Talon POV

Elian of Gresha was someone who inspired a great many confusing emotions within me. After growing accustomed to isolation, to rage, to resolution, they had to come along and test that resolve. They were the spark of a possibility of a life outside of that which I had imagined for myself. Companionship...rest. Contentedness. Before I met them, I would have discarded these things completely as things useless to me. Now I saw the value in them, I could admit to myself that they were things I desired for myself. Perhaps they were things well-worth fighting for that others could experience them, even I couldn’t myself.

Elian was, to me, a great many things. No matter what he hid, that he inspired such concepts and feelings in my could not be insignificant. No matter what sort of lies he told, these feelings were not lies. And whatever I felt for him, that he had gone out of his way to kindle them within me, whether he reciprocated or not, I had wholeheartedly believed that he must feel something like them, in kind. Some kindness for me, specifically, for some unknown reason.

Elian made me feel a lot of things. But now, sitting in a dingy, fetid cell, the remnants of my meal long-since discarded to the side and grown cold, they were creating a whole new host of emotions within me.

The chuckle quickly became a full-body laugh, echoing in the small chamber. Crim roused fully with an awkward little squawk, pressing its small, hot body against my thigh.

“Yes. I channeled the Sun Fiend, Talon,” Elian finally said, his voice low and quiet in sudden contrast to his laugh.

Emotions rose from my belly. A churning, tumultuous tide. I had been suspicious. I knew there had been some strange connection between them, something Elian was not telling me. I knew it, and yet, I had turned my attention away from it. Chosen to focus on some false, dreamlike future I’d always known could not be for me.

My first instinct, ridiculous as it was, was that Elian was a liar. That for some inscrutable reason he was poking at my trauma, at my hurt and rage, on purpose. Because they had always acted contrary to this. Even up to this moment. Why befriend me, why fight me, why feed me, why, why...why would they do that? Some trick, some elaborate track, some misguided ploy?

Why would he do this? Just to save me? I’d rather die and spend an eternity fighting her alone than stand being saved by the likes of her, stand Elian debasing themself like this. I wanted to shake my rival until the brains leaked from their ears, to chase after the damn Fiend and beat her until her scalding skin bruised and broke.

My second instinct was a familiar one. Anger.

“What are you talking about,” my voice low, dangerous. “How long?”

“Since before I met you.”

A resounding noise as I stood up. The tray, the bowl, all of it clattered to the floor. Crim squawked, fluttering its wings in a panic. “Damn it, Elian,” I growled. “What are you talking about? All your talk about not wanting to kill. Was that just a joke? You know she’d slaughter this whole city in the blink of an eye? You’d betray yourself like that?” I loomed over him, baring my teeth. “You’d betray me?”

Not just betray, my mind supplied. If this was the truth, then he had actively lied to me. For years. For as long as I had known him. In the space of a heartbeat, my thoughts traced through our memories together, searching for some sign one way or another. I had always wondered why he had chosen to befriend me. It couldn’t have been part of some scheme. Five years. Could I really be so foolish as to not notice anything, for five years? And what about Nania?

Since before I met you.

Elian finally looked up, an odd and almost forced smile stretched across his face. I could have called it manic, but that was not accurate either. There was something bitter about it, something desperate, poisonous and leering.

He had almost never stopped smiling. Had a smile for nearly every emotion. But what sort of a smile was that?

“You were right, Talon,” I heard him say. “You were right. You were always so confused why I bothered to spare lives, when it just causes trouble for me later on. Kindness gets mistaken for weakness. Softness. Only the strong can afford to spare a life.” His grin widened. “But what if I have the power of a goddess behind me?”

“You sound insane, Elian. You never cared about power.”

He held up one finger. “Did you forget? We only became friends, began our rivalry, so we could get stronger together. And now, with a goddess to give me strength, I don’t need you.” He grinned, his eyes only widening and making him look more desperate. “You’re useless to me.”

“I...I don’t believe you,” I told him. I kept combing through my memory, looking for some non-existence evidence for one side or the other. This was not like him. And yet, he had been lying to me. He did...have some connection to the Fiend…

Five years…

“You’re not that sort of person,” I said, though I was losing the thread of my anger.

