Anastira
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Even as Epithet’s throat stings from the cut of her own blade, the tether dissipates, its essence bleeding away into the air before Epithet’s eyes. For an instant, she is motionless, watching Lunara steadily - perhaps it’s her imagination, but she thinks there’s something in the archer’s eyes, a moment of unsteadiness as the tether is broken. The two of them might as well be statues, as still as the likeness of the god watching them from the center of the sands.
Epithet reaches up and roughly swipes the tears from her cheeks. She feels the faintest sense of revulsion, a distaste for her own vulnerability. She chokes it down.
Then she lunges at the archer, towards the statue in the center of the arena, Advice in hand and ready to swing upwards. The sands rise around her feet, disturbed by her footsteps. The lines she’d drawn in the sand with Criticism and Advice, only moments before - when she had turned away from the man with his fire and bent her focus on the ranger instead - are gone already, erased. She knew they would be, and yet the thought feels so grim. So empty.
She can walk a million steps and no one will ever know. The evidence of her presence disappears. Rain washes across pavement; sand settles into familiar patterns. Coins are exchanged, nameless, and a week later no one will remember the fey that paid them. Words are exchanged, the most fleeting thing of all; and yet they may continue on, held within invisible wounds…but eventually, even their memory will fade. Once, Epithet cherished this fact. She loved slipping in and out of the world, knowing she will be forgotten. No lasting bonds, nothing to tie her down.
Now, the thought feels morbid.
What did you do to me? she wonders, as she throws all her weight behind the blade. How did you break a fey’s mind, archer?
But if the archer can beat Epithet at her own game, use her own tricks, inflict the same pain with her words…then what does Epithet have that anyone else doesn’t?
No…worse. She has less than anyone else. All she has is the hatred of those she’s hurt…
But hatred can be good, too. A powerful weapon. She burrows into that thought, wields it like a dagger. It builds her strength, even as her arms burn, even as her neck stings, and she brings Advice upwards alongside Criticism, their blades shrieking through the air -
Halfway through the swing, a screech fills the air, so loud Epithet has to fight the urge to drop her weapons and cover her ears. For a moment she feels herself reeling, barely registering the sudden warning glow of the archer’s cloak; and yet, somehow, though her mind doesn’t recognize it, her body and her instinct do. She feels what is to come next, remembers deep in her bones what her brain has half-forgotten - the force of wind pushing her outwards, explosive, and Epithet forced to her knees in the previous arena.
It’s the oldest rule in the book: never use the same trick twice.
Driven by instinct and pure muscle memory, Epithet pulls her blades back down to the sand, their points impaled as she skids backwards, her grip on the pommels so tight that her knuckles turn white. Sand swirls between them, driven up by the storm. There’s something green in the fragrance of the wind, and coupled with the sand flying between them, it brings Epithet back, into unbidden memory -
The ship, the crew, the Hearthlake, an eyepatch -
No. A trick of the arena, maybe, but one she won’t fall for again. She grits her teeth. Something is wrong with her ears; in the aftermath of the wind, the world is utterly and completely silent. It’s a strange feeling: without her hearing, she feels so isolated, as though the rest of the world lies beyond a wall of cotton. But at least she can still see out of her right eye. At least she can still feel the sand gritty beneath her knees, and the heavy familiar weight of her swords in her hands.
She blinks, shaking her head as though it’ll bring her hearing back.
The archer is already gathering herself, readying another strike against Epithet, maybe. Epithet knows she should pick herself up, finish this off. But something holds her in place. The vision of that ship, the voices of the crew. All of it feels so real. Just barely beyond reach, like she can almost brush it with her fingertips, and…
Why does she care? They’re nothing but hallucinations.
She chances a glance downwards at herself, taking it all in for the first time since she entered the arena. Her bare feet are crisscrossed with scratches and bruises from the arena floor, caked with sand. Her robes, never pristine, are a patchwork of red and black, dyed crimson from her own blood. She leaves Criticism standing in the sand for a moment, just long enough to touch her fingers to the blood on her neck.
It’s just begun to clot, beading up everywhere. Beneath her fingers, it feels as though someone’s embedded a choker within the skin of her throat. She flinches as she touches it.
