Nivifar kneaded her aching shoulders and stepped into her own castle hall, like walking into a cool stone lake after a long road.

Huh… Father’s gone again, like a shadow slipping behind a curtain.

She unbuckled the less vital plates, gauntlets and greaves, and tossed them aside like shed bark along a path, knowing the maids would gather them soon.

She usually tended the armor that guarded her life like a thorned hedge, but tonight her strength was a candle guttering in wind.

She’d fought to the hilt for the Hero, a blade ringing through storm, and she’d fought just as hard for Andor’s plea, a banner whipped by a gale.

The Heretic Inquisition had thrashed her like hail on a shrine roof, then drained her strength like a well run dry.

In the end a Divine Art sealed her, a net thrown over a wounded deer; a Heretic Inquisitor feared monsters would finish her, and feared a restored her would flee like a fox.

And the pay today was… one gold coin, a lone sun at the bottom of a cold bowl.

She was on leave, so it was side money like a stray fish caught in a torn net, yet it wouldn’t even cover armor upkeep.

What a mess; she’d taken a loss like a trader in rain, and next time she couldn’t charge in just because the wind felt right.

“Little Nivi, you’re back? Come eat with us,”

Her mother spotted her and ran down the stairs like swallows skimming a pond.

“Mom, you’re a countess in your forties—don’t bounce like a kid,” Nivifar said, but warmth slid through her like sunlight on silk.

“Mm, but I get so happy when I see you, Nivifar,” her mother said, voice like cinnamon steam rising from a cup.

Ignoring the faint iron tang on her, her mother wrapped her in a big hug like a blanket warmed on the roof tiles.

A count’s lawful wife had been a drinking hostess, and that wasn’t scandalous here, like wildflowers thriving in a manicured yard, for the Goddess of Life preached equal rights to love and be loved.

In the Silver Era, the nobility wasn’t a frozen wall; nobles were meant to lead and shield their people like trees breaking wind, not to pose like marble statues.

Her father, a noble, had founded a mercenary band in his youth to slay Demonfolk, and she now carried that torch like a firebrand in night.

At noble banquets, Father still took teasing over Mother’s free spirit, light darts thrown under glittering chandeliers like moths around lamps.

“I’m here to check on my little brother, I already ate,”

She lied smoothly, even as her stomach was an empty drum in the dark.

She kept a rule like a polished mirror—back in town, she washed before she ate.

Maybe that restraint was Father’s lesson in noble poise, a spine like bamboo; and she kept her purse apart from home, as if proving she could feed herself and light her own lantern.

“But today, Dad brought back a Balo Rabbit King,” her mother said, eyes sparkling like lanterns at dusk, “it’s a rare treat.”

Unlike the common Balo rabbit, the Rabbit King stood three meters tall like a boulder grown fur, and its meat was tender like snow under sun.

Scholars said normal Balo rabbits mutating on light-aspected herbs grew stronger as mana reshaped them, like a tree bending toward noon.

Grilled over a flame with light aspect, its dark mana burned away like soot in rain, and an incredible fragrance rose like a spring wind over fields.

One fetches fifty gold coins in the markets, a price like a star spiked into velvet night.

Half a year ago, the mercenary vice-captain had hunted one, and the memory alone now drew saliva like a creek breaking ice.

If only she could eat it with Andor… wait, what am I thinking, like a sparrow startled out of a hedge?!

Nivifar swallowed, shame flushing like a rose under frost, and she put on her usual “villain” face like a mask to hide her heartbeat.

“No, thanks, I already ate,”

“Waa, Little Nivi, do you like someone now,” her mother sang, joy bubbling like a kettle, “you fight all day and I worry, but now you’re finally like a normal girl.”

“No, I don’t…” she said, the denial dull as a pebble kicked down a path.

Her mother had once been a hostess, wise to people like a river knowing every bend, and Nivifar’s cold mask was peeled in a glance like bark from a green twig.

“Oh oh oh, Head Maid, pack a few cuts of the rabbit for Little Nivi, the best parts, for the lunch she’ll eat on her date with her boyfriend,”

“Hey—Mom, I—”

Her mother hopped away like a rabbit herself, and Nivifar’s hand closed on air like smoke slipping through fingers.

“…Forget it, I’m here to see my brother,”

She muttered, heat fading like embers, and walked the corridor toward the rear garden like a path into quiet woods.

She knew her half brother often rested there like a cat curled in sun.

“Elvin, how’re you feeling today?”

“…Mm. Okay, I guess,” his answer fell like a leaf, soft and unsure.

“Did you take your medicine?”

“…I did, Nivifar.”

“Your body’s always been frail, like willow in wind,” she said, emotion first and words stumbling behind like shoes in mud, “you’ll inherit Dad’s title, and even if you can’t charge a battlefield, you can be a count of wits.”

“…Ah. Mm,” he said, each syllable a pebble dropped into still water.

Elvin wasn’t good at talking with his sister, so he answered one line at a time like a drum tapped with one finger.

