart. And Dale here will become my captain,” Iree announced, matter-of-fact.

Her, a commander? Rhys just barely stopped himself from laughing at the futility. “You’ll have to beat out every single one of his children out to get that position.”

She shot him a look that said wow, really? “Yep.”

“Can I come with you?” Rhys said it without thinking. If they could look at him as he was and still see something worthwhile, then maybe he could become that.

“Obviously, I’m dragging you along with me whether you like it or not,” Iree laughed. “So it’s good you’re on board.”

Dale smiled and squeezed his arm. “We miss you. We miss how things were.”

Tears stung Rhys’ eyes, but all three of them pretended not to notice. “Okay. I’ll try.” If he were to follow them, he’d have something to work for, a reason to rise up. There didn’t seem to be a better, or any other, choice.

Iree smiled warmly. “Good.” Then she laughed again. “But, uh, Rhys? Since image kind of has to matter when we’re trying to advance ourselves, maybe you can try to work on…this.” She looked him up and down, frowning.

He wasn’t offended, had no right to be. Everything about him was awful, from his baggy eyes and tangled hair to his wrinkled clothes. “Then…I’ll change myself into someone worthy of your goal.”

She regarded him seriously now. “Think you can?”

“I will.”

“Commander Nobelis, Captain Holmfen and ol’ Rhys supporting from the back.” Iree grinned. “Just like old times. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?”

It sounded like the only hope he had. Rhys had never known a life outside of battle. His childhood had been preparation for what was to come, and now that war was here and showing no signs of stopping, there had never seemed to be any point in trying to know himself outside of it. There was no need for there to be anything more to Rhys Tamlin other than what others required of him, and his friends didn't mind this lacking if they noticed it.

With Iree and Dale, he became almost happy and satisfied with his own self. Fellow soldiers could rely on his protection, and many came to him to beg for a sympathetic ear since Iree was too intimidating and Dale was too flippant to approach for gentle nurturing. Rhys became well-liked as he honed his kind personality and tried to become a person worthy of Iree and Dale. He disagreed deeply but didn’t outright counter it when comrades joked that he was perfect. Let them think what they want and be inspired. Maybe he could even dare to believe that, by working towards a new self, he really had become half as worthy as they seemed to think he was.