Satara ran for long enough – or maybe fast enough – for the field to give way to more trees. These were different from the ones that followed the side road she had hastily veered away from, however it soon became apparent road continued into the same forest-like area she had reached. Her body berated her mercilessly with a dull headache that echoed throughout her entire skeleton.

I had to go. If I hadn't – Heat pulsed down her arms but she couldn't push it beyond her skin. – If I had to listen to him say one more thing, I might have done something worse. She stumbled over a mess of tree roots and ran for a couple of meters before she stopped, gasping up at the partially obscured sky. If I don't stop now, Jason won't be the one getting lost today.

She backed up against the nearest tree trunk wide enough to support her and steadied herself against the bark with both hands. With her eyes shut, all she could see was her best friend's shocked and humiliated expression. One glimpse had been enough to glue the vision of his pain to the front door of her most recent memories and she couldn't look away from it. I had to say it like that. He wouldn't have got the point otherwise.

She pressed her fists against her forehead and mouth, her teeth and eyelids clenched tight, and thumped both in turn. Softly at first, the edge of her hands landing with greater accuracy and force until she thought her lips and face would bruise. The rips in her clothes emphasised the temperature and she shivered in the shade of the trees. When she opened her eyes again, early morning light had started to drift in between the boles like tentative fingers.

Brushing gently over Sinastar's silhouette opposite her.

He moved before she could react, throwing a hand out in her direction, and several lines of Blue Fire flew at her. She flinched as they wound around her like his arms, warm and steady, and pinned her elbows to her sides. They wrapped around her shoulders too and tied her to the tree behind her.

“Sin …” Shock limited her vocabulary.

The distasteful flavour of suspicion, mingled with the vague embarrassment of being caught so off guard, tightened her features.

“Allowing you to run free right now would be irresponsible,” he said, as if the evidence of his previous carelessness hadn't stained his shirt and skin alike.

“What're –?”

He followed her gaze down to the glowing rings that held her in place. “Zai-bonds. We can use them for both offence and defence but mostly to restrain.”

“You – you don't need to restrain me,” she growled, heart pounding beneath the threads of Blue Fire. I probably shouldn't have said it like that.

“I'm not sure that's true,” he said with the one of the most gentle smiles she had ever seen. He stepped forward and dropping into a crouch despite his wounds. Like an adult trying his best not to intimidate a child. “I'll let you go as soon as I've know it is.”

“Why would I run?” She looked away from him and scratched at the bonds level with her stomach. “I didn't do anything wrong.”

Sinastar's silence lasted a moment too long and dragged her gaze back to his face. “Why wouldn't you run?”

“What?” She moved her shoulders discreetly but the Blue Fire didn't give her any leeway.

“You've been through a lot and learned even more in the last few days. And tonight you found out there's something … not quite human about you.” He tried to phrase it nicely, his tone gave away that much, but hearing it out loud still made her twitch. “Things that seemed impossible only days ago are now a reality for you and most of them aren't good. So why wouldn't you run?”

“That wasn't why I –” Anything I say now is going to sound like a lie, isn't it? Or an excuse for not doing what I was supposed to do. What he thinks I'm supposed to do.

“Why you what?” He placed the fingers of one hand against the floor and dropped forward onto one knee, silently giving away his poor physical state.

Why's he doing this? I hurt him. She narrowed her eyes and pressed her lips into a paper cut thin line. He should be resting, not playing therapist.

“Why did you come after me?” she muttered, stripping the open hostility from her tone. “You said it wasn't – wasn't safe for me to run around but what about you?”

“What about me?”

“You're not quite human too, are you?” She blinked and remembered his pale blue eyes and corpse-like skin tone. A real life horror movie.

“We're both human, Satara. Just not entirely.”

“Same difference. But that means we're not the ones in danger here.”

“Are you talking about Jason?” His eyelids lowered, thought it could have been the strengthening sunlight opposite him that forced him to squint.

The admission stuck to the roof of her mouth like the peanut butter sandwich she'd had for the first time in primary school.

