Alya Varkus kept her face turned sideways, the sharp sting of Nyra's slap lingering on her flushed cheek.
Her chest heaved as she gasped for air. Her panicked gaze shot up from the dirt, locking onto Damon's face before whipping to Cythera, and finally to Nyra.
A raw, piercing scream tore from her throat. "Leave me be!"
She scrambled backward, her legs wobbling against the uneven ground. Her trembling hand flew to her midsection, fingers clawing frantically at the fabric of her shirt.
Looking down at the spot where the glowing golden sphere had just vanished beneath her skin, she whispered, "I'm alive."
Then, her eyes locked onto the three people standing in front of her. "How am I alive?!"
None of them answered. The clearing swallowed her voice, leaving only the heavy, rhythmic hum of the wind through the trees. A few paces away, hidden behind the thick trunk of a scarred tree, Klaven watched through a gap in the brush, barely able to breathe.
The guilt was a heavy weight on his chest, nearly bringing him to his knees as the realization of what he had done fully hit him. He pulled his shoulders inward, shrinking from the sight of her feverish, broken movements as she desperately tried to pull herself together.
Pure shame fought with fear in his chest.
Inside the clearing, Alya's survival instinct misfired again. Still hyperventilating, she lunged downward, her fingers sweeping through the wet dirt to claw for another jagged piece of scrap metal.
Damon didn't even blink. He flicked his wrist, unleashing a sharp gust of wind that roared across the ground, sweeping the remaining metal shards and shattered chassis completely out of her reach.
Princess Alya's breath hitched. She snapped her head back toward Damon, her eyes flaring with gold-red light.
She tried to move, but a vertical cuboid of light erupted from the ground, locking her inside. Alya slammed her fists against the transparent, glowing walls.
"LET ME OUT!"
Nyra crossed her arms, her brow furrowing deep. "What's wrong with her? Madness isn't supposed to be a symptom."
Cythera stepped closer to Damon, watching the golden pulses slowly fade beneath the princess's mid-section. "Hey, Damon. You're meant to calm her down. The seal on her core is going to break if she keeps this up."
Damon didn't rush. His boots crunched on the scorched grass as he walked to the edge of the glowing boundary. Inside, Alya was losing control, hammering the light, screaming over the wind.
He stood entirely still, watching her erratic movements. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes, but he could see this wasn't madness.
"No, it won't," Damon said, his voice dropping. He exhaled sharply and pointed a thumb back at Alya. "There's no emotional fallout strong enough to break the seal. She's not even angry. She looks disappointed. I doubt she's even claustrophobic right now."
Cythera tilted her head. "And how exactly do you know that?"
"She said she's alive. Twice." Damon didn't break eye contact with the sobbing girl inside the box. "The first time was shock. The second time? Look at her. She's not afraid. She's disappointed she survived. She's acting completely different from when I saved her the first time. She's even desperate to grab something sharp."
Nyra and Cythera went quiet as the weight of his words settled over the clearing. The princess wanted to die.
Cythera glanced toward the bushes. Klaven was staring wide-eyed at the prison, his face pale. Meeting her sharp gaze, he shrank further behind the thick tree trunk, staring down at his filthy boots.
Inside the barrier, Alya's energy drained instantly. She stopped thrashing and collapsed to the dirt, burying her face in her arms. She briefly looked up, staring blankly at her palms as if unplugged from reality, before hiding her face with a broken cry.
Nyra took a step back, whispering, "What's—"
"I can't take it anymore." Alya's shoulders trembled, her voice a faint breath buried under the wind.
Damon's ears perked. His deadpan expression vanished as he leaned closer to the glowing cuboid. "What did you say, Alya?"
"I said I can't take it anymore!" she wept, snapping her head up. "When it was gone… when I didn't have my core, I felt absolutely nothing. It was perfect. It was peaceful."
Damon stared down through the translucent light. He looked at the piece of metal she had clutched earlier, a sudden memory flashing of her holding it to her neck.
"Why do you want to kill yourself, Alya?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Her tear-stained face flushed with a desperate heat. "I know you choose to avoid people, Damon. But I want to interact. And I can't."
She squeezed her eyes shut, fresh tears escaping. "My parents tread so lightly around me because of a gift I never asked for. I never wanted to take cores without loving the owners! If one tree dies in a field, no one notices. If one star disappears from the sky, not a single soul realizes it. If I—"
"That might be true." Damon cut her off smoothly. He stepped right through the cuboid as if passing through golden water.
Alya's breath hitched, staring up.
"But look at it this way," Damon continued, gesturing to the ground. "If you pull a single grain of sand from the earth, the others still shift. They're disturbed. The fact that your parents walk on eggshells means I was wrong about them. It means they care. Do you have any idea how cruel it is to break yourself when they are trying so hard to keep you together?"