The air between them felt awkward, a taut string humming under fingernails like a mosquito in a room.

Nivifar pushed his wheelchair through the courtyard like a boat over a pond, and though he couldn’t see, he liked the wind sliding over him, proof of life like a stream over stone.

He’d been weak since birth, and after a monster’s attack left him blind, shame drew his world small like a circle of lamplight in rain, and he kept to the rear garden.

At least Nivifar knew his silence wasn’t malice, just clumsiness like hands numb in winter.

She knew he was only awkward, a knot that wouldn’t untie without warmth like twine damp from fog.

“Right, you know what, I met someone lately…”

Eager to break the stillness like a sparrow pecking seeds, Nivifar began to tell her latest adventure, the way she always did with Elvin.

And this time, without knowing, she drifted to Andor like a moth to a steady flame.

She spoke one-sidedly, and now and then Elvin gave a faint reply like ripples after a tossed pebble, and the blind boy might not even have been listening, but this was the only way Nivifar knew to talk.

Nivifar was clumsy too, and after Elvin lost his sight to a monster’s curse, a film lay between them like ice over a well.

Elvin himself didn’t fuss over it much, since a monster’s curse was a fate like rough weather, but others treated him like glass, and the care chafed like wool.

Careful kindness wrapped him like cotton, and it still suffocated like a room with no window.

They thought time would ease it back to how it had been, but some things once gone don’t return, like a bird flown at dawn, and stiffness hardened until Elvin couldn’t speak plainly to anyone in the castle.

“…And then Andor cut down the rotted bone fiend with one strike,” Nivifar said, bright as flint, “and he said, ‘Scarring a girl’s face is unforgivable, no matter what.’ Ah, he was so cool.”

She mimed Andor’s motion, and Elvin mapped it by sound like a bat measuring space, building the picture in darkness.

It was cool, like frost traced on glass; to take wounds to protect a girl, to be strong and gentle, to spend one’s power quietly for others.

He felt Andor like a statue of the ideal man, the target girls chased like a kite in clear sky.

He knew he had no gift to become that kind of savior, and envy sank him like a stone in deep water, so he missed Nivifar’s question.

“What do you think of him,” Nivifar asked, catching the cloud in him like a shepherd seeing weather, and she fumbled, “Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

No, that’s on me, Elvin wanted to say, the apology tickling like dust in the throat, but it wouldn’t come out.

“…It’s fine,” he managed, flat as shade, like he was still angry though he wasn’t.

They said a bit more, words like drifting ash, and he remembered none of it, only that the air never quite warmed.

“…I… No, nothing,” he tried to speak, but the words melted like hoarfrost under sun before he could shape them.

He hated his cowardice and clumsiness like thorns under skin, and when Nivifar’s steps faded, relief loosened him like a belt after a meal, because he didn’t have to choose.

It was too late; she’d already gone like a boat that missed the dock, he told himself, and next time he’d be frank, and he’d tell her his true heart like a lantern set on a table.

He didn’t believe it, not even a little, and he sighed toward where she’d gone like wind through reeds.

“How many times have you made the same resolve,” a voice said, clean as bells over snow, “and in the end you did nothing, helped no one, and saved no heart.”

No footsteps had sounded, as if the speaker had always stood there like a tree that grew while you blinked, and the holy voice looked straight through him like morning through thin curtains.

No, it didn’t just look; it truly saw his heart, laid bare like a book open to the sky.

Elvin sighed again, the breath a thread of smoke in a still room.

“Do Divine Beings refuse to tolerate human frailty, like in the story you told me of Nagash?”

Elvin pivoted his wheelchair to face the Divine Being, the wheels whispering like reeds.

With a Divine Being, he didn’t need clumsy words that fell like dull nails; thoughts crossed directly like birds between branches.

The Divine Being—Head—nodded, and even that motion touched his mind like a ripple, wordless and clear.

“Nagash is no longer a story; he has become history,” Head’s thought rang, a bell set gently in snow.

“Another hero fallen,” Elvin answered, the idea sliding past him like rain on slate.

“You don’t feel much,” came the quiet chime, neither iron nor silk.

“That notion—‘Divine Beings aren’t sacred’—sits too far from me, like a star beyond reach,” Elvin said, honest as a raw cut, “so his death before the Hero doesn’t move me, and my sister’s story of Andor hits closer, like a fire in the next room.”

“We don’t mind a child’s thin thoughts, like soil not yet tilled, nor a child’s weak body, like saplings in wind,” Head’s voice flowed, “we care whether the child has the courage to go forward, like a seed splitting stone.”

“I… I do,” Elvin said, the words small as seeds themselves.

“You have only a wish, and that’s not courage,” Head answered, even as calm as winter light, “did you tell Nivifar that you will die in two months.”

“That’s too cruel… I can’t say it,” Elvin whispered, head bending like a stalk under rain.

