Fiesi is floating amid nothingness.

The space around him -- not air, not water, not anything -- has a crushing weight, like he's been plunged into the very depths of the ocean, stuck with an entire world laid on his shoulders. His stomach caves inward, pummelled by an imaginary fist. His head throbs. His limbs feel thin and brittle. He kicks his legs, feet moving sluggishly and without result despite how mountainous the movement is to force. Energy is a dry trickle, dripping out at his fingertips. He's drowning in his own exhaustion.

A distant hunger for light awakes, yet his flame is absent, a hollow pit squirming in its wake. The flame never comes in his dreams. Because this must be a dream, he's sure of it, though it has an eerie reality to it that digs pincers into his flesh.

A bitter tang wraps his tongue. He shivers. This may be nothing, but it's cold.

The ice has a familiar prick. His head jerks up, eyes scanning. His feet pedal. A smile builds up in his chest and bursts out warm on his face.

She's here. Like it melts from darkness, Jaci's raven hair spills into existence, splayed out in a serene, drifting haze around her face. The frosty white-blue of her dress contrasts starkly with her dark skin. Her puffed sleeves ripple, clothes hung loose and swaying, all so gently calming. Her eyes are closed, her lips set in a pensive frown.

Fiesi forgets the need to breathe; the weight on his chest drifts, faraway enough to ignore. He claws his way through the space, grappling for the effort to swim, until she's right in front of him. He reaches out. His fingers pass a hair's breadth from her palm, yet her hand glides smoothly out of the way, dodging the touch like a paper-thin veil hovers between them.

Her eyes fly open. They're like ice, piercing, and they feel accusatory. The pit in Fiesi's chest yawns ever deeper. His smile fades.

"Jaci," he whispers, startled when he truly hears his own voice, clear as day and cracking apart. "Jaci, I'm so sorry."

Still she stares. A lump builds in his throat, a void swelling between his ribs, insides swallowed by a thorny blackness that loops again and again around his heart. The pain of it is tangible. It shudders through him. He digs his nails into his forearm, though the sensation is numbed, hardly there at all.

His gaze slips downward to her skirts, shame's teeth locked in his flesh, before something desperate yanks his focus back to her face. He doesn't deserve to look at her but can't bring himself to look anywhere else. The thorns tangle and tear.

A stupid laugh shakes his chest, bitten off just in time to prevent it from tumbling into a sob. "I miss you, Jaci. Stars, I... I'm an idiot." He swipes at his eyes, finds them achingly devoid of tears, and lets his fingers trail upward to rake through his hair instead. "I should've been there for you."

There's so many meanings to that. I shouldn't have left you behind. I should have protected you. Mostly he just wishes he'd wrapped her in a tight embrace on far, far more occasions. He wishes he'd told her how pretty she looked, perhaps, brought that sly smile to her face more, at least admitted how deeply he valued the times she stuck around when no-one else would. Anything that made him worth caring about. Anything more than the pathetic palil he is.

Maybe it's a lesson he'll never learn. Maybe that's why the world keeps teaching it, inflicting that same cruel irony. "You are selfish," it says, a popping, syrupy hiss in his ear. "You take them for granted. Now see how much they mean to you only when they're gone."

He'd punch something if he could, but there's nothing here. He grips his arm tighter instead, trembling with the bridled trickle of adrenaline, gaze snagging constantly on Jaci's passive expression. "I, uh..." He swallows thickly. "I have so much to tell you, Jaci. All your questions. I can answer them now. I'll tell you everything, I promise."

I promise. The echo of that is sharp enough to make him wince.

"I will. I..." He chews his tongue, tethered to a sudden silence. Is there even a place to begin?

It slams into him in the shape of a tidal wave. The bitter, scraping dagger of pain. The calm of Reuben's voice, soft in the way smoothed-over shards of glass might be if only touched, not looked at. The give of flesh beneath a thrumming blade. The warm, clammy press of it against his flame. The blood soaked into it, dripped onto his skin, seeped between his fingers. The blood, everywhere.

If this void was heavy before, now it is like iron, choking the air from his lungs.

