The final night of Ara Imosi was livelier than all other days before it. It seemed as though every citizen in the city was out in the streets, eating food and playing games and leaving special offerings of Arai—a white and blue five-petal flower that only grew high in the mountains—at Imos’s feet. All of them excitedly waiting for the apus of the festival: for stars to fall from the sky.

  The Slayer’s Hearth was bustling with an influx of activity. Slayers from all over the region, whether they were from Jinshi or not, had arrived for the main event of the final night. Mkhai had his hands full at the bar so his nephew was helping out by serving drinks and making sure every table and bar surface had enough festival sugarbread to go around. Rooms were all full and the main floor was way over capacity, but no one was going to care or say anything on that night.

  Sitting around a table with a drink each sat three Slayers, the only ones in the establishment not being obscenely rowdy or shouting in some capacity. Two men and a woman, heads hung without a word to say to each other.

  “Oi! Baxmus!”

  One of the men lifted his head and turned to face who’d called out. However, when the other Slayer saw the state of his face, he paused and jumped in fright.

  “What the hell, Bax? You look like you’ve got the life sucked right out of you.”

  Baxmus Orson, wind-waver, nodded with a perk of his brow. “Yeah, man. I feel like dogshit, but I’m alive.”

  “Barely,” his cohort, the water-weaver woman added.

  Baxmus weakly smiled at her. “How many times am I gonna have to say sorry before you forgive me, Hayle?”

  “You sure you should be up? I'm not kidding when I say you look like you've been through the ringer.” the other man asked.

  “And miss the shower? I could be taking my last breaths and I would stay alive to see it one last time.”

  They raised their steins and turned back to their respective groups, and as Baxmus turned back to his he eyed his other cohort, who was refusing to look up from the liquid in his cup, be it out of stubbornness or a distracted mind—or perhaps both.

  “Oris, man, look at me,” Baxmus reached for him.

  “You ate Colossi flesh, man. And it almost killed you. I should be killing you in its stead.”

  Hayle placed a hand on Oris’s arm and squeezed. “You can’t exactly blame him, Oris. It’s been a rough six months. He hit his breaking point. I’m surprised we haven’t ourselves.”

  Oris bore daggers through his glare into her. “He dishonored what it means to be a Slayer! We take an oath to put the people first, and this jackass goes and breaks a taboo over some tarin.”

  “It was a mistake. I know it was. I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah, well, sorry doesn’t earn trust back.”

  Baxmus grit his teeth and said nothing. How could he? Oris was right—what he’d done, consuming Colossi flesh and attacking the Arjblinka like that, was against their code. Not even just as Slayers, but as Servants. As comrades. He’d felt so alone in his struggles, Oris never showing weakness and Hayle too kind to voice her issues, but he wasn’t alone. He never had to be alone again, thanks to them, and this was how he repaid them.

  All of a sudden, the doors to the Hearth burst wide open, making a loud bang that alerted practically everyone inside and got them all to look. And who else would walk in but the boy from the square who’d protected the Arjblinka—the one with the metal arm. He suddenly paused as he realized all eyes were on him, looking around nervously.

  “What’s the hold up? Scared all of a sudden?”

  And following behind him, arms crossed and an unamused look on her face, was the Arjblinka herself.

  Baxmus watched as the two of them approached the bar, the chatter in the Hearth returning to how it was before, drowning out their words. He waited for a moment, but before either of his comrades could stop him, he stood up from the table and started walking over.

  “Bax!” Hayle shouted, “Don’t!”

  His mind was made up, and although he heard Oris’s chair squeak against the floor, he reached the pair before he could pull him back.

  “Arjblinka,” he muttered softly.

  The boy got in between them before the Arjblinka herself even turned around, holding his arms out to make himself wider. “What do you want?” he growled, his glare relentless and much scarier than Bax remembered it being that day in the square.

  “Relax, Teslin,” she said, placing a hand on his normal arm and forcing him to lower it. “He’s not a threat right now. The flesh is still making its way through his system, is it not?”

  Baxmus averted his gaze to the floor in shame. “I…recovery is rough. I still can’t sleep and I can barely stomach anything. And I can’t use my magic at all.”

  The boy, Teslin, lowered his arms and moved out of the way, taking a seat at the bar. His expression remained unchanged, however, like he was still on guard regardless of what either of them said. Baxmus understood, although the boy still made him feel uneasy.

