Like many of her friends, Violet found herself bedridden for several days, following the dance with death that was the battle of Gold’s Bane.

  Part of her wondered which was uglier. The cold bodies of the countless Unbounded she had butchered on that fateful night, or the expression that scrunched up Koa’s features as he pounded upon Remus’ chest, mourning the loss of his deceased wife.

  Violet shook her head, tired of staring at the four blank walls that comprised her cabin. She wanted to be outside; away from this damn campsite. Back in the action, fighting the good fight, and with her heart fully aligned in the war effort. Not lying in bed all day, trapped inside an outpost possessing the highest rates of misery in all of Descent.

  She sighed. With over a third of their men butchered, the Talents of the Future’s fighting spirit had been beaten out of them. Violet couldn’t bring herself to blame them, her own resolve dampened.

  Most of their soldiers had been bright-eyed youths. The kind of people who saw war as some sprawling adventure. Akin to a holiday away from home, and a chance to advance to the next Rank. The hand of reality was unforgiving, and it had knocked some sense into all of them.

  In a world born out of havoc, there was only one constant. A law of existence they had all been forced to grow very accustomed to. Cold, sheer brutality.

  From head to toe, Violet ached. Dividing into hundreds of pieces, and then merging them back together again was not a fun process. She was proud that the majority of her Projections had survived the callous cruelty of battle, but cursed herself for the futility of it all. Not even her ace in the hole had been enough to turn the tide, and she could never have anticipated the agony that came with becoming whole once again.

  Somehow, Violet only felt more splintered. Tearing yourself into a mini-army of personalities tended to have that effect, but slowly, as she adjusted to solely occupying her one body and her Projected missionaries, Violet was grateful to find a peaceful reassurance rising to the surface. She was still scattered-brained, and headaches were a constant. But emerging gradually from the sea of hysteria were the words of Violet’s diary – or, the diary of human Violet. To avoid confusion, that was what she had taken to calling the younger version of herself: human Violet, or at least completely human Violet – the girl whose mortal DNA she was a genetic clone of. She still wasn’t entirely sure what to make of what she had read, but the words anchored Violet to some semblance of sanity. For that, she was grateful. Just another thing she owed human Violet for.

  With nothing to do, and feeling up to it today, Violet decided to venture outside.

  She hardly saw Remus, who was constantly in meetings, stressed and guilt-ridden out of his mind. Her heart went out to him, but there was little she could do other than pose a distraction. Their other companions would occasionally pop into the settlement, usually to receive orders from Remus about where to go next. The entire rebellion was up in a frenzy, weary of another attack being launched to finish off their last dregs of survivors. Speaking to Veida, Hadrian, Tanguy, or Aziel, when they briefly visited between chores, was the most socialising Violet could hope to get nowadays.

  Today, however, it was someone else she wanted to go see.

  Violet stalked her way through camp, trying to ignore the stares of weary men aimed her way. They looked fatigued, in a way that went past the superficial.

  The first two times Violet had knocked on Koa’s door, he hadn’t answered. As the outpost transformed from temporary to long-term, the remaining Carpentry clansmen had created a more permanent settlement for them all. In the Durations since the assembly of his own home, Violet didn’t believe that Koa had left his house once.

  As she waited in the brisk cold of early winter, Violet didn’t get her hopes up. People dealt with grief in different ways, and if Koa needed some time alone to recuperate-

  The groaning creek of a door opening caused Violet to jolt.

  “Come in.” Koa said blankly. From the sounds of it, the man was some distance from the door, having used a lazy activation of his Mark to allow Violet to enter, from afar.

  The interior of Koa’s chamber was humble, but the same could be said for every building the Carpentry Clan had erected. Violet had no cause to complain, and she was grateful for the expansions regardless of her own preferences. Her personal tastes towards camps were a luxury, and luxuries certainly weren’t a thing Violet was in a position to hope for, let alone dare request. The memory of Remus’ last gift to her, before Gold’s Bane had been scattered to dust, of fulfilling that unspoken wish, brought a sharp sting.

  There was a small hearth nestled below a chimney, which was about the extent of how much they could hope for in terms of home decor. Koa sat morosely at a small table that took up most of the room, his bed resting in the corner, and an antique clock on the right wall. There was a full glass of wine resting on the table, which was especially odd. One, Violet had never seen Koa drinking, and two, it didn’t appear to have been touched. It was like Koa was trying to look the part of a widowed husband, only to discover he wasn’t much of a drinker.

  “How are you feeling?” That seemed like the right thing to ask, considering the circumstance, but Violet cringed even as the words left her mouth. How did she think he was feeling? The man certainly wasn’t doing star-jumps and running giddy laps around his living room.

