Harper's lifeless body lie on the floor, lifeless and still. The dagger on his chest remained there, with blood dripping down.
He had seen death before. More than most people his age, and more than he had intended. The First Nightmare had made sure of that. The Forgotten Shore had continued the education.
By now, he had killed things, watched things die, and held things while they finished dying — and each time the mechanism of his mind had found some way to process it cleanly and move forward.
This was different.
He didn't know exactly why. Maybe it was the room. The rotting wood walls, the smell of cheap alcohol soaked into the seaweed floor, the single lantern throwing everything into poor light. The circumstances made it feel less like death and more like something terrible had happened — not in battle, not with ceremony, not even with much noise.
He stood there and let himself look at Harper's face. The pale, thin face he had seen in the town hall, the dull eyes that had watched everyone who passed through the castle gates.
In the last moment those eyes had been open, what had they been doing?
Begging, maybe. Or just confused. Asking the kind of question that had already sealed his fate.
Leon had no answer for that.
He looked at Sunny, who hesitated while speaking to Caster.
Sunny was wiping his hands on the dried seaweed. The motion was slow, deliberate — not cleaning, exactly. More like the motion of a person who needed something to do with their hands while their mind was somewhere else entirely.
Leon listened into the conversation.
"Killed the... why did you kill him?"
Caster exclaimed.
Sunny stood up. The shrug he gave was almost convincing.
"He was asking too many questions."
Leon thought about that.
He thought back to when Noah told him that Sunny's flaw was basically a death sentence to him. He did not know what kind of secrets Sunny hid to make his flaw so bad for him.
Harper had worked the Bright Hall for years. He knew how to read people. He had been Gunlaug's informant — which meant he was good at it.
Looking at the alcohol, Leon guessed why Sunny was forced to kill Harper. Leon looked at the body and completed the logic. He had put Sunny in the corner where the only exit was death.
Leon frowned.
Caster spoke again, his tone calm and forward.
"Do you have any proof of that?"
Sunny glared at him and raised an eyebrow.
"...Is my word not proof enough?"
Sunny glanced at Leon — perhaps for the tenth time now.
He of all people knew how powerful that sense was. Even if he had zeroed his thoughts, he would not remain unnoticeable to Sunny.
Leon could recognize the question in those eyes. Or perhaps the statement.
I know you're there and I need to know what you're going to do with what you're seeing.
Sunny's breathing grew uneven as he clenched his fists.
"Do you not believe me?"
He had directed that question to Caster. But Leon knew it. He knew Sunny was indirectly asking Leon if he trusted him.
Looking into Sunny's eyes he saw his emotions.
Guilt
Anger
Embarrassment
And underneath all three, barely visible, the question: do you still trust me.
Leon lowered his eyes.
There was no right or wrong in this world.
Simply things that happened in your favor and not in it.
Leon gritted his teeth. His thoughts were weak. Was he lying to himself just to justify Sunny's actions?
Did he truly believe that there was no good or evil?
Caster spoke up again.
"No, I believe you. Actually I suspected this kid myself. That's why I came here after hearing that the two of you were seen going somewhere together. But, Sunny... the others... the others might not think the same."
Sunny darted his eyes in the direction of Leon, and slowly looked back at Caster.
Caster smelled the air and grimaced.
"I am sorry to say that, but you have a reputation for having a bad temper. With alcohol added into the mix and no proof to connect Harper to the Castle… you can see how this does not look good."
Sunny grimaced.
"So what are you going to do about it?"
Caster leaned closer to Sunny, as he put his hands over Sunny's shoulders, and smiled. The smile was bright, yet Leon found it utterly disgusting.
"We cannot let Lady Nephis know about this. But there is a way to solve this."
Leon grimaced.
'There it is...'
Caster was trying to play Sunny. He wanted to use Harper's death as blackmail.
He clenched his fist as a tide of anger surged through him.
Caster sighed as he showed a sad expression to Sunny.
