It was a sock, of all things, that caused her to break.

Avad’ar was in ruins, smoke from the smoldering buildings visible for miles as they rode towards the remains. The once bustling town had been a hub for the smaller villages in the area and was well-positioned in the fertile valley for the many crops and harvests it produced. All of that was gone; replaced with devastation and death.

Sorin led the group to the center of the former town, instructing some in their party to look for survivors, others to wrangle the wandering farm animals, and a few to help gather the dead. Meira sent a prayer of thanks to the Gods that she was with the first group.

Farren was as effusive as ever, his frown unmoving as he trudged in time with Meira through the remains of the town. He looked different in the blues of the guard; the deep gouge in his shoulder had been lifted, as if the sense of isolation had been shed with the lonely grays. They picked carefully over the pieces of buildings and lives left to waste by the Khaantul Army. Pain hissed through her teeth as a loose stone caught Meira’s foot. Bare feet may be better for connecting to the earth, but it didn’t make this much easier. Farren waited for her nod before continuing on, walking into the hollow building beside them. No survivors.

Every building was the same. Bullet holes and blood; fire and fury. There hadn’t been a chance for the Juri’a to escape the dawn offensive. With every new fatality they found, she wondered why Sorin had brought her. Did he need a healer at all? Or was this emotional assault the next move in their argument from weeks ago?

There was a gnawing quiet where the wielding energy usually sat. It became heavier with every new body they found.

“Hello?” Meira called out to the empty home as she stepped carefully over the threshold.

Each room maintained its silent watch, empty of survivors or victims. Perhaps they were some of the lucky ones in the capital. Using small blasts of air to clear a path for herself through the debris, Meira carefully picked through the space, calling out again with little hope. The building was charred, plaster peeling away from the wooden frame of the structure in wide curls.

Meira walked into the furthest room. The ceiling had caved in under the strike of the new flame rifles the military had been working on. She hated that she knew what they looked like; the glee on the soldier’s faces as they powered them up; the laughs that erupted around camp the first time they had witnessed the shots that arced fifty feet towards the targets. Her own laughs of amazement echoed bitterly in her memory as her toe moved a piece of the desiccated wall that had fallen.

A hand stole her breath. Meira dropped immediately and began uncovering the body, looking for any signs of life. The woman was prone, a deep gash across her head that had been twisted at a sickening angle. She had been crushed by ceiling; a better death than the all-consuming heat of the flames, though a minor consolation. Anger still licked Meira’s ribs as she tried to control its steadily growing presence. Meira could see that the woman had been trying to escape, her final pose reaching for the door.

A dash of orange caught Meira’s eye, clutched in the woman’s other hand under her chest. The fabric had been spared destruction by its keeper’s body, but now her hardened fingers stayed firmly around it. Meira tugged a few more times, unable to leave the item alone. A final pull brought the piece from the woman’s hand to her own. Unfolding it, Meira’s fingers brushed over an impossibly small sock. The tiny stitches were lovingly shaped for a child’s foot with a dark green ribbon running through the top to tie around chubby ankles. Meira’s head rose, glancing around the room for the first time. An overturned cradle lay in the corner, the contemptuous silence surrounding it in a suffocating smog.

The creeping dusk had been replaced with cosmos as Meira’s frantic steps returned her to the street outside. She placed one hand against the scorched doorway and another on her knee as she searched for air her agitated lungs could not find. Misery squeezed against her, tighter than any air wielder’s skill. And the guilt, oh the guilt. Her disillusionment burned hot with fury, while cold despair blew in chilling waves. The war only grew more intense, and she tried to take deeper breaths.

A hand on her hunched shoulder made her squeak in surprise as she launched her body upward. Farren tilted back at the sound, his eyebrows lifting in a silent question. His dark eyes held deep shadows, and the soot under his eyes had clean tracks through it that matched her own watery ones.

“Anything?”

She shook her head. Farren turned and arced an air blast towards the door of the building across the street. A clean mark in the soot stood out. He crossed his first mark to make an X. No survivors. He did the same to the building Meira had cleared. She expected him to tell her they needed to move on; that they had more houses to clear on the long street ahead; that she needed to get moving. All of it was true. None of it would stop the shaking in her legs. When she turned to look up at the air wielder, the man once so intimidating to her, she saw him looking up at the sky above them. A shooting star streaked across the blue.

“Do you know what happens when we die?”

It was the most Farren had ever said to her at one time. Meira thought about the brief lessons she’d had on the subject. It hadn’t been strictly related to wielding so she and the Verena hadn’t spent much time on it.

“You go into the west, into the Ev’arnon.”

“The Sun God leads us west, yes. But the Moon Goddess, she is who watches over us. She gives us a home in her realm, allows us to look down on those we left behind.”

Meira looked up at the swaths of light twinkling above them. Farren’s deep voice rumbled on.

“The Goddess received many new guests tonight.”

