Writing By Moonlight

They’re in love.

Caius would never answer if I questioned him and Emyl would blush, look away, and change the subject, but they’re in love. It’s about time, honestly. They’ve been dancing around each other for weeks, ever since…

They’re leaving tomorrow. I recognize that this is my burden to carry, that all these problems with the village, the mine, and my family have nothing to do with Caius and Emyl. They got me this far, they stayed with me, put up with all this small town bullshit, but it’s time for them to move on. We’re a small pond—too small for big fish like those two.

I’m going to miss them. They’re more my family than the people I share this house with: my mother in her room, sweating through possession and my father so blinded by rage and hurt, he can’t see the forest for the trees. Emyl and Caius are leaving and they’re taking a little bit of my heart with them.

We—I—have been moving since the first frost, always moving toward something. Answers and questions and revelations in equal parts. First with Eirik, then with them. This year has been exhausting and summer is still weeks away. And now I’m here—home—and I’m afraid because I’ve only known movement. I’ve only understood how to keep going, to not look back, to not hesitate and now there is…silence. There’s stillness. And I don’t know what to do with that.

How do I wake up from the nightmares and not immediately roll over, look for Emyl and curl up against him in an effort to return to sleep when he won’t be there? How do I not join Caius outside the tent, quiet except for the crackle of fire and the sound of our breathing, sleep a distant fevered fantasy for us? I fear that these two became more of a home than actual wood and stone, than memories of birthday parties and festivals. And my home is leaving and I’m staying here.

…I could leave. I wasn’t supposed to come back. I’m not wanted here, but if I do leave, if I decide that this problem happened while I was gone, not because I left, then who will solve it? You gave me these powers for a reason, I’m assuming, and if it’s not to bring light to my village and deliver them from whatever the fuck is down in those mines, then what is it for? What is the purpose of my magic? It has to be for the greater good.

Our medicine woman is dead. Paela is pregnant. The other families have tried to squeeze mine out of any “marginal gains” that would have been ours from the beginning, but through a complex system that I don’t even remotely understand, have taken the profits for themselves instead. My father rants about that to the twins a lot, about this “monopoly” that is happening. It is, apparently, really, really bad.

There are so many problems here and I am the only Teafellow that can fix them. And although my father did not love me—does not love me—I love the rest of them enough to try and help, to try and provide stability. Azira should not be made to suffer because of the choices of her parents. Not when I can fix them.

So, I’ll stay.

There’s no going away feast tomorrow. No final gifts traded between us. They’ll leave at dawn. I’ll hug them both, kiss them on the cheek, and wish them a safe journey.

And when the sun sets and the moon is only a sliver in the sky, I’ll head out to the fields, and sit down, and cry. It’s become something like a ritual now—sneaking away, laying in the grass, crying until my stomach caves in on itself and then dragging myself back to bed. It helps me sleep, once it’s all out—once all the feelings are drying on my cheeks and my head is filled with cotton and my nose is red from me rubbing it.

At the end of it all, the world seems a little less…turbulent. A little less off kilter. And I can work there—one foot on steady ground, one foot bracing for whatever else you’re going to throw at me. Is that one of your tenants? Be adaptable? Probably not. You don’t seem like an adaptable god.

So, the question you’re probably wondering is why this letter? What’s it for? And it’s for nothing, really, and everything, all together, all at once. It is a request to keep Caius and Emyl safe, a prayer that you allow Marcus to rest easy in whatever afterlife fueled his soul and kept him warm on cold nights, and another moment for me to get it all out. It does nothing locked inside me, rolling and writhing and screaming. I have enough external demons to deal with; if I can silence the ones that continues to nip at my soul, then I will.

…I’ve never been good at ending letters, but I feel as if this one has come to a close. So I will end by saying thankyou.

This path has been difficult, filled with horror and pain and very little happiness. Very little light. But, I would not be who I am right now if it weren’t for this path, for this curse turned into a gift, that you have given me. Eirik would’ve dies, Caius and Emyl would have perished, and even though I couldn’t save those boys…

Emyl once said that everything has its season. I agree with that, to some extent, and I think this season where I’m afraid of these gifts is done and over. You can’t unknow what you know, you can’t…pretend to sleep after you’ve been forced awake. Things are changing, again, and hopefully for the better, and I have to change with them.

So I will end by saying thank you—thank you for allowing me to see another season and letting me grow through it, even when I thought it would kill me. Even when it almost did.

Yours in Service,

          It was a shame he died in the forest.

          Cassandra presses the pad of her thumb into the sharp point of her canine. Ruby red blood beads against her ivory skin. She stares at it, expression flat. It was almost as if she were bored. But the truth echoed in the thunderous roar of her heart behind her ribcage, pumping that flesh blood throughout her body, making her look young and beautiful like the last day she was truly alive.

