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The first time, she didn’t expect him to ask for one.
The Knave had finished sparring with the children a few days ago. Verifying if they were taking their training seriously. Arlecchino was mildly satisfied with the results. The fires she had lit in them still hung in the air of the House of the Hearth when she turned and found The Traveler in the doorway.
"I believe it's my turn now," the Traveler said.
She looked at him. "I beg your pardon?" How did he get inside the orphanage?
"You tested them. Lyney told me." Pointing toward the three heads sprouting in the corridor. "I’m curious to know how I would fare against you one on one."
Clearly Tartaglia’s habits have rubbed off the Traveler, she thought. She led him to the courtyard where bouts such as these usually happen.
“Very well,” added The Knave. “I’ll humor your request.” Readying her weapon. The two at a standstill until the golden haired outlander breaks the deadlock. “I’ll be in your care,” he said before channeling the elements inside him.
The Traveler vanished in a flash of Electro and appeared above The Knave, blade coming down with serious intent. She caught it cleanly, steel ringing as she blocked the strike with her scythe. Hm. Looks like he was holding back when he was training with the children. The force pushed sparks of gold lightning across the ground. He landed and swung again right away, fast and unrelenting, trying to keep the pressure on her. She stepped around the attack, knocked his sword aside with the edge of her Crimson Moon’s Semblance, and drove a quick kick into his ribs that forced him back a step.
He tried to surge forward again, but she was already inside his guard. One clean strike knocked his sword wide, the Electro flickering out as his balance broke. Still only using one element, I see. Before he could recover, her scythe was at his throat. The fight had lasted only minutes. The Knave stood steady while the Traveler caught his breath, the winner decided almost as soon as it began.
“I yield,” The Traveler said. Raising his arms in surrender.
She removes his weapon in his direction, turns around, and walks away. “I’m afraid you will need more than one element to match me in combat, Traveler. I heard you used two against that battle hungry harbinger. I believe this answers your questi—" Before she could fully leave the courtyard, she heard The Traveler shouting. “That was exhilarating. You’re definitely the strongest I’ve faced yet. Y-You didn’t even use an element on me! Let’s go again. When you’re free of course,” he said.
The Knave turned around in annoyance to send The Traveler off but what she saw caused her eyes to widen just by a small margin. He was smiling. Annoyingly genuine. I knew the reports said he was fond of battle, but this is surprising to say the least, she thought to herself before giving her children a quick glance.
“Lyney will handle your departure. I can’t promise you on your request, but the children will let you know if an opportunity arises. If you’ll excuse me,” The Knave said. She stepped back, walked inside, and retired to her chambers. She was not fond of battle as the other harbingers were, but her experience could tell her that The Traveler’s blade carried no malice, despite being in opposition to their cause.
She saw him back again next week, asking for another duel. An odd one, this Traveler.
---
She saw him again during the great flooding, but not the way she had expected to see him. He was in the middle of Fontaine's lower districts with water at knee level and a child under each arm while she was coordinating with three of her operatives regarding evacuation routes through the chaos. He was already there when she arrived.
They worked in parallel for most of the disaster—her people moving through the eastern court, his through the Palais Mermonia, the overlap between the two managed to reduce the severity of the situation at hand. She caught herself tracking him once or twice without meaning to.
He’s gotten better at using the Hydro element. Not only that, it looks like he’s more in tune with his body, she noted.
She could see it in how he moved. He was decisive, unhurried despite the water rising, making decisions under a few breaths. The last time she had watched him move it had been against her. This was different. He was just doing what he needed to do, fully, the way he seemed to do everything.
At one point the current shifted and she looked up and found him already looking at her from across thirty meters of rising water. A nod. Then like lightning, he vanished once again, grabbing the next civilian.
She turned back to her own.
Later, when the worst of it was done and her operatives were accounting for everyone, she looked for him. He was crouched at the waterline, talking to a young girl separated from her family. Listening with attentiveness over the child afraid and confused. She watched for exactly one moment longer than was necessary.
He’s good with children too.
---
He came back to Fontaine to find her for a second time.
It was around sunrise when he appeared at the outer circle of the House of the Hearth and asked for her, as if it had not occurred to him that she might say no to his request at this time of day. “May I request for a duel at this hour?” The Traveler asked quietly.