"I killed someone." The words rush out of him all at once, a tangled knot of sound. "Jaci, I killed him. A Cormé. I killed him and now I can't go back."

The trailing edge of that plunges into his gut. He's sure his vision's rim gains a blackened look, dirty like mould crawling through his flesh, coating the underside of his skin where his flame should flutter with warmth. He cringes, bones rocking with the listless sway of pebbles upon a river's bottom. There's an awful tackiness to the feeling. Nails skimming his scalp, he grabs a clump of hair and pulls, searching for a sharp prod of pain, shuddering when it refuses to come. He still can't cry.

His eyes clenched shut, he twists away from Jaci, limbs curled into his core. He's half afraid that sticky silt will infect her too if he moves too close. "I don't know what to do," he murmurs, crackling chills wrestling his voice to pieces. "How can I even..." A shaky hiss -- the closest to an exhale he's come -- slips between his teeth. "D'anei étoi svis." Evil never fades. The graceful syllables of the old language sound harsh on his tongue, awkward from lack of use.

Soft fingers brush his cheek. Cautiously, he opens his eyes.

Emotion's glinting light has finally entered Jaci's gaze, as if the facade of life he's created for her in this biting dream were sleeping until now. She cups his face in her hands, lips tugged into a sympathetic smile.

Accepting. Forgiving. A metal-toed boot stamps down on his stomach, twisting this way and that until it roils. He grabs her wrist and thrusts it towards her, stare hardening. The words to beg her to stop teeter on his tongue but won't fall. His mouth opens and closes, an ill-placed anger washing over him in prickling, lukewarm waves. All he can manage is a shake of his head.

Her smile drops into a frown, and her other hand shifts, palm resting gently on his cheek, the tip of her finger sliding behind his ear. He can't bring himself to fight that. It makes him feel small again, and small is all he is in here.

Her lips move.

Confusion draws him stiff. He might've seized up in jarring fashion if he truly heard a voice enter the void's silence, but still the strangeness of it blanks his thoughts, compels him to watch with wide eyes. Jaci was born soundless the same way she was born a Nería -- inexplicably, at the work of a science beyond his understanding -- and she never once tried to speak, not even in mimicry, as if something deep-rooted within her always knew it was beyond her ability. There was an air of mystery about her in that regard, though Fiesi never much cared for mystery. To him, she was as ordinary as anything could be in such a life. He could never have imagined her to act like anyone but herself, and the same is true now, despite how foolish it seems to expect all to make sense in a dream of the dead.

"What?" he asks with tentative care. "What are you saying?"

A desperation enters her eyes. Her mouth shapes words with all the more haste, but he can interpret none of them. That icy panic is contagious; it flows to him in ripples, stirring misty clouds into his core that suck his chest in.

He squeezes her wrist, tugs her hand towards him, urging. "Write it down for me," he pleads. "I-I can't hear you."

Her fingers snake with his. She pulls closer, the movement of her lips slowing to a murmur, frown so deep it sketches a crease above her nose.

"Write it." The clouds roll into a storm, crackling in his ears. "Or you could sign it for me. Remember the signs we made up when we were young?" His faint smile is shaky all over, crooked at the wrong angle. "Use them. Tell me what to do."

Another silent word he can't make out, steadier than the rest. Her long hair sways with an invisible tide. She smiles back in shy greeting, entirely at odds with the stir of emotion circling him in the prowling pace of sharks. Can she hear him in return? A hollow pit digs into his gut.

"Come on." He grips her hand, feeling like a drowning man clinging to a rope thrown overboard, begging the lifeline's owner to tug a little harder, too far away to be heard. Always too far away, too close to going beneath the waves. There's always something pulling him under, always. His thoughts slur. There's still no air here, and it's starting to hurt.

"Jaci?" he whispers. "Jaci, I need you. I can't do this without you."

Her smile softens, solidifies, nearly a smirk but not quite. Her hand slides. Pleasantly chilled fingers brush aside the hair that dangles in his eyes, comb the tangles from the nest atop his head. A gentler shiver runs down his spine. He sighs into it, a pang of nostalgia plucking a chord in his chest.