Alya flinched, her lower lip trembling. "But I never asked them to put the cores in me."
"I'm not defending them," Damon said evenly, dropping his hands into his pockets. "I'm speaking from experience. Parents have to make logical choices, Alya. It doesn't mean those choices are easy. It just means they have to be done."
Alya sniffled, looking at him with a mix of awe and profound exhaustion. "Have you..." She wiped a tear away, her voice softening. "Have you ever actually felt like ending it, Damon? Because if you haven't, you have no right to talk to me like you understand."
A memory warped in Damon's mind. He remembered the suffocating silence of his Earth bedroom.
The ring gifted to him burned against his bones until he yanked it off. It clinked across the table, rolling straight for the open window. He lunged, catching it at the absolute edge. Freezing above the abyss of blurred city lights, almost falling from there himself.
"No," Damon said bluntly, as he snapped to the present. "But when my life was falling apart, there were several times I fully thought I would die."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because I care," Damon said. "I care about others. If I died, I knew those who cared about me at the time wouldn't like it. If I had just given up and died, I would have never found out that my mother was actually alive. If I died, I wouldn't be standing here today to talk to you."
He let out a short, heavy sigh.
"I didn't choose to have my father's core, but it had to happen. I didn't choose to be a Chosen One— at least not at first, but it had to happen. I realize now that this kind of power has its own costs, and I'm paying it every single day. Even while talking right now, I feel like I'm about to have a purge."
Nyra's breath hitched, her gaze darting to her brother. Inside the box, Alya looked up, her golden-red eyes tracing his face.
"I didn't save you because I care about you, or because of some noble heroic scheme," Damon said flatly. "I saved you because you are the Princess of Sunspire. If you die on my watch, my family takes the blame. Your parents wouldn't hear reason. Understand?"
Outside the perimeter, Nyra leaned toward Cythera, whispering urgently, "Why is he debating life or death with her right now? He said he feels a purge coming!"
Cythera didn't look away from the cuboid, a faint, sharp smile touching her lips. "Because your brother is quite brilliant, Nyra. He's doing two things at once."
"What do you mean?"
"One, he's dismantling her floppy logic," Cythera murmured. "But more importantly, he's keeping her talking. He's distracting her from the fact that she just crawled back from the dead. If she stops to process the trauma, the emotional shock will shatter that core seal. Distracting her from her trauma—"
"By burning through her adrenaline," Nyra's eyes lit up, cutting off Cythera shortly.
"Exactly," Cythera nodded.
Inside the cuboid, Damon leaned closer to the trembling princess. His tone softening slightly, "I understand you feel like you can't take it anymore. Living for other people kinda sounds like a prison sentence. But at the end of the day you've got two choices. You can leave permanently, and force the people who love you to a lifetime of grief. Or you can stick around, give them a lifetime of joy. If you truly loved them that I don't see how that happiness wouldn't rub off on you.
Alya looked down at her lap. Her breathing was finally slowing, dropping into a steady, rhythmic pattern.
"Have you even tried to grow physically stronger?" Damon asked.
Alya stayed silent, slowly shaking her head.
"No. So you've still got options," Damon said. "If you train your body, your parents can release the seal on your core and a purge wouldn't hurt so bad. Dying is just the easy way out. It's foolish not to try. But do you know what's worse than a fool, Princess? A coward."
The word hit her like a physical blow. Her silence fractured, her gaze snapping back up to him, sharp with sudden hurt.
"Think about it," Damon said quietly. "This is coming from someone who deals with your exact reality every single day." His blue eyes darkened, clouded by an old memory. "You complain that your family tiptoes around you. There was a time I would have given anything—absolutely anything—just to have my family around at all."
Alya stared at him, her chest completely still. The frantic panic in her expression slowly melted, replaced by a quiet, searching warmth.
"You might be right," she whispered, her gaze lingering on his face. "But you have chances I'll never get. You think they're worthless, but I can't actually live, Damon. I can only survive. There are things I want to do with my life... but I can't."
Damon let out a dry, deadpan groan. "Are you seriously bringing that up again?"
Alya tilted her head, her curiosity piqued.
"You have a chance to train your body without pain," Damon said, ticking the points off bluntly. "No fear of a purge. No watching the light die in your mother's eyes because she knows your training is hurting you. You can grow for free, Alya. I can't. I just gave you the exact blueprint to do the things you actually want to do. Grow physically."
He rubbed the back of his neck, his tone sharpening with annoyance. "Look, this might sound weird to you, but I am terrible at the things I want to be good at, and perfect at the things I don't but absolutely must care about.."