At least he announced his arrival this time, she observed. The Traveler has gotten close to the House of the Hearth in recent times. Aside from helping save Fontaine and its people, he was a great help to the children when they were branded murderers beforehand. It doesn’t help that the children absolutely love him, always asking his whereabouts for training and adventures to join. However, it looks like the Traveler is a bit different today, she notes before letting him in.
He was on edge. Not visibly to the average person, but she could see it in the particular demeanor of someone managing themselves carefully. His hands were firm at his sides, posture slightly stiff, and he was watching the horizon looking way past what was in front of him. Based on recent reports, the war should be at its peak right now. Did he really come to Fontaine for a mere duel?
“Very well. I’ll meet you in the courtyard. I trust you know your way around,” Arlecchino replies.
She did not comment on it. She took her position and he took his, and when they clashed it became clear almost immediately that something had changed. He was faster than the last time. Not by some shocking amount, but enough that she had to adjust. His reach is better. Cleaner angles. The first exchange rang sharp through the air then they broke and went again. The Traveler pressed forward without hesitation, blade snapping toward her shoulder, then turning into a low cut that forced her to step back. Hmph. No lightning this time. No elements at all, even. The Traveler was performing with just his speed and control of the blade. She blocked, turned the strike aside, and answered with one of her own, only for him to catch it and slide away before she could follow through.
It makes sense for war to hone him. Exposure to friction can make anyone grow, she notes.
They circled for half a breath. His breathing was steady, controlled, the kind learned through repetition. His eyes stayed on her the whole time, focused in a way they had not been before. He was almost drooling. What focus, she remarks as her crimson eyes slightly widened. Then he stepped in again. The clash came harder this time, faster—seven strikes in quick succession that pushed her guard instead of bouncing uselessly off it like last time. She met them all, but she felt the difference in the weight behind them. The Traveler was stronger now. Sharper. Still not enough to win, but enough that the duel no longer ended in minutes. Their blades met again with a sharp crack of steel as they closed the distance once more.
They started talking between exchanges when they realized this was supposed to be a spar. He had his particular habit of asking things mid-spar, and her particular habit of answering.
"Natlan," he said, stepping back from her strike. "The final battle’s coming, did you know?" They’ve been dueling for almost thirty minutes now. Arlecchino was slowly feeling the cracks form in The Traveler’s technique.
"I’m aware. I heard from the Captain." She pressed her advantage. "The Abyss has been moving through its leylines for months. It appears you are collaborating again with another Harbinger, Traveler."
He absorbed a hit that would have taken most people out of the exchange, redirected it, and came back with terrifying speed.
Better at redirecting. Smarter choice of attack. He has improved. I wonder who trained him? Did Capitano offer pointers? Arlecchino wonders as she meets his blade once more.
“How would you rate my performance? Enough to save a nation?” The Traveler asks as he performs a slash Arlecchino can only describe as Inazuman. She understood now. So that is what was on his mind.
“More than,” Arlecchino answers by finally using Pyro and coats her scythe with it, then dashes toward the Traveler. “I hope it will be,” he replies by coating his sword with Pyro of his own. Smiling at his achievement of making her use her element against him.
The duel went on like that for more than an hour before the Traveler finally stepped back and raised his hand, signaling that it was time for him to leave. They retracted their weapons and settled it as the Traveler’s surrender. As he was preparing his stuff, she uncharacteristically approached him.
“The children will be sad if you fall,” she said.
The words slipped out before she had finished deciding to say them. They often did around him. She found that mildly irritating.
He looked at her. That small smile again. His breathing steadied.
“Then I won’t.”
He took it at face value. He always did.
Good, she thought. That is good enough.
“You’ve improved,” she said.
To anyone else it might have sounded like a simple observation. But for her, it was praise. He raised an eyebrow. “Is that a compliment I hear?”
Yes. There he goes again. Where does he get the courage to play games with the Fourth Harbinger?
“Hmph. Handle your business in Natlan,” she said instead, already turning toward the courtyard gate. “The children (we) will await your return. Farewell, Tra—”
“It’s Aether.”
She stopped. Her eyes widened in disbelief.
For years, the Fatui had chased scraps of information about the Traveler—history, his sister, fragments of his life outside teyvant. And he had just offered something that significant. Just like that. To me?
“I figured if I’m going to a war where I might not come back, at least someone in this world should remember my name,” he said, breaking the silence.
Her gaze moved over him again. The scars. The build hardened by countless battles during his travels. And those golden eyes watching her with quiet patience.
