Okay

  Pink flowers, golden glows, bright skies, dewy grass. Warmth. Soft crystals of memory, gifts, vials and spells. No more pain, no more voices, no more smoke. Unburning, untainted, untouched. Tearless.

  “Ty awake?”

  Ty opened her eyes, looking blearily at the large figure entering the common room. “What time is it?” she asked hoarsely.

  “Morning blessing soon,” replied the Ancient, walking past Ty to the kitchen, where he filled up a mug with water. “I go workshop.”

  “Where’s Selene?” Ty continued to ask obliviously, wondering why her body was aching all over when Darius came over to the fireplace in front of her.

  “Sleep,” he stated simply and curtly, lighting the wood and placing his mug near the flames.

  Ty blinked slowly at the Ancient and his mug, thinking to herself how much of herself she could see in him, in the Ancients and in their people. Wondering what it would have been like, had she been born in an Ancient community instead of with her mother by the hill.

  “Hey,” she called softly when she could see that all he was doing was stare at his mug with clasped hands. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  As he looked up, she could see his wonderfully soft, dark brown eyes. The eyes of the Ancients. Dark. Pure. An unending abyss.

  “…You knew Sel could get near the trees because she’s part of the pure royal line, didn’t you?”

  “Ah.” It was a long-drawn-out ‘ah.’ Weary, tired, and reluctant. Yet, there was acceptance. “You figure out early this time.”

  The mug began to simmer, but Darius did not reach for it.

  “So how did she end up in the Circle of Graces?”

  At first, he didn’t answer, but then his cup boiled over and he reached out for it, unaffected by the heat as he got up and answered steadfastly, “It is not my story to tell.”

  And just like that, he left, even before the sun was out, leaving Ty in the common room again with her other half. Mind drifting off, fearful of more sleep.

  The clock ticked; the fire slowly died out with no one to maintain it.

  “Mmmrph.”

  Ty turned to Theo and watched him patiently, taking her part of the blanket off to wrap around him some more.

  “Mmnnnn.” He shuffled again in his seat and mumbled his usual innocuous, incoherent babblings.

  “Theo,” Ty tried softly, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Theo, wake up.”

  As soon as her hands touched him, he immediately opened his eyes in a panic and breathed in sharply before realizing who it was and closing his eyes again.

  “Damn.” He passed his hands across his face and breathed in long and measuredly before exhaling similarly steadily.

  Ty suppressed the resurfacing guilt, offering a small smile. “It’s almost morning.”

  “Made it through the night,” he chuckled, setting the blanket off to the side and getting up with a groan. “Thanks for staying.” He matched her worried look with a tired one. “I’ll just get used to it…sometime.”

  “Same dream as usual?”

  “No, it was different.” Stifling a yawn, he shuffled over to the kitchen and filled up a pan with water before submerging his face in it.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He lifted his head and wiped the water off his face, pushing back his hair. “Don’t worry, I’m okay.”

  “I should have done it.”

  “You didn’t know.”

  “I…” She was at a loss for words. He was right, of course. But if it had all happened before…then she should have known. She had failed him. She had failed all their previous lives.

  Coward, echoed the Elder.

  Coward, echoed herself.

  “Since classes wrapped up yesterday, I’ll go speak to the Headmistress. Maybe she knows how—”

  “You shouldn't. She’ll just use it against you.”

  “I’d rather that than this.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Exasperated, Theo splashed his face with water again. “No, I’d rather this. Who knows what she’s going to make you do?”

  She gritted her teeth. Whatever the Headmistress had in store for her was what she had been told was necessary. All this was part of the stakes—collateral in case she didn’t want to go along with the plan. There was no way she was going to make others suffer for her own failures. When the alternative was to have only herself suffer instead of everyone else, the decision was easy.

  Or it had been, at least.

  The common room door creaked open.

  “Oh, both awake.”

  Carrying a long box and nothing else, Darius sauntered in and closed the door behind him.

  “Darius,” she declared, immediately recognizing the box and rushing over with Theo behind her.

  “Yes, is sword,” stated the Ancient similarly seriously, setting the box on the dining room table with all the nonchalance in the world, unhooking the simple lock holding the two pieces of wood together and ceremoniously reaching in to pull out the contents of the box with both hands.

  Speaking in his native tongue, rolling all his words together into a long, beautiful line of endless melodic verse, he brought out a brilliant gold rapier with black intertwining vines for the hand guard and hilt, but gold everywhere else; it shone even in the dimness of the room, catching the light in whichever position it pointed, dulling everything else in its splendid presence. Its blade looked delicate and thin, deadly as it slimmed down to a point so sharp there was no question it would have been banned from all Academy-related combat. And yet she could hear the sword sing to her among Darius’s chanting; she could tell that this was its sole purpose; to wound, to kill, to fell the opponent immediately and without mercy. Sever the soul and the body with one simple, straight motion.

