Aria could scarcely contain her curiosity as she followed Zareb and his half-blood wife out the tent. The older hume had, thus far, seemed unflappable. So to draw such ire from him, she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of person this “Arvad Malachi” was.

  Her eyes wandered over to Lusha, and she felt a sense of nausea churn in her stomach. A half-blood… a child between an elf and a hume… Some things simply should not be.

  She couldn’t believe one her people could ever be close with a filthy ashborn. Void, a part of her didn’t WANT to believe it. Especially not to THAT extent. And yet…

  Her blue eyes wandered over to the Champion. The memory of him reaching out to her when she’d been chased by humes after her mother’s death, and how she hadn’t shied away from his touch, came unbidden.

  She flushed, shaking her head to clear her thoughts. That’s just a superstition! Aria tried to tell herself, yes, I didn’t shy away from the Champion’s touch. But that doesn’t mean that this a good omen, one that points to a lifelong friendship or… or even, ESPECIALLY, a romantic relationship!

  Her blush deepened, both out of embarrassment and sheer mortification of the thought.

  Thankfully, they soon arrived at one of the entrances to the cavernous chamber. There stood two groups. One were the uniformed soldiers of the Rebellion. The other, was a group of elves in ragged clothing. Leading them was a man with curly blonde hair that reached down his neck, and a feathered hat atop his head. He was… perhaps a hume?

  Though, Aria had made that assumption with Lusha. Yet the truth ended up being… different.

  “I say…” the feather hatted man spoke, spinning in a circle in place, “this is easily the fourth dreariest hideout you lot have ever had. Hard to exceed the top three in that regard, but this was close!”

  “Arvad,” Zareb spoke as they neared, “a pleasure to see you again.”

  The man, Arvad Malachi, raised a finger as he clicked his tongue disapprovingly, “Now, now, Zareb. The Maker would not approve of you lying. Especially in front of all these people!”

  “Ordinarily you’d be right,” Zareb sighed, “but in this case? I mean it, truly.”

  The older hume gestured towards the group of elves Malachi had brought with him, “I only say this because you saved some elves from their enslavement. Thank you.”

  “Saved them from enslavement?” Malachi chuckled, “my friend, I saved them from getting vaporized. An Etheric Fusion explosion is far more lethally dangerous than mere enslavement, I assure you.”

  Zareb and Lusha froze at that.

  Lusha recovered first, as she stammered out, “An… an Etheric… Fusion?!”

  “Yes. It was honestly quite horrifying seeing almost an entire capital get annihilated like that,” Malachi answered.

  Zareb stroked his beard, looking troubled, “I suppose that would explain how Ignis got wiped out. But who-”

  “Anila Tufani,” Malachi interrupted with an answer, “the fool woman resorted to it in her battle with the Shadows of Athanasius.”

  Zareb had been about to speak, but Aria cut in, “MY MOTHER WAS NO FOOL!!!”

  She stormed over to Malachi, eyes wide and hands clenched with barely contained rage, until she stood right in front of him. With her being only fourteen years old, and Arvad being a fully grown hume, he was quite a bit taller than her. Especially since he was rather tall for an ashborn. Yet she didn’t let the height difference affect her.

  “Oh? What’s this?” Malachi raised a brow at her.

  His eyes widened as he studied her face, “I see… you’re-”

  “Take it back,” Aria interrupted with a growl.

  “Pardon?” he asked.

  “What you said about my mother!” Aria clarified, “she was no fool, and I won’t suffer your insults towards her!”

  “I’m sorry to have said it in front of you, child. Especially as you are no doubt still in grief, however,” Malachi shook his head, “to take back what I said would be a lie. And what I spoke was the truth.”

  Aria’s eye twitched, and her lips moved in a snarl.

  “Get angry at me, if you wish,” he continued, “but it won’t change what is. Anila Tufani selfishly chose vengeance over duty in a crucial moment, and resorted to something that will have disastrous consequences for us all-”

  Aria threw an Ether enhanced punch at the hume’s gut.

  Her movements were a quick blur to the naked, Ether-less eye. Her fist should have connected and perhaps broken a few ribs.

  Yet the man swatted aside her fist. And he did it so casually that he seemed an adult pushing away a petulant child throwing a tantrum. Aria stumbled, eyes wide as she looked back at the feather hatted hume.

  “Really now?” Malachi asked disapprovingly, “you turned to violence rather quickly young lady. What would your mother say about that?”