“Just because I don’t need you anymore doesn’t mean I have any reason to kill you,” he said. “Run away if you like. Like you did to your siste—”

My fist was flying before I fully comprehended what was happening. It smacked into Elian’s left cheek, staining it and angry red. “I didn’t run,” I hissed out. “I never even told you what happened.”

Elian frowned, lightly rubbing his cheek. “You ran away from having to talk with me,” he shot back, then raised his hand to block my next blow.

Without his armor he had more vulnerabilities than usual, but in turn, he was calmer and more focused than I was. And so I leaned into my fury, into instinct and intuition and unpredictability, all those things a practitioner of the Flame Arts should excel at. If I was fast enough, vicious enough, wild enough, I could fell him. A volley of jabs forced Elian to stagger back at first, but then he caught himself, and began to block my blows. I feinted for his head, then dropped to the ground for a vicious kick, only for him to side-step me. When he made for a kick of his own I grabbed his leg, and flipped him over, but he caught himself and escaped my grip. We were evenly matched. Then my tactical mind caught up with my body’s impulses.

Elian was not fighting at his full power. I was still weak from my days of imprisonment, but he was holding back. And he was slow on his right side. His burned hand: it was weaker than it had been before. A weakness I could exploit. Briefly, I felt a doubt nibble at the back of my mind. If he had lied all that time, why was he holding back? What did he really want from me?

Then I pushed that doubt aside. He was holding back because he was looking down on me. Even if he did lie about knowing the Sun Fiend for so long, about leading me on, he had deliberately hurt me by bringing up the Sun Fiend and Asha in the same breath. He had taken a worn and rusted dagger, plunged it into my breast and twisted it cruelly. My friend had hurt me: now I wanted to hurt him back.

I grabbed his wrist before he could pull it away and twist. There was a sharp crack, and something wet in my hand. Elian did not cry out, shriek, or bite. The slight bulging of their eyes and pinch of his mouth told me they had bitten their lip to avoid doing that. It didn’t stop a strangled gasp from lurching up their throat. I must have loosened my grasp on their arm, because they ripped it from my hand, and cradled it close.

We had both suffered far worse injuries. This should have been nothing. But they stared at me with an unreadable look. Wide eyes, tilted and wrinkled brows, mouth pressed into a knife’s gash as a thin red line traced down from his lips. Had I not known better I would have thought they felt betrayed.

I slammed them against the wall, hard. Another gasp ripped from their body. Fool. What the hell did you have to feel betrayed about? You betrayed me first. Should have known I’d find out eventually. Betrayal was inevitable. Then I turned away, clumsily ascending the dungeon stairs. Strands of black fell before my eyes, and I reached up towards the back of my head, pulling something out of my hair. Cool, green fabric. Nania’s hair tie was coming undone, and without it, my dark hair fell in messy waves about my shoulders.

I blinked. Two guards pointed spears at my chest, uncertainty and fear written plainly across their faces. I was at the top of the dungeon stairs, and for the first time in days, light was streaming in my eyes. At my feet, Crim was still trailing behind me, squawking and chirping fearfully, uncertainly.

“Stop. Let him pass,” a voice spoke up behind me. Elian appeared from the darkness of the basement levels. The King of Gresha himself. He looked like shit, his burnt arm beginning to bruise. Though the guards still appeared uncertain and doubtful, they lowered their spears and stepped back. So he hadn’t been lying about his new power.

Bitterly, I hoped he found it worth it.

“He’s banished from Gresha City,” Elian told them. “Let him leave. Escort him out.”

“But Crown-Son—”

A glare from them silenced both guards. I was in no state of mind to consider the nuances. The finer intricacies between execution and exile. As I walked through the city streets I had only wandered twice before, I absentmindedly reached behind my head and began to re-tie my hair again. It would be good to keep it out my eyes. As I did, my mind considered thoughts I’d once had, of adventuring with others, of what could come after adventure should I survive. Of another’s hands, weaving through my hair, bright green eyes and red hair. Those same fiery strands of hair whipped by wind as we fought in the Deep Woods. Red wings, red feathers, bow and quiver. The chattering of a forest stream.

I remembered an argument two boys had once, over the cooling body of a drowned phoenix.