          How many years ago had that been?

          She smears the blood between her thumb and index finger. Her golden eyes, flecked with hazel, lift toward the man sleeping by the fire.

          “Boys, Finnigan,” Odhran had said, voice low, trying to hold steady. But Cassandra heard it—the tremor beneath the words that made her head tilt. She knew that sound: a heart breaking open in a man’s chest, struggling to find purchase—a reason to keep pumping. She knew it well.

          She was lucky hers had stopped so long ago. Otherwise, she would’ve drowned in the flood by now.

          “If ya ain’t doing it fer the next ones, the ones that’ll come after us, so they can have something, anything, better’n what we had, what in the hell are ya doing it fer?” Odhran asked, squinting at the man that Cassandra thought was his best friend. But there was no friendliness there anymore. Only disgust…and betrayal.

          “I like killin’ imperials,” Finnigan had replied, his voice low and hard. He finally dragged his gaze from Cassandra’s eerie stare to Odhran’s across the fire. The corner of his mouth quirked up in a self-satisfied smirk, the pretense evaporating. “Nothing’s more important than that..”

She hears the door to his study open.

The click of his tongue against the roof of his mouth is enough to make her wince. His disappointment rolls in like a tide while the bruises on her skin contort and the open cuts bleed. One unswollen eye watches his sandals move effortlessly across the floor. The door clicks shut behind him.

How long has she been here—?

“Father, p-please,” Cassandra gurgles, her body lit with pain in every atom of her being.

“Cassandra,” Albinus hisses, each word laced with wrath. “What is this?”

She coughs, and a gout of black-brown blood splatters the floor. His footsteps shift away from her—toward the banked fireplace, toward the high-backed chair that he enjoyed sitting in when they spoke. When he lectured and taught and reminisced.

“You aren’t eating?” he asks in a deadly whisper and if Cassandra could flinch again, she would. But the tingling in her feet, in her broken toes, was travelling up her legs and the edges of her vision was starting to dim. She could smell the wet earth and panic began to settle in her chest.

“Please,” she begs, swallowing around the rupture in her larynx. It feels like swallowing glass. One arm was broken, her pelvis crushed, and one eye was swollen shut. Her sister had taken shears to her head while her brother had held her down. They had laughed the entire time.

“I have done your family a favor,” Albinus says, sinking into his chair with a long, heavy sigh. “And you spit on it.”

“No,” she whines and although she believes she shakes her head, it does not move. “They attacked—”

Lucius’s cigarette smoke snakes through the air, a sharp, acrid bite against the heavier musk of blood, sweat, and piss.

Arthur trembles before her, his breath hitching, his body shaking from exhaustion and struggle.

“Miss Dame, please—”

“Now, now, Arthur,” Saelya purrs, her voice warm as honey, thick as molasses. “Miss Saelya has a much better ring to it, don’tcha think?”

Her hazel eyes gleam in the chandelier’s low light, a predator’s patience reflected in gold. She lifts the deck of playing cards, their gilded edges winking at him as she shuffles.

“Miss Saelya, please, I don't know anything—”

“Well, if you wanna start this off with lies, we certainly can,” she tells him, easily cutting off whatever he was preparing himself to say. He winces as she begins to shuffle the deck, the slide of the cards against one another rebounding off the dark walls like sand in an hourglass.

Counting down the minutes, the seconds, until—

Arthur’s bloodshot eyes flick to the door. Lucius is still there, just a shape in the shadows—except for the ember glow of his cigarette, the only light willing to touch him.

“Lie one,” Sae starts, forcing Arthur's gaze back to her. They snag on the plush pillow of her lips before quickly flicking up, meeting her hooded gaze. “You don't work for Marty or the Consiglios in any capacity. This is all a case of mistaken identity.”

He winces as his knees begin to bounce beneath the table, his teeth digging into his lower lip as Sae slides a card over to him, face down. He goes to reach for it, but she holds up a finger, stopping the sudden lunge for the card.

“That's not a lie,” Arthur refutes, his scarred hand, the knuckles red and swollen, dropping back between his thighs. “That's the truth.”

“Sure is sweetheart,” Sae agrees with a nod, the voluminous red locks artfully messed atop her head dancing around her shoulders. Arthur feels the blush heat his cheeks, feels the tug of his thoughts drifting to the fantasy of burying his fingers in all that hair and tugging her head back, maybe dragging his lips down her throat—

Lucius clears his throat, the sound heavy in the quiet, dark room—but enough that it startles Arthur back to the situation at hand. He swallows, and his Adam's apple bobs.

