Chapter Summary: Turns out that hiding the truth from your friends for years is not a good idea. Who could have thought?
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"I have something to tell you all."
Sunny kept his eyes closed, almost hoping that by doing so, what was about to happen wouldn't.
"What is it?" Rain asked curiously.
Alas, that would have been too easy, and the world certainly didn't like making things easy when it came to him.
"Wait a moment," he requested with a calm he did not feel, opening his eyes at last.
Nephis looked at him, a silent question still present in her gray eyes. He smiled sardonically but said nothing, giving his wordless consent.
A few heartbeats later, a Memory finished forming in his palm. It was a small, beautifully engraved silver bell. His oldest companion, and the one that had saved his life more times than he cared to count.
He stared at it for a moment that felt both too short and too long. Once he rang it, there would be no going back.
And damn his cowardly heart, but he did not want to. He was scared. Scratch that, he was terrified.
Maybe he should stop Nephis? It only took one look into her eyes to know that he only had to ask, and she would. He could wait for a better moment. He didn't need much, just a little longer.
Yes, he should... no.
It would never be enough time, would it? He would always run away until he no longer could.
Sunny stared one final time at the [Silver Bell] before ringing it, recalling the sensation of cold seeping into his bones and manacles binding his wrists so tightly that blood could barely flow.
A faint chime echoed, shrouding their surroundings in a circle of silence.
"Go on," he said with the same faux calm.
They were looking at him. Rain, Kai, Effie, even Cassie with her Aspect. He knew it, but did not dare meet their gazes.
It was easier to stare at the table. That way, he wouldn't have to see the pitying or disgusted stares that were soon to follow. Sunny almost smiled. It had been good while it lasted.
"Did something happen?" Kai asked worriedly.
He didn't have to look up to imagine the archer's concerned expression. He could be quite perceptive, and given the way Nephis and he were acting, alarms must have been going off in his head.
Sunny heard her take a small breath, probably gathering herself before spilling it all.
It was sure to be a surprise. Even the lofty Changing Star could falter and lie.
"There is something we have been hiding from most of you," Nephis said, her tone devoid of emotion.
A brief moment of silence passed as they processed those words. It was broken far too soon, and not in a way he would have liked.
"You're pregnant," Effie said matter-of-factly.
Silence.
Sunny hadn't been drinking anything, so he settled for almost choking on his own saliva. At least he found some comfort in the fact that the others had reacted much the same way.
"What is wrong with you?!" he asked after coughing, raising his eyes to glare at the woman.
Effie, completely nonplussed, just shrugged.
"I mean, you two keep falling asleep together 'accidentally'—" he could practically hear the air quotes "—then there are those heated stares, or how you two keep disappearing for..." She wiggled her eyebrows. "Training."
Sunny refused to acknowledge the horrified stare Rain was giving him, or the quiet mumble that sounded suspiciously like, "I'm too young to be an auntie."
"First of all, they were, in fact, accidental," Nephis replied calmly. Looking at her, one couldn't say she was embarrassed. However, the tilt of her lips, the way she scrunched her brows, and the slight droop of her eyelids told a different story. Also, to be fair, she was blushing. And she refused to look at him. "And when we say that we are going to train, that's exactly what we are doing."
"Notice how she didn't deny the second part?" Cassie said, lightly elbowing Kai.
On whose side was she on!?
Resisting the urge to throw a shadow javelin at Effie, he decided to answer.
"No, Neph is not pregnant," he said, his voice carrying a clear warning about what would happen if she insisted on pursuing that line of thought.
Thankfully, he could always count on Kai to back him up.
"He's telling the truth."
"Aww, I was warming up to the idea of being an aunt," Rain complained.
Sunny refused to answer. It was a trap.
"What I was trying to say before I was rudely interrupted," Nephis continued, shooting Effie a pointed look she did not seem the least ashamed of, "is that this is something I have kept hidden for too long. Almost two years already."