“You said you'd protect us with everything you know and have. So why have you left him alone now?” She smirked hollowly. “Or does he have a monster hiding in him too?”

“He's a stranger to this side of life. Perhaps even more than you are.” His gaze softened the severity of his tone. “Even so, despite the danger and separation from his family, he wants to stay with you.”

“I didn't ask him to come,” she said. “You know that.”

“Is that important?” He tilted his head to the right. “Enough for you to get upset with him?”

“I'm not upset with him.” She leaned forward as far as the zai-bonds would allow her to go. The heat in her blood gave way to shards of ice. “I just told him the truth.”

“Which truth is that?”

“If he's already struggling, there's no point in him coming with us.”

“Do you really believe things won't get better?” He waited for an answer. She scowled at him, the expression weakened by shivers. “Why are you here with me if that's what you think?”

It probably won't get better for me but that doesn't mean anyone linked me can't have a decent life. At the very least, their life won't get any worse with me out of the picture. It was a simple, logical line of thought but the look that would grow on his face after hearing it stilled her tongue. That same deep sorrow. A sudden back draft of fury. Spears thrown recklessly at the horizon.

“Because I want to see her.” She inhaled slowly and studied him from head to foot.

“Who?” The answer to his question lingered beneath his voice like a trapdoor spider.

“Saytarnia.” She held his stare as though the skin beneath her eyes wasn't red and damp. “Who else?”

“You want to meet her?” He blinked and straightened up again. His hand jerked towards his side but didn't linger this time. “Why do you think being with me would help you with that?”

“She might be avoiding you but you said she'd follow us. She might not but, if she does, it's better we meet again on the road rather than at the Langs or at school. Or when I'm with Jayce.”

“That explains why you don't want him with us. But not why you want to meet her.”

“Isn't it obvious?” She drew herself up to her full height as best as she could. “She's been allowed to do what she wants for too long. I'm going to stop her.”

“By stop her, you mean –”

“I'm going to kill her, Sin.” She suppressed a humourless laugh at his distinct lack of reaction. A defence mechanism intimately familiar to her. “I thought I could do it just with zai but now – now it looks like I might have another weapon.”

“Satara …” He hesitated. “You don't have to do that.”

“But I want to.”

“That's not why I taught you about zai. Or why I'm travelling with you. We've spoken about this already, remember?”

“Are you really trying to lead her into a trap? Or are you just stalling for time because you still care about her?” The bark dug uncomfortably into the back of her head but she held her pose.

“I value friendship. And my family.” He wrapped his arms around himself as if he had only just become aware of the cold, one palm pressed to the side of his neck, the other clutching his waist. “That's not the only reason why I can't let you kill your sister.”

“Why? You think I can't do it?” Unlike the buzzing sensation that had been running throughout her body like an impending explosion, the muted snarl in her voice held a different kind of danger.

“Let me explain it to you, both of you, once we get back to camp,” he offered, extending a hand to her.

“Is it because Saytarnia can change into one too?” The questions slipped out before he could free her from the zai-bonds. “Or do you think I can't do it because you couldn't do it?”

“What do you mean by that?” His brow furrowed faintly for a half a second, fingers frozen in the middle of flexing.

“How old were you that night she slaughtered the clan?” She wanted to look away from the specks of alarm in his gaze. Wanted to convince herself to stop speaking before the specks grew larger and clouded his vision of who she really was. “Did she kill all those people on her way to the Lightling's Hall or did she kill them while they were running away then go back there to wait for you?”

He was quiet for a treacherously long moment. The complacent mask on his face rippled like water assailed by rocks. “You know what happened that night?”

“I messed up when she came for the Cunninghams but I didn't know how to fight back then. Or if I did, I had no idea at the time.” Her voice dried out. She swallowed and plunged on as though her speech were a sword and she needed to run him through with it completely to ensure he was capable of bleeding. “I didn't stand a chance but you – I don't blame you for not being able to stop her back then but this time it's going to be different.”

“Different how?” His voice was fainter than usual.

