She had no reason to visit the hollow expanse of the Sunlit Terrace unless her mind convinced the void beneath the Forever Chasm called her. And it had called her countless times, each time closer to the edge of the wide split crack inside the yawning chamber. Even closer, and she would embrace a blissful dive into the blackness down there, along with the ribbons of sand that fell through the opening on the ceiling and into the canyon, not knowing how farther she would fall before she hit the ground, or more likely the water if it existed.

She tilted her head upwards, seeing the soft threads of sand that flowed into the open terrace, although they were inside a hollow mountain in the desert, the vastness of this cavern felt like she was outside, where the sky was bigger and the ground was closer to her feet. Perhaps that was why she felt pulled here mostly, because her heart desired what she was fighting for as well.

If she could climb these walls and creep out through that enormous Sunspill, she would stand in the Outside, but she would never know if the sand would pull her back into the mountain and into the void of the chasm. Either way, she would have got what she wanted. To stand one last time outside, before being pulled down to an eternal fall.

Countless times she had devised a way to access the lip of the Sunspill. They did not have rope long enough for her to clip it at the end of her Plume and shoot it outside, but the mechanism was risky, not knowing where to anchor her needle-ended feather, and the deadly certainty of her weight betraying her if she planned to climb the rope. The most effortless but painful solution was to sit at the edge of the split ground, and stare at the sky, watch the slow fade of colours as the stars shoot by, occasionally with the moon to smile down at her. The Moonspill she would then think, in the Moonlit Terrace, when the sun was too tired to comfort her, a crescent would appear every month in the night.

These were dangerous thoughts, and it was best to think of it with open eyes in a space open enough for her to feel like someone heard it outside. When she sensed someone's mind nearing close in her radius of thought, she directed her attention to the sandfalls, allowing it to mesmerize her fully to let her recent thoughts dissolve and sink down like the sand.

Still trying to hypothesize how we are not already drowning in sand?

Nay casually turned her head and stepped forward from leaning against the wall. Aden arrived, his muscled form clad in white and emerald, the sleeveless collared vest revealing his sculpted shoulders and fabric wrapped around his forearms and wrists. But before she noticed his attire clinging to his body like a second skin, she was drawn to his mismatched eyes that turned more visible as he approached closer.

She studied him like she was admiring the garment as though she made it for him. "I had been wondering, but never asked you before. I have noticed you never wear sleeveless attire when you are amongst the Taheen. Except... when you are with me."

Aden did not expect to be punched with that question first before anything. He rubbed his nape as he mused, I believe I'm more comfortable when I am with you.

"Is that so?" Nay approached him with a grace almost like she was going to slowly entrance him. He took a step back, and she giggled. "Don't worry son of Keefe, I won't lay my hands on you."

She heard him breathe out.

Wait, how have you not asked me this before? I thought you knew.

"I did. I wanted to hear you say it. You don't tell me as much about yourself as I do."

He still looked abashed. I thought you wouldn't—

"Of course, I care." She weighed a look on him until he eased his nerves and crossed his arms. "You wanted to hear me say it, didn't you?"

He wasn't looking at her. He nodded.

"Did I seem too confrontational?"

Oh, no, no. I was simply taken aback, he thought, facing her again.

"Come sit with me."

Aden carefully stepped front and took a seat on the edge of the chasm, a pace away beside her. Their legs dipped into the nether void as their silence directed their attention to the whispering spray of sand falling into the chasm.

I look forward to having meetings like this, just so you know, if we're still confessing. This is also the one time I don't sweat buckets when I'm with you, he said, pulling the fabric of his collar.

Nay's smile was subtle. She didn't wish to stress him further by looking at him again. She gave him the liberty to do the same, and stared at the sandfall instead. He followed her actions.

"It's a humorous paradox," she began, "living with a gifted colony of people that can read your mind without you having to say anything, but never feel that you will be understood."

I understand that feeling.

Nay felt his gaze on him. "Have you ever felt, no matter how loud you scream, the words don't ever reach the ears of who you wish listened to you more?"

The silence before he answered, made his words more impactful. I have outgrown that feeling, I think. You wouldn't feel that way if you had someone you care about a lot.

Nay evaluated where she was in his sight then. "Having no one to care, you say? How?"