He noticed the quiet calculations going on in Effie and Kai's minds. All traces of leisure left Effie's face a moment later, her expression turning grave, while Kai sat a little straighter, his concerned expression growing even more pronounced.
"Since we're doing this," Sunny interrupted softly, "we might as well get more secrets out of the way."
"Like what?" Rain asked curiously.
"My Flaw is that I cannot lie," he answered calmly, ignoring the silent gasp of his little sister.
A moment passed as they processed that tidbit of information. Flaws weren't lightly revealed, after all, much less when it came to someone as secretive as him.
Kai shot him a horrified gaze. "That explains so much, and at the same time, raises far more questions."
"Don't I know it," he muttered under his breath.
"You mean that all those crazy stunts you told us about are real?" Effie asked, disbelief clear on her face.
Sunny shrugged, putting on a confident smirk. "Yes. I did tell you that I'm the most honest man in the world, didn't I?"
"Even I don't know how he's still alive," Cassie added, earning quick nods from everyone present. Even Nephis nodded!
The sheer hypocrisy.
"I shouldn't have said anything," he grumbled, giving Nephis a nod to continue.
She returned it calmly, her face a perfect, expressionless mask.
"Everything started..."
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2 years ago.
Cassie rubbed her hands together, desperately trying to warm herself from the chill that seeped all the way to the bone.
It was as pointless as it was futile. The cold she felt had no relation to the temperature of the Ashen Barrow. No, the problem was what her Aspect had just shown her while she slept.
When inside a vision, she could see the world as though her Flaw hadn't taken away her sight. At that moment, she wished it weren't so.
Cassie would never forget those eyes. Crazed, terrified, but most of all, desperate.
She could recall the scene as if she were still there. Sunny, smiling one moment and lunging at some poor Sleeper the next when he asked about his True Name.
"Lost from Light," Sunny whispered, his voice so low she could barely hear it, even in a vision. "I am… Lost… Lost from Light…."
Why?
Why did he do it? Why kill someone just because he asked that? Was that Sunny's weakness? His Flaw?
Cassie heard it next: footsteps, softly approaching her. Ever since her world had been plunged into darkness, her hearing had grown more acute. Incredibly so.
It wasn't much help. Her heart was thundering in her chest too loudly to hear anything else.
Was it Sunny? Had he somehow found out that she knew? Was she going to die?
"Why? Wouldn't you?" she remembered Nephis' question when he asked why she had decided to protect her.
"No," Sunny had answered, his voice cold and disgruntled.
Was it time? Had she finally proven too much of a nuisance on top of being a burden?
"Cassie?" someone whispered softly.
She almost cried out in relief when she realized who the speaker was.
Without thinking twice, she threw her arms toward the voice and latched onto what she realized was Nephis's waist. She did not let go when she flinched faintly, holding on tightly. And Nephis, thank the dead Gods for that, did not push her away.
She spent several minutes like that, desperately clinging to her, hoping it would all go away if she wished hard enough.
"Cassie, what's wrong?" Nephis asked, even her emotionless voice carrying a hint of concern now.
"Is... is Sunny awake?" she asked, fighting to stop her voice from breaking.
Given the way she shifted, Nephis must have turned to check. Cassie waited in terrified silence, her thundering heart only seeming to beat louder.
"He isn't. Should I wake him?"
"No!" she cried, only to regret it immediately afterward. She waited in tense silence to hear him complain about being woken up, and when that didn't happen, she felt her shoulders sag in relief. "His shadow?"
Nephis did not answer immediately. Even someone as socially inept as her must have realized something was wrong.
"Out of earshot," she answered a moment later, her voice all but demanding an explanation.
"I..." This time, her voice did break. "I had another vision, and... I think I found out his weakness."
Nephis remained silent, which Cassie took as a sign to keep talking.
"Lost from Light," she whispered as quietly as she could. "When the moment comes, you can use it against him."
"What is it?" Nephis inquired.