At that moment, her eyes flicker green. Her clothes are thin and emerald, her skin painted with a ruddy tan, her hair autumnal red. A white feather perches beside her ear. She grins, and she's not Jaci any longer.

His heart thumps, painfully raw. "Mother?"

Her fingers trail to the underside of his face, pressed gently to the tip of his chin to lift it up. Her head tilts left and right, eyes studying, lips pinched. Bubbles fill his jaw in place of words. He can only stare. She looks so intricately, beautifully alive, more so than she ever has in his incessant nightmares, and he wants nothing more than to hide from her raking gaze. Shame flushes his cheeks and wriggles in his chest, a ball of fleshy maggots chewing at his insides. Her perfection only deepens it. So this is truly what she died for? To see now that, in nine long years, this is all he's managed to grow into? His instincts brace him as if she might be readying a slap.

Even faced with the opportunity, he can't even say he's sorry. His tongue is useless, like metal in taste and weight, entirely empty. You are selfish.

She lets go. Her other hand slips from his at the same time, leaving him tingling, distinctly aware of the loneliness that cloaks him. The tears finally come when he wants them least. They're ugly things, trembling his lower lip and flooding his throat and nose, bitterly salty, dragging wet streaks down his face to mingle with the dirt and blood already plastered to every inch of his skin. They steal his vision and his last look at her.

He barely catches her distant smile, but he does see her nod. A decisive dip of her softly curved chin. An agreement. A yes.

She fades to a green blur, and drifts further away.

"Mother," he chokes out, a scream dampened to scarcely a breath. His hand lunges out and touches nothing. His eyelids droop and then force themselves up again. "Mother, wait--"

--aware he was suffering so... Fiesi?

A gasp sharply pierces Fiesi's lungs, and he finds they inflate. It shocks him.

Fiesi, you must awake. Take hold of my voice.

There's nothing to do but obey, a blind will flooding his mind despite the scrabbling refusal in his chest. The weight of being here any longer is too much. He spools those sharp words out, wraps them around his grasp, tugs on them and pulls, climbs.

His next breath comes cold and filled with dust, and a reluctant reality drains in around him. His hip digs roughly into the stone he curls upon. Flame sputters weakly in his chest without much effect. A cough surges out, wracking him with a squeezing, furious pain, yet the dark's numbness has been whisked far from his reach. His eyes wince open and squint into blazing blue light.

A relief settles lightly as falling leaves in his mind, and he realises it isn't his own. Something in his stomach jerks. Rigel.

Flashing fear, tethered to an old obedience he can never quite shake, pulls at him harder than tiredness ever could. He scrambles to sit upright, then rocks as dizziness lurches through him in spear-like form. Even after the sluggish seconds it takes to subside, there's still a tremor in the ground that shouldn't be there, a blur that washes the world in watercolour. He finds himself missing his dream's lack of air. Breathing still refuses to come easily.

Take care, Rigel murmurs, punctured by hesitance, tone like pockmarked steel. The thread that has been so fragile in recent days is thickly woven now, wound tight and acts as a steadying anchor. You are weak.

Fiesi presses the heel of his palm to his forehead. The bird's chirp soothes his wound, but not his headache. "I'm not weak," he mutters without much thought.

Talons dig into his shoulder. More feathery words flutter in and out, none decipherable.

Stinging light presses against his eyes, brightening, and he cringes. "Hey, where's the..."

His vision sharpens, and he immediately registers the man standing over him. The view is a wave of ice, a pinch that injects thumping adrenaline, dread sinking low into his gut. Even now, staring into his father's eyes feels like stealing a peek at the worst kind of mirror.

Aching tension wraps his muscles. All at once, he's painfully aware of the scattered wear of his Cormé-thread clothes, sure the rips in his shirt grow wider until he feels naked. His leg throbs out of nowhere. He ducks his head, though he can't quite release Gelani Kynig's gaze; it holds him in a vice until his bones creak within its force. He'd be convinced he were still dreaming if not for that and the pain in his stomach.

A spite that should be easier to grasp simmers ashen in the back of his throat. "Never thought you'd come." His voice rubs against itself, roughened to sand on his tongue. "How great must your desire to lecture me be if it dragged you all the way up here?"

