"Stini, no one's wrong. Everyone walked the path they believed right, like rivers running to their own sea."

"Then why did Uncle Nagash die? Andor, are you saying the right choice can still bloom into tragedy, like a blade biting its own hand?"

Stini's calm was frightening, a storm pooling in her jade-green eyes.

Her hands trembled like wind-shaken leaves, until the precious Holy Sword fell like a lone star to the floor.

"If absolute justice lies dead, is our altar of justice a cracked idol? Should we let the torch sputter and question it?"

"No, I—I mean…" My words drifted like smoke.

"If all is error, if all begs doubt, if all is wrong—if what we think we save is what we should slay—then what can we hold like bedrock? What can we fix like a star?"

"…"

"Tell me, Andor. Don't go quiet. What is the worth of what I cling to, like a hand on a cliff edge?"

She sank to her knees, tears tumbling down her crumpled face, rain beating dusty ground.

I stood behind her, my face heavy as a stone in shadow.

Even though the story flowed as I wanted, and Stini had questioned the gods as planned, her grief was so raw that a smile would be a knife in the wind.

She didn't need a theorem of justice; she needed a harbor in the rain.

There wasn't a correct answer either, no single north star in this fog.

Stini needed a companion to cry beside her, to match her stride in sunlight, and to pause a few steps ahead on the trail when dusk slowed her.

"Stini, I'm no sage. I can't weigh out the right answer like gold on a scale."

I crouched beside her, wrapped her shaking shoulders, and smoothed her hair like calming ripples on a pond.

"Then what use are you?" She snapped like cold water.

Stini sniffled without poise, smeared tears with her sleeve, and scolded me, a messy kitten in the rain.

"I only know you shouldn't cry. If you still want to be a Hero, even when the crowd sobs like a storm, you're the lighthouse that can't. A Hero carries hope, so you must smile and pay back their candles with your flame."

"Even a Hero has blind corners in the road."

"A Hero can doubt. But even in doubt, you push forward. Swing the sword and hunt the answer in the same breath. You've always done that; your father did too. Idols carry duty, and heroes shoulder weight. As long as you're a Hero, you wear sorrow like a cloak and fake steel in the rain."

"Hmph. I don't get it," she said, breath fogging like winter.

Her eyes were half-lidded and red like rubbed petals, and she sniffled again. No image at all, nothing like a world-saving Hero.

More like an ordinary girl, lost in a hedge maze of her own heart.

"Just know you should stand like a pine and think what to do next time you meet a heretic like Nagash. You don't need to study theory. A Hero can be stubborn and simple, charging ahead like a boar. That alone lets those who trust you sleep easy."

"If I could, I'd be strong and beautiful, but my strength feels thin, and beauty feels like a wilted petal."

"You're beautiful. Most only admire the blade; they miss the moon behind the clouds. That's their loss."

Stini turned and hugged me, buried her head in my chest, and nuzzled like a small fox seeking warmth.

"Let me rest a while. I'm tired, bones heavy like soaked wood."

Adorable, I thought, like a spring sparrow—her movements cute, her tone just as sweet.

I stroked her hair, and she rubbed her cheek against my chest like a cat to a hearth.

"Sure, as long as you need." My voice came warmer than I expected, like fresh tea, almost making me believe I was a good man.

"You—sniff—didn't you say a Hero must be strong, can't cry?"

"But I'm not the adoring crowd; I'm your companion. Even if you cry, I'll understand. Even if you're blamed, I'll stand with you like a windbreak tree."

"Thank you. Just a little while," she murmured, like a sip of water.

In the silent embrace, I spoke as if idly, as if the thought drifted in like a leaf on a stream.

"If you don't want the crowd's pressure, could you just drop the mantle and stop being a Hero?"

"What a joke. If I'm not a Hero, what would I do? Throw in with the Demon King? No way. That bridge is ash."

"I'm just asking," I said, a pebble tossed in a pond.

We fell silent again, snow settling on a field.

As expected, turning good toward evil is as hard as turning evil toward good, like steering a river upstream.

Slowly then. I'll guide her, but in the end she must choose darkness or light, or something between, at a crossroads under the moon.

Whether to cross blades with me or walk at my side is Stini's choice, two roads under one sky.

I held her until she wiped her tears and snot on me and turned back into the lively Hero, the storm clearing to blue.

"Remember to smile. Smile like you're happy, like the sun breaking the clouds."

"I'll remember!" Her voice rang like a bell.

On the way back to find Nivifar and Princess Golia. The Heretic Inquisitor had defeated them and sealed them with a Divine Art. Stini answered with her usual energetic smile, a painted sun for a mask.

This time, I couldn't tell if it was real, like a mirror-lake hiding its depth.