"You already know how troublesome your old friend Leonar has been recently. Storming the castle, beating up Harus." He spread his hands slightly. "Surely, if we add killing an informant to the list, he wouldn't mind right?"
Sunny gritted his teeth.
"You're asking me to betray Leon."
Caster shook his head.
"Sunny, that's not it."
"I'm asking you to protect Lady Nephis." Caster removed his hands from Sunny's shoulders, looked at Harper's body, and arranged his expression into something sorrowful. "You know how bad this looks, Sunny. If it comes out the wrong way..."
Leon stood in the doorway and thought about what it meant to be a murderer.
He had killed Aurelia. In the First Nightmare. He had beaten her with a rock until his hands gave out and then held her while she died, and the Spell had issued a kill notification for it, and he had carried it forward into every moment since.
He had told himself various things about it over the months. That she wasn't real. That it was the Nightmare. That he'd had no choice. That she had attacked him first. All of those things were true and none of them were the point.
The point was that the memory of it was still there, and whenever he tried to look at it directly it looked back.
So.
Was Sunny a murderer?
Yes.
Was Harper innocent?
No.
Did the second answer cancel the first?
He stood in the doorway of a rotting hut on the Forgotten Shore and genuinely tried to work out if there was a clean moral architecture that resolved this situation, and found that there wasn't.
Every direction he turned the question, it came back with the same answer: something was broken here and nothing could fix it.
His mind went somewhere unexpected.
***
He had read a story once. Something the woman at the orphanage had given him from a thick book with a cracked spine. The pages were yellow. He'd read it in the corner of the playroom while the other children were running around and shouting.
The story was about a man named Orestes.
Orestes had killed his own mother. Not a stranger. Not an enemy in battle, but his own mother.
He had done it because she had killed his father, and in the logic of the world he lived in, that made it necessary. But the Furies — Greek goddesses of justice and revenge — did not care about necessity. They pursued him for the act itself, not the reasons behind it.
He was put on trial.
Most people who had known Orestes said nothing. To stand beside a man who had killed his own mother was to be stained by it.
Association was liability.
The safe move was silence, or careful distance. Look the other way, and wash your hands. Ignorance is bliss.
Orestes's closest friend was a man named Pylades.
Pylades had been silent through most of the trial. When the moment came, when the judgment was about to fall — he was asked what he thought.
The expectation was that he would distance himself. That he would say something diplomatic. That he would find the words that preserved his own standing while leaving Orestes to the verdict.
Pylades said: "What then shall I do with the rest of my life, if I abandon him now?"
Not: "He is innocent."
Not: "I agree with what he did."
Just: "This is my friend. I don't know how to be a person who walks away from that."
The trial ended. The Furies were eventually quieted. Orestes and Pylades walked out together.
Leon had read that story in the corner of the playroom and not fully understood it. He was maybe six or seven. He had thought the interesting part was the Furies.
He understood it now.
***
Caster was still talking.
"Lady Nephis doesn't need this complication. You know what she's trying to build here. One wrong move and the entire settlement—"
Sunny's eyes were aimed at the floor and his fists were closed at his sides.
He looked like someone standing at the edge of something.
"I heard you the first time," Sunny said.
"Then tell me, Sunny. What do you think?"
That's when Leon's voice echoed through the hut.
"It's not that bad, Caster."
Caster suddenly widened his eyes as he saw Leon standing near the doorframe. Sunny also noticed Leon as he frowned slightly.
"Leonar. What are you—"
Before Caster could finish, Leon continued.
"You think just because someone is dead, everything will change?"
He leaned closer to Caster as he locked eyes with him.
Leon's expression grew darker as he continued.
"Go on. Tell your Lady Nephis and see what happens."
Smiling a dark smile, Leon continued.
"You think Sunny is some pushover?"
Caster grimaced.
"Leonar, you're twisting things out of context."
He looked at Sunny then.