“Back at the hall, she surprised me and I wasn't expecting to – I didn't know I'd have to fight her.” She almost tripped over the confessions she never intended to share. “But I know she's here now.”

“I know killing her might seem like a good idea to you right now,” he said slowly. “You don't remember what it was like and she's done a lot since then. To you. To the people you care about. You probably think she deserves it but I'm sure you'd regret it. You'd regret even trying –”

“How would you know?” she asked numbly. Her eyes moistened again without warning. “You haven't tried to kill her yet, have you? Back then, you were scared too. You didn't know what was going on and, when you did, you didn't want it to be true either. How come you don't want her dead? You keep going on about the clan and our country but you haven't even tried to avenge them, have you?”

I don't know that. I shouldn't accuse him without proof but –

“I don't know how you'd know something like that.” His hand clenched in his clothes but he kept his tone and gaze even.

“Who cares how I know?” she muttered. “No one. You've might've been through the same thing as me but I'm not you. I'm nothing like you and there's no way you'd ever understand how or why I do what I do.”

After a silence long enough to draw attention to her faintly laboured breathing, he sidestepped into the shadow of the tree she was bound to. “You're right.”

He's not going to deny it?

“It might not be entirely true.” He looked like he didn't want to meet her eyes as he spoke but did it anyway. “The part about not being able to understand you at all but you're right. I am me and you are you. You cared for your sister just as much as I did but you don't remember that part. I do.”

He raised a hand before she could interrupt.

“That's more important than you might think it is, Satara. I'm not saying this because I want you to think my experience was worse than yours. Or that my knowledge gives me the right to make decisions about your life.”

Damn right, it doesn't. She kept quiet.

“But there's a story behind everything here and you're missing chapters. Even in the chapters you do have, some of the pages are missing. Or they're written in a language you don't understand yet.” He clenched the fingers of his extended hand like someone closing a novel. “I've been studying that book for years so it's my duty to help you read the parts you might want to skim past before you decide how the story ends. Right now, our stories have become one and what happens from this point on will affect both of us, whether we stay together or not.”

He breathed in as if the idea terrified him and he needed her to know that without explicitly saying so. He briefly closed his eyes and, when he reopened them, she could almost see his heart in his fist. Her own started to beat faster.

“The idea of going up against Saytarnia, as a member of her family or as an enemy, makes me want to stop trying. She's powerful. She can find out my weaknesses and there's nothing I can do to stop her from using them against me. She destroyed the person I could have become and I can't get him back.” He paused. “But I think you can relate to that and it … helps.”

“How?” she breathed.

“Because I've spent years trying to understand why this happened and I still don't have a real answer, just like you. Because I think you can hear the shadows and you've lived in the grey when everyone else seemed so comfortable in their colours, just like me. And when I look at you, knowing what you've been through and the battles no one else understands, I only see someone who became stronger than ever and I realise I don't have to be as broken as the world expects me to be.”

He paused again, as if he expected her to refute his analysis or cut him off from the destination of their conversation.

“I realised no matter what I can achieve and what you can achieve separately, it's nothing compared to what we can do if we work together instead of alone.” The conviction in his voice was a foreign concept. Possibly because her entire life existed in fragments she could barely control. “Can I stay with you until we get to the end of this book, Satara?”

What's with all the book metaphors? She tried to relax in the embrace of his zai-bonds. I don't think he's lying. He doesn't seem like he's lying but can I really believe him? About everything?

“You can do what you want,” she muttered, finally allowing herself to look away.

“Thank you.” He didn't disappoint her by going on another tirade of appreciation and chose instead to wave a hand at her.

One by one the Blue Fire strings dissolved and returned to Sinastar, melding with his body. Though he had given her time to adjust to the absence of support, the temptation to drop to her knees and press her face into the dead leaves was strong. The pride that kept her upright was clearly stronger so she moved away from the tree and rubbed the lingering press of his zai from her arms and torso. Sinastar shrugged off his long leather coat and gave her time to move away before he swung it around her shoulders.

“Jason's been by himself for too long,” he said to her silence, holding onto the edges of his coat and her eyes with the same steadiness. “Come back when you're ready. We'll leave once you do.”