She rises, reaching to take Criticism back in her right hand. Already the archer is gathering herself, so Epithet forces herself forward as quickly as she’s able, propelling herself against her blades and pulling them unceremoniously from the sand as she rushes the ranger. Half-sprinting, half-leaping across the arena to close the gap between them, her blades sweeping up into the air and coming down together as an X to cut the archer’s head free of her body -
But the archer moves, just in time, bow meeting blades once again. Epithet feels both blades stop suddenly and recoil to either side from the force of the blow, Criticism flying free and landing heavily in the sand. She hisses in frustration, eyes narrowing - and even so feels a little rush of relief, because the ranger’s desperate move has shattered the bow in her hands, wooden splinters flying in the air between them.
Epithet allows herself to smile.
Without her bow, Epithet thinks, surely the archer cannot win. The thought makes her confident - overconfident. She turns back, regaining her footing, and strikes with Advice, fast and hard.
But her confidence has blinded her, because she is not prepared for the dagger that rises to meet her throat.
In that moment, locked together in the middle of the sands, Epithet finds the archer’s gaze. Both of them are still, blades millimeters from piercing skin. If either of them move, Epithet knows, both of them die. And then there is no winner; only two who have lost. So she stays where she is, her entire body taut, too wary to move, almost too wary to even breathe. Her hand shakes slightly from Advice’s weight. She wishes abruptly that she had used Criticism instead. Her eyes flicker across to where it lies in the sand, so close and yet still beyond reach.
She swallows and returns her gaze to the archer.
Neither of them can win.
No…that’s not true. One of them can. But someone has to lose. And as she looks into the archer’s eyes, she knows: the archer would not give this up so easily. She would not stand down. There’s simply no chance. The look in the archer’s face is weary, exhausted, and yet there is a passion there. Hunger. Yearning. She fights for something, and whatever that something is, it is important to her.
What right does Epithet have to take that from her? Epithet doesn’t even know what she’s fighting for.
If Epithet could still win, maybe it would be different. But she knows, without a doubt, that that’s no longer an option here. Either neither of them win, or Epithet can give this victory to the archer. And how bad would that really be? Certainly, it would mean Epithet loses the game. But she’s been playing the game her entire life. And hasn’t the archer earned this? She’s not only met Epithet, blow for blow; she tricked a fey. Outplayed a fey. And that…that is not something any other mortal would be capable of, Epithet thinks.
Epithet closes her eyes.
“You fight well,” she says, the words reluctant even as she knows it’s the right decision. “I wasn’t wrong when I said you were lost…was I? But…” She forces herself to open her eyes, to meet the archer’s unwavering gaze again. “I believe that there is more you fight for. Something out in the great blue world that means something to you. And maybe you are right. I am fey. I am meant to be transient.”
Her grip tightens on Advice as she fights to keep her arm from shaking.
“I do not like you,” she says, gritting the words out, every syllable painful. “But…I…respect…you.”
She inhales slowly. So this is how it ends…this is how she dies. Losing her own game…intentionally. She lets the breath fill her lungs. It’s coarse, dusted with sand and tasting vaguely of steel and blood, but she doesn’t care. It’s one of the last breaths she will ever take.
“I don’t respect many people,” she adds, so quietly even she can barely hear herself.
And then…she lowers Advice.
Pulls her hand away, slowly, so the archer can’t mistake her intentions; and gives it a little throw, so it lands in the sand opposite Criticism, out of reach. Far enough out of reach that there can be no doubt. No mistaking it for a trick.
She closes her eyes, offering her bare, bloody throat for the archer to take.
“Have your boon,” she whispers. “Make it count.”
And she braces for the inevitable.
She feels every breath, every pulse of her heartbeat. She feels the coarse, gritty textures of the sand grains beneath her bare ankles, against her bare feet. Her hands feel so empty - such a strange feeling, after carrying Criticism and Advice with her, all this time. She feels the sting of her neck, the ache of her thigh, the burning pain of her face. Her hand prickles with the scars the archer inflicted, an injury healed in body but not in mind.
She sees the crew.
She hears Wister’s voice: Remember the boon. Remember who cursed you.
Nefeli’s face, thunderous, as the boat capsizes with Wister on deck. Epithet falling into the swirling waters of the Hearthlake, down, down. Her eyes closing as she realizes: she has failed to do Wister’s bidding, to end Nefeli for once and for all. But...at least she will find peace in the Hearthlake, where all souls go to sleep.
A flash of memory - Nefeli’s face as she hauls Epithet’s corpse out of the water. The Home flickering all around her, chained souls against every wall, kidnapped from the Hearthlake, taken before they could find peace. Paying their souls to keep Nefeli’s faux-world alive, to keep the Home from disintegrating…
Is this what it is to die? Flashes of memory, a life condensed into seconds? Epithet feels she is drowning. She tries to pull herself back - to the archer, to her inevitable death - but the memories won’t let go.
