I sat hugging my knees in the pillow nest Natalie had made. The low wall that surrounded me didn't make me feel any safer. The skies were turning purple, dimming the pillows' bright colors into the grey of my shed.

  Thok! Scrick! Pop!

  The sound of metal prying open hard wooden fibers. Kaelen was cutting open a coconut with a machete at the counter. He flicked his wrist and a straw made of solidified Mana appeared. With another flick, he threw the straw into the hole as though he was spearing fish.

  Kaelen handed me the green, heavy fruit, then sat down on a low stool with the pillow fence between us.

  And waited.

  I took a sip. The sweetness was a comfort against the chaotic mess in my mind. Natalie backing away from me as if I was something dangerous. Her pained apologies, her tears falling from fearful eyes. And Nathan, the sad Felid boy who had my face.

  "Tell me what happened, Boy." Kaelen's voice cut through the silence.

  I almost startled.

  I told him what happened between us, forcing the words out. That I'd promised to take her out to see snow and the outside world one day, then she went silent and said I was like him. Then I asked her about Nathan, and she suddenly became very scared of me.

  Kaelen listened quietly, elbows on his knees.

  After I finished, Kaelen leaned back, resting his palms where his elbows had been.

  "How do you feel about this, Boy?"

  Feel? Like, am I angry? Or sad? I stared through the hanging curtains and out the front door, trying to recall how I actually felt.

  "I..."

  I felt unsure. There were so many feelings that I didn't know what I was feeling.

  "I don't know... Kaelen, I really don't know."

  Kaelen looked at me for a while, like he was thinking about what to say next.

  "Did you yell at Natalie?"

  I winced backward as though his words had actually hit me like a punch to my chest. The thought of me shouting at Natalie the way I'd shouted at Kaelen was—

  I shook my head.

  "Did you think of hitting her?" Kaelen's voice came again. He sounded a bit like Papa when I was caught doing something I shouldn't. I shook my head hard to throw the horrifying image that was forming.

  My sat up straight, fists clenched. "N-no! Why would I want to hit her?!" I shouted back.

  Then I curled back into my knees, clutching the coconut close to my chest. The magical straw shimmered in the dark with a faint purple gloss. "B-but... it hurts inside."

  I stared at the ground, the dull, dark brown dirt of our shed, the little pebbles and grime blurring as I tried to focus.

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  "It really hurts..." Tears trailed down my face. "To know that I'm loved not because of who I am... but because I have the face of someone they loved... and lost."

  I pressed the coconut to my chest hard enough that it hurt, hoping the pain outside would ease the pain inside.

  "I'm... just a replacement. Just someone they loved but know they can't have back."

  "If I'd looked different, would they have loved me the way they do now? Would Auntie Ollette still bring me food? And would Natalie still play with me?"

  My mind whirled back to the time when everything was taken away, and I was left with nothing but a desire to die, to be with Mama and Papa. I sat on the rock, hoping for a stormy night where a lightning bolt would just finish it.

  "Would Natalie have come and sat with me on the rock?"

  I kept my eyes on the ground, seeing nothing but blurs and feeling nothing but wetness and heat on my face.

  Kaelen said nothing. I didn't even know if I wanted him to say anything.

  Rruuk...

  I heard the gravelly scrape of wood against dirt.

  Kaelen had gotten off the stool and was now sitting on the pillow fence. Something in his face told me he felt what I felt, but he didn't know what to say. The old Kaelen would have asked me to train the next morning to fight away the feeling.

  But now, he just sat there, looking at me.

  I looked away. He'd seen me cry many times. But now it was different. I didn't know how to say it.

  "I want to be angry..." I held the coconut hard, thinking it would crack, thinking it was... the boy's face. Then I gave up and let the fruit go. "But I can't. I just can't."

  I pressed my forehead to the fruit. "Natalie." Her name came out stuttering. "She's hurting too. When I told her that Mama and Papa appeared to me in the forest, I saw her face. She smiled, but her eyes..."

  I put the coconut down on my legs. "They were so sad. I know that look. I know how it feels. I feel the same way when I look at the Felid children playing naked in the river. They have no Reddest Night. They have their parents. That feeling of knowing you lost something you love, and you're never getting them back..."

  I looked at Kaelen through my tears, my vision blurry. "Uncle, Natalie... she's hurting just like I am. She wants Nathan just like how I want Mama and Papa..."

  *This world was never fair, Herald. Bad things happen to everyone.* Papa's voice echoed in my head. *Yours is big, Daddy knows. But others hurt too. You are not alone.*

  I dropped my gaze, holding myself. The coconut sat forgotten in my lap. "I know how that feels. I want to hold her, Kaelen. I want to love her, love them, just like how she loved me. Just like how Ollette loved me."

  I felt like laughing now. "I was using them as a replacement too."

  Kaelen let out a short hum.

  "I'd been treating Auntie Ollette as a replacement for Mama. Every time she feeds me, I think of Mama in the Dining Hall. And when I play with Natalie... I pretended that it was Shana in the Sapphire Palace."

  Shana... That name suddenly came out. My Wingly playmate. My dance partner. And my supposed future bride. Was she still alive?

  "But Natalie and Shana are so different. Shana's a noble, and Natalie's feral. Yet it's the same. With them, I don't feel alone."

  After saying all those things, it felt like something had loosened inside my heart. The pain was still there, but now I knew what it was. It wasn't scary anymore.

  "Life is... strange, isn't it, Kaelen? I... we'd lost everything, and Mama teleported us here." I looked to the doorway at the silver moonlight coming in, trying to smile, to find something funny in how everything turned out. "They'd lost Nathan. And here I am, looking like Nathan. They loved me... and I needed them... and whether all this is real or just... a lie... I don't know..."

  Kaelen was silent for a long time.

  "It is, Boy."

  I looked at the man my father and mother trusted most, to see something gentle yet awkward in his icy-blue eyes.

  Finally, I took another sip from the coconut. It was sweeter now.

  "All I know now is... we need each other more than we realize... and Natalie and I don't know what to do with the truth..."

  We sat in the dark silence, softened by the faint glow from the lanterns high above coming in from the front door, our only company being the simple trills sung by the night insects.

  "Herald?"

  I looked at Kaelen, my father's first Divine Saber.

  "You're only eight years old. And you understand all this. Your father and mother would be proud."

  Despite myself, I found myself smiling.

  Mama and Papa... proud of me. For a moment, I thought I felt them beside me. Mama on my left and Papa on my right.

  Kaelen reached over and placed his hand on my shoulder. "Tomorrow, I'll take you to Juno," Kaelen said. "She knows Nathan. She is the better person to explain."

  "Okay."

  "Rest now, Boy. Good night."

  "Good night, Uncle."