He didn't wait for her to agree and stepped out into the weak winter sunlight. His breath turned to steam in front of his mouth. He needs his coat more than I do. Her fingers tightened in the warm fabric but she didn't say anything. She waited a few seconds, head tilted towards footsteps she would never hear, then twisted to face the tree. She pressed her forehead to its rough bark and gently thumped its side.

Once. Twice. Until she lost count.

<><><><><>

Sinastar returned without Satara and, though he had questions, Jason knew better than to voice any of them. He had barely finished packing up their tent and now stood over the remains of the second. A dozen supernatural-themed movies ran through his thoughts and he jumped as something rushed past him. Within seconds, light Blue Fire that seemed cold instead of hot encompassed the tent and by the time it burned out there were barely any ashes left.

“The fewer tracks we leave, the better,” said Sinastar as he searched the clearing, presumably for more evidence of their stay.

“Right.” Jason nodded and picked up the bag of food waste and recyclables. “This too?”

He tossed it in Sinastar's direction after the other nodded and blinked in awe as it ignited in mid-air. Guess we wait for Tara to come back now. He's obviously not gonna leave her here. He walked around and pretended to be busy. After watching Sinastar check his bike and hiking bag several times, he got the feeling that he wasn't the only one.

Roughly ten minutes of a weirdly comfortable silence later, Satara appeared just shy of the gap in the trees. She watched them for a short while and he kept his back half turned as if he hadn't seen her. If she wants to talk, I'm not gonna stop her. He crouched down and tore at the grass until the urge to turn overcame him. He cast a quick glance in her direction, as if he had dropped something there, and instantly regretted his hasty decision to dismiss her presence.

Why does she look like she's got the whole freakin' world on her head? The familiar roundness of her cheeks seemed significantly more hollow than it had the night before and tear stained, as were her red rimmed eyelids. Her long hair hung around her face as if it hadn't been brushed in weeks. Despite her considerable size, she seemed small in Sinastar's leather jacket and, when her cousin murmured her name, the eyes she turned to him had never looked emptier.

He had never seen her look so sick and tired of being alive, so worn down by the current situation and by everything she had already gone through, since he first met her. His chest ached, almost enough to make him go over to her, more than enough to make him turn his sharpened gaze on their companion. What did he say to her?

“Are you ready to go?” Sinastar held out the black bag he had taken into her tent the other night.

He had definitely returned without it. How come it didn't burn with everything else? And when did he change his clothes?

“I guess so,” she replied, slinging the bag over her shoulder. She drew the coat tighter around her as if she could feel his attention, though her gaze remained on Sinastar. “Are we leaving now?”

“We will soon.” He patted the seat of motorcycle, then dropped his bag next to Jason. “When we do, can I bother you with this again?”

“Sure,” said Jason, blushing as his voice came out higher than expected and hurriedly strapping the zai-lightened bag to his back.

“Thank you.” Sinastar stopped him before he could loop the second strap over his shoulder and half turned to Satara. “I think we should talk before we go.”

Oh God – Jason's internal scream was surpassed only by the tension wrapped around Satara like a wall of raging zai.

“Okay,” she agreed and sat down where their fire had been.

Sinastar joined her, moving carefully, and her shoulders heaved as Jason sat on his other side. She didn't look directly at either of them. The space between their folded knees roared at him like an ocean of misunderstandings and he found himself wringing his hands uncharacteristically in his lap until he caught Sinastar's eye. The latter spoke before he could dwell on his embarrassment.

“First of all, I think everyone should be clear about what happened tonight.”

“If you guys want to share a tent next time, you can just say so. No need to wreck a perfectly good bit of shelter.” Jason laughed but his joke only stained the air between them instead of clearing it.

Satara stiffened but then looked at his knee. “So you didn't see anything then?”

Why? He nearly choked on his laugh. Was there something to see?

“I don't know what I saw, to be honest,” he said to her fist as it clenched around the side of Sinastar's coat.

