A strange sense of tension had fallen over the group as they made their way through the dense brush that covered most of the island. Lily kept throwing glances at Adam, which Adam did his best to pretend he didn’t notice. Amber kept watching the two of them like a hawk, as if she expected them to explode the moment she turned her back. Even Sven seemed oddly tense as he hacked at the vegetation blocking their path with a small hatchet. The last time they had been here, the island had been criss-crossed by clear, well-travelled paths, but it seemed pilgrimages to the dangerous area around Flame’s Cradle had fallen out of favour, and the entire island had gotten completely overgrown. If Adam had been able to draw his blade, clearing the brush would have been an effortless task, but as it was, they were stuck relying on Sven’s slow, methodical trailblazing. As evening fell, the group set up camp in a small clearing. It was the work of a moment for Sven and Amber to create a safe fire pit with their magic, and Adam and Lily set up the tents with practiced efficiency. Once they had shared a meal, Sven left to take first watch and Amber headed for the tents, leaving Lily and Adam alone by the fire. With a soft sigh, Lily leaned her head against Adam’s shoulder. “Still worrying?” “Of course I’m worrying.” Lily made a small humming noise, then took a deep breath to steel herself. With an effort of will, she pushed away all the nagging little voices in her head that told her this was a terrible idea and it was only going to end badly. Clenching her hands so tightly her nails dug into her palms, Lily leaned in towards Adam and kissed him. Adam would have liked to believe he’d be startled by this, but the truth was, he’d seen it coming for a while now. Just one more thing to add to his pile of worries and confusion. As he felt Lily’s soft lips on his own, a flood of emotions flared up inside him. There was a hint of desire, of course, a bit of longing, and a pang of long-buried attraction so old he’d forgotten it had ever been there. But what he felt more than anything else was guilt. Guilt and shame. His eyes flew open, and he placed his hands on Lily’s shoulders, gently pushing her away from him. “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m a married man, Lily. I have a family waiting for me back home.” “They’re a world away, Adam!” Lily replied, her voice almost pleading. “They’ll never know.” Adam hesitated for a second, but that moment of hesitation was enough to bring the guilt flooding back. “I’d know.” With that, he stood up and left, leaving Lily alone by the fire. Lily stared into the fire, but the tears in her eyes made the dancing flames blend together into an incomprehensible blur of orange light. She had known this might happen. Of course she had. She’d even tried to imagine how it might feel to be rejected like this, on those long nights as she agonized over whether to make a move or not. She had expected the loneliness, of course, and the longing. But she had thought the longing would be… Cold, empty. Instead it burned inside her. She felt like she was starving. Like something she needed to survive was being denied from her. She hadn’t expected the frustration, either. Not like this. Feeling a little frustrated she could understand, but it tore at her, burning and bitter like acid in her mind. A strange heat seemed to spread through her shoulder, and for a brief moment she thought she might have somehow caught fire, but then she recognized the shape of Amber’s hand as it squeezed her shoulder consolingly. “Go away, Amber.” She bit out, her voice rough and harsh. “No.” The girl replied calmly. “Leave me alone.” “You don’t want me to do that, Lily.” That made Lily spin around, angrily blinking the tears from her eyes. Amber was standing behind her, her burned skin and patchy hair seeming to glow in the firelight. “You don’t know what I want!” Lily insisted. “I know exactly what you want, Lily. You want to be loved. You want to not be alone any more. You want to need someone, and to be needed by them.” Lily just stared at her, mind whirling with conflicting thoughts and feelings. “How…” “I know because I used to be the same. I was alone, I felt empty. I wanted someone who needed me. Someone who wanted me. I wanted someone to love. Until I found you three, that was all I could think about, all that mattered to me. It’s still the only thing that matters to me.” Lily shook her head. “Amber, sweetie, it’s not the same, that’s a different…” But she didn’t get any further, because Amber knelt down in front of her and placed her hands on Lily’s cheeks, staring right into her eyes with burning intensity. “It’s not different. Not for me. You think about loving a partner and loving a friend and loving a family member and they’re all different things, but I only love one way. Completely. With everything I am. I love you, Lily. Let me love you. Let me be the one who needs you most, the one you need the most. You don’t have to be lonely any more.” Lily was about to reject her out of hand, but the words got stuck in her throat. Her feelings stormed inside her heart. The deep, burning affection she felt for her best friend. Little flashes of desire she had always dismissed as meaningless. The loneliness and bitter need that tore at her heart… “A… Amber. I can’t. You’re…” “I’m not a child, Lily!” Amber snapped, irritation flaring in her voice. “I know you sometimes look at me and see the little girl you used to know, but I’m not a little girl anymore. Those twenty lonely years were just as long for me as they were for you. You need to stop thinking about who I was and start thinking about who I could be. Who we could be!” Lily gave her a long, measured look. “You’ve changed, Amber. Not just in those twenty years. You’ve changed so much since that night in the tower. What happened?” “I had time to think. I never really had that before. Before we met, I was just so lonely, and during the first war there was always something new I had to do, something I had to learn or practice. There was no time. And in those twenty years, all I could do was try to find my