"His True Name." A minute shift in posture was the only reaction she gave. "In my vision, Sunny killed a Sleeper just because he asked about it."
The memory returned to Cassie once more. That of her vision. A towering Crimson Spire. The radiant Angel. Hungry Shadows devouring the angel.
"Cas—"
"Please," she interrupted, tears starting to flow down her cheeks. "Promise me that you will use it if the time ever comes."
Nephis was silent for a long time, and Cassie could do nothing but hold on tightly, tears streaming down her face. What a pathetic sight she must have made. A crying, useless girl, clinging to her as though she were the only certainty in a world with none.
What if she chose him instead? What if she told him that Cassie knew? A possible assassin would always be more useful than a burden like her, after all.
"I promise," Nephis replied at last, her voice firm and steady.
Cassie could only hold on tighter, a spark of hope being born in her chest.
Maybe, just maybe, her vision could be changed. Maybe the Angel would survive instead of being devoured by the shadows.
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"Wait, what?" Rain was the first to react, her voice full of surprise. "Big brother has a True Name?"
He did, and not a day passed in which Cassie didn't wonder what could have been if she had kept that fact to herself.
"Honestly? I'm not even surprised," Effie said, her voice still serious despite the lackadaisical words. "If this crazy moron doesn't have one, then no one should."
"I take offense to that," he retorted.
"To the moron part, or that no one should?" Rain inquired, smiling impishly.
Sunny glared. "Both."
The corner of her mouth quirked up a little at that answer. There were no words that could do justice to just how much she had missed him.
Would their relationship survive today? Would she survive today?
She had seen this very conversation in visions before, and it rarely ended well.
Kai spoke next. "What is—"
"Don't," Sunny interrupted abruptly, his voice so cold and sharp she almost felt it cutting into her flesh. "Ask me anything you want. But never that."
"Sunny...?" Rain began, her voice tinged with fear now.
His eyes softened when he looked at his sister, but his stance did not change in the slightest.
"Some things are better left unknown," he replied, shooting a scathing look in Cassie's direction, one that carried years of pain and betrayal. "You can never know the consequences of sharing something you shouldn't."
Cassie did not allow herself to look away. She wanted to. Gods, she wanted to. Even if she couldn't see him from her own perspective, the marks on the others gave her a clear picture of those dark, abyssal eyes staring straight at her, chilling the blood in her veins.
She still didn't look away.
Just like them, she had run away from this day for far too long. It was time to face it head-on.
"Right before we faced the Soul Devouring Tree," Nephis began, stopping for a moment as even her peerless poise faltered briefly. "Cassie had a vision. One in which Sunny revealed it to a Sleeper named Harper."
"Who?" Effie asked, genuinely puzzled.
"A clerk in the Bright Castle, and later at our own Lodge," Sunny answered, a hint of remorse bleeding into his voice.
Kai scratched the back of his head. "I think I remember him. Though I'm a little hurt you told him and not us."
All the shadows in the vicinity stirred violently for but a moment, rising into the air and convulsing into nightmarish shapes before calming down.
Rain, Effie, and Kai shared a worried look at that reaction. If only they knew that it was among the tamest she had seen in other versions of this very conversation.
"Believe me," Sunny answered in a painfully pleasant voice, "you wouldn't want to be in his position."
"Why?" Effie's eyes narrowed. "Wait, don't answer that. You killed him, didn't you? He asked, and you couldn't not reply."
"I did," he answered without pause.
"When Cassie revealed Sunny's True Name, she told me that it could be his weakness," Nephis continued smoothly.
Rain looked between them, confusion written across her face.
"But why would you need his weakness?" she asked.
"All my life, I have been targeted by assassins from the Great Clans," Nephis answered calmly. "Then along comes someone who, as far as I could tell, lied all the time and learned everything I taught him as though it were child's play."
The girl nodded, looking thoughtful. "Makes sense, I guess." She smiled next. "Good thing you never had to use it, then."