Sunny was watching him with an expression he couldn't entirely read. Something between gratitude and discomfort.
"Harper was a spy," Leon said. "He was going to get someone killed eventually. Probably multiple people." He paused. "It doesn't make this good. But it makes it what it is."
Caster sighed, as his jaw tightened.
"This not that easy, Leona—"
Leon lunged at Caster, as he swept his leg below Caster's waist.
Caster was caught by surprise as his balance shifted and he began falling.
Leon knew Caster's aspect needed him to use his legs, so he immobilized that. Grabbing Caster's neck, Leon activated his innate ability, increasing his strength.
The muscles in his hand tensed as Leon simply grabbed Caster and threw him like a ragdoll, outside the hut.
Right before Caster hit the ground, Birdie flew down from the dark sky and pinned him down.
"You bastard! What are you—"
Caster's voice cut off the moment he felt the weight of the bird above him. He went very still. Birdie's crimson eyes looked down at him.
The sudden commotion attracted attention. Many people got out of their huts and surrounded Harper's hut.
Within thirty seconds, a crowd had formed in the way that crowds always formed when something wrong was happening — cautiously at first, then with increasing density, drawn by the noise. As crowds always did, no one talked. No one moved. They just watched.
Sunny's body grew stiff as he watched Leon throw Caster around. But most importantly, he had noticed Leon's shadow disappear and reappear.
Before he could retort, Leon entered the hut, and grabbed onto Harper's lifeless body.
Sunny's thoughts grew chaotic as he wanted to stop Leon. He did not want everyone to know what transpired, but as the crowd grew, he was powerless to stop it.
A dark thought took shape in Sunny's mind as he locked his gaze onto Leon.
Leon gripped onto Harper's clothes and pulled it.
He dragged Harper's body and threw it onto the pavement in front of his house, for everyone to see.
***
The crowd watched him emerge. Birdie was still pinning Caster to the ground. The outer settlement sprawled behind all of them in its unusual aliveness — the lanterns, the low voices, the smell of food from somewhere, the life that Nephis had assembled here piece by piece, which was now watching the silver-haired young man drag a body through a doorway.
Leon dropped Harper's body onto the open ground.
Caster slightly widened his eyes as he saw Leon's expression grow indifferent and cold.
Leon then gripped the dagger pierced to Harper's heart and slowly dragged it out.
His hand wanted to hesitate, but Leon had already decided on what he had to do next. How he would save Sunny from this mess.
He held the dagger up so the crowd could see it.
"This!"
He spoke in a loud tone, clutching the dagger.
"Is what happens to traitors around here."
Everyone's expression grew tense, as they all looked at Harper's corpse, and then back at Leon, whose face was covered in a small streak of blood when he took the dagger out.
"Changing Star."
He paused again, so that his words carried weight.
"Is too weak."
He dropped the dagger to the ground as he tilted his head slightly.
Right then, he noticed Nephis rush through the crowd and entered the small clearing where Birdie was pinning Caster to the ground, and Leon was standing next a young man's body.
Leon looked at Nephis with a cold look and spoke.
"She is too soft."
Sunny opened his mouth to speak something, but was interrupted by Leon.
"I killed him, and I can kill you."
Leon said in a dark tone.
He then smiled and he wiped the blood off of his face.
"So please behave."
Sunny froze as he heard Leon tell everyone that he had killed Harper. The dark thoughts in his mind immediately vanished as his mouth gaped open.
Leon had defended him, even after he had murdered someone....
Without even asking Sunny why he killed someone, Leon just went ahead and covered for him. No, he took the blame.
Leon looked down at Harper as his smile disappeared.
After spending time with his friends once again, he realized the gap between them. He noticed everyone's growth both emotionally and physically. Leon had simply remained the same overconfident brute.
His emotions were always spiking and dropping, even with constant meditation. Leon failed to control his emotions, or rather he did not bother to.
Without fear, he just did everything without hesitation.
