“I know I’ll have to prove myself to you,” Tane said, sitting with Xellie on the cliff edge. Both of them swung their legs in the air, looking between the sea and the setting sun as a way to avoid looking at each other.

Mattos and Ary sat inside the stronghold, windows closed, watching for any sign of trouble. Ary giggled as she and Mattos tried to imagine what kind of conversation could be happening outside.

“You’ve probably known longer than I have,” Xellie muttered, watching the waves crashing into the rocks.

“We were hoping to get to you before Raye,” Tane explained. “Nobody would trust her to tell you the truth. As for Raye, that poor woman has been through so much. I mean she’s a bitch but nobody deserves what she’s had to deal with. And you don’t either.”

Xellie closed her eyes and drew a deep breath, slyly wiping a tear away from her eye, hoping Tane couldn’t see.

“I failed you as a partner, I failed you as a girlfriend, I killed your next girlfriend and... you’re still here for me?”

“None of that stuff was really your fault.” Tane tore out some grass idly with one hand and dropped it down to the sea. “I don’t deserve to be missed by you.”

“You were the last person that was always there for me. Even Niko abandoned me. But... it's okay, it really is.” She looked up at his face, as he continued to look away. “Grief makes people do terrible, crazy things and I just knew you’re not a bad person.”

Tane looked down at her, then away at the ground again.

“Please, I am not a good person... but... the least I can do is try and set right some of the things I can fix. The awful things are waiting for you if nobody intervenes.”

Xellie cast her eyes away from Tane, fixating on the sunset.

“We don’t know how much of what he told you is true,” Xellie said. “Look, I realise this whole Valkyrie thing isn’t going to be sunshine and rainbows.”

“Raye is a slave... did you catch on to that? ... Ashmeviti hates her but he still pities her situation.”

“I don’t know if I have a choice, Tane.” Xellie’s violet eyes met Tane’s green eyes, betraying her fears. “What can I do? They could strike me down at any moment if I seemed to be a threat.”

“You could join him like I did. He’d protect you.”

“Did you really come here of your own accord?” Xellie asked flatly. “This sounds like a sales pitch for a package I’m really not interested in.”

“I care!” Tane exclaimed. “Believe it or not. Yeah, okay, I was mad about the Deena situation, but that’s just a side effect of what you are. This isn’t just about what could happen in the next days, months or years....” he took hold of Xellie’s shoulders and gripped them tightly. “No. This is about your soul, for the rest of forever.”

“Why would Raye try so hard to have me join them if she is a slave, though?”

“Brainwashing probably. You don’t need to rush into anything... Just... stay alive... find out everything you can and think about it.”

“Raye doesn’t tell me much.” Xellie glanced at the sky uneasily. Could Raye hear their conversation? What would she think of all this? “She’s weird, I’ll give you that. She always talks as if she’s being listened to. And she talked about how she made some choices that she shouldn’t have that she doesn’t regret.”

“I know, I’ve met her. While you were off looking for Niko, I stopped by the church for some training and she was there pretending to be a priestess. The most bitchy, cold-hearted priestess I ever met, by the way.”

“I can’t work for him, Tane. If what Raye said is true about his intentions - he wants to use me to make more powerful demons that can see souls he usually can’t. How can I do that?”

“Fuck the world,” Tane said with a sigh. “You shouldn’t even give a damn. It’s not your job to care about what happens to people in the afterlife. And even if it was, that should be your choice... And if whatever you choose turns out to be a problem, who cares? Some ‘hero’ will come and solve it. Good and evil will always exist no matter what you do, so you just do what’s best for you and tell all these other forces to go away.”

“I don’t know what to do....” Xellie said with a quiver in her voice. “I can’t handle this.”

“You can! You will! You’ve got this.”

Xellie smiled slightly and looked over toward the plains across the sea.

“Will you come with us? Across the plains?”

“You’re going that far?” Tane raised an eyebrow. “Uhh... Ashmeviti lives in Hafenstad.”

“SAY WHAT?!” Xellie exclaimed, scrambling to her feet. “How long? Since when? Does he know I’m here?”

“Of course he does.” Tane slowly stood up next to her. “How do you think I knew where to find you?”

“I dunno...” Xellie replied in a panic. “Magic? Familiars? Tracking spell? Psychological warfare?”

“Actually, it’s your sword.” Tane pointed at her waist. “That thing runs on spiritual and emotional energy. Every time you use it, it’s unlocking more of your Valkyrie spirit. For those who can see the spirit world, it’s basically a beacon.”

“That’s why you called it the soul shifter... Thanks, Raye,” she added in a huff.

“Didn’t Niko ever give you the talk about using supernatural weapons?” Tane elbowed her in the ribs with a laugh.

“Can you tell me about this one?” Xellie asked, taking the dagger Myla had given her and showing it to Tane.

Tane studied it carefully, looking it over, but refusing to touch it.

“That one is sort of the opposite. It looks like it can... Hey. Hey.” Tane pointed behind him. “Can you see the silver thread?”

Xellie squinted into the fading light, looking for the thread she had seen attached to Tane before. She wasn’t sure if she was seeing it, or just imagining things, but there was a grey thread, almost fog-like, leading from Tane to the island.

She gave Tane an affirmative nod.

“Cut it with the knife,” Tane told her. “That feeds me from Ashmeviti.”

Without hesitation, she sliced through the air. The string disintegrated into dust as the knife touched it.

“It’s gone.” She told him.

“You know what that knife is for, right?” Tane put his hands on hers, clasping them tightly. “It’s for...”

“It’s for if I don’t like what I’m becoming.” Xellie said coldly, fastening it at her hip.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Tane said.

“Yes... it does.”

Trying to process everything that Tane had said, Xellie slowly made her way back into the stronghold and through the darkened hallways to her room. She pushed the door shut carefully, then bolted it.

She flung herself on to the bed, burying her face in the pillow to soak up her tears.