Sunny barked a short, pained laugh.
When they turned to look at him, he only laughed again.
"You... you didn't, right?"
Nephis did not answer immediately.
"Sunny..." Rain pivoted to the one who couldn't lie. "What... what does your True Name do?"
He smiled. A broken, jagged smile that spoke more than any words could.
"Takes away my freedom."
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Rain heard it loud and clear.
They were just four words. Enunciated so perfectly that there was no doubt to be had.
She still couldn't believe what she had just heard.
"Can you please repeat that?" Kai requested, his voice strained like a bowstring about to snap.
Sunny shrugged, his face cheerful where his eyes looked anything but. "Of course I can, buddy! Whoever says my True Name aloud gets to take away my freedom and become my Master. Their every word becomes an order I cannot refuse."
Before she could do or say anything she might regret, Rain applied the Calm and Composed epithets to herself. It helped, somewhat. Her head stopped spinning like a top, at least.
Thanks to them, she managed to keep herself calm even when Effie's fist smashed into the table hard enough to crack even the Transcendent shadows invoked by Sunny's Aspect that formed it.
"Explain," she hissed, her voice cold as ice as she glared at the two of them.
Rain nodded, the same question already on the tip of her tongue.
Her brother's hands were clenched so tightly they shook, and yet his face looked as placid as the lake's waters. Big si... Big Sister, on the other hand, was completely emotionless, as still as a statue, her eyes betraying nothing.
"Shortly after the three of us arrived on the Forgotten Shore, I had a vision," Cassie chose to speak.
The Seer looked calm and collected, but unlike Nephis, she couldn't quite hide the tremble in her voice.
"I won't bore you with the full version and cut straight to the chase," she continued when none of them interrupted. "I saw the Bright Castle at night. There was a lonely star burning in the black sky, and under its light, the castle was suddenly consumed by fire, with rivers of blood flowing through its halls. I saw a corpse in golden armor sitting on a throne; a woman with a bronze spear drowning in a tide of monsters; an archer trying to pierce the falling sky with his arrows."
One by one, they reacted as Effie and Kai noticed the parallels and recognized their own roles in that prophecy.
Rain felt a foreboding sensation building in her chest. Cassie wasn't done just yet. In fact, it looked like the worst was about to come.
"In the end, I saw a colossal, terrifying crimson spire. At its base, seven severed heads guarded seven locks. And at the top, a dying angel was being consumed by hungry shadows." The Seer finished, her voice still carrying that forced calm.
She didn't say anything.
Rain didn't trust her voice, or what would come out of her mouth. So she waited. Waited for Nephis to explain herself. For Sunny to do so. Even Cassie.
For any of them to tell her she was overthinking things, that she was only imagining the worst-case scenario.
None of them did.
Nephis was looking aside; Sunny had his eyes closed, as if the situation would disappear if he wasn't looking. And Cassie? It looked like nothing in this world could pry a single word more out of her mouth.
"Was it true, Nephis?" Kai asked, his voice quiet but his eyes fierce. "You told us that only one could leave. That someone had to stay behind to act as the conduit for the Gateway. Was. It. True?"
Nephis let out a soft sigh and turned toward the archer, her face just as unreadable.
"It was the truth," she said without hesitation. "As you well know, I never lied to you."
"What happened then?" Effie looked straight at Sunny, her eyes demanding nothing but the pure, unadulterated truth.
"When we reached the Gateway, I decided to remain and help Nephis." He smiled self-deprecatingly. "I'm an idiot like that, you see. I was convinced that Caster would try to kill her while she was busy dealing with the Crimson Terror. Turns out I was right about that, and I got to kill the bastard myself."
Rain blinked, momentarily pulled out of the moment by the realization that the crazy theories about Sunny being the one who killed Caster out of romantic rivalry were, in a way, true.
"Then I climbed, because once again, I'm a damn idiot." He took a deep breath. "Neph here had already killed the Crimson Terror by the time I arrived, and then... then we found out about the conduit."