“Then you may call me Peruere,” she said. “It was my name before taking up the orphanage, before all of this. A story for next time.” Did I really just do that?
He held her gaze a moment longer, his expression settling into something she still had no proper name for. Then he nodded and turned away.
“May I return safe so we can duel once more, Peruere,” he said to the wind.
He spoke like it cost him something.
I’ll think about that later, she told herself.
She thought about it immediately. For longer than what was reasonable.
---
Three weeks after the Natlan campaign ended, a report arrived on her desk.
The hand of an agent she had stationed in Natlan recounts the events that transpired in the nation. She read it at her desk while the sounds of the House of the Hearth moved through the walls. It is a lively day today.
The report opened with the engagement summary. The 6 heroes of Natlan. The abyss nearly occupied the nation. Significant casualties. And then: the Fatui—Capitano's sacrifice—had been the turning point. Without it, the final push to eradicate the abyss would not have been possible. Something tells me there were reasons outside the Gnosis for his stationing in Natlan.
Capitano had always known what his decisions cost before he made them. She had disagreed with him across many years, but she had never doubted that aspect of him. She may not know what was his reasoning behind this decision, but it was his decision regardless. The kind he made clearly, fully, without looking away from it. He was always an honorable man, this sacrifice further proves it. I will have Freminet plant a candle by the cemetery later tonight.
She allowed herself a moment. Then she kept reading.
The Traveler had fought alongside the Pyro Archon through the final skirmish. There was a good few hours of suspense due to both of their disappearance into the Abyss, but they both made it safe from harm. He was seen at the celebration afterward. Unbothered. Apparently in good humor.
There was a detail at the end. “During the celebration, the Traveler had paused, located my position at some distance, and held eye contact for a moment before looking away. I left right away and made sure no tracks were left behind.” The operative had withdrawn immediately. Standard protocol.
Sigh. I’m sure he’ll let me know of it.
She set the report down.
Something happened to her face. Brief. Small. Gone almost before it arrived. Is this relief? Nonsense. You are just making sure an ally is safe. That's all there is to it. Information is good.
She reached for her pen.
In the doorway—she didn't look, but she sensed it—there was a slight whiff in the air. Two, maybe three children who had been passing, who had seen something, who had made an immediate and collective decision not to comment on it.
The children went about their evening.
They’ll hear from me later, but I guess they were curious to know about the Tra—Aether’s condition, she sighs before reading the next report. A slight hint of red reaching her cheeks
---
With a slight detour before the Tsaritsa, Aether prepares for Nod Krai.
Peruere hadn't exactly planned to duel him. She had gone to find him, for reasons to her alone, and found him already waiting at the edge of Mont Esus East with his new sword out, watching the reflection of the moon on still water. Two months since Natlan. A month after the war. The first time she had seen him since the report. It is winter now.
He looks well, she noted it and moved on.
"I thought you might come here. At least it wasn’t an agent this time," he said jokingly.
"That was for intel. This is coincidence."
"Well, I’m glad you’re here anyway, Peruere." Curse him.
They fought in the arena where she tested the children. The moment their blades met, she felt the difference. Aether had always been quick, but now there was greater weight behind it. Immense control. He no longer rushed to meet her head-on. He waited, watched, and answered her movements instead of chasing them. Pyro flickered along his blade in brief, efficient bursts. He has tempered the elements within him. Just enough heat to force space, just enough pressure to turn a clash in his favor.
He has gotten confident, she thought, adjusting her guard as another strike slid past her shoulder. I should answer in kind.
He talked between exchanges as he always did.
“Why do you hold your spear two inches lower than the standard grip?”
Their blades met again with a sharp ring before she pushed him back. “My instructor was left-handed,” she said. “Never corrected it. I was twelve and didn’t know enough to question it.”
“How long until you noticed?”
“Around eleven years.”
“Pfft,” He laughed and the sound carried across the arena as he stepped back in. How great. She rolled her eyes against him. Focus, Peruere. Lest you actually lose this duel. Pyro flashed again as their swords met in a fast chain of strikes that forced her to give ground this time. He was matching her now. In a few moments, even pushing her.
“Do you train all the children in the house like this?” he asked, turning a strike aside and sliding a burning edge toward her ribs.
“Like what?” Peruere steps back, and sends a flurry of concentrated Pyro at him.
