It required more running that Shiara expected to catch the princess. A burst of speed enhanced by magic was required to close the final distance. "Ada! Wait up!"

"Just leave me alone." Ada faced away from Shiara, but stopped running.

"No!" Shiara folded forward, holding her knees and gasping. "Give. Me. A moment." She gasped out each word.

Worried by the redhead's breathing, Ada yielded and turned to face her. Shiara's hair was short enough that Ada could see she wasn't faking, though it seemed odd to her that the girl wasn't sweating in spite of heat and exertion. "Do you need help?"

"No, I'm fine." Still heaving for breath, Shiara forced herself to stand upright. "How can you run so fast?"

Now that the question was asked, Ada didn't know for certain, herself. She looked back at the park she'd left three seconds and forty paces ago. Her own sense for distorted space caught the distortion trails, of which there was just one explanation. "I... didn't realize I was using my magic. It's stronger than before, or maybe easier."

"Hey, how about we go over there?" She pointed to a secluded corner of the park, where the river bank grew steep. It looked isolated, and Shiara had the feeling they'd want their privacy.

"I suppose." Ada didn't want to talk at all, but she resigned herself to the fact that she had little choice.

"What's your Revelation, anyway?" Shiara asked as they started their walk. A safe topic to ease into heavier subjects.

"Revelation?" Ada stumbled over the question.

"Yeah, Revelation." Shiara couldn't believe that Ada's education was lacking to such a degree. "You know, how you perceive and interact with magic?"

"I know what Revelations are," Ada said. "But I always thought I didn't have one, my magic being as weak as it was. I'm still all but blind to any magic not my own. It takes more effort than I want to admit to use sarite, or focusing crystals."

"Well, I don't think anyone can use magic as fluidly as you did without having a Revelation." While Shiara was no scholar, she had years of experience using her own magic. In her opinion, the use complex magic without a Revelation was like dancing without knowing how to walk. It did not seem possible. "I'm an Emotive, myself. Stronger my feelings, stronger my magic. It explains a lot if you're the same."

She hoped Ada was the same; the idea that she and her princess shared such an intimate aspect of their beings made her heart flutter, gave her hope that there was more they had in common. It would also give her an opportunity to help her learn. Shiara tamped down on her own wandering thoughts, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.

Ada laughed at the absurdity of it all. "Wonderful. Being a terrible person makes me more powerful."

Her fantasies dashed upon the shores of cruel reality, Shiara pulled Ada into a hug. "Is that... how could you think that? You're the nicest, sweetest, most wonderful person I've ever met."

"No, I'm not." Ada pulled away. "All I do is take advantage of people."

"According to which waste of air?" Shiara put her hand on Ada's shoulder, herself uncertain of how to approach the conversation. "And, no, you can't count Arakash as an opinion. Or person."

"Myself." Ada fought back the burning sensation of tears to come. "Not including Arakash, twenty people left with me. They're all dead, and I don't even know most of their names. Then there's Arakash. I know what he is, but that doesn't make what I'm doing right. And now, Celeste... a daeva of all beings... was forced into violating her principles because of me."

"Not because of you, because of me." Shiara decided to go for the easiest of Ada's argument to beat first. She knew she'd won when Ada spun around to face her, to argue with her. She kept speaking. "I'm the one who cheated, not you. I bet you didn't even see the cheat. You don't have what it takes to use people if you can't catch a simple scam like manipulating men with your looks."

"I..." Ada caught herself. There was nothing she could say; Shiara and Arakash had both dealt with the world outside of the courts, and in spite of their opinions of each other, they agreed on this topic.

"You can't manipulate people because you care too much. You even care about Arakash, which is proof that you're sensitive and good and far too trusting." Shiara put her hand on Ada's cheek. "If we met under different circumstances, I probably would have robbed you blind."

Of all the things Ada was expecting to hear, it wasn't that. "I..."

"Sorry, it's what I had to do to survive." Shiara admitted to herself that wasn't true, but where she was concerned, the alternative was worse than death. "A woman, alone on the streets, the only choices are use or be used."

"Sorry." As trite as she found it, Ada could think of nothing more to say. She gave the shorter girl a hug. "I didn't know."

"Don't be. It's not that bad, really. But, on the whole, I think I'm happy playing bodyguard and sympathetic ear." Understatement of a lifetime, by Shiara's reckoning. She put her arms around Ada and squeezed as hard as she dared without risking upsetting the princess. "Even if it means I have to put up with the insufferable asshole and his equally annoying opposite."

"You'd be better off leaving me." Ada said, not recognizing Shiara's affection for what it was. "I've gotten everyone around me killed."

While the psychological theories surrounding 'survivor's guilt' were alien to Midara, Shiara was all too familiar with the look on Ada's face. "It was their choice and duty, wasn't it? For that matter, it was your your father who planned the expedition, right?" Shiara was making assumptions, but she knew something of courtly life, and knew full well that 'king' outranked 'princess'. "Do you blame him?"

