Thomas Hammer did not hate George Brown.

  It took no more than a look to realize that. When their eyes met, Thomas did not want to watch his flesh burn, to dig his eyes out, to cut off his limbs one by one. Watching him stand leaning against the doorframe completely silent, Thomas almost felt sorry for him; at that moment, the light creeping in from the window behind Thomas’s back, the window George was facing, was reflected in his eyes under that special angle that made George’s eyes glisten with an elusive something Thomas couldn’t fight. That glisten made Thomas submissive because it made George look too ordinary; he could have been a servant and not a king. And that elusive misery that Thomas noticed wasn’t all too different from the desperation in Kyle’s eyes when he cried against injustice.

  But this man was evil. This man was the embodiment of everything wrong with their world; excessive hubris, wantonness, lust for death. He was born to be a problem, to destroy and burn, to reach a goal no one understood entirely; he was used by the Destiny to end world misery, to unite nations, and, by all means, to paint the ocean red. He would stop at nothing, he would bring destruction together with that salvation, he would build an oasis from other people’s juices, he would… make the world a better place.

  But he was wearing a simple black uniform that was too similar to the Raven one; his blond hair looked like a nest, and his red eyes, the truest of all anomalies, were calm and collected. He was Clara Heal’s only true heir. Diane Hunster was a fraud because Tobias Hunster took what rightfully belonged to this monster.

  So, are they wrong to fight? Or are they simply taking back what has always belonged to them?

  And it only took one look. George Brown was as dangerous as ever.

  He smiled wide. “Thomas! How glad I am to see you again!”

  Thomas couldn’t say anything at first. The last time they had seen each other didn’t leave Thomas feeling welcome in George’s world. So, as he wrecked his brain trying to think of something decent to say, his mouth suddenly opened.

  “Were you the one who burnt my house?”

  George’s eyes widened, then narrowed. He looked at Thomas, then Elaine, then Thomas again. He chuckled. “If anything, I believe it was me who lost his house that day.”

  The room was too bright for such a conversation. Thomas always imagined the Void would only exist in complete darkness; yet, there they were. “Oh, no, I too lost my house that day.”

  “Did you?” George replied, still leaning against the doorframe, neither entering the room nor leaving it.

  “I did. I was sure it was Elaine’s doing, but, you know, no harm in checking,” Thomas stumbled on his words. Looking at it objectively, there was nothing to gain from George’s answer; Thomas already knew the truth. But sometimes he needed more of it than other people to truly grasp the situation he was in. Because now there were two very real options presented before him, and he had to choose once and for all: which crime to justify?

  George looked at Elaine. “I suppose that’s not too nice.”

  Thomas scratched the back of his head. “No, it’s not. She also killed my mother.”

  “Did she?” George looked at Elaine again. “Well… I suppose it had to be done.”

  Nothing left to say; everything was perfectly clear.

  Yes, I suppose some things have to be done. Some things you can’t escape.

  Regardless of what people say, running away is never easy. It takes patience and courage to disregard all life’s lessons, to pretend like there is more to the truth, more left in the dust, more to uncover. When, in reality, it is all there, bare, in the open. Naked truth is the most difficult to see because it doesn’t require searching.

  Thomas had had more epiphanies in the past month than in the twenty-something years of his life, and each one of them contained one piece of a puzzle. As he was making this picture, due to a considerable number of missing parts, he couldn’t guess what exactly he was making. But now, this little comment shed light on what he would hang on his wall.

  Blood. Everywhere, in every crevice of this world. Just because their cause was just, didn’t mean their means were as well. And he had seen it clearly before, but pieces of the unknown invited doubt into his home; his faith remained unbroken, the temptation couldn’t trick him. He saw clear as day what he had already seen when this ordeal began: that there was another way. Diane Hunster didn’t care about him, but she cared about the world. Because she cared about the world. Because there were more important things to worry about than his insecurities, she had to find her strength at all costs. Because she believed, deep down, that his faith would not be broken, that he would find his way back to a moment like this one when he would realize that the idea and the execution were two different things. They wanted to save the world by destroying it first.

  “How much bloodshed is justified?” Thomas asked, looking at the wall to his right, somewhere between Elaine and George, so his voice reached them the same. “When is it too much?”

  Elaine sighed. “Thomas, you’re getting lost again. Think about…”

  “Answer my question.”

  “I won’t answer your question because you’re getting things mixed up again. You can see why we are doing this, I know you can.”

  “I can.”

  “Then that is all you need.”

  “What I need,” Thomas replied sharply, “is the truth. How many lives should be sacrificed before you say, I think this is too much. We need to stop.?”

  “As many as necessary.” George was closer to him now than he was before. There was no way for Thomas to leave that room. They would knock him out, tie him up, and throw him into a dungeon, use him, possibly, to blackmail Diane.

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  Would she choose me over the world? No, how can you think something like that in this situation?

  “There is no ethics in war,” George continued. “Not when you have a nation to save.”

  “That is why I can never choose you,” Thomas replied, now looking at Elaine. “There is another way.”

  “There isn’t. She tried,” Elaine tried to convince him.

  “She didn’t try hard enough.”

  “She tried for centuries…”

  “Then we’re unsalvageable.” Thomas didn’t care that George was breathing into his neck. “I will never agree to a reality in which one life is worth more than the other. The future has no right to the present. We are as important as them. You of all people should understand that.”

  Surprisingly, George didn’t stop him when he started walking towards the door. No grand speeches took place, no battles, no breakings of bones, and no dungeons. At least until he was almost in the hallway. When he was about to cross the line, he heard Elaine whisper, “I won’t let you.”

  Thomas turned around instantly. “What?”

  She was looking down, trembling from her hair to her toes. “I won’t. No, I won’t. I’ve made this plan, I won’t let you ruin it. I thought maybe I could make you understand but you just… you can’t see.”