Nephis looked at Leon.
He looked back at her.
Her expression was controlled — as usual. Somewhere behind the grey eyes there was a fire that she was managing.
Nephis walked over, and grabbed Leon's arm. She then entered the hut, dragging him along.
***
Nephis closed what remained of the door.
Her grip on his arm was tight enough that he could feel it through the armor. Her face was close enough that he could see what it cost her to keep her voice level.
She looked at Sunny.
"Sunny."
Sunny flinched. He was pulled out of his thoughts, as he summoned the [Broodmother's Chorus].
He played a short note, and then gave a subtle nod.
The sound dropped. Whatever ears had been outside were now hearing nothing.
Nephis gritted her teeth.
"What are you doing, Leon?"
Leon looked at her gaze.
Her grip on his arm tightened.
"Answer me."
Leon's eye twitched.
'Again. She's ordering me again.'
"Why do I need to tell you?"
Nephis flinched.
"I don't know what you thought you were accomplishing."
"I was preventing something worse."
"By threatening everyone?"
Her voice was soft, yet cold.
"By controlling what story they heard."
She stared at him.
Leon let out a sharp breath.
"Are we done here? If you trust me—"
"No."
Nephis spoke in a stern voice.
"You don't trust me." Her voice was quieter now. "You've never trusted me. From the first day at the academy, you've been watching. Keeping everything at a distance."
"Everyone keeps things at a distance," Leon said.
"Not like you do." She released his arm, and stepped back slightly.
The firelight through the hut's lamp moved across her face.
"You get yourself nearly killed and you explain it away with a joke. You stand there with blood on your face and you tell the crowd you did it, as if—"
She paused.
"As if consequences don't apply to you."
Leon smiled, without even realizing it.
"They apply," he said. "I just don't weigh them the same way you do."
"The same way I—" She stopped.
He cut her off.
"I heard about your duel, when you arrived. The way you carried the head."
He leaned forward.
"What makes this so different?"
Nephis narrowed her eyes.
"That was a duel. It was necessary justice."
"Justice?"
Leon took a deep breath.
"You kill someone, it's justice. I kill someone, there's a problem?"
Nephis opened her mouth to retort, but closed it soon after.
"No. This isn't about Harper. What do you really want?"
Nephis looked at him for a moment.
"Do you even know what we've been doing here for the past month? While you were gone?"
Leon narrowed his eyes.
'Why? Why am I getting so pissed off?'
"No. Tell me Neph, what have you been doing?"
"I am trying to—"
"To save these people?"
The room went very quiet.
Noah frowned.
"Leon. Think very carefully about what you're going to do next."
"I'm starting to understand what you're trying to do here Neph."
Leon leaned in closer.
"The Spire."
Sunny went very still.
Nephis held his gaze.
Her eyes narrowed fractionally.
"How much do you know," Nephis said.
Leon laughed. There was no humor or warmth in it, and he just laughed.
"I'm not a moron, Nephis. We've all heard Cassie's vision."
"You've already decided how many of them are expendable," Leon said. "You've been deciding that since before you arrived here."
"That's not—"
"The Crimson Spire has a gateway." His voice was quiet. "You kill Gunlaug, take the castle, build an army out of the outer settlement and whoever remains after the cold war. You march them to the Spire. Most of them die. You get through. You go home."
Nephis clenched her fists. She wanted to say something, but couldn't.
"I know about your clan."
He paused, and chuckled.
"Everyone does. You announce it everywhere you go after all."
His gaze grew darker.
"But I think I understood why you're doing all of this."
He watched her face.
"Song," he said. "And Valor."
The room temperature changed ever so slightly.
Noah frowned.
"Leon. Don't."
Nephis had gone completely still.
"How do you know that?"
Leon realized it a while ago. Broken Sword was in a cohort with Song and Valor. Broken Sword died, while Valor and Song were now top clans.