“Can I tell him what he saw, Satara?” asked Sinastar before she could speak and remind Jason of how funny he wasn't. “It would be easier to explain everything that way.”

After hesitating for a second, she nodded and clutched the lapels of his coat together as if they had been staring at her throat. He didn't continue until she murmured, “You might as well.”

He dipped his head in her direction as if he had a stiff neck and looked directly at Jason. “Last night, Satara transformed for the first time and I was with her to make sure she didn't get hurt.”

“Sorry, what? She transformed?” Jason laughed under his breath but authentic guilt flitted like a stranger across his friend's face and, despite his previous question, she seemed vaguely alarmed by Sinastar's statement. “Transformed into what?”

“I'll start from the beginning.” Sinastar took a deep breath and his expression smoothed out. “Our tribe was made up of three different clans. The Red Phoenix clan, the Blue Dragon clan, and the White Tiger clan. The members of the first are all pure bloods of Chinese, Japanese, or Korean descent. The second clan consists of people who come from only two different blood lines and normally their parents too. And the third clan, the White Tiger clan, was made up of people from multiple blood lines.”

He looked at them in turn and Satara nodded as if she had heard his unspoken question, her gaze fixed in his direction as he carried on. Jason cleared his throat quietly and picked at non existent threads on his trousers.

“The Red Phoenix clan are keen to preserve their culture and traditions as well as their ancestry. Though they coexist with each other, each different race keeps to themselves and aren't allowed to stay in the clan if they wish to marry outside their race.” Sinastar shifted on the ground and rested his hands on his thighs like a martial arts disciple. “The Blue Dragons aren't as reluctant to mix with other races but always they've always kept track of their lineage, which is why they're limited to only two different bloodlines. The White Tiger clan members were usually a mix of all three. They were the most mixed and the most united because of that.”

“Were?” Despite the questioning lilt of her tone, Satara's eyes narrowed as if she knew what he would say next.

“That's right.” Evidently, Sinastar had realised it too. “We were from the White Tigers before … everything.”

“What's this got to do with Satara transforming?” Though she didn't look at him, her disapproval clamped an invisible hand over his mouth.

“Culture and lineage might not have been the only reason why the Red Phoenixes refused to intermarry but I'm not sure if even they were aware of what would happen.” Sinastar paused and swallowed as if he needed water. “When they mixed more than one blood line, the other clans activated something else. A curse.”

Of course, they activated a curse. Jason squeezed his eyes shut as if his disbelief could fall out through them. There's no way they would've passed down anything normal like a hereditary disease or something. Just a curse. Cool.

“What curse?” rumbled Satara. Her lower jaw tightened as if the entire universe had mocked her and she had finally lost the ability to not care.

“From what I know, it's an ancient curse linked to the production of zai and a person's biological state. That's why people outside our homeland are rarely affected by it.” Sinastar's eyes wandered over the remains of the camp fire. “Depending on their predominant blood line, cursed people changed into different creatures. Those with a greater Japanese ancestry turned into life-drinkers like vampires. The Koreans turned into beast-people, creatures similar to werewolves, and the Chinese into water-serpents.”

What the hell did Tara turn into? Jason forced himself not to look at her.

“Someone in my family was obviously Korean then,” she said almost wryly.

“Your father was half-Korean.” Sinastar nodded. “And half-Chinese. Your mother was Japanese.”

“Yours was Japanese too then, right?” She spoke slowly as if she expected him to silence her. “Since you're –”

“– Yes.” Sinastar smiled tightly. “She was.”

“Wait, you both transformed?” Jason gave up his decision to avoid looking at her. The mangled state of Satara's tent suddenly made a lot more sense, as did their ripped clothes. “Did you guys fight each other?”

“Not exactly,” said Sinastar. He blinked at his cousin like the sleepy cat that hung around Jason's home. “But we could've avoided a lot more damage if I'd spoken to you both first. Again, I'm sorry.”

He bowed slightly at the waist and Satara frowned with a minute shake of her head. “It's fine. We both know now anyway.”