Aether dodges and deflects the projectiles. “As if they’re climbing a mountain too steep.”
“It is efficient.”
“Feels like you’re preparing them to fight destiny.”
She met his blade and twisted it aside, stepping close enough that the heat from his Pyro brushed her cheek. “Children raised by this world do not have the benefit of peace. I do not raise them to be soldiers and pawns of war. I raise them to be strong enough to live.”
He studied her for a moment while their swords locked. “Was it like that for you?”
She broke the lock and forced him back a step. “...I didn’t get such luxury.”
The duel continued like that—steel ringing, bursts of flame, questions thrown between strikes. Since the last duel, neither of them seemed interested in ending it quickly. They were testing each other, pushing harder, moving faster, both of them smiling more than either would ever admit.
“Why’d you look for me, Peruere?” Aether says as he puts his sword down to the ground. Tired from the 4 hour duel they just finished.
Silence. He let her take her time.
“...Nod Krai is the closest nation to her Majesty.” Peruere looks over to the moon. “I wanted to make sure you were at least capable of surviving the cold.” If she had a faint hint of red earlier, now one could fully see the crimson mess she was under the moonlight. This nation will be unlike any other nation you’ve been to. You have to be prepared.
“Well,” he stands up and looks at the moon right beside her. “I will have to burden you more in making sure I am capable.” He meets her gaze and for once, she wishes they could duel for much longer.
“Very well.”
---
Columbina had been missing for three weeks when they dueled at the Favonious Keep.
Peruere could see it in how he took his position, not the usual readiness, as if he was carrying something just heavy enough to walk with. He had the look of someone trying to read a book that had empty pages. Oh, Aether.
They fought.
The first exchange was fine. The second, could be better. By the third she noticed it, a slight lean in his stance where he usually stayed upright. A tell she had remembered two duels ago and watched him correct. He didn’t correct it today.
He's tired. Not physically...something else.
She was no better. She felt it in her own grip, fractionally tighter than necessary. Compensating for something they should address. Her footwork was clean but her transitions to her next attacks were a half-beat slow. Sloppy. We're both sloppy. This…is not ideal.
They were not fighting each other, they were fighting the agonizing wait. The specific weight of not knowing, which was worse than knowing. Uncertainty was the greatest enemy for someone who deals with information after all. Steel meets steel, Nod Krai's wind passes. Pyro meets Pyro, the Kuuvahki is silent.
Before Aether could charge another slash, Peruere stopped.
He stopped a beat after, waiting for her to decide. They stood in the cold with their weapons and stared down under the cold breeze.
"Aether, would you like tea?" she said.
"Yes. I know that sounds crazy, but I could use some tea right now."
She didn't have tea, but she knew Sandrone did. “One moment.” She enters the Harbinger’s tent and leaves with a set on a tray with two cups and a small plate with snacks.
“Thank you, I just know what will pair with these nicely,” Aether shared. He went to the unmanned stove near the main camp and quickly cooked two batches of simple dishes Peruere could tell from the distance. Is that.. “There! Hearthfire's Trail. Perfect for the weather,” he says with a proud look on his face.
How adorable. “How nice of you to remember. Which one of the children had a loose mouth then?”
“Surprisingly, it was Lynette,” Aether says, gesturing to Peruere to sit. She obliges. They sat on the frozen ground without ceremony, she wrapped both hands around the cup and felt the warmth move into her palms and looked up at the Kuuhenki crossing the sky in their slow patterns.
"Were the two of you close," Aether said. Breaking the silence.
“Hm.” She watched the fire for a moment before answering. “She was rather unique compared to the other Harbingers. Despite being somewhat of an outcast, she was always there whenever Sandrone and Rosalyne gathered for tea. Not all of us were close, of course. We were simply united under the cause Her Majesty believed in.”
The flames crackled softly as she continued to stare into them.
“However,” she said at last, “I’d like to believe we at least were fond of each other’s company. We just did not have the opportunity to express it.”
"She'll come back. And then you’ll get your chance," Aether said. Placing his hand on hers. She holds in her surprise, making sure not to break the moment.
"...I would like to believe that as well,” she replies quietly.
They finished the tea and food in silence, taking this opportunity to release whatever needs to be breathed out. People might think it as awkward but for Peruere, this was the perfect situation. She was never good with words, let alone emotions. She left all those when Clervie left her. I wonder how Clervie would react to meeting him? She shudders at the idea.