The fact that Noah couldn't tell him about it was proof enough, that everything went deeper.
"Who sent you."
Leon paused.
"What?"
"The great clans have been trying to kill me since before I could walk." Her voice was precise and entirely controlled. Yet he could hear something sad behind it. Something that felt betrayed.
"Who sent you."
Leon looked at her. At the absolute certainty in her face.
He thought about the Labyrinth. The weeks they had spent together. About the tentacle. About every moment between arriving on the Forgotten Shore and this hut.
"Nobody sent me," he said.
Nephis clenched her fists.
She studied him for a long moment.
"You made me trust you."
Leon froze.
The last sentence was quieter than the rest.
But it reminded him.
It reminded him of someone, who had the exact same words. The words he never wanted to hear.
He remembered the rock he had been swinging. The way he was trying to kill Aurelia back in his First Nightmare.
Leon gritted his teeth.
"I made you trust me?"
Leon's face settled into a dark grin.
"You think you're some sort of Saint?"
Leon shook his head.
"You're a liar. People might be foolish enough to believe you, but I'm not."
Nephis grabbed Leon's cape.
"And you? You think you're any better?"
"Every time you're around, something goes wrong. You ruin everything because of your attitude."
Sunny frowned.
"Neph, stop."
Nephis ignored him. She continued looking Leon in the eye.
"We nearly died so many times because you're so selfish. And I don't know how many times you've used mine, or Cassie, or Sunny's trust."
Leon narrowed his eyes.
"I never asked you to trust me."
Sunny frowned. He wanted to say something. Anything. But the words always died at his throat.
"I am trying, to be a good friend here. I am trying to tell you, that it's not worth it."
Nephis locked eyes with Leon.
"Why do you care, Leon?"
Leon's body froze as he heard her say that.
"What?"
"You really think you're fooling anyone here? I know you care about no one."
She let out a quick breath.
"My goals matter more to me than anything in this world."
"I will do anything to achieve them."
Leon leaned in closer.
"Even kill your friends?"
Nephis grimaced in anger.
"Stop."
"Even if you have to stab Cassie in the chest to achieve your goals?"
Nephis froze.
"I..."
Leon let out a shaky laugh.
"That's what this is," he said. "Isn't it."
His mind was a complete mess. Although he wanted to speak convincing words to Nephis, some part of him stopped caring anymore.
The fire in her eyes was visible now. She wasn't managing it.
"You don't know anything about—"
"You're becoming no different from the ones you want to destroy. You're no different from the people who murdered your father."
Leon said, with a cold gaze.
The sentence landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
His words echoed the hut.
Changing Star's calm demeanor broke.
She took a step forward as Leon's words echoed throughout her head.
He killed someone when she had not asked to.
He storms the castle and causes a huge mess.
He always steps into danger, dragging the others with him.
He never trusted her completely, and yet acted so friendly with her.
He had compared her to the beasts who stole her life.
Flames covered her entire body as she threw her fist at Leon's face.
Leon did not have time to react as the fist connected to his jaw, and he went flying out the hut, destroying it in the process.
She summoned her longsword.
The lying, manipulating, scheming, selfish bastard, would not survive today.
Perhaps, he was, the one sent to kill her.
***
Nephis stepped out of the hut. She gripped the longsword in her hand as she glanced at the giant bird pinning down Caster.
The bird noticed Nephis's hostility, and slowly unruffled its wings. But right then, Leon's hand shot up, commanding Birdie to stay back.
Birdie silently listened.
Leon slowly stood up. He stared down at Nephis as he wiped the blood dripping down his bruised mouth.
He spat out blood as he summoned the Broken Halo, which slowly materialized into the form of a scythe.
Gripping the scythe in his hands, he raised it slowly, pointing it up at Nephis, as she did the same with her sword.
Everyone were in a state of confusion and shock, as by now, it seemed as if every single person from the outer settlement had gathered around them.
The clouds turned gray as rain slowly began pouring down.