Short aside before I continue, but we are nearly done the first volume of my tale, and I must say this will be the most difficult part for me to recall. I will try not to compromise this last, most important segment of the story, but truth be told I could easily divide this part up into ten more chapters and still have more to say. That would probably be self indulgent, however; all the same, I’ve sat and pondered the mistakes made at the end of this night more times than I care to count. I’ve lost more sleep from this next series of moments more than any other. And it would be safe to say that this, out of every event, was the most defining of my life. It may not be the most well known, most courageous, or even the most important from a historical perspective. But that’s not what I’m saying here, this wasn’t some shift of political power, or some demon hellbent on some prehistoric revenge on beings who had nothing to do with its drama in the first place. Like I’ve said plenty of times in this memoir, this is far from a fairy tale—though fairies may be important at times. This is the tale of a boy who became a man in the worst of times, the story of me and all my faults.

And dammit, it was all my fault.

We rushed through the blaze, back towards the beach, wasting no time. Chrys was going so fast that Rose had to hold on tight to me to make sure she didn’t fall off, which I didn’t mind but wasn’t prepared to fully enjoy.

“Did you kill Sweet?” I asked Chrys, awkwardly as my body moved this way and that on his back.

“You heard him speak, right?” he scoffed. “That bastard was too slippery for me; I could barely keep up with him and his little disappearing act.”

Worried and unwilling to believe it, I clarified, “So he’s still behind us?”

Chrys nodded. “He’s still behind us. Whether or not he’ll follow us remains to be seen, but we should operate under the assumption that he is on the island. The way he spoke indicates he’s probably finished with us though, for the time being at least.”

Not exactly reassuring, but I chose to believe those words. They would at least help keep me focused on the most important thing, and that was getting out of there safely.

“You’re doing fine, Rose?” I would check in with her, each time we plowed through some rubble, or leapt over some fire—Chrys only went through the fire when he absolutely had to with Rose on his back.

“I’m fine,” she’d assure me, her voice all over the place.

“We’re going to be alright, okay?”

“Mmhm,” she’d nod. “I know.”

I don’t know if that pattern of words really helped either of us, but I said it numerous times before we got back to the beach.

When we did, it felt like all the noise in the world had disappeared and left us alone in utter silence; the sun was rising, but it wasn’t bright enough to alleviate the island of the dark shadow cast on it; the world was still, but my body wasn’t. I was a disturbance, the invisible eyes of the world on me in that moment, and a part of me wanted to slink away underneath some foliage, hidden away from that nonconsensual gaze.

“Where’s Sage?” I asked no one in particular, twisting my head to see.

“Probably back by the boat,” Chrys grumbled, then bolted that way at top speed.

However, even there the beach was devoid of life, and we took a second to decide what we should do.

“We should just go, Mint,” Chrys said. “There’s no reason to stay here.”

I frowned, mulling it over in my head. Rose, on the other hand, was extremely against the idea.

“How can you even suggest that?” she yelled. “I figured you would be less cold hearted, Chrys!”

“I’m only trying to do what’s best,” he said, narrowing his eyes. I felt his neck twitch uncomfortably; he was genuinely hurt by the accusation.

“Well, that’s very noble of you,” Rose sneered, shaking her head. “I’m going to go find Sage, and see if I can save anyone else while I’m at it.”

I hopped off Chrys and ran in front of her to stop her. “Whoa, hey don’t be so rash, Rose!”

“I’m not being rash. You two are being stupid.”

“We’re just trying to survive!”

“And is that what Sage would do?” she asked, getting in my now very pale face. “Is that what he would want from you? To run away with your tail between your legs? Proverbial and literal, in the beast’s case.”

We just stood there, confused by this outburst. She’d never been so open before, at least not in this impassioned way.

“Well, if you two are just going to stand there, I’ll be off,” she snapped, then turned with a violent flip of her hair and began walking towards the flames. Chrys and I looked at each other, not really sure how to approach this.

