The beach stretched wide and empty beneath the twin moons. One hung low on the horizon, bleeding red across the water like a wound that would not close. The other sat higher, white and cold, casting sharp shadows that made the sand look like carved bone. The ocean hummed against the shore, a low continuous sound that vibrated through the ground and into his bones. It was the kind of peace that felt borrowed. The kind that reminded you of everything you had lost.
He sat cross-legged at the water's edge, his torn shirt hanging loose, his bare feet buried in sand that had cooled with the evening. The mist that choked Port Vexis did not reach this far. Here the air was clean, sharp with salt, carrying only the smell of brine and wet stone. He had not come to enjoy the view. He had come to prepare.
Chances were that inside the Domain he would meet something like Alice. Not a person. Not quite. A fragment of a Monolith, maybe, or something older, something that had been dreaming beneath the world since Alisia cast her children down from Celestia. He had read what he could find. Had listened to stories in taverns told by sailors who claimed to have walked the edges of the scattered re. Dormant deities that cursed people to forever sleep. Traps that ran your cognitive abilities until there was nothing left but a husk that breathed and ate and never woke.
'I have some resistance to hex. The cleansing back at the academy proved that. But who is to say some deity could not throw me inside a vacuum and leave me there to float for all eternity? Or something worse than the hex itself.'
He pressed his palms against his knees. The water lapped closer with each wave, eating away the sand beneath his heels. It was nice to sit here. To let his mind wander through possibilities he could not control. But that was all it was. Wandering. The truth was simpler. He had to go in. There was no other way to the relic to get rid of these cultists.
His thoughts drifted to Alice. To the way she had brought him back from the Domain with something that felt like a thread pulling through his chest. To the sickness that bloomed inside him whenever he activated his powers now. It was not right. The way his nose bled after using even the smallest ability. The way the blood took longer to stop each time. He touched his upper lip. Dry. Clean. For now.
'How long will it take to heal when it starts again? How long before it does not stop at all?'
He thought about Jing Xiu then. The way he ahd been frank with him. No pity and certainly no soft edges. Just truth delivered plain and ugly. 'You are burning yourself alive. The power is eating you faster than you can feed it.' He had not wanted to hear it then. Did not want to hear it now. But the words had burrowed in anyway. They sat beneath his ribs like stones he could not cough up.
He closed his eyes. Let the ocean hum fill his ears. Let the vibration settle into his chest until he could not tell where the sound ended and his heartbeat began.
'It is what it is. I'll just have to accelerate. Move faster. Hit harder. Get the relic and get out before the sickness catches up. Before everything falls apart.'
The thought brought a ragged breath with it. He opened his eyes. Looked up at the red moon bleeding into the white one's light.
'Home. Was it even possible now? The Transcendence. The Congregation moving. Everything happening so fast it felt like the world was spinning and he was clinging to the edge with fingers that kept slipping.'
Home. The word tasted strange in his mouth. Distant and unattainable. Like something he had dreamed once and could no longer quite remember.
The water touched his feet. Cold. Sudden. He looked down at the foam spreading over his ankles, receding, then returning. The ripples made patterns in the sand that lasted only seconds before the next wave erased them.
Beside him lay a paper bag. Worn. Soft with age. Holes had formed in its sides where moisture had eaten through. Someone had clung to it. Held it together through moves and nights and days that blurred into each other. He reached for it. His fingers brushed the surface and the paper made a sound like a whisper.
He pulled out the first item. Pastries wrapped in a box that had once been white. Now they were grey with age, stained by something that had seeped through. The pastries themselves had grown mold. Patches of green and white that had bloomed and died and bloomed again. He could not bring himself to throw them away before. Could not bring himself to look at them.
'Bought them for Brian. He always wanted something sweet after the hard days. Always pretended he did not care but his eyes would follow the bakery carts.'
He set the package aside. Reached in again.
Art supplies. Brushes wrapped in leather. Pigments in small clay pots sealed with wax that had cracked. A sketchbook bound in cloth that was supposed to be blue but had faded to something grey. He had bought these for Garfield. For the hours they spent in the training ground, Garfield trying to capture the way light fell through leaves, always frustrated, always starting over.