  “You’re the one who can’t see,” Thomas replied calmly.

  “Then what about me?!” she screamed. The hallway and presumably every room in the castle was filled with her cry, every wall remembered it, every portrait on the wall mimicked its misery, its terror, and its anger. “I have given my life for this! You have no idea! You have no right to just walk away! You, who have never, in your life, known misery the way I have! You, who have never had to make a choice like I have, to lead like I have, to be evil like I have! I have made us a way, I, alone! And when they beat me, when they insulted me, when they looked down on me, I could keep my head high because it was me who gave them, you, all a way! I am the savior, I am the chosen, I am the messenger! And you best believe I will bring peace, one way or the other!” She glued the stray hairs on the top of her head with her sweaty palms. “And you, Thomas Hammer, you will die an insignificant death of a peasant while I sit on the throne and watch as they smolder the life out of you because you were too stupid to choose the right side.”

  “Actually,” George commented with a smile, unimpressed but highly amused, by her breakdown, “that will be me.” When no one answered and his words were left hanging in the air, he added, “The throne and all. That will be me.”

  She put her hands on her temples, bent over, and screamed. She screamed so loudly, with so much emotion, Thomas at first thought that was why the floor suddenly started shaking. Then water shot from underground like pillars holding the Icelean castle, making holes from where they entered all the way to the roof, maybe even parting the clouds. The water was cold and the pillars thick, demolishing the castle; parts of the roof and the floors started falling off more and more as the water grew in strength the more Elaine lost control. George stood in place, looking at her but doing absolutely nothing to stop her madness; he must have found it necessary for her to let it out once in a while. Thomas was holding onto the doorframe in case the floor fell through, trying to think about what his next step should be. The King of Iceleus was dead, Demons were presumably roaming around doing God knows what to those poor Iceleans, and now Elaine was destroying such a beautiful castle.

  “Elaine,” Thomas yelled, “you need to stop this!” He felt ridiculous enough even before he saw George’s back shaking and his head thrown back from laughter.

  Isaac. I need to get Isaac.

  Elaine wasn’t screaming anymore; she was just looking at him, as if challenging him, maybe telling him that she would end him the moment she got the chance.

  “George,” she said, the sound of concrete and pipes, and who knows what crashing from the aftermath of her anger covering her voice enough for Thomas not to hear, “get him. I’ll lock him up somewhere, so he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  George sighed. “No, thanks.”

  Elaine’s eyes widened and she shot him a look of disbelief. “What?”

  “I’m a man of my word. I will wait.”

  “That’s not what you did literally twenty minutes ago,” she protested.

  “That was for you,” he replied. “A warning. Do not forget your place.”

  Elaine took a deep breath; the room was, no doubt, still spinning in her eyes. “Fine,” she replied, walking towards Thomas, a spear of water forming in her hand, “I’ll do it myself.”

  If he hadn't witnessed it himself, Thomas wouldn’t have believed that George Brown completely nonchalantly punched Elaine and knocked her out. When she fell and the water disappeared back underground, George sighed, threw her over his shoulder, and walked right past Thomas like he wasn’t even there. Thomas was left alone to look at one of the many holes in the roof that made the castle incredibly cold.

  Running the events through his mind, Thomas found this ending uncommonly anticlimactic. It ended, and began, in a way, just like that. And now there were holes everywhere, screams, and lots of dust. He didn’t get to fight anyone, and not a single scratch was on his body; once the bodies are buried and the rites performed, once the roof is fixed and there is no more dust, there will be nothing to prove any of it had actually happened.

  Thomas let go of the doorframe and, still looking at the window opposite him, turned to his right to go back to the dining hall.

  “King!” he screamed. Sofia was standing right next to him, leaning against the wall. “When did you get here?!”

  “A while ago,” she replied. She was looking at the wall in front of her, not at all shaken by her mother’s death; in fact, she looked relieved.

  “You could’ve said something,” Thomas replied awkwardly, his heart still racing.

  “You were busy,” she replied.

  Thomas sighed. “Look, about what happened…”

  “Right. What happened?”

  Thomas didn’t like it when people looked right into his eyes when he had to lie. “She just got a little agitated about something.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “It’s, I mean, really, nothing serious. Really. Trust me.”

  Sofia smirked. “So, a maid got a little agitated and destroyed the Icelean royal castle right after a bunch of Demons killed the King of Iceleus. Just everyday stuff.”

  Thomas scratched the back of his head. “Well, yes, I guess, when you put it like that. What a day, huh?” She didn’t reply at first and Thomas’s heart slowed down a little. “Well, uhm, I have to go now. I’ll see you around.”

  “I want in,” she stated, firmly and camply. There was no room for objections.

  “Where?”

  “Your scheme.”

  “There is no scheme.”

  “I said, I want in.”

  “No. There is no scheme.”

  “I might have something you want.”

  Thomas stuttered; she hadn’t moved a millimeter and was still looking right at him. “Like I said…”

  “I said, I have something you might want.”

  Thomas opened his mouth to say so many different things yet said none of them. His head was beginning to hurt from all the emotions that had run through his body in the past hour and he really just wanted to find Isaac, tell him what happened, and go to sleep.

  Let’s just get this over with. Man, I’m sleepy.

  “If, hypothetically, there was, hypothetically, something going on, what would you have to offer? But hypoth…”

  “My two abilities.”

  Thomas froze; and no, it wasn’t from shock. He couldn’t move, not even his eyelids. He was aware, as he stood, feet on the ground, hand in hair, that he could hear everything and feel nothing. Say nothing to express his distrust. It was as if he existed only as a concept. And it felt good. Only she could smile at him and cross her arms victoriously.

  The Swan.