Gilded Ashes: When Shadows Reign

Raizen's body refused to move.

Every muscle was a knot. His jaw locked. His lungs tried to drag in air.

It felt like someone had taken his whole body in both hands and squeezed.

Not sharp pain. Just too much of it everywhere at once.

Elin sat on the stone beside him like nothing was happening. One knee up, the other leg dangling. Her fingers were loose on the rock.

Her eyes were not.

They stayed on him, steady, curious.

"Are you calling me a liar?" she asked again. Softer this time.

Raizen tried to answer.

Nothing came out.

His tongue felt too heavy. His throat refused to obey him. His hand twitched toward his sword hilt again and did not even get half a command through.

Panic pressed in around the edges of his thoughts.

He forced it back.

This is Eon. This is her. This is the Sky Sovereign. This is not his body failing. It is being held.

The pressure tightened for half a heartbeat, as if to remind him who was in charge.

Her gaze did not waver.

"Careful with your words, dear" Elin said quietly. "I have been called many things. Mad. Dangerous. Annoying. Wrong. I can live with those."

She leaned in just a fraction.

"But Liar... Is never one of them."

The hold vanished.

All at once.

His lungs dragged in air with a rough sound. His chest spasmed once, like his ribs were not sure if they were allowed to work again. He sucked in another breath, sharper, and coughed as the ache rolled through his muscles.

His fingers scraped against the stone. His legs tried to straighten and then gave a small, ugly tremor, like they remembered being locked and didn't really trust freedom yet.

He caught himself with one hand on the rock, the other pressed hard to the ground, teeth gritting as the strange ache of everything clenching at once faded.

It left him shaky. Just… A reminder. Of who Elin is.

He stayed there for a moment, letting his breath steady, wondering why he had to get hurt like this out of nowhere. First the Ghost Nyx hand at the Lighthouse, now this - everything in his body turned against him by someone else's will.

The gray forest waited in front of them.

Elin watched him from the corner of her eye.

"You done dying?" she asked, lightly.

Raizen swallowed down the last of the tightness in his throat and sat back up on the stone. His spine complained, a faint echo of the clamp running along it. He did not meet her gaze immediately. He needed a second for his own temper to cool.

When he did look, her expression was back to something almost casual.

Only her eyes still held that thin, cold line.

"I wasn't calling you a liar" he mumbled. His voice came out rough. "I just… Know when some things don't add up."

She tilted her head.

"Oh, my! That is totally different" she allowed. "And better. Next time, say that instead of implying I made up a fake story."

"You did something... Almost impossible" he said, more careful now. "It's just normal for me to wonder how."

"It's normal" she agreed. "It's also normal to consider whether the person who can crush your entire nervous system in one thought deserves the benefit of the doubt."

He almost laughed.

Instead, he let out a slow breath.

"I get it" he said. "Message well received."

His shoulders finally dropped a little. The last of the trembling in his fingers faded.

Her shoulders loosened too. Some of the sharpness slipped out of her eyes.

"Good" Elin said. "Because you aren't entirely wrong. It was too much. It was too fast."

She held his gaze for a beat.

"But if you expect me to unpack that now, you are dumber than I thought."

He stared at her.

"So you admit there is more."

"There is always more!" she said. "You will learn this, Raizen. Especially around people like me. Around Sovereigns and important or powerful legends. Around nations and people that pretend they are innocent."

Her eyes shifted back to the gray.

"Ukai hates me because I forced it to change" she went on. "Not because I broke their laws or burned their homes. Because I reminded them that nature never asks their permission to be angry."

Raizen looked at the silent, colorless trees.

His mind tried to fit Elin's words over Ukai as he had seen it - the huge tree city full of bridges and platforms, beasts and tamers moving high above the ground. Vendors shouting in the market rings. Lantern light over rough wood. Kids daring each other to get close to training zones. Summoners complaining in the corridors about long shifts and stubborn beasts.

He had seen fear there. Pride. Hunger.

He had never seen this.

"You could go back" he said quietly. "It has been years. Eight. Nine. Whatever. People forget. Why stay out here?"

She huffed a small laugh.

"You think I don't go back?" she asked.

He blinked.

"You… do?"

"Of course" Elin chuckled. "Where do you think I get clothes that don't look like I murdered a curtain? Where do you think I buy salt, metal, good tea, bad gossip?"

She waved a hand.

"I have walked those streets more than you have. I stood in their markets. Sat on their rooftops. Listened to summoners complain about sore backs and boring beasts. Listened to summoners brag about their latest fight and then nearly fall off a bridge later that night."

A small, begrudging fondness crept into her tone when she spoke about the city. It reached her eyes, softening her look.

Raizen imagined her moving through Ukai the way she moved through the cave - easy, unnoticed until she chose to be seen.

But cloaked, bare headed, or just another woman in practical clothes buying vegetables while no one realized there was a Sovereign at the stall.

"They don't recognize you?" he guessed.

"Most of them don't even know my face" she said. "Sovereigns are stories more than people. Titles. Events. Warnings. Even when I lived up there, I stayed out of their little ceremonies. Out of their fake speeches."

She paused.

"But the Ruler remembers" she added. "He is very old. Very wise. Very… tired. Ukai doesn't have a Council to control or bend his orders down. Just him, a few old friends and an entire city leaning on his spine."

Raizen thought of Neoshima's Council. The quiet weight in Solomon's eyes when he spoke about duty. The difference between one ruler bearing everything and a whole group spreading blame around.

"So he hates you" Raizen said.

"Quite the opposite. He understands me" she said.

Her mouth twisted.

"He knows I am right about the forest" Elin went on. "He also knows that if he admits that out loud, half his city will tear itself apart arguing about what should be done, who was wrong, who deserves to pay. People love blame more than they love change."

"So you stay down here" Raizen said. "With your animals."

"Animals never lie" Elin replied simply. "They don't give speeches about sacrifice while planning to bite you later. They doing pretend they didn't hear you just because listening would hurt their pride."

Her gaze dropped to his hands, then back up.

"They protect what they love. They grieve. That is it. No politics."

Raizen thought of the fox-deer nudging its young away from the river's current. The birds dropping fruit for the fish. The moss boar lying in the shallows, more interested in soaking than in anything else.

"And people? What is wrong with wanting to protect them?" Raizen asked.

"People add layers" she said. "Rules. Excuses. Stories. Some of those are beautiful. Most are just ways to avoid feeling guilty."

She did not say it cruelly.

Just like a fact she had watched repeat too many times.

She shoved herself off the stone and landed lightly on her feet.

"Come on. I am done talking about Ukai out here. It makes the air feel stale."

Raizen rose as well. His muscles still complained, a faint echo of the full body clamp following the motion of his shoulders and back.

He shot one last look at the gray basin.

From this angle, the dead stretch looked like a hollow carved out of the world. The colorless trees stood like ghosts around a dry wound. No movement. No birds. No whisper of leaves.

He turned away.

Elin was already walking, pale powder crunching under her bare feet.

Raizen followed a few steps behind her, boots sinking into the dead ground.

His muscles still remembered the hold she had put on him. Not pain anymore. Just a faint echo, like his body kept checking if it was allowed to move. Fingers flexed on instinct now and then, testing. Toes curled inside his boots when he stepped over softer patches.

Elin walked easy. Hands loose. Shoulders relaxed. Like nothing had happened.

The line where gray ended and real soil began waited ahead of them.

"Elin" he said.

She hummed without turning.

"Yes, dear."

"What about the Sky Sovereign before you?"

She stopped at that.

For a second too long.