“You can't stay mad at me forever, Ria,” Xen huffs while glancing between the cards in his hand and the draw/discard pile on the coffee table. He narrows his eyes and scoffs when nothing matches—not numbers or colors. He draws a card—blue two—and places it down in the discard pile.

“Watch me,” Asteria grumbles in reply, her golden eyes flashing up at him before taking in her hand and the piles on the coffee table. She effortlessly places down a red two before glancing back up at him.

“It was a dead end,” Xen replies with a roll of his eyes, his fingers hesitating between a reverse card and red four. “And what little I fought was easy. I didn't even get hurt.”

He places down the red reverse card and then the red four. Asteria's nostrils flared in annoyance. One hand reaches over to the slender margarita glass perched on the side of the table and she draws it to her, the straw fitting between her lips. She takes a quick swallow.

“I saw how you favored your left wrist,” she tells him, gaze darting between her hand and the discard pile, “so don't try to pull that shit on me, Xen.” She lays down a red five.

Xen winces before clearing his throat. “That wasn't from fighting. I was exploring this fucking cave and tripped over I don't even know what the fuck,” he chuckles while placing down a green five. “Landed wrong.”

Steri blinks at him, her golden eyes narrowing suspiciously as she places down a green two. It's obvious that she's debating whether or not to believe his story.

“So you have no reason to be mad at me,” he continues with a shrug and a slow smile. He grunts in annoyance when he realizes that he doesn't have another green card to add to pile. He reaches instead for the draw pile, his fingers grazing over the card—

Asteria reaches out and wraps her fingers around his wrist, causing his gaze to jerk up and meet hers. The constellations in her irises glow under the dim light shed by her kitchen chandelier. There is a seriousness to her expression that he rarely sees, an aching worry that makes her brow furrow and the corners of her mouth turn down.

Xen realizes, suddenly, that he hates that—the sight of her frowning.

“Nothing happened?” Asteria whispers, her gaze crawling over his face in search for what, Xen wasn't sure. He isn't sure if she finds it, either. “It wasn't a trap or anything?”

“I promise you, it was a dead end. It was an old, weird as fuck cabin built underground in the back of this long cave system. The cabin was completely empty except for a twin bed in the back room—a feather mattress, a pillow, and a thin sheet.”

Asteria swallowed. “That...doesn't make any sense.”

“You're telling me,” Xen scoffs, the corner of his mouth turning up with a smirk. “Beautiful, I'm fine.”

Heat suffuses her cheeks as she pulls her hand back, her lips pressing into a thin line before lifting into something of a smile.

Yeah, that was much better.

“Draw your card Xen,” she mutters with a click of her tongue and another long sip from her drink.

“You smiled,” he says with a grin before putting down the green seven he had just drawn. “That means I'm forgiven. Yes!”

His heart thundered in his chest, so forceful that Cassandra half-expected it to burst forth and leave Odhran dead at her feet. The scent of sweat and blood clung to him—death, but not his own. Yet it wasn’t the carnage that unsettled her. It was his eyes. The way his pupils swallowed the color, twin pinpricks of panic and fear, made her stomach knot.

“Odhran,” she whispered, ignoring the pleas of the men Lorccain was forcing to their feet. “Are you alright?”

His gaze snapped to hers, his jaw tightening. She caught the flicker of irritation—the flared nostrils, the slight curl of his upper lip. He always did that when she spoke to him. Cassandra doubted he even realized it.

The question had been pointless. She didn’t understand anything. Why the fuck was she talking to him? She should shut up, stop making this harder—

She swallowed and stepped forward, her hand lifting as if to offer comfort.

But then her fingers curled in on themselves. A moment’s hesitation. She replayed every conversation they’d had since the start of this journey and let her hand fall. He wouldn’t want that from her.

“Your heart is so loud, I can hear it over their begging,” she murmured, staring at his chest before flicking her gaze back to his eyes. “You should control your face better.”

Odhran blinked, as if snapping back into his body, and swallowed hard. His shoulders rolled, the tension coiled in them releasing on a sharp exhale.

“Do you have to go with him?” Cassandra asked, head tilting, hazel eyes prying for an answer he wouldn’t say aloud.

“Yes,” he admitted, the word clipped and quiet.

“Do you want me to kill him?”

Odhran froze. His eyes darted toward Lorccain before flicking back to her—high cheekbones, sleek black hair, lips soft enough to look innocent but stained with too many sins to be anything of the sort. He’d watched those lips drain a man dry right in front of him, blood-cooked over her like meat left too long on the fire. The way she’d done it—so fast, so efficient—maybe she could kill Lorccain. But—

“Not yet,” he said, voice lower now.

Then he stepped away, detangling himself from her and Eirik.