Gelani's stare hardens, his brow furrowed, his lips drawing a thin line. The slightest indications of travel linger in the faint, dusky circles sketched under his eyes, the unusual off-kilter ruffle to his hair, the scuffs on his boots, though his azure cloak glows as bright and pure as the dancing flame in his hand as it hangs limply over his shoulders. "There are more pressing matters than your misgivings," he says, tone brisk. The pause he leaves is just long enough to induce discomfort. His hand awkwardly drifts from his side to stretch out. "You should stand, if you can."

A sneer bares Fiesi's teeth. He's horribly aware of his own heartbeat, thudding on and on in his ears. "How refreshing," he mutters. With a glare tossed at that lingering hand, he pushes to his feet of his own accord, sparks like hot pins in otherwise frosted skin skipping over his arms, and makes an attempt to attach sense to all of this. The Cormé soldier he recalls from before is crumpled a few paces to his left, no doubt teased into unconsciousness. A broken chain snakes past his foot. Reuben is, much to his shameful relief, tucked out of sight with the dark's further reaches. There's a silhouette of someone else beyond Gelani, just out of focus, snagged by the slanted shadow beyond the blue flame's circle of illumination so that all he can make out are smudges of dark features.

A spiked ball gathers in his chest, nicking his heart. The will to argue shreds itself in half. This is a rescue. His glare drops to bore into his feet.

Yes. There's a false imitation of a smile in Rigel's voice. You will be safe now.

A curse just barely catches itself before it trips past Fiesi's lips. I thought you were busy fleeing, you feathered coward. He isn't aware of the anger boiling in his veins until it lashes out within his inner voice. What changed?

Rigel doesn't answer that, though it's not his usual stony silence. The bond between them judders.

"It's good to see you alive," Gelani interjects. His words are horribly stilted.

Fiesi rolls his eyes. "Is it?" It doesn't feel like it. In harsh contrast to all the pitiful time he spent inside that birdcage, rescue seems a dirty thing now, chafing at him until all he wants is for them to disappear and let him sink to his knees, leave him to drown in the darkness all over again. His fists refuse to unfurl.

"When I heard Shaula had been set free, I feared the worst."

Without meaning to, his fingers find his stomach, knead at the unhealed wound. His eyes sting all of a sudden. He opens and closes his mouth. You feared right.

There's enough tacked onto that thought for Rigel's thread to go stiff. Fiesi, is that true?

Fiesi's jaw clenches. You know already.

Panic flushes the thread with feverish warmth, and it flinches back. The bird's terror wafts around him like a sea breeze, drying out his mouth and howling in his ears, and he endures it like stone. He squeezes the bloodied flesh caught between his thumb and forefinger until it screams. Forks of black lightning flick at the edges of his vision, and he sways.

Gelani's steadying hand lands on his shoulder. Fiesi tenses, face scrunched, skin itching as if chewed by a thousand ants. "We must move you," his father says, tone bland enough to stir bitterness into his sickened stomach. "Ischyri, Megai, Rosi and Xyvi split from us to search for Shaula on the castle's upper floors. I'll rejoin them while Edrali helps you to safety."

Shock is enough to yank Fiesi's head up. It carries an extra blunt wave when he sees the glow of his father's gaze, rippled and frothed like a rough, uncertain sea. He almost looks worried. If Fiesi didn't have so much evidence to cast away the desperate squirm of the claim in his mind, he might be convinced what he sees is care.

"You don't want me to fight?" His voice emerges small.

Gelani's lips twitch, drawn thin. "You've fought enough. You're in no fit state to continue."

"Since when did that matter?" Fiesi spits. He bats his father's hand away, stumbling back a step as a growl rumbles in his throat. Why now? Now, of all times? Why feign care now when it matters least, when he's finally ready to be torn to pieces? Stars, he's craving it. His chest heaves. Wild flame buzzes in his core, just barely suppressed, fanned by the anxious beat of Rigel's wings.