“Should I just grab her and drag her on the boat?” Chrys whispered to me.

“No! No, we don’t want her to hate us,” I scolded him. “Come on now, we can solve this in a much better way.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Well, let me just tell her that her mom’s waiting and we should go to keep her safe? We stay any longer and her mom is in danger, right?”

Chrys shook his head. “I don’t think she’ll care about that right now, but go ahead and try.”

“Just watch me,” I smirked, not confident but portraying myself so.

“Rose!” I yelled, waiting for her to turn around. She didn’t. “Rose!” She still just kept walking. “Come on, Rose! We can talk this out!” Still kept walking. I turned to Chrys, who was pacing worriedly behind us, waiting to step in. “Urgh,” I groaned. “Rose, your mother is waiting on the boat for all of us! Conifer is there too. If we don’t leave now, then you might be able to save those other people, sure. But the people we actually care about are on this boat, so come with us, please. I’m begging you.”

Finally, she stopped. Turning slowly and stiffly, she stomped back over to us and I heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness,” I said. “Your mother will be very happy to see you, Rose. Come on, let’s—”

I was cut off by a slap that cut the wind in half. Writing about it makes my cheek itch. Maybe I was hit by stronger opponents, but no one had ever hit me where it hurt like that before.

“You disgust me,” was all she said, low and vicious, before stomping away as she had before, ready to walk through the flames and save everyone.

Chrys stretched his body out like a sleepy house cat while I nursed my wounded pride. “You sure you don’t want me to just grab her myself? Your words seem to have only made her more confident in her plans.”

Frowning, I shook my head and sat in the sand, feeling very defeated. I risked my life and wasted my time trying my best to save her from one of those ridiculous Flavor Knights, and what did I get for bringing her family back together? Sailing off into the sunrise? No, just a slap to the face and a flurry of jabs to my pride.

“Mint.” Chrys said, trying to get me out of my funk.

I remained sitting, however, honestly considering what I should do. I couldn’t possibly go on the same boat as her mother. She’d just kill me. Conifer was sickening to look at as it was, and my failure would just help make his own failures seem alright to himself, and I didn’t want that. So, for the very first time in a long time, I considered the idea of running away with absolutely no one.

“Mint?”

I could return to Persea, maybe. If I did that, though, I’d probably just get tossed aside like a busted toy. No, it might be better to go elsewhere. Where, though? I knew so little about the world. I figured I could go off to Durian, and live in a small hut. No one lived there except Arsene, and it seemed like his life was quaint. I could use some peace and quiet reading time.

“Mint!?”

Or maybe I could just sail until I hit land, I thought. I could roam the Tamarind in search of my own adventures, slay unworthy men and ravish beautiful women! They’d sing songs of me, better ones than the old bastard Conifer could ever sing of me! That would be something now, wouldn’t it?

“Mint, listen to me!”

I looked up and saw that the flames had disappeared. Not gone out naturally, mind you; seconds earlier they were raging higher than ever, and now they were gone. Everything was gone; the boat we were going to use had vanished; the trees and rubble were all gone, no roots or twigs in sight; the fortress was even gone, replaced only by empty space. The island itself seemed to be smaller, and it was shrinking more and more until it was maybe a hundred steps in diameter, with nothing but sand surrounded on all sides by water.

“What in the name of Altera…?”

“I think,” Chrys growled, “that this is the work of Sweet.”

I should have realized before. After all, Sweet was still alive and well, and there was no real explanation for the happenings we were seeing. Honestly, we should have realized the moment Rose understood and communicated with Chrys.

We were suddenly left with a new dilemma: how were we going to escape this dream world?

“Any ideas on how to get out of here?” I asked Chrys. He just shook his head.

“There really isn’t anything around us,” I muttered, taking inventory of what we knew. “And we’re probably seeing things.”

“Obviously,” Chrys growled, bumping me and nearly sending me to the ground.