  Stupefied, Ty watched Darius lower himself, bow his head, and then offer the sword up for her to take, all while continuing to speak in the Ancient tongue.

  But all she could hear as she stared down at the sword was the Elder’s voice: We will be saved when the world burns to ashes, and the sinned have been returned.

  With steady hands and a weak, na?ve heart, Ty could not resist taking up the sword.

  “Abhorr simis fulminis’il na, Tyche sel’emma Jeanne.”

  Silence.

  “You said my name.” They were the only words that she could think of to say, still stunned by the gift. She had taken care of it over the winter break as Darius had instructed her, but it had looked absolutely nothing like this. This was perfect.

  “You have been bound to it,” articulated Darius with complete seriousness, standing back up to shut and lock the box once more. “No one else but you may use it.”

  “Okay.” Ty nodded, waiting for something else.

  However, Darius turned to Theo instead, whose eyes were still locked onto the sword, wide with awe and admiration. “No one else touch. Not even you, Theo.”

  Upon hearing his name, he straightened up and took a shaky breath. “I understand. Of course.”

  Darius finally relaxed his posture and tucked his case under his arm, addressing Ty casually now. “If you want to fix Theo, go see Headmistress. She let you know what is next.”

  After all that had happened in the past minute, it seemed only normal for him to know about Theo’s dreams. “Okay.”

  “No!”

  The Ancient-blooded looked up at Theo.

  “She’s going to put her on some mission again, isn’t she?” Having snapped out of it, Theo shook his head, brows knitted. “No, we are not going to do that just for me.”

  The Ancient approached Theo with an extended hand in peace, but all it did was incite more hostility as he watched Theo back away with a palm up toward him.

  “Darius, I understand you’re trying to help, but I don’t need any fixing.” He turned to Ty. “Please don’t do this, Ty. Please tell me you won’t do it. I have an awful feeling about this, about the sword. No matter how beautiful it is. Please.”

  Looking into Theo’s pleading eyes, and then at Darius’s haunting look of having been rejected by his friend, Ty’s mind blanked. Do nothing? That wasn’t like her. This was all for a reason. Everything she had done from the beginning of the semester until now had been for a goal—a goal she felt like she could finally grasp. Even if parts of it were unclear, even if the puzzle wasn’t finished yet, there was something there. She wanted to understand. Her reason for existence was now to help everyone, to heal the world. And now she had a way to do it.

  How can I heal the world when you’re like this?

  “I don’t know,” she uttered weakly.

  And just like that, Theo finally buckled. For the first time since the start of the school year, she saw what the pressure, the stress, the pain, the sleeplessness, the voices, the screams, the fires, the voices, the pleading, revenge—what stretching himself far too thin did to him.

  He put his head in his hands and laughed. He laughed until it sounded like weeping, and then he raised his head to shake it in disbelief. Over and over again, adjusting his tear-stained hair and sighing. “You have no idea, Ty. You have no idea what nightmares I’ve been having. I can’t think about anything but them, and even when I’m with you, I can still see the bodies in the distance. I can feel them. Under the ground, around me, I can feel them clawing at me. And I know it’s bad, but…but the sword. I have a really, really bad feeling about all of this, and for me to tell you not to do it, even with these Graces-forsaken voices in my head, should tell you at least something about what the Headmistress will make you do next.”

  “I can make this better, Theo,” Ty whispered, replaying her memories of that night in her mind on endless repeat.

  “Promise me you won’t leave,” he begged, tears in his eyes, giving her the same desperate look as he must have before, because she remembered them.

  I’m so sorry for what I did. I’m so sorry for giving you my burden. I never thanked you.

  For once, she remembered.

  A promise she had made not so long ago, on a moonlit beach. To no one but herself.

  Her eyes widened as Darius finally raised his head to look at her too, an undeniable, indescribable look of genuine surprise on his face.

  Is this the decision? Is this what I’ve been waiting for the entire time? Is this what I’ve had to choose between all along? Do I not make it past my first year, let alone second? Is this really how it’s going to end, despite everything?

  What was her decision all along? What had she been determined to say before everything happened? Stay or go? Wasn’t it easy? I wanted to stay for my friends. She wanted to leave to save her friends. They’ll die if I stay. If she left. There’ll be nothing left if you go. Are you ready to leave it all behind? She hadn’t spent long enough with her friends yet, didn’t finish the puzzle pieces. I can’t go. She was weak. Courage. She loved her class too much to abandon them. I love them too much to watch them die. Tradition was going to destroy the world. Destroy magic. Destroy the Ancients. The blade was so beautiful. The Earth Mother is bound to me here, always. That’s what she had said to her in the sanctuary. That’s where she was. Here.

  Not anymore.

  The only thing here is you.

  Ashes, ashes.

  I promised.

  “Okay.”