For Elvin’s lack of nerve, perhaps Sane would rage like thunder, but Head would not, never, like a lake holding down wind.

Head was the embodiment of Reason, a mountain of cold clarity; even if hopes failed and displeasure rose, He would not act unwise or speak rashly, like a blade kept in its sheath.

And because He had already seen through everything, like dawn laying plain the frost.

“Elvin, you could do it,” Head said, the thought a hand steady as iron, “you need your own obsession and your own creed to become stronger.”

“Obsession and creed,” Elvin echoed, the words tasting like tea left to cool.

“You can be greedier,” Head continued, voice like a stream pushing pebbles, “some say ‘desireless is strength,’ but for the weak, desire is fuel like oil to a lamp.”

“You want to talk with your sister happily, like sunlight on a shared bench, and that isn’t crossing any line; only your cowardice keeps it from happening, and that makes everyone hurt, like splinters under fingernails.”

“I can accept dying in two months,” Elvin said, a bitter smile crawling like vines, “I’ve got no talent, and my death won’t dent the world like a leaf falling into a river; but I can’t stand my sister weeping for me, and my god, please untie this knot in me.”

“What the Divine Being does isn’t to hand you an answer that lets you stop thinking,” Head said, clear as a winter horizon, “but to urge and guide you to think for yourself and reach your own shore.”

“The wish is yours, and the courage must be yours,” the words fell like seeds into furrows.

“…I—” he started, the voice catching like a fish on a line.

“Use your own tongue, and say it to Me yourself,” Head said, the command soft as velvet and firm as stone.

“I… I still want to tell my sister,” Elvin cried, the sound small as a sparrow’s call but fierce as its beating heart, “I want our bond to be what it was.”

He forced the words out, loud as he could, and though his frail body made his voice thin like paper, for a thirteen-year-old it was a great step, like the first footprint in fresh snow.

Head felt satisfied, a warmth like dawn on frost, and then He spoke His purpose, clean as a bell.

“About my need for your body, to walk the world among men—how have you considered it.”

“This… do I have to die,” Elvin asked, the heat he’d mustered dropping like embers into ash.

“Yes,” Head answered, the truth hard as a cliff, “your soul can’t bear my thought, so when I take hold of you, you will surely die.”

“Why must it be me,” Elvin asked, fear trembling through him like leaves in wind.

“Because my light is too dazzling, and only the blind may look upon it, like night flowers that dare the moon,” Head said, each line set like stones.

“Because my speech is too heavy, and only one poor with words can temper it, like clay cooling a brand.”

“Because my thought is too great, and only one prepared for death can carry it, like a boat built for a flood.”

“Am I the only one,” Elvin asked, hope thin as a thread.

“You are the only one about to die,” Head replied, inexorable as tide, “regardless of your will, you will die in two months.”

“That’s truly despairing,” Elvin said with a crooked smile, his whole body shaking like a reed-bed in storm, “I’ll obey Your will, but… could You come tomorrow, so I can say goodbye to my family.”

“It’s too late,” Head said, His countenance darkening like thunderheads, “I need your body now.”

“He has already come,” Head added, the last word falling like a stone into deep water.

"But... I only just set my resolve, like dew that hasn't dried, and you were the wind at my back..."

"I'm trying to pare down your regrets, even the ones beyond reach, so your resolve can step one stone farther."

"O Divine Being, we don't bargain like this in the mortal market; even a kind lie would be a mist to hide in."

"This isn't bargaining; we're not across a table but on the same shore."

"It's me asking you."

"I'm a Divine Being, sworn to guard the world and you."

"If it were a devil, at least it would purr, 'I'll take care of your family,' like honey over a knife."

"Precisely because I'm a Divine Being, I won't hand you a painted promise."

"I won't even offer a reward."

"Then why do so many still follow a Divine Being, a flock circling a shrine like starlings at dusk?"

"Because they know a Divine Being acts to brighten the world like sunrise, unlike devils who promise like smoke that chokes."

Efal gave a soundless laugh and lifted his face, like a sunflower turning to a thin sun.

"O Divine Being, I have a question."

"If I refuse you, what will you do at this crossroads?"

"You won't refuse."

"I'm sure, as sure as an iron nail in old wood."

He had seen the inevitable future, a bowstring already drawn.

Head wouldn't trample the boy's hard-won resolve, so he folded that truth like a paper crane and kept it in his heart.

"You truly are all-knowing."

"Then please say farewell to my sister for me; I've written a letter to Mom and Dad, the ink barely dry."

"Of course. As you wish."

Elvin spread his arms in what he thought was his coolest pose, like a hawk catching wind, and welcomed the Divine Being's descent.

Light spilled from Head's phantom and pooled in Efal's pupils like starlight in a dark well.

Soon the boy rose from his wheelchair, his face clouded like a coming storm.

He opened his lids; no irises, only divine radiance too bright to meet, like sun on snow.

He flexed the borrowed body, a puppeteer's first tug on strings, and Head walked toward Andor against an unseen wind.