“Well,” I concluded, rubbing at a headache that was getting stronger by the second, “When we saved Rose she was asleep and under his spell, right? We had to solve his riddle. But since we are the ones like this, we have to rely on others, right? They can solve the riddle for us and we will wake up?”

“Maybe,” Chrys spat. “But I don’t think so. I know what must be done.”

Before I could ask what he meant, Chrys was backing up and crouching in a way I had seen a couple times before, only usually he wasn’t facing me when he did it.

“You’re serious?” I asked in the middle of his pounce, more to myself than him. I didn’t expect an answer. I had already gotten it.

So, in the interest of self preservation, I went for the dagger I had, and in a flash my mind remembered Chrys wasn’t an enemy so I left it in its sheath and balled my fist up, ready to hit Chrys and dodge at the same time.

By the time I had formulated this plan, Chrys had knocked the wind out of me and sent me dragging across the sand ten or so steps away. I remember wanting to get up and fight back, yell at him and hit him and all sorts of nasty stuff.

Unfortunately, and I don’t mean this at all to be cryptic or anything—I’m not in the business of embellishing, I’m here trying to relay my story as truthfully and honestly as I possibly can—but things become blurry, hazy, and unreasonable at this point. An explanation would be in order, and in time I learn more and figure things out better, but to keep things in chronological order, you will feel the same level of confusion I felt, though perhaps with a little more frustration.

And that’s okay; life is frustrating, after all. That’s why I need to write it out. To make sense of it all.

Back to where I was. Chrys pounced on me, I was sent to the ground, and then I think he started following up with his attack. The thing is, like I said, it gets hazy, and I do mean that visibly. First my vision failed, then my hearing, then my sense of touch, and I’d assume taste and scent but there wasn’t much of that going on at the time so I don’t recall losing them. Once they were all completely gone, I was essentially nonexistent. I was aware of this state of nonexistence, and I knew it wasn’t what I needed at the time. I also knew it was extremely comfortable; it’s easy to fit in when everything is nothing. Unfortunately, the thought that I had unfinished business was too much, and for a long time I believed that it was sheer will power that brought me back from that plane.

Next thing I recall is waking up on the beach, right where I had fallen, only this time everyone was there again. The corpses of the fallen surrounded me sporadically, and the sun wasn’t up at all; it was dark, even darker than it was when the battle had started. Pulling my body up, I searched the sky and found the moon to be at its apex, bright and orange.

Then my attention was immediately pulled back to what was the very end of Bitter and Sage’s battle, which presumably had been going on. Had it been a full day since then? How long had I been out?

Bitter and Sage both looked equally worse for wear; Bitter’s clothes were nearly torn to shreds, essentially standing there naked and broken, covered in all manner of dents, cuts, bruises, and a noticeably large chunk of his left calf was missing, exposing the muscle that should have been covered in anything but sand; Sage’s armor was busted open in so many places that it would be difficult to call it armor, his cape torn and tattered in a romantic way, looking more and more like some timeless hero statue come to life—a term I use loosely, mind you, for he was at the very end of his wick; he could burn no brighter.

And for some reason, I thought, I was only ten steps away from them.

“Mint?” Sage whispered through bloodied lips. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to get out of here!”

Did he?

“He’s right,” Bitter coughed, bright red now coating his fist. “Get out of here now, otherwise this was all for nought!”

Wait, what?

Groggily, I just nodded and turned around to go to the boat. In that instant, I felt a chill on my shoulder, spreading throughout my body and stealing all sense of safety. I turned to find the culprit and was greeted with none other than—

“Sour…!” Sage hissed.

“Sour! I told you I had this handled,” Bitter roared.

And perhaps I even eked out a, “Sour?” myself, so quiet even I couldn’t hear it. From the moment I had awoken from that strange world, that dreamscape, I felt as if I were subdued, locked away and unable to react, only to perceive.

“I’m not going to interfere with your battle,” Sour said, sounding very tired through his helm. “The island has been upturned, and soon we will need to be scarce. I’m just finishing my part of the mission, which I’m sure you recall we are on together. Or have you forgotten in your lust for battle, you overgrown battleaxe?”