  “If you’ve come for the tarin, I’m afraid I’ve already spent a good portion of it.”

  Baxmus shook his head. “No, I’ve come to ask forgiveness.”

  He dared steal a glance at her face. At first glance all he could see were her scars—the motion of the fanning pattern cupping her ears, the hesitancy in the lines down her forehead from her hairline—but then he met her gaze, and a quirked brow coupled with a slight smile on one side of her lips made him want to sink down further until he disappeared.

  “You’re brave,” she suddenly said, “asking forgiveness from someone like me.”

  He lowered his head again. “If you feel the need to take flesh as punishment, I would understand.”

  Suddenly, Oris stepped forward. “Please, don’t—!”

  The Arjblinka raised her hand and Oris froze. “You can relax, Earth-turner. I’m teasing. From what I’ve heard, the situation here is…tumultuous at best. I don’t exactly blame you for your response.”

  Baxmus sighed. “It’s no excuse. My behavior brings shame to the Slayer profession.”

  “All Slayers bring shame to the profession. It’s in our nature.” She was handed a mug of ale and stared into the swirling liquid, almost as if something she’d long been searching for was at the bottom of it. “The sooner you accept that we are just as fallible as anyone else, the easier things will be for you.”

  Baxmus lifted his head, not sure what to expect on her face, but the wistful look she bore harshly wasn’t one of them. “That’s not…”

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  She took a long swig from the mug. “We aren’t trained to be Slayers to protect others. We’re trained to bear the horrors the Colossi will inevitably bring.”

  Baxmus didn’t quite understand what she meant, but all that mattered to him was that she wasn’t interested in killing him for what he’d done. Perhaps her idea was to make him live with the shame as punishment. Though, for reasons he couldn’t exactly place and despite everything he’d ever heard about the Arjblinka, he felt an empathy for the woman before him and he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual.

  “So,” he continued, rubbing his neck awkwardly, “then allow me to properly introduce myself. My name is Baxmus, Wind-Waver, serving Jinshi as a Slayer for three years.”

  She sighed deeply, and after a moment of what looked to be hesitation, turned to him and smiled with pursed lips. “My name is Bellona, and this is Teslin—my Apprentice.”

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  “Master, can I…see it again?”

  Bellona perked a brow. She was already beginning to regret her decision based on how easy it was for him to wear her down. After a moment, she unhooked the Slayer Coil from her belt and passed it over to Teslin. He took the rounded device, pressing a button on its side and peering through the lens, until what appeared was Bellona’s Slayer credentials.

  Name: Bellona Creed

  Status: Slayer, Active Duty

  Acolytes: Teslin Aegis - Apprentice

  His smile pushed his cheeks high as he fell back onto the stone roof, holding the Coil high above him. The final moment of the Ara Imosi was about to begin, and all he wanted to look at was that little device, as if it was all that mattered.

  “I can’t believe you were able to keep my magic from spreading through you.”

  So was she—his magic was unlike anything she’d ever felt from someone who followed the same Path. It seemed like it was attacking her on its own, without his command, like it had its own willpower separate of Teslin himself. And it was strong. Luckily, it seemed that she was stronger still, but it was a closer finish than she wanted to admit.

  “I could, but I don’t think I could stop it if it were attacking someone else. So you need to be careful who you touch, even when I’m with you.”

  Teslin nodded. “I promise you that I won’t let you down, Master.”

  Bellona shrugged. “Would it surprise you that I don’t have high hopes for this relationship? Don’t forget you agreed to all of my terms, and you’d best remember them all.”

  “Your word is Creed. Just like you.”

  She rubbed the back of her neck, trying to let the awkward tension ride itself out. Why she’d even agreed to climb onto the roof of the Hearth with him was beyond her, but all of her good sense was out the window by now. She’d even switched rooms in the Hearth to accommodate taking him on, but that was mostly because it would be unbecoming to let him keep living in the state he previously was.

  Teslin had received a proper roof over his head, three meals a day, and education. All for the low, low price of what was left of Bellona’s sanity.

  “We start tomorrow,” she replied after a while, eyes to the sky, “bright and early. And I won’t hear any complaining about it, yes?”

  He said nothing at first, so she looked over, finding him lost in what was in the center of her Coil. She decided then that she would at least give him the remainder of the night to be in awe, let him get it out of his system, before she’d make him painfully aware of what he’d signed up for. A part of her wondered if she should try to make him quit, get herself out of it, but she was still racking her brain about his magic—and while she hated to admit it, even to herself, she was genuinely interested in it.