His father's eyes flash as they dart aside. "There isn't time for us to argue." He flicks a gesture aimed behind him, bright fire strung between his fingers. "Edrali, take Fiesi out via the back passage. Hide in the city. We'll meet with you when this is over."

Edrali nods as he steps from the shadows. He flashes a grim smile that doesn't reach his eyes, darkness hanging heavy over his features, and guilt rears up sticky within Fiesi. He swallows hard, tongue throbbing as he digs his teeth into it. He shirks out of Edrali's grip. His back bumps the cavern's wall.

His father casts him a cursory glance over his shoulder. He's already leaving. "I'll see you soon, Fiesi."

There must be defiance woven into Fiesi's face, for Edrali chips in, stealing his attention. "You should listen to your father," he says, voice hushed. He holds out a hand in polite invitation. "There's nothing more we can do now. Come, we'll get you some fresh air."

Fiesi's legs go weak, knees near folding. He clings shakily to his flame and stares at that outstretched hand. His own lingers close to his chest, inching out all on its own, until a full beam of light -- softer, yellow light, shone from a lantern slung over Edrali's shoulder -- falls over his skin. His sharp wince tightens his chest. Only now does he see the red. Dark, dark crimson, some beads of it dripping fresh and warm while other streaks have dried themselves to his palm and sleeve and fingers like the callouses his birthright forbids him from bearing. Like scars. Blemishes. His hand folds into a trembling fist.

He draws a breath, sure his lungs pinch as if they desire not to take in the air. "I murdered a Cormé, Father."

His father's slow, retreating footsteps cease.

"Stuck a knife in his heart." The words sound too brash for the delicate razor's edge they walk. "His blood is on..." His voice dips suddenly into a breathless wheeze, taxing to dredge back up. "His blood is on my hands."

"Fiesi," Gelani warns. Edrali merely looks between each of them with wide, startled eyes. Fiesi ignores them both.

"You can feel it, can't you? I know you can." He whirls, staring his father down as he works up the courage to choke out the statement weighing so much of him down. "I'm tainted."

Gelani's face is a patchwork of unclear emotion. He wavers in every sense. His fire's ribbons fade to misty smoke, dulled. "We don't have time to deal with that now," he says tightly. "Go. I have to--"

"Don't blind yourself to it," Fiesi grates out. He lifts his chin, feeling like frosted glass -- hard, brittle, chilled, pattern stirred incomprehensibly until all that remains is a splattered mess. "I'm not stupid. I know how we deal with this. I don't see any use in putting it off."

If he's glass, perhaps those words are the moment he shatters, for that's what the following silence sounds like. Shards exploding, hitting the ground, and then laying there, still and scattering light to warp the shadows. Their hundreds of wicked points gleam, whispering in coaxing voices. Fiesi holds his breath, impatience an all-consuming itch. His heart thumps on.

The surprise on his father's face is potent enough to freeze him for all of that time. A bewilderment flickers in and out, tugging him a wary step closer. "Fiesi, you're my son."

Why now? Fiesi's ears ring. "So?"

A sternness shutters into Gelani's gaze like a passing stormcloud. "Go with Edrali."

"No."

"Stubborn brat," he snaps. "Have some sense. Go." His hand waves. Dismissive. Desperate? Fiesi's flame flares outward, singeing his insides until sweat trickles down the back of his neck. His foot comes down hard.

"No," he hisses, jaw set, "and if you refuse to do anything about it, then I will. Let me fight."

"You're not fit to--"

"Neither are you." Something cracks, a floodgate that lets every tumbling thought rush out all at once. "Any of you. You'd see that if you truly did have sense, Father. Shaula is more powerful than any number of Tía. If you fight her, she will kill you, and then she will do worse." He heaves in a sharp breath, a sour feeling snaking his gut, but shoves it all out anyway. "Only Izar could do anything against her last time she was free. It has to be another Synté who fights her."

The gasp he's met with is twofold; it's part his father's, blown wide in azure eyes, and part Rigel's. The latter is harsh enough to suck all the air from his lungs.

Gelani shakes his head. "You can't seriously be considering--"

"I'll do it." Fiesi squares his shoulders. "None of you are worth risking. It has to be me."