Bitter laughed slightly before coughing more. “Don’t make me laugh! It hurts.” Composing himself, he nodded his assent. “Fine, go ahead and take him. But be sure to keep him safe.”

“Of course,” Sour said, his icy hand gripping my shoulder even tighter. He carried me off, my mind shouting at me to kick, to scream, to do absolutely anything. Where was Chrys? He’d save me if he were here. What happened to him? What about Basil? Was he even alive? Where was Rose? I couldn’t see her, or hear her scream. I placed all my effort in turning my head, and I saw the boat wasn’t there, replaced instead by the rowboats that took the soldiers to land.

That moment, of us walking away, seemed to last forever. The clearest thing I recall is my immeasurable desire to scream, a desire which only grew stronger and stronger until I reached my breaking point, and I was never the same.

I turned with an effort, still walking away under Sour’s complete subjugation, as I watched Sage and Bitter stagger toward each other with fists raised high, ready to finish their battle the only way those two could. They were just about to clash when I saw a dark shadow behind Sage, small and lithe. There was a flash of steel. It all happened so fast that I think Sage would have had trouble reacting if he was in perfect condition. At that stage in his night, after all that he had done and the amount of energy he’d given, he could have been stabbed in the back by anyone.

The action filled me with malice; raw, unfiltered.

The person filled me with an old, familiar rage. Seeing them made me blame myself—whether I’m right to do that is something I’m unsure of, even now.

Sage’s eyes widened, dark blood spilled openly from his neck and mouth, he crumpled beneath the weight of the boy on him, and before he hit the ground I whipped my arms free from Sour, who I elbowed so hard he flew out of existence, in a nameless direction. And with all the power I could possibly muster—for I was fully awakened to the Vastmire, the seal on my stomach crashing open like a dam holding hellfire at bay—I roared at the top of my lungs, “Sumac! I’m going to kill you!”

I leapt across the gap, covering a distance I can’t even describe, and before Sage had bounced in the sand I had my dagger out and swung it at Sumac. He bent backwards, dodging the majority of the arc, but getting cut on his chest. My eyes widened, tears flowing freely as I tried to follow up, but he was fast and ran away. But not before smiling at me, haunting me forever after.

It would have been smart to follow him and kill him, but the sudden surge of Vastmire in my body was more than I could handle. My skin was forming cuts, and Vastmire was oozing from them in bursts like volcanic eruptions. Blinded by power, rage, and a desire to kill, I turned to Bitter and in a flash I cut the back of his neck and threw him to the ground.

After that, things begin blurring together. I ran around the island for what seemed like hours, searching for Sumac but never finding him. I killed everyone I met. I’m not sure I spared allied soldiers. I wasn’t myself.

“Sage!” I would scream. “Sage!”

No one would come. I was alone, isolated among the rubble and the dying flames, my mind an incoherent mess, my heart ready to burst and end it all for me. Sun had risen and set before I finally was able to sit down and really analyze what had happened, and even then I use the term analyze loosely; I wept.

♣ ♣ ♣

Time passed. If you were to ask how long, I wouldn’t know. Less than a day would make the most sense, but I could be wrong. After all, time was appearing to me in strange increments by this point, as I’m sure you’ve seen.

The sun had set, that much I know. I had spent my time searching for bodies I was familiar with, sifting through the dead, scouring for the living, coming up short. Flashbacks to Clementine filled my head, and I was wishing that Neres or even Chrys were there with me. Somehow in the heat of it all, everyone had disappeared. At least, everyone I cared about.

Except, of course, Sage.

I found him where he had fallen, alone. Corpses of the opposing army were gone; apparently they had been taken by their comrades The mantle he’d worn above his armor was inexplicably gone, pulled from him after the battle. Red sand surrounded him, and it looked like all the color from him had faded, even the green hue of his armor rusting brown from excessive bleeding. He was beaten, absolutely. Until I saw it with my own eyes, I couldn’t believe it. There he lay, though. There he lay.