"Like what?" Alya asked, her voice quiet and calm.
"Like what? Earth things. I doubt you'll get it." Damon offered a small, wry smile. "Before my mom died faked her death, I wanted to get better at drums. I was good at chess, but I wanted to get better at console games. Basketball, too, if you even know what that is. I wanted an internship. A simple life with enough money to buy tickets to every single one of my girlfriend's games. I didn't want much and what I did want wasn't complicated at all. If you think strength is a privilege, you're wrong, Princess. It's a responsibility."
He exhaled slowly. "Now? Now I have to master tactical thinking and killing, even though I don't want this power for myself. I don't hate my abilities—they're pretty cool actually—but I have to use them for others. I don't exactly walk around with weird pride but, I am perfectly selfless for those I care about and that is my imperfection. I suggest you adopt it."
Alya watched him for a long, quiet moment. The golden glow in her eyes softened. A faint smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.
"Now you're just lying," she said softly.
Damon raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
"You said you didn't save me because you cared," Alya said, a challenging spark in her voice as she leaned closer to the barrier, a youthful warmth returning to her face. "But why did you rescue me in class? The exact second I revealed who I was?"
Damon sighed heavily, dragging a hand down his face. With a flick of his wrist, he dissolved the cuboid of light and turned on his heel.
"I'm resisting a purge right now, Alya. I am not in the mood for an interrogation. I'm glad you're okay though. Now, we need to find Doran and—"
"Answer the question, Prince Damon."
"Fine. In that moment, I wasn't exactly thinking 'Oh my god I have to save the princess,'" Damon admitted, looking away for a split second as he calculated his own past actions. "I was thinking I needed Doran to follow me — his secondary target — so Cythera, Mirea, and Lior could be safe, and with any luck, they'd help me go check on my sister to see if she was safe and then check on Rika."
Nyra's eyes widened slightly, a soft smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
Damon paused, his deadpan expression returning as the raw math of his own memory hit him. He looked back at Alya, completely stunned by his own realization.
"Hm. So now that I actually think about it… I even put you before my own sister. I went through all that trouble to save you, and now you wanna kill yourself? Yeah. No way."
Alya's eyes brightened, a soft, distinct flush rising to her cheeks as she kept her gaze locked squarely on him.
"I wouldn't say I don't care about you," Damon muttered, clearing his throat as he awkwardly looked away from her intense stare. "I'm just saying that, in that exact moment, my care for you wasn't exactly the fuel for my actions. Point is, live for others till you find a reason to live for yourself. Are you satisfied now?"
Suddenly—
High above the clearing, a sudden shift in the wind drew every eye toward the canopy. Queen Thessa descended like a localized storm.
She landed softly on the cratered earth, flanked by Hazel and Draven. Draven's white hair whipped wildly in the wind, his pendant catching the midday sun.
He glanced around, thinking, 'Wow... This should be interesting.'
Thessa swept her gaze across the battlefield, marking the scorched grass, the ruined robot chassis, and the trembling Princess of Sunspire.
Without a word, the Queen walked straight to Damon and Nyra. Her strict, regal posture dissolved as she pulled both of them into a tight embrace. Enveloped in her scent, the heavy tension finally drained from the siblings' shoulders.
Releasing them, Thessa checked their faces for injuries before looking over at Cythera, who was already mid-bow.
"You can stand up, Cythera," Thessa said softly.
Cythera rose, keeping her posture respectful. Without even glancing toward the bushes, Thessa spoke, her voice cutting through the quiet clearing. "Klaven Voren. Out. Now."
Behind the tree trunk, Klaven froze. He didn't dare hesitate. Trembling, he stepped into the open. Alya's breath hitched at the sight of him but the Queen's sheer presence kept everyone anchored.
Thessa exhaled a long breath of relief. "I'm proud of you both. More importantly, I'm glad you're safe." She reached out, her thumb gently wiping a smudge of dirt from Nyra's cheek. "Though I admit, I don't entirely understand what happened here, but it seems you children have sorted it out. Did I come here for no reason? Hm?"
As she spoke, a tiny white blur tumbled out from the thick tresses of the Queen's silvery hair. Daichi, in his miniature dog form, let out a soft yip and dropped perfectly into Damon's open palm.
'Good boy,' Damon praise mentally.
'Told ya,' Daichi shot back. 'With a piece of meat, I can do anything.'
Damon chuckled, ruffling the dog's fur.
Hazel flew over to Nyra, hovering around her shoulders to fuss over her for scratches before darting toward Damon to do the same. Queen Thessa clasped her hands, her unyielding gaze settling squarely on her son.
"So, Damon..." A faint, knowing smile touched her lips. "Which of you is going to tell me exactly what happened here?"