Nephis, just barely, flinched, sorrow passing briefly through her eyes.
"Only one of us could leave," she continued where he left off, her voice hitching so faintly Rain almost thought she had imagined it. "Neither of us was the kind to give up that easily, so..."
"We fought," they finished at the same time, looking at each other with a complex gaze.
Sunny leaned back on his chair, looking none too bothered, while Nephis sat straighter still, her face resembling stone.
Rain looked at them, properly looked, and realization finally settled in.
The heated stares, the tension lingering around every one of their interactions before they crossed the Stormsea, Nephis's first words to him, his refusal to fall asleep in her vicinity, and so many other small and big things that she hadn't noticed. That she didn't want to notice.
All along, the truth had been right before her eyes. She had simply refused to see it.
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There was a small, insistent voice at the back of his mind.
A maddening pitch that he couldn't ignore, no matter how hard he tried.
Kai knew it, had grown accustomed to it, even. His Flaw had no voice, and yet he had always associated it with an endless, sharp drone.
It was a voice that spoke of distrust, of how everyone lied whenever they had the chance, of insults and knives hidden behind every word. That nagging voice was laughing at him now, telling him how foolish he had been for believing, for thinking that Sunny would so easily give up. For taking Nephis's evasive answers at face value when he should have known better.
He had wanted to believe. It was as simple as that.
"That's when you used it," he found himself saying, his voice almost breaking halfway through. "You fought, and then you used Sunny's True Name."
Nephis remained silent.
"You couldn't overpower him, so you decided that enslaving him was easier."
Nephis still didn't reply.
"It was like that, wasn't it?" he asked coldly.
Her fists were clenched atop the table. White sparks started crackling around them, only a thought away from turning into an all-encompassing inferno. She was looking down, not meeting anyone's gaze.
"I intended to let him win," she confessed quietly.
Kai was surprised to realize that it was the truth, and despite his better judgment, he hoped. Hoped that it wasn't as bad as he thought it was. That maybe some external factor had taken the choice out of their hands.
Hoped that there was an explanation for all of this, a reasonable one that, while condemnable, wouldn't be as bad as he dreaded. Hoped that he wouldn't have to choose between two of his best friends.
Kai had always been foolish like that.
It only took a look at Sunny's face, trying so hard to look casual, yet failing to do so, to convince him otherwise.
Effie's fist smashed into the table again, completely breaking it this time into two uneven halves and spilling its contents onto the ground.
"Then why were you the one to return?"
Nephis let out a small, humorless chuckle.
"Because I was weak," she admitted. "I was in pain, exhausted, afraid. Right when he was about to deliver the final blow, I did it. I invoked his True Name."
Rain spoke then, her expression shaky. "It was an accident, right? You didn't use it against him, right?"
Nephis looked up at last, the flames burning in her eyes shining weakly, like a candle about to go out.
"She only did what I asked her to," Cassie interjected, extending her hand to hold Changing Star's. "If someone is to blame here, that's me."
The silver-haired woman looked down at the Seer's hand and shook her head, freeing herself from the comforting grasp.
"No, Cassie," she retorted firmly. "I did it. You might have put the sword in my hand, but I was the one who chose to swing it."
Nephis looked around the table, meeting the gaze of each and every one of them.
In her normally unreadable face, Kai noticed it at last. Crushing guilt at first, then sorrow, followed by shame and what looked like disappointment in herself. All hope was crushed once more when he saw that look on her face.
"I did it," she said with complete honesty. "I enslaved Sunny. Ordered him to stop, to not hurt me anymore. Ordered him to stay there so I could leave and save myself. Then I ordered him to survive until he came back to me."
The maddening pitch grew to a crescendo, joy and triumphant vindication singing a harrowing tune.
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Effie took a deep breath, forcing herself to think rather than act.
"Why didn't you tell us before?" she asked in what she hoped was a calm manner.
