When Andor slipped out of the Shadow without a sound, like night unbuttoning itself, Stini didn’t flinch. She knew he could slide through darkness like a fish under ink—his “Shadowing” trick.

“I thought you’d wait longer.”

“Looks like you’re hit hard. Your senses got so dull you didn’t notice Gloria and Nivifar starting a fight.”

“Stick five or six iron spikes in your skull and you’d be just as slow!”

“You said it like you already know Nivifar’s your sister?” Andor’s teasing folded away; his tone went steel-straight.

“Ah… well,” Stini paused, honesty first, breath second. “I guessed it. Seems close enough to the truth.”

“Heh. Then your imagination’s got teeth. I just heard Nivifar’s mother say it’s a twisty family drama.”

“Little Nivi’s got a fixation. Her life went sideways. I can guess it—probably rebelling against Dad, that wandering peacock, so she set her sights on me.”

“Close enough. Saves me talking.”

Andor wore his combat gear and a black coat, like a slice of midnight over mail. A Greatsword rode his back—Valor, heavy as a cliff.

He walked over, looked at Stini pinned like a moth, and flicked her forehead. Then he pulled the iron spikes from her skull, one by one.

“Ow—ow! That hurts!”

He didn’t use much force, but the shock rang through bone like a bell in a cold temple, rattling her brain. Stini felt tossed like laundry in a washer, spun dizzy at three hundred turns, pain foaming with vertigo.

The spikes had felt like stoppers in her head; once pulled, her life force poured out like floodwater breaking a gate.

Her vision fogged, drifting like mist over marshes.

Yet she didn’t worry. In her chest, a small flame steadied. Andor would save her.

He was her partner. Her destined love.

“How’d you know I was beside you?”

“Lately, I can smell your scent, Andor. Even if you hide in Shadow, your smell’s like smoke under a door. Heh.”

Andor sighed and raked his pitch-black hair, then took a vial of HolyWater from his coat. He pressed it to Stini’s lips and poured light down her throat.

“Half your bones were pulled, one by one like teeth. Except for your skull and jaw, nothing’s connected. That’s why you can’t move.”

After the HolyWater slid into her, Stini felt something sprout inside—buds pushing up from blood and flesh, roots knitting through marrow.

It hurt; it itched, like grass forcing through frost.

“High-grade stuff?”

Andor clicked his tongue and drew out a bill from the Shadow like a blade.

“Pristine HolyWater—unmultiplied by magic, a gift from a Divine Being. Can’t raise the dead, but it can set flesh on bone. It was my life-saver…”

“Tell me the price and I’ll pay you back. Don’t be stingy.”

“Six hundred Colonna gold. That’s a studio in the center of the City of Heroes.”

“…Andor, just kill me—I can’t pay that back.”

He gave a bent smile. “I poured it all into you; killing you now would be bad business. Alright, try standing.”

Clarity seeped back, like dawn washing soot. When she first woke, her head was fogged, thought lagging like a wagon in mud. Maybe the pain had numbed her mind; maybe Nivifar laid a spell on her. The single vial swept it clean.

“Easy. The new bones are brittle as newborn ice.”

Andor eased Stini up, hands careful as a healer’s. Only now did Stini study the place that had caged her.

A twisted palace. The dome and pillars warped like trees in wind, walls dressed in bones with dark red lacquered gleam. She had been lying on the altar at the center, borne up by a stack of petrified heads like a stair of stone grief.

“…I see.” She drew a cold breath; it scraped like winter air.

She stared at the lavish horror around her and murmured—soft as wet paper, like she might cry and even she feared it.

One of the heads was the hotel maid. She’d been pretty, her maid outfit shortened on her own, which meant bigger tips and brighter smiles.

Now she was dead. Only a head remained, turned to stone, set as the altar’s foot. Eyes wide, and no sleep left to give her.

Stini reached to close those eyes and found stone lids hard as plates. Still, she tried to stroke the petrified cheek, a touch like rain on granite.

“…Sorry.”

Stini lowered her face. No tears fell.

Were her tears all spent? Or had tragedy settled like dust, too familiar to stir? She didn’t know.

She only apologized, without prayer or plea.

“I’m sorry. But I still want to save little Nivi.”

“How are you going to save her?! You can barely stand and still think you can swing a sword?” Andor stamped the floor; steel hooks under his shoes bit the stone with a sharp clack, like talons on slate. Stini jumped.

He doused her heat with cold water. She made a face back at him, a moon-tongue grimace.

Andor was a good man. Stini knew it like a lantern in fog: he grumbled about everything—her wild ideas, her lack of common sense—but he always did his best, better than hers. Without Andor, nothing would have moved this smooth.

Raven called it “a sharp tongue with a straight spine.” Stini thought the tag fit Andor like a tailored coat.

He didn’t like big speeches; he preferred action—a hammer over hymns.

Stini knew leaning too much was a bad habit, but every crisis had teeth. Nagash had teeth. Catherine had teeth. The Demon King Anna had all the teeth.

Again and again, she fell, coughed blood—no strength left to rise, not even enough to gamble her life. Yet some things had to be done: saving everyone, saving the world, saving the one she loved.

This time, saving Nivifar.

“Stini, you’ve got to grow up. Some things can’t be done.”