  Aria’s eyes flared. She clenched her teeth so hard her jaw began to ache. Her Ether aura flared to life around her body, her blue eyes bleeding to a green color as she converted the Ether within her to the Wind Affinity. Winds began to billow around her. She snarled at the hume, “Do not! Speak! Of! My! MOTHER!!!”

  She’d been about to attack the man, until she felt someone grab her from behind and put her in a headlock.

  “None of that now!” Aria heard Lusha say.

  It had been the half-blooded woman who’d grabbed her.

  Her rage flared, “How dare you touch me you-”

  Lusha headbutted her so hard she nearly blacked out.

  Her ears rang and her vision was filled with spotted circles and dots as it came back. Aria found herself limp against Lusha’s grip on her, her head pounding with pain. Then, just as suddenly as it came, the pain vanished and her senses returned to normal.

  Aria could sense that Lusha had just cast a healing Art on her.

  “Now, do I need to smack some more sense into you? Or will you finally calm yourself? Because if it’s the former, then I WILL hit you hard enough to render you unconscious!” Lusha warned.

  Aria shook her head, clearing away the lingering phantom pains.

  Though anger still smoldered within her, she was in far more control of herself now. And that had nothing to do with the fact that the half-blooded woman had nearly knocked her out cold with a single headbutt.

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  “I’m… I’m fine now,” she hissed.

  Lusha released her hold on her.

  “Well now,” Malachi spoke, “I wasn’t expecting this at all when I arrived.”

  Lusha cut him off with a raised finger in warning, “Don’t you start, Arvad! Void, the poor girl only recently lost her mother. Have you no shame in calling said mother a fool to her daughter’s face?!”

  “I DID apologize for having said it in front of her, you know…” Malachi grumbled.

  He studied Aria’s face more closely, “Well now… you really do look just like Anila Tufani! If, a far younger version of her. The apple definitely didn’t fall too far from the tree here.”

  The feather hatted hume, surprisingly, bowed his head to her, “I’m sorry, child. There is a time and place for everything, and saying what I did while you are still likely grieving for your loss was a blunder on my part.”

  Aria, though still angry, was remarkably calmer now. She nodded to the hume, who then raised his head, “Now, I hope this next part makes up for it, if only a bit. For I bear good news! And I believe you will like this news, young lady.”

  Malachi stepped to the side, and Aria’s breath hitched in her throat.

  She hadn’t noticed them before, but now she saw Onas and Sana of all people waiting with the group of elves. They both gave her smiles of relief. Sana herself began to tear up, and ran to her, embracing her in a tight hug.

  “Oh, Aria!” she said with a voice full of emotion, “I never imagined I’d be able to see you again!”

  “Sana…” Aria returned the embrace, shocked at this revelation, “and Onas… you’re… You’re both alive! Winds, I… I thought…”

  She found tears had begun to stream down her face. For a while, she and Sana simply held one another, both crying with joy and relief at their reunion.

  Aria pulled away, sniffling as she asked, “How… how did you all survive?”

  Onas gestured to Malachi, “This one here saved us all. Though, HOW exactly he did it is still a mystery.”

  Sana nodded, tossing a semi-irritated glance at the feather hatted hume, “He refuses to give a straight answer! Rather, he only gives annoyingly cryptic responses whenever we ask.”

  “I’m afraid,” Zareb stepped forward, “you’ll find that is the norm when it comes to Arvad.”

  “Oh, come now,” Malachi shook his head disapprovingly, “you all should know better. A magician never reveals his secrets!”

  “You’re a magician?” the Champion asked.

  “Heavens no!” Malachi shuddered, “that was a figure… of… speech-”

  Arvad trailed off as he noticed the Champion for the first time. He flicked the tip of his hat upwards, “Well now… this can’t be a coincidence.”

  “AH!” Daxton cried out in recognition, “it’s you!”

  Malachi smiled, “Why yes! It IS me. I-”

  “You’re the crazy guy I met in Ignis!” Daxton interrupted.

  The feather hatted hume looked flabbergasted. Zareb and Lusha both tried, and failed, to hold in their laughter. Sana and the other elves joined in.

  “I don’t see what’s so funny,” Malachi grumbled, “the Champion has CLEARLY mistaken me for someone else.”

  “No,” Daxton refuted, “I was DEFINITELY talking about you.”

  That brought another round of laughter.

  Zareb wrapped an arm around Malachi, “You have a complete lack of self awareness if you think calling you crazy is far fetched.”

  “I assure you, my friend, that I am quite sane,” Malachi huffed, “and you know it.”

  “Oh, I do,” Zareb confirmed, “but when we first met? I definitely had the same first impression as the lad.”

  Malachi rolled his eyes, “You young ’uns, I swear.”