Fiesi, you cannot. Rigel's voice comes down hard, drowning everything else out; he can't tell if his father replies. I forbid it. He shifts, physical form still perched atop his shoulder, holding on tight. The flame simmers uncomfortably warm. It will kill you. I do not desire that you die.

Fiesi's nails pierce his palms. He could taint the thread with his fury, could glare the bird down from within, yet there's something soft about the brush of Rigel's presence this time. It yanks up older memories. Not recollections of perfect obedience or argument or push and shove, not twisted whispers of heroism that were nothing but lures. A time before that, when the flame's bond meant nothing more than a friendship to be treasured. It drenches all the raging heat in Fiesi's chest all at once.

He bites his lip. You feel the darkness, don't you?

I do, comes the reluctant answer.

The ro étoi requires only one step to begin. Repentance is of no consequence. That's what you taught me. Is it true? It's a meaningless question, yet he asks it anyway, finally hearing his thoughts hitch with terror. Childish hope he's far beyond still praying the difficult might not be necessary.

There's a long, tender pause. A realisation must have entered Gelani's head, for he doesn't interject; he only waits. Fiesi feels oddly powerful for causing that. Is this finally respect? He blows out a somewhat amused breath through his nose and looks away.

Finally Rigel dares speak. Bearing the full force of my power will put tremendous strain on your human body. The bond tremors. There is a chance you may live. A small chance, particularly in the state you are, but I am willing to take it if you wish so.

Something within Fiesi sparks at that, prodding, but he shoves it aside. I'm not after a chance. I just want to do something right for once. He inclines his head, a wry smile tugging at his lips. At least I'll die a hero's death, right?

A washing sigh, perhaps almost a laugh, ripples the thread. I suppose you will.

A firm hand snags Fiesi's wrist, heaving Rigel's tight presence aside. It squeezes hard enough to cut the feeling from his fingers, and he nearly trips over his own feet, yelp lancing through him on a bed of razors. His father. A steely frown hardens every inch of the face that glowers down at him. Not respect, but cold anger. After all these years, he should've grown better at anticipating this when it comes, but it still catches him horribly off guard.

His feet slide when he tries to fight. "Hey!"

"Your stupidity and recklessness never cease to amaze," Gelani mutters, yanking harder. "Fine. I'll drag you out myself."

The scream that wrenches from Fiesi is incomprehensible; it begins as a growled no and crests far higher as his flame spikes within him, hot enough to roar in his ears. He frees himself from his father's hold and backpedals, panting hard, every laboured breath clawing at his stomach. He grits his teeth, aware of Rigel fluttering at his shoulder, beak lifted proudly, and syphoning reassurance from that like a wrapping bandage. For how jaggedly their bond broke, it's shockingly relieving how strong a union he can feel now. Perhaps accepting death does that.

"Alaí," he snaps, eyes burning. "If you want to hit me so badly, then go ahead. I'm doing this whether you like it or not."

Gelani's mouth opens and then closes. He rubs absentmindedly at his lingering hand like it's wounded, though his glare keeps its fire. "I will not lose you like I did your mother."

Perhaps it's a cruel satisfaction that tapes on Fiesi's grin. Perhaps it's madness. It sits awkwardly, but it serves its purpose. "You'll lose everything," he says. "You--"

Little Kynig, we must go, Rigel urges.

Fiesi lets himself be tugged back a step, and the grin slips. On the rare occasions within which it appeared, the softness in his father's eyes was always fake. It likely is now, but something twinges in his heart regardless, and it tears down all semblance of anger in one fell swoop. "I..." He swallows. "I wish we could've been better for each other, Father." He attempts one last quirk of a smile. "Mourn me graciously."

He doesn't waste another second waiting for a response. Turning swiftly on his heel, he breaks into a sprint, barrelling headfirst through pain's all-encompassing ring and into a well of fire.

Rigel, he orders, take me.

His vision flickers blue, then whites out entirely, and every cell begins to burn.

───── ⋆⋅♛⋅⋆ ─────

I have no words but keyboard smashes. This entire chapter was a post-midnight keyboard smash. No thoughts head empty only how cool Fiesi is about to look.

- Pup