“…There are always miracles in the world. That’s how we’ve kept walking.” Her voice rose, but it wavered like a candle in wind.

“You can’t count on a miracle every time.”

Andor drew a longsword from the Shadow and tossed it to her. The keen blade punched into the floor, a silver nail in stone.

Familiar etchings. A hilt kissed by a red gem. A pommel shaped like a rose—Holy Sword Galewind.

“A Hero without her Holy Sword is a bird without wings. If you want to throw yourself in, at least gear up.”

“Thanks, Andor… I knew you’d help me.”

Stini grabbed the sword and sprang into his arms, joy bright as spring rain.

This time Andor didn’t trade barbs before a gentle hug. He pushed her back and pointed to the blade she held.

“You should say thanks. A Hero’s allowed more reckless fire than others, but even fire needs a hearth. Be grateful you’ve got teammates who forgive your sparks—you still get to choose.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you choose. A cruel fork in the road—leave the battlefield and let me handle it? Or go die?”

“Mm… Andor, what do you mean? Let’s go, if little Nivi comes back, it’ll be bad…”

“She won’t.” His voice carried judgment, heavy as a judge’s mallet—sad, grave, unshaken. He repeated:

“Nivifar won’t be back. She’s been fighting Gloria for twenty minutes, then will take five to mend. You won’t be rested enough to fight in that window. After, you choose: leave now and I’ll kill Nivifar, and everyone walks; or you talk her down, and then the Demon King kills you, steals your soul—pick.”

Andor’s face held no joke. It was winter-clear.

“Andor, what are you saying… you—what happened?”

Stini stepped back two paces, hand to mouth. Fear bit like frost.

“Wait… why’s your soul so thin?”

He didn’t grumble or tease. At first she thought he was tired, or wounded in flesh. But sensing deeper, his body rang healthy; only his soul was frayed—an empty chunk carved out like a missing moon.

“I sold a bit to a devil. How else would I track Nivifar so clean? How else would I stroll in and yank you out?” He tried on a casual shrug; it fit like stone.

“You…”

Stini felt the hollow in him wasn’t “a bit.” It was a canyon.

When a child is born, it’s a passing of fire from parent to cradle. With a soul this torn, unless a Divine Being stitches him, Andor might never have a child.

Guilt crept in like cold seeping under a door.

If her recklessness to save one hurt another, was that justice? Stories where killing the Demon King brings pure joy are rare; to gain is to lose. That’s how the world breathes.

When people tangle, life stops being only yours. You carry others’ hopes and love. In peace it’s sweet as peaches; in strife it’s a weight like wet clothes.

Stini’s eyes pricked. Tears didn’t fall; the ache did.

“So listen, Stini—don’t toss the life I bled to save like trash.”

Andor stroked her hair. His expression was cold; his hand colder, like winter river water. Stini pressed her forehead to his chest, letting their souls hum together.

His soul felt chilled, a cave with winter inside. Andor must be cold. She should hold him, warm both bone and spirit. Yet she had to ask him to sink deeper into ice-black dark.

Only one person can be chosen. Stini heard her father’s old line echo—Augustus staring far past the room. Back then she didn’t understand.

Now… she did, just a little, like dawn edging a window.

Andor’s shout cut her gloom like a snapped string.

“Don’t tell me, ‘If I don’t save Nivifar, no one will.’ I’ll die with you if it’s a fight. I won’t walk with you to a slaughter.”

“…Andor, what should I do?”

“If you ask me—leave. I’ll kill Nivifar. That’s the cleanest cut. But Hero Stini, your choice should be the one that lets you say, ‘I did right, and I’m proud.’”

He sounded like he was pointing somewhere else as well, words forked like a river.

Stini went quiet, then her eyes lit like struck flint. She punched him—light as a tap, heavy with knowing.

“…Liar. You’ve got a way to save little Nivi.”

“Looks like you’ve chosen.”

“Andor, please, save her! I’ll… I’ll do anything after.”

Andor made a twisted smile. “Idiot, I’m not sleeping with you. I want you to face reality and choose to let go. If saving her were easy, I’d run the errands myself.”

“Please, Andor.”

“From one angle, you’re asking me to die… Remember this, Stini. This isn’t over. I’ll teach you later.”

“I knew it. You’re the best.”

“Helping you once doesn’t mean I’ve got spare soul to sell every time.”

He sighed and snapped his fingers. Shadow rose like a black tide, and Stini sank into it.

“No time to run. Hide in the Shadow. No matter what happens, don’t come out. You hear me? Even if I die, Dulan will come for you. Do not come out.”

“Andor—please.” Stini smiled as she vanished, like a lamp tucked behind a screen.

“I should be the one pleading—don’t keep being this reckless…” Andor straightened his coat, posture formal as if for a ball, and waited.

Ah, she’d forgotten to ask the price he’d pay. Devils aren’t all-knowing, but they see futures where choices branch like antlers. Stini’s trust in Andor was blind as snow, and she forgot he was only human. She forgot to ask.

“Wait, your—”

She sank before the word found air, swallowed by Shadow. Her voice broke off unfinished.

She didn’t hear his last line, drifting like smoke:

“But if you watch this play and still insist on being this reckless, you don’t deserve to be a Hero.”