  “See now,” Zareb poked Malachi’s side with a finger, “it’s comments like that that make people think you’re crazy. You can’t be much older than I am. Why, I’d figure you for being younger than me going based off appearance alone. If you are a human, that is.”

  “Is he a human?” Aria asked, eyeing the feather hatted man suspiciously.

  “Does it really matter?” Malachi asked.

  “He says that every time we ask,” Lusha grumbled with narrowed eyes at Malaci, “and despite knowing each other for years now, we still don’t know for certain what he is.”

  “I respond the same way because it truly doesn’t matter WHAT I am,” Malachi smiled in an annoyingly knowing way, “human. Elf. Half-blood. Therian. Or perhaps several of these at once. It doesn’t change what we all have to do at the end of the day, now does it?”

  “I suppose not,” Zareb shrugged.

  “So…” Daxton suddenly cut in, “you mentioned humans, elves, half-bloods, and therians… then that means you’re neither a dwarf nor a giant, right?”

  Malachi raised his brows, looking impressed, “Way to look in between the lines, kiddo.”

  “So I’m right then?” the Champion beamed.

  “Well, I didn’t say that,” Malachi snickered.

  Daxton frowned as the man continued, “I could have traces of dwarf heritage in my bloodline.”

  Aria and the Champion looked up at him in an exaggerated manner, not so subtly pointing out his rather tall height.

  “That’s fair,” Malachi chuckled, “though, I could also have giant heritage, which would balance out the… vertically challenged genetics of the dwarves.”

  “Don’t let Komdar hear you say that,” Zareb warned, albeit with a humored smile.

  “Is that man STILL sensitive about height?!” Malachi asked with disbelief.

  “How tall are giants?” Daxton cut in.

  “The shortest are around nine feet tall,” Malachi answered.

  The Champion raised his brows, “Wow…”

  “Wow indeed,” Malachi rubbed the back of his neck, “you’d be amazed at how much your neck hurts after having a conversation with them. Word to the wise, if you ever find yourself having to speak with one, see if you can get them to sit down first. Trust me, your neck will thank you.”

  The Champion nodded eagerly, as though he were actually making a mental note of the advice.

  Zareb shook his head, looking amused. “Well now, as surprisingly entertaining as this has been, we should probably get you all situated. Lusha can you-”

  “Already on it, love. I’ll be sure to get the others as well so we can discuss the elf girl’s mission later on,” Lusha smiled at him before turning to Sana, Onas, and the other elves with them, “now, I’m sure you’re all tired from your journey here on top of dealing with Arvad. Believe me, I know that man can be exhausting. Follow me and I’ll lead you to where you can get yourselves cleaned up and get some food in your bellies.”

  The elves all eagerly began to follow, though Onas and Sana hesitated to go, looking to Aria.

  “Go,” she encouraged them, “we can talk later. We’re safe here…”

  Aria looked to Zareb, “Right?”

  Thankfully, he nodded, “Yes. And if there is any trouble, our guards and scouts should be able to give us warning well in advance. You all can afford to relax.”

  After another hug from Sana and a nod from Onas, they left to join their group.

  Malachi walked up to Aria, “Well?”

  She frowned at him, “Well what?”

  “Feeling a little bit better?” he asked.

  “About what you said about my mother?” she glared.

  “That too, but I was referring to your grief,” he bluntly stated.

  Aria opened her mouth to respond, but stopped herself. She DID note the oppressive darkness inside her, one that had formed since her mother’s death, had receded by a bit. Seeing Sana and Onas had survived, that someone other than her had survived Ignis, lightened her burden. Heavy though it still was.

  Malachi seemed to sense this as he smiled at her in a surprisingly kind and sympathetic way, “It will get better with time.”

  “I… I’m not sure I believe that…” she admitted.

  “Take it from someone who’s lost their fair share of loved ones. The pain and sense of loss will always be there. But it DOES get better with time. Much like a wound that leaves a scar, though the impact it left persists, the wound does heal. A scar, though a mark, is flesh that has healed the injury that made it. It WILL get better. I give you my word,” Malachi assured her.

  His serious and sympathetic demeanor seemed to bleed off him as his expression suddenly became more jovial, “Now, I believe Lusha mentioned someplace about cleaning up and getting food. I am starving for a bath and lunch.”

  He scampered off, chasing after Lusha and her group.

  “He’s quite something,” the Champion noted.

  “He’s something alright,” Zareb grumbled as he turned to Aria and Daxton, “now, we should return to our tent. We still need to discuss your part in all this, lass.”

  Aria nodded, and the three of them made their way back.

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