But he still caught her smile. Too wide. Too eager at the thought of another man’s death. Monstrous, he'd called her.

But out here, this deep?

          “The drums have stopped,” Cassandra giggled, her head turning sharply to peer through the open door, out into the rain-soaked ruins of the city. It lay in ashes, its citizens killed or scattered to the four winds, and the ensuing celebration had been unlike anything she had had ever read in her father’s library.

          It had been a feast for her senses, so sharp and keen as they were. It had been overstimulation in its finest form and she had been reluctant to stop indulging. But Eirik wanted to spend time with her—

           “The drummers have likely passed out,” Eirik chuckled as he continued up the stairs of this ramshackle two-story building. He didn’t care to know what it had been before Thecla’s forces arrived, be it a home or a business. This night, it was his and that was all that mattered.

         Dust puffed beneath their boots as they moved down the cramped hallway. Eirik’s broad shoulders barely fit the tight space, yet he moved with an unbothered confidence that drew an appreciate look from Cassandra as they walked. After all, Eirik was at a stage in his life where if he wanted to fit, he’d make it so.

          Shouldering open the last door on the left, he was greeted by an empty bedroom with a single large bed shoved against the far wall. The dresser was empty, the drawers pulled out, clothing and personal affects scattered across the floor.

“This should be fine—”

Cassandra whispered into the room, a blur of movement and wind that was, at one point, behind him, only to suddenly appear crouched over a pile of…rags? Coats? Dresses? Eirik eyed her as he stepped over the threshold and pushed the door closed behind him. He doubted anyone would be dumb enough to disturb him, but he had gotten into fights with lesser men for lesser reasons.

           “…Do you know why I’ve asked you here, Cassandra?” Eirik intoned, his words deceptively calm, masking nerves and the lingering warmth of too many drinks.

           Cassandra looked up at him, her glowing golden eyes drawing him in like a moth to flame. Her silence felt deliberate and the way she watched him as he moved to the foot of the bed and faced her spurred him on.

           “You’re gonna have to use your words,” he told her, his voice a low rumble between them. “I can’t read your mind.”

“I can,” she replied eagerly while her gaze swept over him, slow and assessing.

Eirik paused and ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Can you?” he asked, genuinely interested and only mildly concerned.

But then he sighed, quietly, when the woman across from him giggled and grinned, her canines flashing in the light that streaked in through the window as an arc of lightning raced across the sky. Of course when she displayed her sense of humor, it was sarcastic…

“I can’t,” she finally said with a shake of her head, her sable-black locks shifting with the movement. She stood up slowly, the rags forgotten, and Eirik could feel a wave of goosebumps drift across his chest when her focus was squarely upon him. “My father can so perhaps one day.”

This wasn’t the night to speak about Albinus.

Banishing the thought of her father from his mind, Eirik lowered himself to the edge of the bed, ignoring the groan of its frame as he settled.

“Be easier, explaining this, if you could,” he murmured while shrugging out of his raiment’s and dropping them unceremoniously on the ground.

Cassandra watched him silently, offering him no words or reactions.

“War is about death,” Eirik explained while a growl of thunder shook the house around them. Neither acknowledged the rage of the storm that continued to build, so intent were their attentions on one another.

“Death…and power,” Cassandra added with a slow nod of her head while her hands linked behind her at the small of her back.

“I know plenty about death, more than I’ve…ever wanted to,” he continued, “and I don’t want to celebrate death here, with you, right now.” He spread his legs and rested his forearms against his knees before beckoning her closer, to stand between them.

Unhurriedly, she advanced toward him, her gaze pinned to his face but never directly meeting his eyes. The power he held over her was intoxicating, a dangerous beast that made his mouth dry and his thoughts muddled. Which made this…thing…between them so much more important.

“I’d much prefer a celebration about life. Will you revel with me?”

          As delicate as a butterfly landing upon a flower’s petal, so too did Cassandra’s hands gently flutter down to rest on Eirik’s massive shoulders. She nibbled on her bottom lip as she stared at him, as the heat of his skin sunk into her palms and sent a tingling rush through her body. Her eyes dilated and her lower lip popped free with a gasp.

“You’re so warm, Eirik,” she whispered, the tips of her fingers trailing up his neck and over his cheekbones and down the bridge of his nose.

“You are too,” he replied, his massive hands resting on her hips, the tips of his fingers drifting lazily back and forth just beneath the hem of her shirt.

The smile she gave him was playful, mischievous even, and he had to remind himself to swallow at how radiant she appeared even in the gloom of someone else’s bedroom. He would have enjoyed laying her down in his own bed—

“I am…quite full,” she chuckled, and the hints of a blush along her cheeks stirred a desire within him so profound that any thoughts about this being her first time, or his first time, or what this would mean for them tomorrow immediately fled.

