"In the sunlight, a hundred torches have warmth. But in the darkness and shadow, a single torch has POWER."

-Bemont proverb

244 YT, Spring, Morning: The Reaper Monastery, Kivv

Hilda awoke with a bunch of blanket clutched in her hands, tucked into her chest, her head bent forward, and she felt strangely cold. The familiar source of warmth – familiar, already? – was no longer beside her. Slowly, Hilda raised her head and blinked sand from her eyes.

She put her fingers to her face, then glanced down at the sheets. The salty “sand” of sleep was mixed with very real sand, Desert sand – only a few grains of it but unmistakable and gritty against her skin where she lay.

Across the room, Lucian sat by the window, his back to Hilda, all shoulderblades and old bruises and beautiful sunlight-scars. Slowly she shifted and swung her feet onto the floor. It was so cold on her feet, and as she crossed the room Hilda felt the hairs of her arms stand on end. Wrapped in a blanket she slid onto the chair behind him. At the sound of her approach Lucian turned.

“I’m sorry,” Hilda muttered, and Lucian blinked, confusion in his expression.

“Sorry for what?”

She didn’t know exactly why. But the weight of it was like lead in her chest. “I… I feel like I’m just using you. Was this a mistake?”

“What makes you say that?”

“I just…” Hilda sighed quietly. “I don’t know. I’m just doubting myself. Wondering if I just wanted to use you to fill some kind of void –“

“Well,” Lucian drawled, smirking.

She snorted. “Oh, quiet.” She smiled for a moment, like you were just there and convenient, but I don’t think so, I don’t want to feel that way, but…”

“Sounds like you’re worrying too much about the why and not enough about the what,” Lucian whispered, close to Hilda’s ear. A chill ran down her spine. “You’re uncertain of yourself. So are we all. You don’t have to be afraid to share that with the people who care about you. Do you trust me?”

“Obviously,” Hilda said, a little annoyed at the implication of mistrust. She glanced out the window. Sunlight was streaming in through the window, bright, casting rays across the apartment. She briefly felt self-conscious, as though someone could have caught a glimpse of her and Lucian through the window. But they were so high up and no one was out there, anyway

“Well, I trust you.” Lucian smiled. “You’ve… you’ve been there for me ever since you came to Kivv. And you remembered me, even from when we were younger and I was just wandering the streets making all the people wonder if I was some stray vagabond from beyond the north mountains. I trust you.” His smile turned to a smirk and he said, “So if you trust me, you have to trust you. When you doubt yourself like that you’re just taking the worst interpretation of yourself, and assuming it’s the right one. But that’s not right.”

“But I just…” Hilda chuckled. “I…”

Her breath stuck in her throat. How could such a simple thing be so difficult to say?

“I always feel like I have something to prove, you know?” She laughed again, though the laugh was almost half a sob. “Like if I just…” Her grip on Lucian’s hand was so tight she feared she might hurt him. “Like this means I’m real. And I’m strong, I can stand on my own, I’m not a –“

“Not a child,” Lucian said. “I know.”

Hilda’s cheeks went red with heat. “Did I say those things out loud…”

He grunted. “You have nothing to be ashamed of, Hilda.” When he said that his eyes went distant again, and his mouth became a worried line. “No matter how people see you, you’re strong. And you can stand on your own. But you don’t have to. No one can stand on their own forever, after all – for a time, yeah. For a long time, maybe. But…” He sighed. “I see you in the city and I hear the way you talk about the future and it’s like you think you have to hold others up but you don’t deserve to have any support in turn.”

“I don’t think that –“ Hilda protested, but Lucian cut her off and continued.

“You want people to see you as strong, and they should, but why do you want that? So that everyone else can rely on you?” Lucian leaned forward, hands on her shoulders, and Hilda leaned into the hug. “It’s not wrong to want it both ways, you know. What are we, after all, if not a bundle of contradictions?”

Hilda laughed – a bit forced, she had to admit to herself, but it felt good. “Thanks,” she muttered. Then, “You know that I… I l…”

“Yeah.” As Hilda pulled back a bit to look Lucian in the eyes, Lucian nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

There was sand under his eye.

Hilda reached up with a finger and gently, ever so gently, brushed away the grain of sand. It was rough, rough like the desert. “Sorry about that stuff,” she muttered. “I think I might have used a bit of magic…”

His expression was soft at that, soft and kind. “It’s fine,” he said. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“Zil-Antonin is your teacher too, isn’t he?” Hilda said, a curiosity taking root. “Then you’d have to have been learning from him at the same time I was an Aspirant.”

Slowly, Lucian nodded. “He taught me to fight, taught me a lot about the world.”

“But you’re not Mirshal? Why?”

“I didn’t have the right aptitudes for a Reaper or a Sower, at least that’s what he said.” Lucian shrugged. “But he was still willing to teach me a little bit. He took me under his wing when nobody else would. You know, without him I probably really would have ended up just some stray vagabond. I mean, I’m sure somebody would have helped, but… he’s the one who did.” His eyes, they were still distant, but he spoke in the manner of one who holds tight to something long buried, but longs to release it. The manner of a secret-keeper at the edge of sharing that secret, in confidence. There was a distinctive excitableness to the way he spoke, in spite of the heaviness of his words and in his voice.

“But what are those aptitudes?” Hilda asked, though she knew well enough for her own part.

“Well, you’d know better than I would, being a Reaper yourself…” That was evasive, but only instinctually. Hilda couldn’t hold that part against him. He… he wanted to tell the truth, whatever it was, he’d decided. She could feel that. But it was hard to say it directly. He’d require a little coaxing.

Hilda felt a twinge of guilt. This magic… how manipulative could it be?

But he needed this, and she needed it too.

“I’m trying to understand,” Hilda said, serious-toned. “What are you to him?”

There was a long pause before Lucian spoke again.

“Hilda, do you trust me?”

“Obviously.”

Outside, a falcon wheeled past the window, hunting mice in the fields just inside the wall.

“What I’m about to say can’t leave this room, Hilda. Do you understand that?”

“I understand.” And she did, and in that moment she couldn’t imagine ever betraying this trust, whatever it was she was about to learn.

“What does it mean to you to be a Hunter?”