She’s glad Aether understood that facet of her. Only pushing what needs to be pushed and leaving the rest for the wind to handle. Being allied with the Anemo Archon has its benefits.
They walked back together to where the others had gathered to take stock of what they gathered about Columbina. The meeting itself was brief. There wasn’t much to discuss when the Damselette had vanished without leaving anything behind worth calling a trail. There was one significant discovery though.
It happened in the hallway on the way in.
She was asking Nefer about the last confirmed moon writing when Aether tripped on the step beside her. And Peruere, without warning from any sensible part of her mind, said,
“Be careful, Aeth—”
She stopped.
She felt it the moment the word left her mouth. The name she had never said out loud. Not once. Not in public at least. Not to anyone.
The hallway went quiet.
She did not look at him. She kept walking, eyes forward, expression unchanged.
I must be losing my mind to stumble here of all places.
She could feel him smiling behind her without looking. She didn’t need to confirm it. Should I handle him before the Tsaritsa does? I'm sure the children will understand.
Nefer’s gaze slid toward her with a careful look. Jahoda’s internal monologue was going haywire. Somewhere behind them, Varka had turned to Flins with the most neutral face a human being could possibly maintain. Flins responded in kind of course.
She entered the meeting room and took her seat, mind already moving at full speed to bury the incident. The first one who brings it up dies.
As if the heavenly principles had decided to test her patience, Flins leaned forward to start the meeting.
“Before we begin, may I inquire who Aeth is? Is he one of Dainsleif’s comrades?” For half a second the room held its breath. Then Varka broke.
The laughter came out of him like a collapsing wall, loud enough to echo off the meeting room ceiling. Flins blinked in confusion while the rest of the room tried—and mostly failed—to pretend nothing had happened. Nefer looked away, Jahoda hid under the table, Lauma talked to the animals, Flins was still confused, and Ineffa was already explaining to Aino what was going on.
Across the table, Aether had the decency to look thoughtful instead of amused.
Peruere decided she would remember that mercy.
---
Before the fight with Dottore, Peruere found Aether training at the shore of Piramida.
She had been thinking about it for a while now. How far Aether has grown, her own growth, and their…camaraderie. She’d tuck in those thoughts for now as the impending battle against an artificial God with power of multiple moons takes precedence.
He smiled when she approached him, as he always did. He went back to swinging his sword, a steady routine he had picked up after training with Skirk. The blade arcs through the air, piercing the wind around it.
“Just warming up before the battle,” he said without stopping. “Clearing up unnecessary thoughts.”
She watched for a moment, noting his rhythm. Efficient. Clean.
“Do you always feel turmoil before a big battle? You had the same disposition before the war in Natlan,” she asked.
“I usually do,” he said lightly. “This helps me ground myself.”
She stepped closer into his circle. “Then allow me to assist.”
His sword slowed. “Hm? A duel before the final battle?”
“We weren’t able to properly finish our duel last time. I believe we’re both fit for battle right now compared to then,” she says as she prepares her scythe.
That small smile appeared. “Peruere, are my habits rubbing off you now?” They are.
“I am evaluating an ally,” she replied. “And you enjoy battle too much anyway to reject my offer.”
He didn’t bother denying it. The sword came to rest on his shoulder.
“Fair,” he said. “But are you confident? I’ve gotten pretty strong~”
“I noticed,” she said calmly.
Aether studied her a second. “Well, it’s not only me who's gotten stronger.”
“Moon marrow tends to do that.”
“Is that your way of saying you’re stronger than me?”
“I’ve always been. It is my way of saying you should not assume you have caught up.”
He laughed softly at that.
“Well,” he said, lowering the blade into position, “I suppose there’s one way to check.”
She stepped into her stance, calm and deliberate.
“I won’t hold back this time, Aether,” she said. “I would prefer an accurate assessment.”
“Careful,” he replied. “You might regret that.”
The elements circled around him. Pyro came first, a low burn along the edge of his blade. Then Anemo stirred, a quiet current lifting the loose strands of his hair and tugging at the hem of his cloak. Frost crept across the stone beneath his boots as Cryo settled in next, thin crystals spreading and cracking underfoot. Hydro gathered in the air like a cool mist, beads of water forming and circling slowly around his person. A sharp crackle followed as Electro threaded through the others, brief arcs of violet light snapping across the space around him. Finally Geo answered beneath it all, a faint tremor of the ground itself, steady and unmoving, as if the earth had decided to stand with him.