                Caolain’s pulse thundered in his ears. He preferred it there, rushing behind his eardrums rather than winding swiftly down through his body and settling in his pelvis. There was only so many times he could shift in his seat and attempt to cover up the bulge pressing against the seam of his slacks. And this hand would win him no fucking favors—

                “Mmm, I’m thinkin this is a good one too, sweetheart,” Saelya purred while laying her cards on the table between them. He couldn’t help but groan as he spied the royal flush staring back at him. His pulse jumped when his gaze tracked up from the cards to Saelya’s leaning back in her chair, smirking at him like a cat that captured a canary.

                “Yeah, not winning with a three of a kind,” he whispered while laying down his cards as well.

                She tsked, the soft clicks of her tongue sending a potent jolt of desire through him. Lust shot through his veins, hotter and sharper than any black-market whiskey he’d ever tasted. He could almost feel the high at the edge of his awareness, the sweet taste of something forbidden just out of his reach, held there by the siren across the table, shuffling cards.

                “That’s another piece you’re gonna give me,” she murmured, her voice a soft caress that he swore he could feel dance along the back of his neck. Caolain swallowed, his adam’s apple jumping, as goosebumps made the short hairs up and down his bare arms stand up. It was the agreement they had come to, every hand she won divested him of a piece of clothing while every hand he won—

                “You know baby, I can see better if you stood up,” Sae added with a curious tilt of her head, her long red locks falling over her shoulder, the natural curl at the bottom dragging Caolain’s eyes to the swell of her breasts.

                “Stand up?” he parroted while giving himself a small shake, as if that would help him think straight. The only thing he could think about was how soft her skin probably felt against his—

                “Mhm. Right in the middle of the room,” she explained while gesturing with an arch of her eyebrows. “Stand right there, face me, and take off that tie real slow like.”

                A haze of confusion swirled through him and his lips parted in query, but the drumming of Sae’s well-manicured fingernails against the table silenced him. He stood slowly and ambled awkwardly to the middle of the room.

                He was stiff as he turned around, putting the light from the singular lamp in the corner at his back. His shadow stretched across the door, an intangible guard playing sentry to this game between them while his attention centered back onto Saelya. His lifted his hands from his sides, his fingers tugging at the black tie around his neck, yanking it until it unspooled and lay draped across his shoulders.

                “You need a bit of teaching, baby,” Sae chuckled as she leaned across the table and swiped up his gun.

                “Sae, whaddya doing?” Caolain asked as all that warm, buzzing lust inside of him slowly began to ice into fear.

                She looked the gun over with a dispassionate glance, barely noticing the beautiful filigree on the handle. With practiced ease, her thumb found the release and, with a sharp click that echoed through the room, the magazine slid free, heavy with bullets.

                 “Sweetheart, you really think I’d use this on you?” she asked, her brow knitting in mock offense. She set the magazine on the table before pulling back the slide and ejecting the chambered round.

                “I’d like to say no,” he admitted, eyes still pinned to the weapon in her delicate hands. And when she turned it on him, his hands went up, his eyes widening.

                “Is that all you’d like, Mister Leamhan?” she inquired as she stood up, the gun held in her right hand, her left lifting to undo the second and then the third button on her jacket. It opened easily and the silk shirt beneath it stretched alluringly across her chest.

                “I…uh…”

                A blush as red as Sae’s lipstick crawled across his chest and up his throat while his gaze bounced around the room, looking everywhere but at her. Yet he had no choice other than to look at her as she approached, the carpet muffling the sound of her heels, her gaze hooded.

                “I always took you as somebody who knew what they wanted,” she continued softly, his ears straining to hear her, forcing him to lean slightly forward, into the space she occupied right in front of him. He could smell her perfume when she was this close, something light and mouthwatering, and, holy fuck, were her eyelashes always that long—

                “I do,” Caolain answered, but he couldn’t recall what he was agreeing to. Was he answering a question?

                “Oh?” Sae queried, her mouth forming a perfect O that made Caolain’s breath hitch. “Me first.”

                His head jerked in a nod before stopping completely, the muzzle of the gun pressed against the soft underside of his jaw. He froze, his head swimming, a dizzying mix of desire and terror clawing at his ribcage.

                The gun wasn’t loaded. He knew that. He watched her take the bullets out—

                “I know I’d never turn this, or any weapon, on you,” Saelya whispered, her breath warm against his lips. “Not unless you asked real polite like first. And even then, we don’t play with bullets. Right Caolain?”