***

It was deep into the night before Meira and Farren returned to the horses and carts in the center of the city. The bodies had been carefully extracted and lovingly set onto the carts to take back to Palat’a Virna for the proper rituals. Silence ensconced the group, too tired and wrought for casual words. The few survivors that were found were huddled near the horses, their shock rendering most of Meira’s abilities futile. As she returned from checking on the gangly teen with wide, tortured eyes, she walked past the cart of casualties. They had covered the bodies with as much red cloth as they could find, but the limp green hanging down the side of the cart pulled on Meira’s consciousness. Her steps turned, guiding her back to the arm that had slipped off of the edge of the cart. She carefully returned it, smoothing out the deep emerald sleeve. Her eyes traveled upward, noticing the hastily sewn red patch on the shoulder. Her hand surged to her chest, breath coming out in small stutters.

How much of what she knew had been rewritten? Meira wondered as she pulled herself away from the cart, spinning herself into the darkness. Memories from her years in school clashed with what she was seeing, with the stories she had heard from Sorin, Kirsi, and the others.

“We’re bringing civilization to heathens who should be so glad as to see running water,” one captain had told her unit. How was this civilized? How was this the justice they were always touting in Datran? They talked about how they let the Juri’a and Facillians keep their culture as long as they stayed in line. Let. As if it was theirs to take in the first place.

Meira’s thoughts pushed and stretched within her, ideas that had sprouted as a whisper finally growing into a roar of defiance and indignation. How dare the Empire do this to people.

Her stomping steps mimicked her pounding thoughts. She was aimless, angry strides taking her up the hill overlooking the town. Meira’s thoughts consumed her as the cool darkness welcomed her with kisses to her heated cheeks. Flickering light drew her to the edge of the ridge where she found Sorin sitting silently on a boulder, a small flame dancing in his outstretched palm. Defeat curved the man’s shoulders down and echoed in the light that glowed across his face.

Meira stood next to him silently, watching as his fingers teased the flame in his palm. Curling and twisting, they moved just out of reach of the flame to make it grow higher or wider with his delicate movements. It was the most mellow she had ever seen the aggressive art. And the most tempting.

“This is where I first learned I was a fire wielder,” he said, surprising Meira from her thoughts. She’d assumed everyone knew from birth what they could do. He seemed to follow her train of thought.

“My mother was an earth wielder. My father was a water wielder. You can imagine the fight that ensued when he realized. Turns out my grandfather was a fire wielder.”

His fingers curled in, muting the fire down to a small blue flame.

“One thing you get used to on the border, is the raids. Mom had practiced with me. When you see the Empire coming, go with your sister to the hill. We always did that. Until one time, I didn’t.”

His fingers pulsed slightly, opening and closing around the flame that followed his movements.

“I saw what they did to her in exchange for our safety. I saw what happened when you can’t fight back.”

Meira swallowed, her own realizations paling compared to the trauma of the little boy unhealed before her.

“My sister pulled me away, and we came up here. But I was livid.”

Sorin’s hand opened fully on the last word, the flame erupting with an intensity rivaling his words.

“I burned down a twelve foot tree with the fire blast I made.” Bitter disappointment tinged the nostalgic smile that twisted his lips for a moment. He continued, “I have spent every day since trying to save my people. But I see this destruction and I don’t think I can.”

Meira’s hand rose to his broad shoulder reflexively. There was a fizzle as the flame in Sorin’s hand went out as he turned to look at her. The cool moonlight illuminated the question on his face.

“You’re not in this alone,” she said fervidly, the words feeling more natural than she expected as they tumbled from her lips. Sorin stared, his enigmatic face hidden by more than just moonlight. He turned back to the view before them, letting out a deep, shuddering sigh.

“Why are you here?” His quiet question surprised her, and her hand slipped from its perch. Meira’s instinct to push back flared, but she held it down. It wasn’t as if they had given her a choice. Though the lack of guards and escorts in recent weeks implied she’d passed a test she hadn’t known she was taking.

Sorin continued, “You wield with us, yet you do not take our tattoos. You learn our language but speak of the Empire as your own. You cannot leave Khaantul behind, even in the face of their atrocities.”

Meira canted her body around him, tilting so that he had to look at her as she gripped his shoulder once more.

“They may have started this, but we going to end it.” The ferocity in her voice left no doubt where she now stood. “We are going to find a way to save our people, together.”

His large hand came across his chest to envelop her smaller one. Though no fire glowed, heady warmth swelled between them. Hope peeked from his steady gaze, mirroring the calm glow of her upturned lips. She would need to square with her past some day soon, but it was easier to ignore it for now; to grasp onto the feeling rising within her and leave behind the pieces of herself shattered below.

“Come on, let’s go home,” she said, imagining the warm bath she would wield for herself from the gilded swan in her chambers.

Sorin let her lead the way back to the group below.