Wister, in the Home, somehow, sneaking Epithet out, except they were a stranger to her; she didn’t recognize them…
Wandering. Endlessly.
The crew. A ship sailing the Hearthlake, returning souls -
No. It doesn’t make sense. This isn’t a memory; she’s sure of it. It hasn’t happened yet. In fact, she’s sure it hasn’t happened yet, because she’s wearing an eyepatch in this one, and her eyes are perfectly fine -
Were perfectly fine. Until now.
She sees the crew on the deck, faces she doesn’t recognize - faces she will, maybe, someday; or would, if she had not already given her life to the archer. She even sees Wister. The Home is gone, because where it should be there’s a glade instead, evergreen. The archer would appreciate that, she thinks, coughing out a laugh…
Epithet blinks.
She is in the arena.
The dagger is no longer at her throat.
She reaches up, in a daze, to touch her neck. She’s not sure what she expects: maybe she thinks she’ll find it sliced open, cut in two. Maybe she’ll feel blood pouring from her neck. Maybe she’ll feel the breath leaking from her body…what does it feel like to die? She doesn’t know. Because Nefeli did not let her…
“No,” she whispers, as her hands come away to find nothing has changed. She is no less whole than she was ten seconds ago. She finds the archer’s eyes, not understanding. “No, you must -” she tries reaching for the dagger, as though to draw it against her own throat - even as the archer collapses onto the sand, her body rife with exhaustion. Epithet thinks she can hear the archer sobbing faintly behind her mask. She steels herself and presses onwards, her voice half-strangled. “The boon -”
She looks back at the archer, helpless on the ground, weeping. Unable to even stand. And it occurs to her suddenly: the boon could be hers.
It’s what she should do. If the archer is really going to give it up, then Epithet should take it for herself. It’s what any fey would do. No one would have to know she’d faltered; it would look like a trick, playing on the archer’s sympathies to cause both of them to lower their weapons. And then Epithet could lunge for her swords - either of them - and she would win. She would win. And the boon could be hers.
But something stops her. Honor?
She’s never had a sense of honor before. At least…not that she can remember.
She doesn’t know who she was, before Nefeli took her. Maybe that version of her cared. Maybe that version of her had some sense of honor. Maybe she lost it all at some point.
She looks back at her swords. So tempting. She could have either of them, feel their familiar weight…and yet, what would be the point? It wouldn’t be a true victory. Maybe, if she had intended this all as a trick from the beginning, anticipated how it would play out; maybe, if it had been earned. But she had never once considered that the archer would let her walk free. If she cut the archer to pieces now, it wouldn’t win her the game; it would only make her a backstabbing coward.
She’s tired of the game, anyway.
So, instead, she backs away from the archer, scooting on her knees, and sits in silence, staring listlessly. Her fingers draw haphazard patterns in the sands. She sucks in a breath. Neither of them can have the boon now. The Lords would want to see them fight to the death, to earn it. By refusing, they’ve both given it up. What a strange irony.
She sets her jaw and grabs the arrow impaled in her thigh, holding it tight in both hands. Counts to three, and pulls it out. The blood begins to flow freely onto the sand, staining it slightly darker than its natural color, and Epithet watches it hazily, momentarily hypnotized; then she rips a piece of her robes with her hands, tugging at it roughly and knotting it around her thigh.
She hesitates before tracing her neck again with her fingers; and then she does the same for that, too, knotting a strip of cloth around it as tight as she dares.
Finally, she turns back to the archer, the ghost of a smile on her lips. She is so tired. So, so tired. Gravity pulls her down almost gently into the sand; she feels herself sinking deeper and deeper. It’s all catching up to her: her wounds, the loss of blood, the fatigue. All she wants to do is sleep…
“So,” she says, her voice laden with exhaustion, “what now?”
The archer lets out something close to a whimper, her words so quiet Epithet has to strain to hear them; but she makes them out nonetheless, just barely: “I don’t know.”
Epithet closes her eyes. She doesn’t know, either.
All she knows is that it’s over. Finally.
Surely…surely she can rest now. Surely she’s earned that much.
So she lets her body ease into the sand, too tired to move, too in pain to fight any longer; and as she lies there, fighting not to drift into the black abyss of unconsciousness, she watches the archer through heavy eyes. And she thinks of mercy, and kindness, and what it really means to win.
She can feel herself slipping away; but she holds on, just for now, just for a little longer.
She wants to live…at least long enough to see if the archer gets her boon.
Maybe the Lords will surprise them both.
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