                “Right,” he answered immediately, the corded muscles in his arms relaxing as he uncurled his fists at his sides. He had to stop himself from reaching out, from allowing his calloused palms to caress over every delicious curve—

                “Right,” Saelya repeated with a smile, her green eyes catching the light and glinting as the corners crinkled. They were beautiful, like jade stones that all those rich types wore in their ears or on their fingers. Vibrant and so deep that he could get lost in them for days—

                “Now, Caolain, are you gonna tell me what it is that you want?”

                Steeling himself, his right hand reached up slowly, his fingertips brushing against her forearm until he reached the back of her hand. Gently, his larger hand closed around hers and he pried the gun from her grip before tossing it onto the bed. Saelya’s gaze followed it and then snapped back to him, a self-satisfied smirk tugging at the corners of her mouth.

Barbie leaned back in her plush, pink leather armchair, the soft glow of her desk lamp casting long shadows over the papers meticulously arranged on her desk. Each page bore a name—CEOs, police chiefs, governors—anyone of importance in Malibu had a file in Barbie’s empire. These weren’t just names; they were assets, liabilities, and leverage, all pieces in the puzzle of the most successful criminal network the city had ever seen.

The briny scent of the ocean drifted through the open window, mingling with the golden heat of the setting sun. Shadows stretched farther, pooling around her office like a conspirator’s shroud. A soft knock broke the silence before Ken strolled in, his arms balancing a tray of pastel macarons and an espresso.

“What’s on fire this time that couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” he asked, leaning lazily against the desk.

Barbie didn’t glance at the tray, her sharp gaze fixed on a single sheet of paper filled with neat rows of figures. Her manicured nails tapped a steady rhythm against the desk, a metronome of controlled irritation.

“The crew in Hollywood Hills thinks they can undercut me with counterfeit handbags,” she said, her voice light, almost amused. “Did they really think I wouldn’t notice?”

Ken’s eyebrows shot up. “You’re not going to—”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Of course not. I’m going to buy their factory, rebrand it, and sell the knockoffs back to them. At double the price.”

Ken blinked. “That’s...brilliant. But did it have to be tonight? We had reservations at that new sushi place.”

Not for the first time, Saelya realized, as the painful screaming-whine of one of Heather's children jolted her from sleep, that she didn't want children. Don would roll over in his grave if those words ever actually left her lips, but she had been around them enough to know that, perhaps, they just weren't for her. Marty and Ricky had been cute as children, but living with them day in and day out as their primary caretaker—

“Perhaps this is the wrong time to be asking about this,” Saelya whispered while rolling over in the queen-sized bed, her hooded jade eyes staring intently at Lucius's cheek, “but you aren't interested in a big ol carriage of kids, are ya?”

Lucius grunted a reply, one that Sae couldn't discern the answer of. She frowned, her full lower lip poking out just enough to signal her discontent.

And her fiancé, as his family knew them as, peeked open an eye to look at her before heaving a deep, theatrical sigh.

“Ain't thought about it,” he said, his voice gruff with sleep. “We've kinda had a lot going on recently.”

“Oh, don't I know it,” Saelya muttered, more to herself than him. “But, we only gotta come back on birthdays and holidays. Granted, if all your nieces and nephews got too many lined up, we can just come with gifts on one day—”

“Sae,” Lucius sighed while pinching the bridge of his nose. “It's like seven in the morning—”

“—And if we went about having kids, we'd have to be up so much earlier than even that! Gotta wash em, and feed em—”

Asteria’s anger simmered across her awareness like a heatwave and, like a heatwave, it sucked the air from Lotus’s lungs. Her blue-black eyes flicked up from the book in her hands to the front door of Blue Moon Books and Metaphysical Sundries, which slammed shut with a force that made the overhead bells jangle discordantly. The sharp sound made Lotus wince, and instinctively, she stepped back from the register.

“He’s an idiot,” Asteria snarled, her voice crackling with fury. The force of her emotions hit Lotus like a physical blow, the sharp cut of it grazing her cheekbone. Startled, Lotus lifted a hand to her face, half-expecting to feel blood.

Her sluggish, curious movement drew Asteria’s attention. The shopkeeper’s golden eyes narrowed, confusion flickering across her furrowed brow.

“What’s wrong?” Asteria asked, swallowing down the vile thoughts swirling in her head.

“Cut,” Lotus murmured, her raspy voice poking small holes in the balloon of Asteria’s wrath. “Anger.”

“Yes, I’m fucking angry!” Asteria yelled, slamming her hands down on the counter with a sharp crack. “He’s going to get himself killed just to find out—they’re gone, Lotus. They’re dead and gone, and he’s willing to risk his life for answers that won’t change anything.”

Lotus’s wide, shark-like eyes blinked slowly at the outburst. Her face was placid, but a hesitant nod followed, the motion tentative and uncertain. She wasn’t sure what she was agreeing to, exactly, but it felt like the right response.