How what?

"How do you not care?"

Well, he breathed, I think it comes from believing in myself before anyone else. If you listened to your heart, you wouldn't need anyone else to advise you on what to do.

"No, don't repeat anything from Spiritology," she said it like she was fed up of hearing it a thousand times. "I don't understand how all of you bear Estar Anora's dull seminars."

Aden chuckled. The Khaera may be right about one thing. The Outside is cruel, and unforgiving. When a place like this exists, even the dullest anecdotes seem more interesting than the sound of gunfires.

Nay let out an audible breath.

What's on your mind, Emira?

Their eyes were locked into each other. Aden watched her with a growing curiosity, tinged with the apprehension that she might tell him something he might not like. But he blurred behind tears.

"I think I'm a bad person, Aden," she sobbed softly.

Aden lifted his hands, containing a panic on not knowing how to comfort her or what to say to comfort her. I—What do you mean?

Nay contained her tears instead, not wishing to pressure him into doing anything. She sniffled and gazed at the Sunspill. "How far would you go before you cannot forgive someone anymore?"

Emira, I don't understand.

"Tell me, Aden. Could you ever find the strength to forgive a crime?"

I—It depends on what they did. Nay, what is all this about?

He called her by her name. It was genuine. Although, the sandfall that was once a soft music to her ears, turned into an ominous harbinger, as if even the Stonehold was holding its breath for Nay to say the chilling words in her mind.

Nay?

Nay turned to him teary-eyed. "I want to kill the boy, Aden."

His breath stilled. His mind, so used to parsing thoughts before speaking them, drowned itself into the noise of his own head. He could not think, could not form the words. He looked swallowed by the silence. He looked as though he had misheard her. Had she truly said—

"I want to kill him," she repeated.

Aden blinked, if it was an attempt to hear her again. He sat thick and still , unmoving, like a stone too heavy to be lifted.

Emira... What are you saying?

Nay turned away, her chin dipping slightly and fingers curled on her lap. She was still too. Too still. The only thing that moved was a single tear down her cheek. She expected this outcome. Yet the reality was cutting too sharp against her skin.

"I'm saying, I want him dead." Her voice was no longer small. It was steady, controlling.

The pit beneath them seemed to yawn wider, as if urging him to fall—fall into the weight of this truth, this impossible confession. He pulled himself backwards from the edge as if he was about to stand. He knew her too well, and she waited patiently until he could refute.

Nay...

"I see the way you're looking at me," she murmured, eyes again back to the chasm. "Like I've lost my mind."

He parted his lips, but no sound came. He wanted to say it out loud. Have you?

"I haven't. Do you think me cruel for this?"

Aden's mind reeled. Nay stopped probing into it and allowed herself the struggle to wait for his words to reach her on his own. Nay, this isn't you.

"Isn't it?" She shifted, pulling one knee up and wrapping her arms around it. "How much do we change before we become someone else? I don't think I've changed at all, Aden. I think this has always been in me. I simply never had the reason before now."

Her words seemed to strike him like a blow. She understood. He had seen the shed of blood, witnessed the absent mercy of violence firsthand before he knew safety here. It shook him the way it should

Nay, you don't—

"I do. I know what I'm saying."

Then why—

"BECAUSE HE DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE ALIVE WHEN MY FATHER ISN'T!" her voice echoed. "Because he ran, because he left him to die, because he is breathing and my father is not." The tears gave way, cascading down her face.

Aden had flinched at the sudden intensity.

She exhaled, hands gripping her arms. When she spoke again, her voice was gentler. "Tell me you wouldn't feel the same."

Nay watched him, searching for something—recognition, understanding, anything that might signal he saw the world through her eyes. Instead, she saw the war raging behind his heterochromatic eyes, each telling him a different thing, making it too difficult for her to read him beneath his skin. "I don't need you to agree with me, Aden. I only wish for you to understand."

And if I don't?

She had not expected him to speak. The words pierced her like daggers, lodging themselves deep into the hollow of her chest. She held his gaze. And for the first time in all the years he had known her, there was something in his eyes that terrified him of her.

"Then I'll do it alone."

Aden's jaw locked. His shoulders tensed. The sandfall roared louder, the abyss beneath them stretching wider.

I don't think this is right, Emira.