"N-no, of course not." Ada hesitated more than she would admit; it was her father who ordered they continue in spite of the first assassination attempt. Had he cancelled her task, everyone would have survived. Ada chose not to mention that detail to Shiara.

"There you have it. It was his decision, not yours. His responsibility, not yours" Shiara felt confident enough in her argument; she told herself something similar every night. "And if you can't even blame him, then how can you possibly be at fault? Blame the assassins, they're the monsters, not you."

"But, how?" Ada backed away, but didn't break the hug. She felt tears coming on again. "If they weren't protecting me, they'd still be alive. Every time I close my eyes, I remember the screaming, the stench, the melting flesh. How do I forget?"

"I don't know." Now, Shiara began to tear up. Long repressed memories of fire, smoke, humans reduced to ash so quickly that their skeletons shattered like charcoal on hitting the ground. "I... back in Kale, that wasn't the first time I lost control of my power."

"Oh." Ada could think of nothing to say. She wanted to offer comfort, but all she could do was blame herself for wallowing in her own misery. It was a stupid, but vicious, cycle.

"I wish I could say it goes away." Shiara stared up into Ada's beautiful purple eyes. "But it hasn't. I don't think it ever will. With time, the nightmares happen less often, but it never goes away. You just learn to take happiness where you find it and hope you're ready when it gets bad again."

Silent in the face of Shiara's bleak prognosis for the both of them, Ada could only hope their shared hug was comfort for the both of them.

Shiara, too, remained in the bizarrely comforting discomfort of being held by the one person she'd ever known who she trusted enough to share so much, however much she had yet to confess. Knowing she couldn't handle much more, and feeling like she'd never have such a chance again, she licked her lips, stood on her toes, and kissed her princess.

Ada froze in stunned confusion. Shiara was kissing her. After confirming it wasn't some strange hallucination, she then asked herself why, and could come to no sensible answer.

Seconds later, Shiara broke the kiss after realizing she was getting the response she would expect from a marble statue. "I... I'm sorry!" She turned around and with a burst of power escaped the park and her shame before tears could fall, or Ada could call her a degenerate.

Shiara screamed at herself in her own head. She never should have let her guard down, never should have gotten that close, never should have caved to temptation, and because of her lack of control, her princess hated her and thought she was a pervert.

Shiara was halfway to the horizon before Ada got over her shock and reached a hand out to stop her. Still uncertain of what possessed Shiara to kiss her, she touched her lips, then wiped away her tears. She didn't have a solution for her memories, but for now she had a much more perplexing situation to consider.

After standing in place long enough to confirm Shiara wasn't coming back, Ada turned and made the slow walk back to Arakash and Celeste. She found the pair still waiting in the park, both wearing a cold expression, though she suspected for different reasons.

Arakash asked the question, knowing the answer before the first word passed his lips. He knew the girl's proclivities and worked out a good guess on her vulnerabilities. If that wasn't enough, the flash of desperate emotion and magic, and the scents on Ada would have given it away. "Where did Shiara go?" He couldn't afford to gloat, not yet, but he wasn't above finding an innocuous means to twist the knife.

Too tired to argue, Ada answered. "I don't think she's coming back."

Celeste felt the truth, and confusion, in the girl's words. She wanted to help, but it wasn't her place, nor did she know enough of the situation to feel confident with stepping in. In any case, it seemed to her that at the moment, the princess needed quiet support rather than more meddling. "If you would like to take some time, I can make some arrangements to find her, perhaps deliver a message?"

"No, that won't be necessary," Ada said. There was no message she could think to send. "I'd rather get to work."

"As you wish." It was a coping mechanism she'd long grown accustomed to. Not one she considered healthy, but familiar and reliable. "As I informed your... servant... it will be some time before we can open the path to Karana. Our security doesn't take into account allowing a noctrel to live."

"Don't blame me, fish-face." Arakash glared at the daeva. "I wasn't given a choice in the matter." He put on his best smile. "However, we can make good use of our time here. Karana might be the capital city and seat of the military and magical might of the empire, but it's paranoid and isolated and hidden behind so many protective wards that some people say the city is a fictitious lure so people don't go looking for real secrets."

"I assure you, Karana is real," Celeste added. "Your servant's exaggerations are not, however, completely false. The only means I'm aware of to access the city, however, requires some complex magic considered a military secret even I am not privy to."

"As I said, capital of magic and paranoia," Arakash continued. "We won't get to meet the High Ministry, but we can do a great deal here in Vera."

"I assume you plan to approach the major players and develop our own network of allies who can generate political pressure on our behalf?" For all her uncertainty and inexperience in other areas, politics was something Princess Adageyudi had years of training and a lifetime of experience with. "It's a good plan. Unless there's recent news I haven't been informed of, I believe the best place to start would be the Ort-Selucid Dynasty."

Too many lives had been lost bringing her here, and she refused to let them die in vain.