It wasn’t.

Asteria’s glare intensified, her golden eyes gleaming with frustration.

“Xendov?” Lotus whispered, her voice soft as a midnight glade under the full moon. The store was eerily quiet, the afternoon rush long over. The stale air stirred faintly, carrying the weight of unspoken fears. “Hurt?”

“Not…immediately,” Asteria faltered. The edges of her fury dulled as she caught the concern etched in Lotus’s features. “He might get hurt. Or worse.” Her voice wavered. “Who the fuck knows? All the reading I’ve done about demons and dragons and—” She stopped herself with a frustrated sigh, shaking her head.

Wordlessly, Lotus reached across the counter, her fingertips brushing lightly over Asteria’s knuckles. Her touch carried a calm, gentle push of her placid emotions, a soothing balm that sang through Asteria like a quiet lullaby.

Asteria exhaled shakily, her shoulders dropping as the tension drained from her posture. Her jaw relaxed and, with a soft hum of surrender, she uncrossed her arms. Slowly, she flipped her hand over, letting Lotus intertwine their fingers.

“Is the answer to a long-dead question worth a life?” Asteria whispered, her voice thick with sorrow.

            Xendov’s fist slams into the cherry wood desk, the pencils and pens rattling from the impact. One tumbles to the dark carpeted floor while his bi-colored eyes, one amber and one brown, jerk up to Asteria’s face.

            “Asteria, enough! This isn’t up for discussion. It’s my problem to fix, not yours.”

            Asteria’s golden eyes narrow as she takes a step back, away from the desk and the open letter that had started this whole…argument. She crosses her arms over her chest, the dark navy shirt emblazoned with her bookstore’s logo and name bunching against her forearms.

            “So you can fix my problems, but I can’t fix yours?” she growls at him. “So you can sit all fucking day in my bookstore, on the lookout for my enemies or whatever the fuck, but the moment I try to do the same, it’s not for me to fix? It’s not my problem? That’s right: only you can do the heroic thing.”

            Xendov swallows and his jaw tenses, but he matches her glare with his own. He forces his hand to relax, forces the black to recede from his nails and the talons to shorten. He swallows and exhales a tight breath while slowing standing up.

            “I don’t want you hurt—”

            “Yeah, I said the same fucking thing to you and you waved it off. You’re always the fucking hero, Xen, and you won’t let anyone help shoulder the weight you carry.” Asteria snorts and shakes her head while her gaze slides away from him to the one of the stained glass windows of his office. The sun was setting and the dappled light through the multicolored glass was beautiful across the carpet, warm against the tops of her feet in her moccasins. Normally, she could appreciate it. Now however—

            “You can’t go,” she says with a jerk of her shoulders, a shrug meant to be nonchalant, but the weight of their disagreement suffuses her every action. She couldn’t not be emotionally invested, even if she wanted to. “I won’t let you.”

            Xendov’s laugh is humorless and Asteria’s gaze cuts back to him, still filled with simmering fury.

            “Are you going to stop me, Little Star?” he whispers while leaning forward and the aggression along his shoulders and in the corded lines of his arms makes her take a step back.

            “You don’t get to call me that when you’re offering yourself up on a platter, Guildmaster,” she whispers heatedly in return. Her arms fall to her sides before her hand comes back up, her index finger pointed at his face. “If you aren’t will to stay alive for me or Lotus, think of the fucking army you’re building. They can’t go to war without a commander, even if he is a self-sacrificing, fucking idiot.”

            Before Xen could reply, Asteria gave him one last withering look before pivoting and storming out of his office, the door slamming behind her.

            Xen pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth and tilted his head back to stare dispassionately at the ceiling, his mind counting backwards from ten in a vain attempt to smother the anger crawling through him like a brushfire.

            It was impossible.

            When he reached one, he yelled and shoved the papers on his desk onto the floor. The trinkets given by his guildmates, the tiny holiday sculptures he hadn’t found a place for on the shelf, the massive handbook that he referenced whenever there was a problem; all them went colliding with the carpet. He took the lamp that sat in the corner and heaved it at the wall, the shattering of glass and filament doing nothing to quench his wrath. He fit his hands beneath his desk and lifted it, flipping it over and cracking the once sturdy base in the process.

The poison that was Zaun’s air flooded her lungs with smog and the tang of rusted metal. Ame remained in the shadows of an alleyway, a half-smirk hiking up her scarred lip as her blue-grey eyes wandered over the vial of shimmer in her gloved hand. It pulsed faintly, mimicking a calm heartbeat, so different from the one that galloped in her chest.

“We’re gonna make history,” she whispered, her words slurring as a dribble of saliva ran from the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away, unconcerned.