She expected that, expected him to object. She'd faced enough disappointments not to expect anymore in the future. And yet hearing this from him—not as an echo in her mind, but spoken in his voice, cut deeper than she was prepared for.

She had thought he was different.

She wanted to look at him with resentment. She wanted to meet his eyes with cold defiance. But when she raised her face to look at him, when she really looked at him, she couldn't find the energy to summon her fury.

It was his gaze alone, that impossible pairing of blue and green, the way his mismatched eyes held weight beyond their colours, that made anger seem so futile. It was no wonder why no girl had ever rebelled against him for every proposal he'd refused, why none of them raged when he turned down their affections. They only returned to their beds with weeping faces dipped into their pillows, left with nothing but the unbearable knowledge that he wouldn't change his mind. But that was what his heterochromatic eyes were able to do—a definitive power more disarming than telepathy, she once thought, when she understood why her mother urged him into the role of a Welcomist, when all the newbloods he welcomed had found themselves perfectly at home because of him.

She wanted to allow herself to seethe in her discontent, but his blue and green eyes were putting out all the fire inside her.

I'm glad you think I'm putting out fire, because it needs to be put out.

"I'm the Preceptress' daughter and by extension, I am part of the Cabinet. My will is my own. I am free to follow my own decisions."

Decisions? Or impulsions?

Nay tightened her eyes shut, as if closing them would lessen the sting of his words. But they landed like a dagger after dagger. "I wanted you to understand."

To defy and betray your mother? Aden thought harshly.

For once, Nay couldn't really distinguish between the colour of both his eyes. The green and blue blurred, his pale face framed by the black strands of his loose hair. His lips, pressed into something between a grimace and a frown, left his mind to speak where his voice would not.

Forgive me, Emira. But, I think I understand your mother more than I do you.

Dagger after dagger.

She inhaled sharply, feeling the chill of his words settle into her bones. Her mother—he saw her as the reasonable one. The one who was right. The one to be understood. Aden Keefe, who had stood beside her for more than three years had chosen his side, only it wasn't hers.

Vengeance will not—

"Do not tell me it won't bring me peace," she snapped. "I have tried all these years telling myself the same and my soul has only turned heavier and heavier."

Behind her closed eyes, she begged for a way inside his Frayed mind, to unscramble what his heart said. But the only words that played in her head were, "vengeance will not bring you peace."

What do you hope to accomplish when you find this boy, Emira? There is nothing you can do to bring your father back. I know how it feels because I lost people of my own too.

Silence stretched between them. "You sound just like her," she murmured, though she wasn't sure if it was an accusation or resignation.

Aden hesitated. Because she is right.

Nay's jaw clenched. She couldn't look at him anymore. She did not need to argue, did not have to fight back. She tried and the inevitable came. He couldn't make her understand. He could never understand. Because it had not been his father's body left for the Sandstalkers. It had not been his world that was broken beyond repair. And no matter how much she wished it, his eyes—those wretched, beautiful eyes—could not unmake her resolve.

She heard the rustle of his foot, and she turned immediately. He was turning to leave, and she met his eyes unwillingly yet again. Her mother had the same expression. Trepidatious. Grievous. Like he was watching death. Perhaps I truly have died.

Aden shook his head. I don't resent you, Emira. I care for you enough to beg you to let go. And I care for you enough that I will let you go too. I do not wish to be another burden you have to pull while you carry your own grief. His lips parted, as if to say something. You live amongst thousands of us who have seen death and blood. We have all lost fragments of our hearts away with everyone we've lost. We all look up to you, Emira. Do not give them a reason not to anymore.

Nay watched him with frustrating disbelief. "I hope you never find yourself in my place," she said, voice quieter now, yet colder. "Because when you do, I hope you remember this moment. And I hope you remember what you told me."

"I won't. Because I have lost more than you will ever know, and I have never succumbed myself to revenge." He was standing there clinging to his arms like he was exposed bare and was ashamed of himself. How dare he? How could he be right and still look like he made a mistake?

She did not know what to feel anymore. Before she could think of something to say, she realized he had said his last to turn away and leave.

"Where are you going?" her voice cracked, rising from the edge of the chasm.

Somewhere else.

She did not follow.

And he did not look back.

___ _______________ ___

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