  Suddenly, his eyes squinted. “Wait, is that…”

  Bellona followed his gaze, through the lens and up to the sky above, and watched the first star fall from the sky, a streak of blue light trailing behind it. Teslin finally lowered the Coil and stared up at the sky instead, eyes growing wide at the sight. It was almost like…

  “Have you…never watched the stars fall before?”

  At first he didn’t say anything, but she could tell he heard her question. Then after a moment, as the sky lit dizzyingly quickly, he nodded.

  “No, I have. It’s just…this feels like a new beginning, doesn’t it?” He sat up, crossing his legs and rattling the tile below him. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time. And now that it’s here, it doesn’t feel quite real yet.”

  Bellona nodded and lied back onto the roof herself, following particular streaks of light that stood out. “Against my better judgment, it’s real. That much I can promise you.”

  “But nothing else.”

  She turned her head to look his way again, and there was a sadness in his eyes she didn’t expect to see. He’d had such unwavering faith in her, was it finally starting to set in that even she was out of her depth? She certainly couldn’t promise him that she’d cure him, and she made that quite clear as one of her terms. While he was right to say her master of the Path of Metal was one of the best in the world, the inevitability of the Path’s doomed end was a monster that the Servants of the World had decided to simply accept as fact when all attempts to stop it failed them.

  “I can promise that I’ll try.”

  But Bellona had never met a monster she couldn’t take head-on.

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  The following morning, as the crowds of Slayers began to check out of the Hearth, Teslin curled up in one of the comfier armchairs, dozing off as he stared into the fire and waking back up the moment his head felt the vertigo of its drooping. He was only halfway through a meager breakfast of a bannock-jam sandwich, but the crumbs kept slipping from his mouth as he fought to keep his eyes open.

  “I think I’m going to pass back out,” he muttered with stuffed cheeks.

  Bellona, who’d left him alone for a moment, appeared back at his side the moment he spoke. “I did say bright and early, remember? It’s not my fault you were too excited to sleep.”

  “I mean, it kind of is, but—”

  Before he could finish, Bellona slammed something down on the table and he jumped, throwing the remains of his breakfast over his shoulder in fright. She enjoyed it a little too much, the corners of her lips slightly turning up as he shrieked, waiting for the realization of the massive stack of books towering over him to hit.

  “What could those possibly be for?” he asked, hints of disapproval so prominent in his voice it was hard to miss.

  “I’m sorry, did you think I wasn’t going to have you start from scratch?” Bellona asked, eyeing the tower she couldn’t even fully reach the top of. “We start with the basics, and only when you’ve mastered those will we move on to actually training the magic.”

  Teslin swallowed what was in his mouth and groaned. “I already know how to use magic, that’s my problem! And I can’t read all of that! I-I can’t even read!”

  “Oh, I don’t believe that for a second.” The smile that spread across her face was surely quite terrifying as Teslin couldn’t look her in the eye for once. “You could read my credentials and your name in my Coil, after all.”

  Teslin groaned even louder. “I probably already know all of this stuff! It’s just a waste of time!” He picked up the book on top and examined it like it was made of raw buffalo skin or dripping in waste. “The Origins of Magic? That’s just common knowledge!”

  “Okay,” Bellona placed a hand on her hip, “who were you named for?”

  The uncomfortably long moment of silence didn’t bode so well for him.

  “I’m, uh…”

  She raised a brow, knowing she had him backed into a corner and that he didn’t even realize it. “Your name. Where did it come from?”

  Teslin seemed confused, which answered all she needed to know. “Uh, my mom, I guess? Though I guess my dad could have picked it? It’s not like I knew my parents, you know! Hence the Aegis surname!”

  For the first time in forever, Bellona laughed. It was short and sweet, full of snark, but it was genuine laughter. “What was that? Common knowledge you say?” She picked up the book in his hand and waved it a little, before shoving it back into his arms so roughly he grunted from the blow. “You’ve got a lot to learn before I’m willing to teach you anything else. Read them.”

  Teslin eyed the pile beside him, worry besetting his expression. “All of them?”

  “All of them. Read until you can’t keep your eyes open any longer. Until your fingers have calluses from the spines. Until I say so. Got it?”

  He opened his mouth, presumably to talk back, but as Bellona crossed her arms and tilted her head he held his tongue and opened the book in his hands.

  “Yes, Master Creed.”