'I was going to give them to you. Before the rift. Before everything went wrong. I was going to come back and give them to you and tell you I was sorry...'
His hands moved without his permission. Reached deeper into the bag. His fingers closed around something delicate. Fragile.
He pulled out the glasses.
They were pristine. Circular frames, thin wire, lenses that caught the moonlight and held it. He had chosen them for Mary. For the way she squinted at her books, her face inches from the page, refusing to admit she could not see. 'I do not need glasses. I just need better light.' Always stubborn. Always pretending everything was fine.
He held the glasses in his palm. The metal was cool. The lenses reflected the twin moons, red and white, distant and untouchable.
A tear slid down his cheek. He did not notice it at first. Did not feel the path it traced until it reached his jaw and fell onto his hand. Then another came. And another.
'Why could I not be with them? Why did I walk into that rift? Why did I think I had to do everything alone? Why was I seprated?'
His breath came in waves now, ragged and strained. The kind of sound you make when you are trying to hold something together and it is slipping through your fingers no matter how hard you grip.
'I am crying. I am actually crying.'
The realization hit him like something breaking. He had been so busy. So focused. So numb. Alice had burned that part of him when she was there, or maybe he had burned it himself, pushing everything down until he could not feel anything except the numbness, the next fight, the next thing he had to do to survive.
Now it was all coming up. The grief. The guilt. The weight of everything he had left behind. And for once, there was no one here to see it. No one to perform for. No one to be strong for.
He let the tears come. Let them fall without wiping them away. The feeling was not pain. Not exactly. It was something closer to release. Like a pressure that had been building for so long he had forgotten it was there, and now it was draining out, leaving something raw and tender behind.
'I was not good enough. I was never good enough for them.'
He picked up the pastries. Stood. Walked toward the water until it covered his feet completely. The cold was sharp. Grounding. He held the package out. Looked at it one last time.
'I am sorry I judged you guys. For thinking you would make it. For abandoning you.'
He threw it.
The package arced through the moonlight, trailing bits of mold and crumbles, and landed in the water with a soft splash. It bobbed there for a moment. Then the waves took it. Pulled it out. Drifted it away from shore.
He went back for the art supplies. The brushes. The pigments. The sketchbook that would never be filled. He carried them to the water and threw them too. They landed heavier. Sank faster. The cloth binding darkened as it soaked.
'I am sorry for not being myself. For hiding parts of me. For pretending I was someone I was not so you would not worry.'
He stood in the water up to his ankles now. The waves pushed against his legs. Pulled back. Pushed again. The last item was the glasses. He held them in both hands. They were so delicate. So small. He thought of Mary's face. The way she frowned when she read. The way she laughed when she caught him staring.
He threw them. The glasses spun once in the moonlight, catching both red and white in their lenses, and then they hit the water and were gone.
'I am sorry I could not be smart enough. Could not find a way to do this without a way of sacrifice. Could not fix anything without breaking everything first.'
He knelt. The water soaked through his trousers, cold and sudden, but he did not move. He looked up at the twin moons. Red and white. Beautiful and indifferent. The ocean hummed around him. The waves washed against his thighs. He let himself break. Not for anyone. Not because he wanted to. Because there was nothing left to hold together.
He did not know how long he knelt there. The tears had stopped eventually, leaving his face damp and his eyes raw. He felt hollow. But it was a clean hollow. The kind you feel after vomiting something that has been poisoning you.
Two figures stood at the edge of the water.
He had not heard them approach. Had not sensed them at all. One wore a dark robe that pooled around their feet like spilled ink. Their skin was pale, almost luminous in the moonlight, and their face was hidden in the shadow of a hood. The other wore a blue uniform, fitted, with light armor that caught the reflection of the red moon. They stood side by side. Watching.
The robed figure took a step forward. A movement that was fluid, deliberate. A hand on the robed arm. A look passed between them that he could not read. Silent and heavy.
They did not move. Did not speak. The moons watched. The figures stood between him and the land, blocking the path back to the city and watched.
The moment stretched. The ocean hummed.