Kael set Syleena against a wall and stepped onto the rocks.
It barely resembled a church anymore. Rocks twice his height were piled on top of each other as though a landslide had washed over it.
He walked to the far side, picked up the first rock, and tossed it aside.
This was going to take a while.
An uncountable number of rocks later, Kael wiped his forehead and studied the opening that had begun to appear.
He had been right.
There was no way he could move all of this away from the black market in any reasonable stretch of time. But he didn't need to. He only needed to reach the entrance.
Kael pushed his fingers into a fractured hold in the rock and pulled.
Dust ran down in uneven streams as it tipped over, revealing a blood red arrow resting against the stone behind it, exactly where he had left it.
He brushed his hand against his coat and walked back to Syleena. He set her down beside the arrow and tapped her chin a few times.
No response.
He grabbed her chin and shook her head.
"Wake up."
Syleena's eyes snapped open and her hand shot up to grab his wrist. A moment later it faltered and moved to cover her mouth instead. She buckled to the side and emptied her stomach onto the rocks.
Kael waited until she was finished.
"Summon the Stone Coffin."
She looked up at him with furrowed brows and skin the colour of chalk.
"What happened?" She pressed a hand to her stomach. "What did you do to me?"
"Your body is probably having a delayed reaction from coming that close to a Royal Noble." Kael answered.
Syleena pressed her palm into the ground and looked around, something close to panic in her eyes.
"Easy." Kael placed a hand on her shoulder. "She came because Vael was using soul pathway motes. She's already gone."
"And you want me to summon the Stone Coffin." Syleena said, still shaken.
He nodded.
"I would do it myself but mine was destroyed. We've both summoned it countless times. This one won't be any different." He paused. "And we'll be long gone before she returns if she does."
"We?" She questioned.
"Yes. We. I'm heading to the capital. And I'll need every bit of help I can get."
Something gleamed beneath the surface of his expression.
It wasn't just that the road to Sole, the Western Continent's capital, was treacherous and would take months. It wasn't just that his inner realm sat completely empty, not a single mote remaining, not even a soul-bound one. It wasn't even just that he needed her for defence.
There would come a time when he would need soul-bound motes. And of every option available to him, there were none he would prefer over hers.
The danger she represented was real. So was everything she was worth.
But there was something else too. Something he couldn't let pass simply because he lacked the means to pursue it alone.
He reached out his hand.
"Travel with me, Syleena. Travel with me to Sole and I'll teach you everything I know about refinement, without restriction. Travel with me and race against fate." He held her gaze. "Race against me toward the Obsidian Shard. Let's see who refines the mote that changes everything that comes after."
His hand stayed outstretched.
He knew what was happening inside her. After coming that close to holding Obsidian Shard, the intuitive understanding that came from owning a mote would have reached her. There was no doubt in his mind that she understood what it was capable of. And no doubt at all that she would spend her life trying to refine it regardless of what he did or didn't offer.
So what did that change?
Nothing. And everything.
Life was a race toward finish lines no one could see. This was no different. They were standing in the same place, both without the recipe, both working from nothing but the mental image of what the mote was and what it could become. From that image alone they would have to reverse engineer something that might take years of every waking moment to approach.
Let it be years then.
She was a living competition. She was also a living treasure. Those two things didn't cancel each other out. They were simply both true, the way most worthwhile things were.
Life was a gamble, and so was this. He had never minded either.
Her eyes moved to the rubble beside him as she helped herself up.
"Stop it." She murmured. A stone coffin appeared behind her.
Kael retracted his hand and walked over to the arrow and crouched beside it.
"Help me get this into your Stone Coffin."
Syleena lowered herself beside him and tested the weight.
"What is it?"
"I'm not entirely sure. But it was strong enough to puncture through my defenses without trouble." He waved a hand. "I need you to carry it while we travel."
"Why not just re-refine your Stone Coffin?"
"I will. But not now."
Kael answered, wrapping his fingers around the shaft.
Through their combined effort the arrow finally moved. They tossed it in, the Stone Coffin dismissed, and Kael turned toward the distance.
"We'll need to head south-west from here."
He clapped his hand against his coat.
"There's still something I need to check." Syleena said, biting her lower lip.
For a moment she looked almost sentimental. Then she began walking.
Kael watched her disappearing figure with indifferent eyes.
"Sure. I'll be at the outskirts."
The two walked in separate directions. Syleena toward the center of the city. Kael toward the edge of it.
—
He stopped at the Claymore estate and asked around, but neither Elric nor Mael was there.
Cuddles, however, recognised him immediately. He came running with his tail moving fast enough to be a blur, as though Kael had raised him from birth and had simply been away too long.
Kael crouched down to his level and smiled. He scratched him behind the ear, then rose and continued deeper into the estate.
He walked into Darian's room, took a quill, tore a page from a nearby book, and wrote. He read it back once, rolled it into a tube and tied it shut. Then he walked into Mael's room and set it beside the books on her desk.
His gaze dropped to Cuddles, who had followed him the entire way, panting happily at his heel like a small devoted shadow.
"I'm entrusting you with the protection of this letter, Cuddles. Make sure Mael gets it."
He gave him a final pat and left.
At the edge of the city he found a suitable rock and sat down, resting his chin in his palm.
It was finally almost over.
The suffocating weight of noble families pressing down from every direction. The endless scheming. All of it finally becoming something he could look back at without guilt and say he had climbed.
The sun had long disappeared beneath the horizon and the gold had been swallowed by blue by the time Syleena returned. Stars flickered above, dotting the sky in a beautiful silver.
Her coat sleeve was darkened with blood. Her lip trembled. Her eyes, normally hazel, were red, dried tears still tracing lines down her cheeks.
Kael's gaze deepened.
She had done it. She had finally severed every connection she held with Eireindaile. From this moment onward she alone would carry the name. Whether she chose to let it rot or raise it toward something worth the weight rested entirely on her.
She turned her head deliberately away from him as she passed.
"Come on then." She said quietly. "Let's go to Sole."
Kael pushed himself off the rock and fell into step beside her.
"Yes. Let's not waste any more time."