The elements moved in quiet orbit, responding to the smallest shift of his stance, layered around him like a secondary layer of armor.
How interesting. I suppose I need to take this seriously. “Unlikely.”
She answered in kind.
The air around Peruere darkened as if the crimson moon had settled in their training area. Black-red energy bled slowly from her shoulders and arms, gathering along the lines of her coat before peeling away like smoke. The ground beneath her boots cracked as the pressure of it pushed outward, thin veins of dark light spreading across the stone. Her weapon shifted in her grip as the familiar shape of her other form surfaced. It was the same presence she carried when she judged the children in the arena. The heat from Aether’s elements met the chill of hers and warped in the space between them. Her gaze never left him, his never leaving her either.
They moved at the same time. Shockwaves all over the coast of Nod Krai would be heard. “Looks like our friends are fired up aye, Mr Flins?” Varka says after finishing a drink. “If it weren’t for their energies being familiar, I would have thought Dottore was already attacking,” Flins replies.
From the first exchange she knew something was different.
He was stronger. This improvement was something else. He was moving with a focus she hadn't seen before, a sharpness that came from the inside, and she found herself working harder than she had in any of the previous four. Such depth in his blade. Where did this come from?
She deployed her element early, marking him. Blood-Debt Directives settling like a promise. He didn't let her collect it. He moved out of the absorption radius before she could close the gap, circuit-breaking her rotation in a way that told her he had watched her fight enough to understand the mechanic. She was forced to dash into him, meeting a charged beam of hydro as she dodged it closely and reset her footing. He has gotten smarter.
He shifted to Anemo with Electro. His legs wreathed in wind and lightning, accelerating his movements past what she could predict on prior data. Then his Pyro sword hit alongside hers scythe, not competing but reading. As if he was studying the intricacies of her technique. He had learned to layer elements rather than cycle through them, and the effect was a fighter who was harder to anticipate with every exchange. Combining the elements? He wasn't doing that a few weeks ago.
She pushed him with the full sequence of her attack, a dark layered slash, behind it, energy balls of pyro. Aside from that, chains of red seeped through the arena. Through its chain, each Pyro-infused strike exponentially made her stronger than before. He weathered three, redirected the fourth, and came back under her guard rather than through it. Under. When did he—
He pressed. She matched. He pressed harder. She matched that too, Hydro now absorbing the impact of her Pyro attacks and turning it back on her timing, disrupting her rhythm requiring her to step back and readjust her footing. If this were an actual battle, they would have destroyed a chunk of the island already. He studied me to be able to perform like this. Impressive. To think he’d take the time to wat—
The realization arrived without warning. He had been paying attention to her the way she had been paying attention to him—organizing, filing, indexing—and he had done it quietly, without announcing it, and now she was feeling the full result of it and she could not decide if she was more irritated or—
A feint left. She read it.
The pivot she did not.
The flat of his sword found the space between her shoulder blades before she could turn. Exactly there.
Neither of them moved.
He won.
Peruere stood still and let the truth settle where it needed to. Five duels. Four of them hers. This one—this one was his, taken not by force but by something quieter and more difficult to defend against.
He had not overpowered her. He had matched her, strike for strike, but not ground her down. He had stepped into the space she was moving toward before she had finished deciding to move there. He had trusted his understanding of her over his own instinct, and he had been right, and she had been exactly where he believed she would be.
He didn't beat me. He knew me.
There was a difference. She had always known there was a difference.
There is more than one way to win a fight, Perrie. She had not understood it then. She had been too young and too angry and too deep inside the system that had made them both into instruments.
She had built the House of the Hearth out of that understanding. Out of Clervie's hands on her shoulders. Out of the knowledge that what had been done to them—the shaping, the stripping down, the reduction of a child into a function. The knowledge that it could be refused. That you could take children who had been handed nothing and give them something that wasn't a weapon.
Every child in the House was a refusal. Every child was Clervie, in some small way, being given the thing she hadn't been given.
I built it so they would never have to fight like we we did.
And now she was standing here with a sword at her back, and the man holding it had fought like someone who had decided there were people he would not let the world take from him. The same decision she had made at twelve with bloody knuckles and fury, the same one she had made every day since in every choice that built the House of the Hearth into something that could stand without her.