  “Getting better.” Koa sighed, speaking in a way that suggested he wasn’t, in fact, getting better at all. He stared at his reflection in the glass’ curved surface. “Do you like red wine? Hadrian smuggled some in for me during a recent visit. It’s supposed to be a kind of expensive variety. While I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not built like Hadrian – I don’t know how he can stand the stuff, let alone drink it by the gallon.”

  Violet declined the polite offer. “My head hurts enough without being drunk. Thank you though.”

  A vacuum seemed to settle between the two of them, not the gentlest sound picked up by Violet’s ears. What began as a few tentative seconds stretched out until a whole minute had passed, without either of them uttering a word.

  “I-”

  “I’m sorry for not answering you.” Koa spluttered.

  Their voices were like two bulls butting heads, catching each other off-guard.

  “It’s fine, really. I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. I know what it feels like to lose someone.”

  Koa kept his eyes on his drink. In the dim lighting, the red liquid could almost pass for blood. “Do you mind if I ask you a personal question?”

  Violet steepled her fingers. “Anything.”

  He gritted his teeth, eyes looking at anything but her. “I know I shouldn’t be asking about something like this, something so private; so personal . . . but how did it feel to . . . to kill your own sibling?”

  She tried to disguise the reflex, but Violet sprang in her seat.

  Koa winced. “I’m sorry, I know that was too far, I’m not thinking-”

  Violet raised her hand. “Don’t worry.” Violet exhaled deeply, the tension flooding out of her body like puss from a wound. “It’s a heavy question, but if there’s anyone who has reason to be asking it, it would be you.” Violet donned a weak smile. “Family problems aren’t too uncommon, eh?”

  Koa was sheepish, but he finally met Violet’s eyes.

  Now she really saw Koa. Without his remote eyeballs currently in action, and not equipped with his intricate armour that seemed to squeeze and contain all of nature inside of it, the threatening warrior who had endured so much was gone. Now he was just a maimed man, and a man who had lost everything at the hands of darkness. Darkness. Violet scoffed. Their side of the fight wasn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows either.

  So young too. Violet had to pause to wonder if he had even stopped growing yet.

  She inhaled deeply. As her lungs refilled with oxygen, so did Violet’s mind resurge with a plethora of memories. Memories that suddenly seemed as vital as the air she breathed.

  And memories that, for the sake of her own sanity, Violet hadn’t revisited in over a Rebirth. Not in any substantial way.

  The realisation made her skin prickle. She had never harboured some kind of ill-will, some intention to snip away that part of her family’s history forever. It was just that . . . that she preferred not to think about her. About Verity. That sounded awful to admit, but it was true. Whenever the face of her sister did resurface, it was always a little harder to get up in the morning. The smallest tasks of her day transformed into impossible trials at the merest recollection of the shape of her nose, the sound of her voice, or any other seemingly bizarre, random detail.

  In the madness that was her day-to-day life, there was never the time to reflect on how she felt. As long as she was alive and breathing, away from the clutches of the latest entity that wanted her dead, then that was all that Violet could afford to ask for. Little time was there to check-up on her own mental wellbeing. Sadly, the dark machinations that threatened humanity would not accommodate Violet with some time to grieve.

  So out of necessity, and perhaps fear, she had left that part of herself unexplored. Always busied either by some more pressing misfortune, or the Celestial War that threw all of their lives into a frenzy.

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  To breach that topic now was beyond uncomfortable. But for Koa’s sake – and her own – she faced that fear head-on.

  “The Verity I fought – wasn’t exactly the Verity I knew.”

  Koa nodded, as if that stuck a cord. “Ash isn't the man I once knew either. Or a man at all, really.”

  Violet put a hand over Koa’s. “You don’t know that yet. You could still-”

  “I’m far too late into this life, Violet, to still be relying on false hope.” Koa’s voice suddenly hardened, and the glass wobbled between them “I have to kill Ash. It breaks my heart, but the greater injustice would be to leave him out there, marring his legacy. I can only take so much, and I’m sure he can’t stand this much longer either.”

  Violet was going to protest, but stopped herself. Maybe Koa was the realist here, but curse her optimism, she still believed the boy could be saved.

  She quickly changed the topic. “To feel a little better about the whole thing, to cope in some small way, I kept telling myself that this wasn’t Verity I was facing. Just a genetic clone – a soulless puppet in the shape of her body. But then, right on the cusp of death . . . I saw a glimmer of my old sister in there. I don’t know if the cloning process had preserved Verity’s memories as it had mine, perhaps in some more minor way, but . . .” Violet trailed off, not having much more to say.