She looked up and frowned at the beautiful, silver-twisted spires that rose into the sky, cutting through what little moonlight reached Zaun. Those Piltover towers mocked her, reminding her of everything she wasn’t and everything she’d lost. Every scar, every bruise, every morning waking up somewhere unfamiliar because she’d mouthed off to the wrong enforcer.

She hated them—their polished stone, intricate gold filigree, and shimmering hex gates that brought a spool of new problems to her life. But her anger burned just as hot for the enforcers that prowled Zaun as if they owned it. They didn’t protect her; they controlled her. Or tried to.

But Ame was a problem solver. It was the one thing she excelled at when her mind was sharp, and her body capable. Months of sneaking into labs, collecting scraps, and perfecting her work had led her here.

The railgun at the edge of the factory district hummed faintly, its energy crackling in the gloom. Its absence of guards—distracted by chaos elsewhere—was the perfect opportunity. Ame crept forward, the smog clinging to her legs like sludge.

Glancing around, she slotted the shimmer vial into the detonator, twisting it into place with a satisfying click. It began to hum, the glow painting her face in streaks of violet. Grinning, she bolted, her heart in her throat.

“Three…two…one…”

The explosion tore through the air, flooding the streets with fire and shattered glass. Smoke rolled into the alleys like a ravenous beast. Ame skidded around a corner, nearly crashing into enforcers racing to the scene.

          Asteria snorted into her cup of hot chocolate as the color drained from her face. She could only helplessly stare at her lunch partner as the gravity of his words sunk into her brain.

          “I’m sorry,” she said with a forced chuckle while placing her mug back on the table between them. “How much is the bounty?”

          “Last time I looked, somewhere near 8.5 million,” Atlas said with a causal shrug. He leaned back in his chair, his body almost too big for the seat. His legs stretched out underneath their table, his booted ankles crossing right over left.

          “And…that’s in our currency?” Asteria asked, the pitch of her voice rising to reflex her shock.

          “Every currency that is ever or will ever be known to man,” he replied with a tired sigh. One of his hands adorned in silver and gold rings whispered into the front of his coat and pulled out a glittering cigar case that twinkled in the low light of Asteria’s book store. There were runes carved across its face, ones that she recognized with a smirk.

          “A never-ending enchantment, huh?” she said with lopsided smirk, her nerves glad for the sudden distraction.

          Extracting a cigar, he inclined his head toward her before grabbing a royal red lighter, flicking it, and pressing the flame to the tip. Smoke curled up from the end and the heady scent of cinnamon and clove began to suffuse the area.

          “Never wanna be out of cigars,” he rumbled while exhaling a plume of smoke.

          “I wouldn’t know,” Asteria replied with a small sigh and a shake of her head. “I don’t smoke cigars.”

          “Another vice, then?”

          “A few other ones, actually.”

“...Do you wanna talk about it?”

Sitting at the circular table in her kitchen, Asteria sighed and glanced up to the entryway of the room where Xendov leaned causally against the door frame.

“Not really?” she replied with a whisper, her voice raspy. Her fingers curled around the white mug on the table and she lifted it to her lips before taking a small sip.

“If that's black tea, you won't be sleeping tonight,” he told her with a smirk, his bare feet whispering across the tiled floor as he entered the room and took a seat opposite of her.

“No, chamomile,” Asteria replied with a hollow chuckle. “I do want to get some sleep tonight. If possible.”

“Would also help if you just dump all the stuff on your brain—”

“What do you want me to say?” she grumbled while dragging her finger tips across her forehead. Her golden gaze darted away from Xen's face and instead stared into the liquid of her cup. “I don't know what—that's never happened before. Being the...beast but still in this body?”

Rain pours from the heavens, the sky weeping as the storm cackles. A flash of lightning splits the air as a berserker’s axe cleaves an empire soldier’s helmet in two. An arrow zips across the town square, piercing the calf of a fleeing soldier, his scream lost to a crack of thunder.

Odhran stumbles into an alley, colliding with a building. He barely feels the stone digging into his shoulder as his pained gaze falls to his thigh—and the arrow jutting from it.

“Fookin’ idiots,” he mutters with a grimace. “Wouldn’t be surprised if’n it was one of our useless archers.”

His fingers curl around the arrow's shaft, arm tensing to pull it free, but the hairs on his neck stand on end. It isn't from the cold rain. Someone is approaching, their steps masked by the chaos of war and the storm overhead. Odhran's grip loosens on the arrow, sliding to the dagger at his belt. He spins, ready to drive the blade into his assailant.

Gloved fingers wrap around his wrist, and gold-green eyes meet his hazel ones. Cassandra grins, her lips parting slightly.