Prin... Nephis looked at her, her emotions hidden once again beneath the mask she always wore. But her eyes... her eyes didn't lie. Couldn't.
"I was afraid," she confessed, her voice no longer calm. "Afraid of what your reaction would be."
Effie closed her eyes, fighting yet again against the urge to act. She wanted to, gods, she wanted to. But she had to keep her head cool. There were more things she had to ask before she did so.
"Why didn't you?" she asked Sunny next.
He had been silent for a while now, and she had the suspicion that if he weren't forced to answer, he wouldn't.
"I was afraid too," he admitted reluctantly.
"Why?" Rain asked, her eyes starting to grow wet. "Why didn't you tell me? Why keep this hidden even from me?"
Sunny let out a small, humorless chuckle that sounded sadder than anything Effie had ever heard. A wide smile spread across his face, rigid and stretched thin, resembling the dying rictus of a corpse.
"It should be obvious enough." He shrugged lightly, as if to show just how obvious it should have been. "When it comes to choosing between the Sun and the pathetic, worthless Shadow cast by it... why would anyone choose the Shadow?"
Horror dawned on her.
Was that how Sunny saw himself? That level of self-loathing... she had never seen it in anyone but herself.
For a long time, she had thought herself worthless, too. Thought that her illness had turned her into a shambling corpse that just wouldn't admit the fact. Thought that she would be better off dead. At least that way, she wouldn't be a burden to those around her anymore.
To think that Sunny thought of himself like that...
"Is that what you think..." She stopped briefly, forcing herself not to snap. "Or what she ordered you to think?"
Nephis looked at her then, rage and indignation clear in her eyes. Her mouth opened, a swift retort already on her lips. Then she looked around and deflated, as though even she couldn't deny how valid the question was after what they had found out.
Sunny let out another humorless chuckle. "I wish. No, that's all me."
Her knuckles popped from how tightly she was clenching her fists.
"Is that true, Princess?" She did not relent, and she hated every moment of it. Doubting the intentions of someone she cherished as much as her like that stung as few things had ever done.
Nephis nodded immediately. "I haven't ordered Sunny a single time since then. And I haven't forgotten for a single moment the pain I can inflict if I were to."
When she looked in his direction, Kai nodded, confirming her words.
That was a relief, and her rage spiked further at that thought. The mere fact that she considered the most minimal of decencies as a point in her favor was already infuriating on its own.
"Why are you still here?" she asked Sunny next. "Why do you remain in her presence after what she did to you? When she can order whatever she wants, and you cannot refuse?"
He met her eyes, those dark eyes of his that at times reminded her of the Dark Sea meeting her hazel ones. They were like an abyss in which light went to die.
"Because I want to," he replied, the words so quiet she barely heard them. "Because I want to try and forgive, despite how much I don't want to."
In his eyes, Effie saw the truth of his words. He wanted to stay. He wanted to leave. He wanted to love, and wanted to hate. It was like an endless battle, one in which only now did one side look like it was starting to overcome the other.
Effie's rage wasn't mollified by that. If anything, she felt it grow even stronger.
"All this time, you have been carrying all of that, and you... you didn't tell us. How long, Sunny? How much longer were you going to wait if Nephis hadn't opened her mouth?"
He smiled self-deprecatingly. "If I could choose? Forever."
Something snapped in her mind, and Effie saw red.
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Nephis wasn't on guard.
She was among friends, people she trusted implicitly. There was no reason to be.
Which was why she could not react in time when Effie suddenly moved so fast she became a blur, and before she knew it, a fist landed against her cheek. There was a brief moment of disconnect, as time seemed to stop, stretching only long enough for her to see the furious expression on the Huntress's face before it resumed.
Her feet left the ground as she flew away, crossing half the lake's width before falling into the cold water.
It rushed over her all at once, suffocating her for a brief moment before she closed her mouth and started gathering her bearings. She was so disoriented by the attack, and her cheek hurt so much, that for a moment she failed to understand what was up and what was down.