  “I don’t know what's easier to stomach.” Koa held his glass a little more tightly. “The pain of thinking they’re completely gone from your grasp, or the pain that comes from hoping they might still be there, somewhere – suffering.”

  That nagging silence laid in wait patiently in the corner. Forever determined to jump into the fray whenever the conversation came to a lagging pause.

  “It’s hard, you know.” Koa muttered, a little while later. “To keep going. The only thing that motivates me to push forward is my duty as a brother. If nothing else, I must spare Ash from insanity. And we both know there’s only one way to do that. But then,” he choked, “once I put Ash to sleep, what’s left for me? What’s left?”

  His teeth chattering, Koa’s leg bounced up and down under the table. His glass threatened to cast itself off the shaking surface, its ruddy contents about to spill over the checkered floor and paint an impromptu murder scene.

  Violet placed down a firm hand to stop the table moving, before forcing Koa to meet her gaze.

  “I get that you feel lost right now Koa. I feel lost too. But when we’re stumbling through the dark, without the slightest wick of light to guide us, what do we do?”

  Slowly, Koa ceased his trembling. “I don’t know. For the life of me, I don’t know.”

  “We pave our own path. When the schemes of the gods, the Unbounded, and Infinity itself all fail us ceaselessly, we have no hand to hold but our own.” Violet didn’t know where these words were coming from, but as she continued to speak, a fire was stoked inside of her. “We have to decide for ourselves how we want to shape our lives. Despite what they want us to believe Koa, we are not merely tools in some war, or enemies to be eradicated. We are people. Reality may be set upon destroying itself, but we can choose who we are in the brief window we have here, alive and breathing. And that freedom is everything.”

  Koa considered this. “What if I don’t know what I want? What if everything I wanted has been stripped away from me?”

  Violet grimaced. “That’s the hard part. We’re peas in a pod, you and I. I’ve been chasing after this Unbounded thread all of my life, trying to undo a yarn of misery and mystery, hoping that it would grant me . . . I’m not sure. Maybe contentment in the end? I’m glad I got that justice, but once vengeance is reaped, life just continues. We have to find out what people we are without all of this strife, Koa. Who we want to be. It’s hard, and I’m only chipping at the surface, but there's more to humanity than violence and bloodshed. More to life, I hope, beyond this Celestial War.”

  Koa didn’t say anything. The blood rushed to Violet’s face, and she had to wonder if all of those pretty words were a lie. The kind of thing you forced yourself to believe to feel better. She only stopped second-guessing herself when Koa mumbled her words under his breath, staring wistfully at the wall, and seeming to see beyond it.

  “Who I want to be . . .”

  A solemn wind breathed against the walls of the cabin, slipping in through an open window. Some birds chirped, and the distant drizzle of an approaching storm made Violet rest a little easier in her seat. Nature itself whispering lullabies into her ear.

  “I don’t know who I am.” Koa gritted his teeth. “I’ve always wanted to live up to my clan’s expectations, to out-do my brother. I couldn’t sleep some nights thinking about it – about how, in every way I could imagine, Ash was better than me. All of them were. Everyone in the Wilderness Clan. To be someone I could be proud of, that was worthy of love, I had to show that I was capable. Now everyone I was comparing myself to is either dead or insane, and I . . . I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  “You’re enough Koa. You’ve saved lives; you’re a role model to people. You’re one of the kindest people I’ve met, and Descent is not a world known for its friendliness.” Violet smiled weakly. “You don’t have to live up to anybody else’s expectations.”

  Why was it so much easier to help other people, but when it came to herself, Violet found she was trapped? The right words to say to Koa came easily, but each time Violet tried to wade through her own storm of troubles, to emerge out of that maelstrom with newfound insight and self-assurance, those winds of turbulence would sweep her away all over again.

  “But that’s all I’ve ever known. My entire world has been stripped away, Violet.” Koa clutched at his face. “Gods, sometimes I can’t stand myself. I lashed out at Remus like that, and even after all the terrible things you’ve been through, I still insist that my own agonies are the most terrible. I haven’t even taken a second to consider how all of this is affecting you.”

  Maybe a drink would have made this conversation a little easier.

  “Pain isn’t a currency you can measure and compare Koa. Your agonies are your own, and mine are mine, but one isn't greater or worse than the other.”

  Koa shifted nervously in his seat. Violet got the impression he was mustering up the courage to say something else.

  “Can I ask you another personal question?”

  “I don’t think this talk can get any more personal.” She said wryly. “But you can try.”

  Koa steadied himself. “How do you feel about Remus?”

  Now that was a question that gave her pause. Not exactly the direction Violet had been expecting this conversation to go.