Maybe that meant she'd grown, rings settling in a tree.

Nagash, bound to me by contract and pledged to me in death, spoke in the realm of Shadow with a crescent smile.

[Will you resonate with her sorrow, like echoes in a cave? If Stini doesn't choose you, will you be disappointed? Will you sigh?]

[Shut up.]

[If you say yes, how are you different from mortals? A master, a reed in the wind, as adrift as a Hero.]

[I said shut up.]

I told myself I felt no ripple. I simply closed the window on Nagash's messages in Shadow.

I wouldn't bicker with my subordinate. A king doesn't wrestle in the mud.

————

The Root Council convened as soon as the gods returned, and the trial of the Sun moved fast, drums rolling.

First, he broke the oath and descended without leave. Second, he overturned Judgment God Tyriel's verdict and slew Nagash in one stroke.

Sane admitted fault cleanly and was punished to replace the Twins of Power in guarding the Time Ruins, shackled to a frozen clock.

In the Chamber of Thought, the arriving gods drifted away like birds. Only Narrow and the Life Goddess Liv stayed to the end.

"Today, like always, a god erred, so I offered a remedy, a mill grinding grain to flour. Some questioned. Some agreed. We debated and reached one verdict. What is wrong, my kin?"

Head spoke from the throne. He sat as usual, but his newly shorn hair drew every eye, a field after harvest.

Narrow smoothed her close-fitting gown and dipped a small bow, a blade finding its sheath.

"I feel something amiss, Head. Can you clear this fog for me?"

"I can't. You won't understand," he said, words like a door kept shut.

Head propped his head, lids lowered, as if sleep were a feather about to land.

"You know what I want to ask, don't you? You should know."

"Indeed, indeed, I once knew all. Once I'd have answered that. But as you see, I've lowered my rank, so I can do more," he said, stooping like an old tree to bear fruit.

Head pointed at his short hair, a broken crown made plain.

"About this matter, I know only in part, a map with blank seas."

"Tell me, did Nagash deserve to die? Head, is this the 'future' you arranged?" Liv blurted, life quick as spring water.

"No. I truly want a good ending, like a clear dawn."

"Then why is the cast so coincidental? The Judgment God Tyriel stands for justice. I, Narrow, can grasp Nagash's narrowness. The Sun can't abide broken order. The Hero waits aside. The Heretic Inquisitor and the boy cue the beginning and the end. And there's that so-called World Saving Demon King."

Narrow turned her body and looked straight at Head's profile, sighting along a spear.

The light in Head's eyes burned too bright for even gods to face, so looking at his profile counted as facing him, like staring near the sun.

"Every person and god exists by need. To call this chance is too neat a string of beads."

"It's a sad story," he said, rain on a funeral drum.

"Head, you arranged this, didn't you? What do you want? Why make a Hero doubt the gods?" She tilted a lantern against the sky.

"I want the world more beautiful, more ordered, harder to destroy, a garden walled with stone."

"Then why…"

"What you saw wasn't arranged by me, waves not called by the moon."

Head rose from the throne, stepped down from the high dais of the Chamber, came to Narrow's side, and patted her shoulder, a mountain descending to the plain.

"None of this is my desire, not the song I meant to sing."

"Who else but you? Heaven and earth laid as a board. What a grand hand."

"So, you do suspect me," he said, a thorn pricking silk.

"No, I don't doubt your correctness. I want to understand, to find the spring under the stone."

Head had foreseen that Narrow and Liv would question, so he steered toward the best line his vision showed, sailing by a hidden chart.

Too great, and so he didn't trust himself. Being doubted by his kin was always bitter tea. Because of their doubt, he wore a mask to earn trust.

Putting on airs, playing god and ghost—even a god needs that. Head sighed behind the curtain between stage and pit.

"Narrow, you always state your view, your displeasure, your needs, straight. Liv is different. She weighs my feelings, my joy and grief—two winds, one sharp, one warm."

"Is that the measure of an omniscient one? Don't refuse truth because of my tone. After all, I'm Narrow—I'm limitation itself, a blade that cuts straight."

"When 'Justice' died, we each took a share. So I'll answer with what I think is right, from shards of a shattered crown."

Head acted by his foresight. Unlike his words, he knew what would come and had marked the key forks, knots tied on a red string.

"Do you remember why the Creator died?" he asked, the first fire going out.

"The Day of Ending?" The sun sinking like a stone.

"An unnameable being. A name you can't speak, whose very existence is argued. A shape no shape can grasp—thousand arms tearing earth, ten thousand wings veiling the stars. The Endless Demon King, Andreas."

Head shifted the blame onto Andor, moving a stone from his path.

"He has returned, and he seeks to steal our future, a shadow reaching for the dawn."