For a while I stood above him, unable to get myself to pick him up and find a spot to bury him, no one keeping me company beside the wind. I hadn’t buried anyone else, and it was going to take a long time to get everyone put down.

Before I could even get started, I felt a presence behind me and whipped around to see Chrys was standing there, waiting for me.

Instead of greeting him properly, I warily asked him, “How am I sure you’re real?”

Chrys just stood there, looking unsure of how to answer. “I could ask the same of you,” he eventually replied. “Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Narrowing my eyes, I asked, “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“You and Rose were having a fight about whether we should stay or not,” he recalled. “Then everything started disappearing, getting smaller. We weren’t sure how to get out, and you attacked me.”

“Actually you attacked me.”

We both raised an eyebrow simultaneously, both equally confused.

“After that,” he continued, slower, “we saw Sage get murdered. Chaos hit the island and everyone was everywhere, and I couldn’t find you. Then everyone packed up and left, taking their people with them. I wandered around until now.”

The stand off had gone in a direction I hadn’t expected. For the better, I might add; my situation wasn’t exactly great, and a fight with anyone would have resulted in my loss, possibly my death.

I moved to walk forward and fell face first in the sand. Chrys ran over to check on me. Instead of moving I chose instead to lay still. I was done with everything.

Chrys, ever vigilant, remained by my side, despite the precipitous spot our relationship seemed to be in. Even then, he stuck by me.

Soon, we were interrupted by the clamor of an approaching crowd. With a tremendous effort, I sat up to see who had come. Chrys was also standing, looking just as reserved as I was.

There were ten of them, two obvious leaders standing in front. They all wore an odd assortment of clothes, as if each piece were taken from a different time and place, none of it matching in this strange kaleidoscopic mix of colors which clashed and matched in the strangest of ways. The two men in front were big, brawny, and not the brightest looking men I’d ever seen. My condition was too poor, however. I couldn’t afford to fight them.

“Hello,” I croaked out, my throat as dry as the sand I stood on. They didn’t reply, so I kept going. “You guys lost? The battle’s already over.”

The man to the left was chewing something obnoxiously, and after a second of sizing me up he was grinning like an idiot and I desperately wanted to demolish his face. “So you’re still alive, eh? Well ain’t that something, brother?”

The other man nodded. “Interesting. Who are you, boy?”

Unsure of what to say, I said, “My name is Basil, warrior of Avocado.”

They all laughed then, a cacophony that might have made me blush if I cared.

“What a load of shit,” the chewing man said, shaking his head. “You expect us to believe that lie? Come on, everyone knows that Cashew took over that country, what, a month or so ago? There are no warriors of Avocado now. And if there were, they wouldn’t be little ten year olds like yourself.”

His brother then noticed something, and walked over to me to size me up further. I knew I was in trouble just by the look in his eyes; a merchant’s eyes.

“What is it?” the chewer asked, indolent and bored.

“Hmmm,” the man tapped his chin, nodding to himself. That’s when I went to attack him. He was close enough that I could go for a full force punch right into his stomach and send him away, then run off.

At least, I could do that if I weren’t so beat.

What instead happened was I fell into him, fist first, before falling to the ground in a heap. I heard Chrys growl and run to my aid, then a noise that resulted in Chrys yelping in pain—a sound I had never heard in my life. I remember gasping, not sure what was happening. My wrists and ankles were tied up and I was hoisted onto the man’s shoulders.

“Brother,” the chewing man snapped, obviously confused. “What are you doing? We’re here for loot, not little boys! Unless he’s got some jewelry on him just bury him!”

A wicked smile formed on my captor’s face. “This is no boy,” he said, the sound of his mouth watering sending shivers down my spine. “This is the prince of a dead kingdom, worth his weight in gold!”

And that was the end of my days as a prince, and the beginning of my days as something more sinister. I was tossed onto their boat, and with one last look at the island where Sage died, I was off to sea in silence and pain, once again kidnapped.