  “I think he’s a great person.” She responded automatically. “Someone that gives me hope when I’m losing faith. Despite the tragedy that’s befallen Gold’s Bane, he’s an excellent lead-”

  Koa shook his head. “No, I don’t care what you think about him morally, or as the leader of the Talents, or as a person in any kind of way. What I want to know is how you feel about him. How you really feel.”

  Violet hoped to the gods that she wasn’t blushing.

  “What could you possibly . . . “ When he raised an eyebrow, Violet gave up the act, collapsing against the table in resignation. “Is it really that obvious?”

  “I’ve seen the way you act when you’re around him. You’re the furthest thing from a touchy person there can be, but when you’re with Remus – all of that goes away.”

  “Shut up.” She hissed. Curse Infinity, she was definitely blushing.

  Koa only laughed. “I’m most definitely overstepping here, and maybe I’m not thinking straight with everything that’s been going on. But I just keep thinking that there’s something stopping you: from allowing yourself to be happy with Remus. When I remember Octavia and I . . . If I had never confessed how I really felt to her . . .” He grimaced. “The memories we made together, they’d just be possibilities. And there’s nothing in this world, no jewel, no diamond, and no amulet, worth more to me than those. No matter the pain I’m feeling now, I would bear that burden a hundredfold worse, before losing those times.”

  Violet felt a lump form in her throat.

  “So, if you don’t mind me asking . . . what’s stopping you?” He took a deep breath. “I want you to be happy.”

  Violet’s mouth went dry. She made to speak, but stopped herself. “Can I show you something?”

  Koa blinked, probably not seeing how this related in the slightest. “Err, okay?”

  From a bag below her, Violet unveiled a sleek black notebook. She slumped it on the table between them. Koa looked at the book, then to her, then to the book again, his eyebrows rising steadily higher each time.

  “This was left behind by human Violet – the original girl that I’m a clone of.”

  Koa’s eyes widened, his fingers twitching as if he had to stop himself from jolting upwards. “I thought any trace of her had been burnt away.”

  “So had I.” Violet perused through its pages, savouring the satisfying flicker of thousands of words falling past. “I expected to be guilt-ridden after reading through this, but the further in I get . . .”

  Koa leaned forward, nodding eagerly. “Yes?”

  “. . . the more annoying I find its author.” Violet cleared her throat, ignoring Koa as his jaw dropped at the anticlimax. “But the more liberated I feel too.”

  “Liberated?”

  “The girl I see between these pages is very clear in her convictions. She despises the Celestial War, loathes how pointless all this violence is, and detests anyone who will carry out that evil. It's comforting to discover convictions so similar to my own.”

  The young man blinked.

  “That’s a remarkable discovery,” Koa took a sip of his wine, made a face, and put the glass back down. “But excuse my bluntness – what exactly does this have to do with Remus?”

  Violet scanned around the room for a moment, as if making sure there was nobody else in the vicinity that could hear her. Unless there was somebody hiding in the cabin walls, the coast was clear. “I’ve never confessed this out loud before, but part of me fears that if I’m piloting a body that isn’t mine . . . then to go on to date someone, with that body, is simply wrong. Immoral in a way. Like that’s not my choice to make, you know? Why should I be able to experience love, when she never can? I owe her so much.”

  Koa’s lips became a stoic line. “In the hope that I’m not being too harsh here, Violet, I feel like your worries are misplaced.”

  Violet’s gaze lowered to the diary.

  “You speak as if you killed and took that girl’s body with your bare hands, but that couldn't be further from the truth. You’re completely different people. You and her may look alike, sound the same, style your hair in a similar fashion, and even share the same memories, but you are not the same person. Akuji gifted you with life, Violet, and it is yours and yours alone to do with as you wish. What happened to human Violet is a tragedy – no doubt about it – but it was none of your doing, and it is not your burden to carry. Never mistake your existence for something that is stolen, or not yours, or a curse. It is a gift, Violet, do you hear me? A gift. A gift you have used to strike back against the harbingers of darkness and misery, who seek to destroy Descent as we know it.”

  Koa met her eyes. “I can’t speak for the dead, Violet, but from the little I’ve heard about that girl, she wouldn’t be able to stand and watch you suffer either, after all you’ve done to honour her memory. It’s not my place to say, but I’m sure human Violet would want you to be happy too.”

  “I-” Violet swiped at her face, as something wet began to course down it. “I’ve been starting to think that way too. You’re a good man Koa. I hope you know that.”

  For the briefest moment, a great burden seemed to be lifted from Koa. Wrinkles fading, the young man smiled. “You’re a good person too Violet. I think it's about time you learnt that.”