She was feeling something she did not have a word for.
I know this, she thought. I know what exactly this is.
The sword dropped.
Slowly. Carefully. The point drifted from her spine and the blade tilted toward the ground. He stepped back once the space between them was clear and planted the tip lightly into the ice, both hands resting on the hilt, making no claim on the moment.
“It's my win this time, Peruere,” he said.
Peruere exhaled.
"Aether, I—" The Dodoco Radio crackled somewhere in the treeline.
She stopped.
The words were there. She could feel them clearly enough to recognize them. But every time she reached for them they reshaped themselves into something smaller, something safer. A habit formed from years of being careful with everything she allowed the world to see.
She had spent so long making herself unreadable that now, faced with the need to speak plainly, she could not seem to read herself either.
“Miss Knave. Traveler. We’re moving. Dottere has appeared.”
Flins’ voice. Flat. Informational. Completely unaware.
Her gaze dropped to the ice between them.
His reflection waited there.
That same expression. The one she had never found a proper name for. Something steadier than patience.
He knew. Not the words themselves, perhaps—but the direction they were trying to move. He was waiting. Not pushing. Not filling the silence. Just leaving space for her to find it.
Aether pulled his sword free of the ground and slid it back into its sheath.
“Tomorrow,” he said quietly. Patting her shoulder then moving to the battle.
An offering.
She nodded once, eyes on the golden hair in front of her.
Tomorrow.
---
The shore was quiet.
Peruere had not meant to come here. She had been walking—through the settlement, through the cold, after a day of the battle—and her feet had brought her here without asking. Muscle memory ran deeper than intention.
She stood at the edge and looked at the ice.
She had been here at this hour before. The light was the same. The cold was the same. The ice under her boots was the same quality of Nod Krai winter she had learned over a year of returns.
He was not there.
She knew why. She was there. She had stood beside Sandrone and witnessed his sacrifice with their own eyes. She did not waver. She had gone back to her work because it would be an injustice to waste the 2nd chance he gave her.
She recognized them before she turned. Sandrone stopped beside her. They stood at the edge of the empty ground and looked at the same space.
"He told me to find you here," she said. Her voice is as straight as ever. "He said you would come at this hour."
Arlecchino said nothing. Sandrone held something out.
A scarf. Brown, worn at one edge and was clearly used. She had seen it before. She had seen him adjust it during battle. She had seen it around his neck in the cold and tucked into his pack and she had looked at it and thought nothing.
She took it.
"He said.." Sandrone paused. Brief. She heard it anyway. "He said not to feel guilty. That Columbina would be sad if you were gone." A beat. "He said he was sorry. To the children. And to you."
It was for Sandrone, who had been standing where she should have been standing, who had watched him make the calculation and wasn't able to stop it. Aether reached backward to make sure she came out the other side intact.
He was able to reach Sandrone as well.
And then the last part.
To the children. And to you. That’s exactly the kind of person he is. A faint smile appearing on her lips.
She looked at the scarf. She thought about the duel that wouldn't happen. The tomorrow that won’t arrive for them. She thought about the word she hadn't said and his face when she hadn't said it and the tomorrow he had offered her like it was something she could hold.
I was always better at battle, she thought. Not at this.
"Thank you, Sandrone. I would like to have tea with you and Colubmina…If you both have the time," Arlecchino said looking at the scarf.
“Hm. I’ll grab her then we’ll be at the research center. Do not be late,” she replied.
Sandrone looked at her for a moment then she turned and walked back through the trees, leaving her to the empty ground and the cold and the silence of a place that had been waiting for someone who wasn't coming.
Arlecchino stood there for a while.
Then she wound the scarf around her left hand. Over the knuckles, around the palm, twice. The hand that hadn't healed right. The hand she'd stopped expecting to. A reminder. She has built the House of the Hearth on the shoulders of her past. She shall build herself again with the future in mind. One where he’s no longer with them. The audacity of this man. Please take care of him if you find him, Clervie.
She looked at the dueling ground one last time. At the ice. At the shore. At the place where he would have been standing—weapon out, eyes bright, wearing that irritable expression, showing up fully and without apology the way he always did.
“I wish we had a different tomorrow, Aether,” she said.
She turned around and walked. She did not look back at the grounds. There were some things you carried forward.
Back at the House, a lone candle can be seen next to her study.