Then the link inside her mind belonging to the Bond, telling her where Sunny was at all times, answered that question for her, and she finally managed to get herself back under control.
She shook her head to dispel the remaining confusion and started swimming up. For a moment, she could have sworn she saw an incredibly pale woman beside her, a very familiar one, though she couldn't quite place where she had seen her. But the sight was gone so quickly that she couldn't tell whether what she had seen was real or just the lingering shock of the sudden attack.
Nephis reemerged from the Lake of Tears a moment later, wings of white flame already unfurling behind her as she took to the sky, carrying with them the old, familiar pain.
By the time she returned, Effie had calmed down. By which she meant that the Huntress did not attack again on sight. She looked very tempted, though.
"I deserved that," Nephis admitted.
"I should have hit harder," Effie replied coldly.
Her cheek chose that very moment to start throbbing in pain, the beginnings of a bruise already starting to form. She probed with her tongue and found that some of her teeth were loose. White flame covered her the next moment, undoing the damage.
"I'm sorry," she said, trying to convey as much sincerity as she could.
Nephis knew she wasn't good at this. At showing emotion or admitting how she felt. But she had to try.
If they didn't want to forgive, it was their right to, but at least she wanted to make clear that her regret was real.
"Sorry for what you did, or sorry that we found out?" Surprisingly, the biting words came not from Effie, but from Kai.
He was looking at her fiercely, with fury in his eyes and his jaw clenched so tightly he could have passed for the portrait of a vengeful god. The expression felt jarring on the normally gentle archer. That she had managed to draw such a thing out of him made evident just how big her mistake was.
"Sorry for what I did, and sorry that I didn't say this earlier," she replied honestly.
"I, for one, wish that we never did," Sunny added lightly. "Would have spared us from this uncomfortable conversation."
His attempt at lightening the mood fell on deaf ears.
A cold sensation started to spread through her that had nothing to do with her impromptu bath. Seeing the expressions on her friends' faces. The betrayal. The anger. The sheer disbelief, as though they couldn't quite believe what they had found out... It felt like hundreds of icy needles were stabbing at her heart.
She deserved it, Nephis thought. Much worse, in fact.
"How could you?" Rain asked next, tears slowly starting to fall from her eyes. "How could you do this? How could you hear me ask to call you Big Sister and say 'yes'? How could you act like there was nothing wrong for so long?"
She lowered her eyes, unable to meet the teenager's gaze.
"Did you actually care for me?" Rain continued, anger starting to seep into her voice. "Or was I just a replacement for Sunny? A convenient look-alike that you could pamper to make yourself feel better? Were you going to sacrifice me too if the situation ever arose?"
A lump formed in her throat, guilt and hopelessness mixing together to render her mute in the face of the barrage of questions.
Nephis forced herself to swallow, forced herself to answer despite how hard it was to find the words.
"Yes, at the beginning you were a way to assuage my guilt." It was hard to start, but once she did, the words kept pouring out. "And then I got to know you. Grew to appreciate you. To care for you. I started to think of you not as Rain, Sunny's little sister, but as Rain, the little sister I never had. Someone whom I enjoyed spending time with, teaching, reading, watching movies, and so much more. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. I truly am."
Rain was silent for a long time, the look in her eyes unreadable.
In the end, she shook her head, tears still spilling down her cheeks, and stood up. "I wish I could believe you."
She left without saying another word or looking back. Nephis didn't have the courage to try to stop her, and given the look in Sunny's face, neither did he want to try.
A moment passed in silence as they all watched her walk in the direction of Clan Sorrow's citadel before someone chose to break it.
"Why should I believe that you're sorry?" Kai's eyes had not grown any less fierce. "Two years, Nephis. Almost two years, and you lied to us all that time, skirting my Flaw so masterfully that I wanted to believe you. How can I trust a word coming out of your mouth? That you won't do the same to me if a similar situation ever comes up? To all of us?"