“Did you actually turn into a werewolf?” Jason wished he could swallow his tongue as soon as the question flew out. Satara glared at him but looked away faster than usual before nodding. “For real? An actual werewolf? With fur?”

“Glad to know one of us is finding this funny. It's not like you have to deal with the pai- with the inconvenience.” She stumbled over the truth and looked at Sinastar. “You seemed okay last night. Why?”

“I can control it to a certain degree. In time and with help, you'll learn how to do it too,” he replied as he raised his head again.

“So you can just transform into things?” Jason punched through the wall that tried to slam down in between him and the two cousins. “Can you do it now? I wanna see.”

“Transformations usually only happen once the body can produce a certain amount of zai, normally in a person's late teenage years or early twenties but –” His gaze drifted away for a moment. “– but that's probably because usually our zai production peaks at that age. Unless something happens to make it flare up earlier.”

“Did something happen last night then?” murmured Jason.

“It's also affected by the body's biological state. After the first time, it normally happens once a month,” said Sinastar before Satara could answer, meeting her sharp eyes softly with his own. “But now that we know when to expect it, we can plan ahead and try get it under control before the end of the month.”

Once a month? That's – Jason's chest tightened as Satara turned away and nodded to herself.

“And this person we're going to meet can help with that?” Her features struggled to maintain a neutral expression. “That's why we're going there?”

“It may take some time but I believe they can. It'll be better if we can control it before we head back home.” Sinastar looked at the sky then back down at them. “I know you probably have more questions but the sooner we get to the next town the better. We can talk more there.”

He stood up and retrieved their helmets. Jason turned to her as soon as his back was to them.

“Tara …” he began.

She rose to her feet and followed Sinastar, taking her helmet from him. Jason strangled his index and middle fingers with his other hand before getting up. He strapped the hiking bag to his back and trudged towards them. God, this ride's gonna be even more awkward than the last time. The helmet he wore before appeared in his line of vision. Satara avoided his gaze even as she passed it to him and slid onto the seat behind Sinastar as soon as her hands were free.

“Thanks,” he mumbled but she had already shifted her attention to her cousin.

“Where should I … hold?” she asked.

“The same place as before,” he assured her.

“Do you want your jacket back?”

“It's okay.”

I'm not okay. Jason swung his leg over the end of the bike and landed on its seat hard enough to rock the entire thing. Ah heck.

“Ready?” asked Sinastar as he looked back over his shoulder and formed a zai-helmet over his head.

“You need to hold on properly,” said Satara, reaching back to briefly touch Jason's arm.

He grunted and wound both around her, clutching his other wrist. Her scent mingled with the smell of Sinastar's jacket and he closed his eyes.

“Yeah, we're ready,” he said.

He turned to scan the clearing a final time as Sinastar started the engine and drove off. Neither he nor Satara looked back once and Jason laughed inside his head.

That's not really surprising though, is it?

<><><><><>

The journey to the next town started off quieter than their first one. Jason was uncomfortably still behind her, his arms tense around her waist, and Sinastar's body felt just as taut within her hold. She tried not to touch any of the areas she had hurt the night before and had pressed her hands to his lower ribs before deciding to hold onto her wrist instead like Jason.

Sin came from the outside, not from the tent, when he stopped me getting out. She stared at the road past his flickering zai-helmet. Was he standing guard all night? He must be tired. And he's hurt too.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asked, leaning a little closer to his concealed ear.

For a moment she thought he hadn't heard the question and was almost glad.

“No,” he said faintly.

“What about the night before?” His chest expanded abruptly beneath her forearms.

“We can all rest once we get to where we're going,” he said, nodding at several high rise buildings in the distance. “It's not far.”

So he didn't sleep the night before. She nodded then remembered he couldn't see her. “Okay.”

“Hey,” said Jason without warning, his voice a lot louder than theirs. “What're those?”

Up ahead a line of cars and the speck-like figures of several people formed an intimidating line across the road. Sinastar's back tensed against her front as she recognised the row of small lights in front of them.

Soft sunlight reflecting off metal.

Guns.

Aimed straight at them.