Nephis opened her mouth, but he beat her to it.
"Sorr... no, I'm not sorry." He took a deep breath and stood up as well. "But I cannot believe a word coming out of your mouth. Not now. Not for a long time." He closed his eyes, the fury in his expression all the more vivid. "I have been surrounded by liars all of my life, and I thought… I thought you might be different." His expression fell, a mixture of sadness and hopelessness. "Turns out I was wrong."
Kai clenched his fists, looking sideways, first at the still-furious Effie, then at the quiet Sunny, and finally at Cassie, who hadn't moved a single millimeter yet.
He nodded, as though what he had expected to see had been confirmed, then turned around. His feet left the ground, and the archer shot toward the Ivory Tower too fast for any of them to stop him. A minute later, she felt his presence disappear through the Gateway.
A heavy weight settled on her chest, adding a crushing weight to the cold needles of ice stabbing into her heart.
"Will you say nothing?" Effie asked Sunny, her red-hot fury turned into ice-cold rage. "She betrayed you. Betrayed us by staying silent for so long."
Sunny's self-deprecating smile had never left. "What is there to say? What can I add that you don't already know?"
Effie was quiet for a long moment. Then her shoulders sagged in defeat, all fury evaporating from her frame like water under the summer sun. Slowly, almost mechanically, she turned to Cassie.
"What about you? As Nephis said, you put the sword into her hands."
The Seer's face changed slowly, turning from calm to regret, then to sadness, followed by shame, and finally pure determination.
"Ever since that day, I have been working relentlessly to amend my mistake," she said, forcing her voice to remain steady despite the trembling of her hands. "I promise you, Effie, there is no day I don't regret what I did. And there will be no day I rest until all of you can forgive me for it."
The Huntress looked at all three of them, a resigned expression passing across her face.
"It is not what you did that angers me so much, Princess, though I am very furious right now, but the fact that you lied. That every single Spell-damned day since then, you woke up and chose to keep doing so. That even when Sunny finally returned, you didn't change your mind, all the way until now." She turned to Sunny next. "And you... you are the same. You would have taken that secret to the grave if you could."
Sunny gritted his teeth. "It's mine to keep."
"Maybe it is," Effie agreed easily, fire slowly starting to return to her eyes. "But the fact that you kept such a thing from us... that you didn't trust us enough to share it... that even now you look like you would rather we forget it all than look at me... it infuriates me so much I want to break something."
The Huntress took a long breath and dragged a hand across her eyes. If they noticed that it came away wet, none of them said anything.
"And you, Cassie? You are the worst of them. You knew. You knew. Every time I shared my concerns with you. Every time I worried about these two idiots. Every single fucking time." She paused, forcing herself to calm down. "You told me to stop worrying. That they would figure it out on their own." She chuckled without humor. "Oh, they did. I have never seen these lovesick morons so comfortable around each other. But what if they hadn't? What if everything had blown up at the wrong moment? What if they had killed each other because they would rather kill God than face their fucking emotions!? What if, Cassie!? Answer me!"
"I made plan—"
"Fuck your plans, Cassie!" she roared. "How many times have they blown up in your face already!? Do you think we are blind!? That we can't see you being as surprised as we are whenever something unexpected happens!?"
Cassie flinched as if she had just been slapped and remained silent.
"Effie—"
"Shut it, Princess." She shook her head sadly, her shoulders trembling with the effort of restraining herself. "I cannot look at the three of you right now. Not for a good while." Effie took a long, deep breath. "When I calm down, I will come back, and we will talk. Whether you want to or not."
The Huntress did not wait for them to answer before she turned around and took a massive leap toward the Ivory Tower, through whose Gateway she disappeared a moment later.
Just like that, the three of them were alone. Just like how they had been long ago, back in those harrowing yet blissful days.
Nephis looked at the floating island long after she had left, just as Sunny and Cassie did.
The sensation of weight crushing her down and cold needles stabbing into her heart only grew worse.