way back. Finding you three again was all I could think about. But now… Now I have nothing but time. Everything is so easy now.” That startled a laugh out of Lily. “Easy? You think this is easy?” “It’s effortless, Lily. I barely even have to concentrate anymore. Adam knows that. That’s why he’s worried. Because he knows that if he asked me to, I could end this war right now. I could reduce the enemy kingdom to ashes and slag. Effortlessly. All he has to do is ask me to. And that is why he worries. He doesn’t want that power. He doesn’t want to need me.” Lily heard the tiny hitch in Amber’s voice as she spoke the last sentence, and hesitantly she reached out to stroke the girl’s scarred cheek. “Amber… I…” “I want to be needed, Lily. But Adam can’t think of anything but the war, and he doesn’t want to need me to end the war. And Sven… Sven only needs to know he’s doing the right thing. That’s all he ever really needed. But you… You need to be needed as much as I do.” Lily shivered, her mind awhirl with so many conflicting thoughts and feelings it made her dizzy. Finally, she stood up and rubbed at her temples. “I… I need some time to think, Amber.” The girl nodded, the light of the fire burning in her eyes. “Take all the time you need, Lily. I can’t make your choices for you. I can only help you do what you choose to do.” Lily nodded distantly and walked away from the camp. She felt more confused and unsure of herself than she could ever remember feeling. But somehow, the gnawing bitterness she had felt over Adam’s rejection had vanished completely. Adam sighed as he lay back in his tent. He hadn’t really intended to overhear Lily and Amber’s conversation, but the camp wasn’t all that large, and they hadn’t exactly been very quiet. He honestly wasn’t sure what to think about Amber’s… proposition? In a way he supposed it came as a relief. If it kept Lily from continuing her awkward advances, that was one less thing for him to worry about. Still, something Amber had said just seemed to resonate with him, somehow. “I can’t make your choices for you.” The phrase just wouldn’t leave his head. It bounced around, echoing through his tired mind. Could you make someone else’s choices for them? And if so, what gave you the right to do so? The rest of the group saw him as a leader, but what gave him the right to lead? Was it enough that they had decided he was worth following, or…? Adam groaned and buried his face in the folded up cloak he used as a pillow. It didn’t seem like he’d be getting much sleep any time soon. Lily leaned against a rock, the light of the moon painting the brush around her in eerie silver and deep shadows. She was trying to think, to make sense of everything, but whenever she tried to focus for a second something flashed into her mind and threw her thoughts back into chaos. The guilt and shame in Adam’s eyes. The way Amber seemed to glow with reflected firelight. The gnawing bitterness of rejection. Amber’s hands upon her cheeks. The field of ashes in front of the entrance to Stone’s Cradle. Singing a lullaby to Amber, the sharp scent of herbal ointment stinging her nose. The thought of a whole kingdom reduced to nothing. The clawing, grasping sting of loneliness… With a groan, Lily slipped Clear Sky from her pack, gazing into the silver-bright mirror with slight apprehension. Her reflection was blurry and murky, barely even an outline within the image showed by the mirror. “I have no idea what I want.” The reflection didn’t change. Because it was a lie. The mirror only reflected the truth, and the truth was that Lily knew exactly what she wanted. She just didn’t want to face it. Didn’t want to acknowledge what she knew to be true. But in the end, lying to herself like this just wasn’t in her nature. She was the princess of air. The princess of truth. And knowingly hiding the truth from herself like this seemed to grate against her very soul. Narrowing her eyes, Lily steeled herself. “I am Lily, and I just want to be loved.” The mirror cleared up in an instant, and Lily saw herself. Every facet, every part of herself down to the very core. She saw something that was both broken and whole, both happy and sad, both worried and content. But most of all, she saw something that was reaching out to the world around it. Something that yearned for something else to complete it. Nodding to her own reflection, Lily stood up and headed back to the camp. Amber didn’t even stir when the flap of her tent opened. She didn’t move a muscle when a familiar softness settled against her. But as Lily’s scent tickled her nose, she sighed happily and smiled. “Hello Lily.” “Amber, can you make some light?” The burned girl nodded and conjured a small sphere of fire, the little ball of flame hovering at a safe distance from both the fabric of the tent and its occupants. As Amber watched, Lily took out her mirror and stared intently into it. “Amber, you said you loved all three of us.” “With all my heart.” Amber agreed. “Who do you love most?” “You.” She replied without a moment’s hesitation. Lily peered into the mirror, but she couldn’t see even a hint of an untruth in the girl’s words. “…Why?” She asked at last. “Because you need me the most.” Lily grew still and quiet for a long time, but finally, she slid the mirror away and settled down next to Amber. “Amber… Turn out the light.” Amber nodded, and the ball of flame vanished. Lily hesitated for a moment longer, but soon she leaned in and gave Amber a kiss. The girl responded eagerly, her lips burning like fire against Lily’s skin. The heat was intense, almost intoxicating, but Lily felt perfectly safe within the passionate embrace. ‘Like fire that doesn’t hurt.’ Lily though absently. ‘Is this what Amber felt like, when she finally returned to this world?’ Lily dismissed the thought. She didn’t want to think anymore. She wanted to feel. She wanted to feel needed. She wanted to feel like she wasn’t alone anymore. And she felt. She felt like somehow, in some way she couldn’t even begin to describe, she was finally where she was meant to be. She was home. Sven looked up at the stars with a sigh. On the one hand, he was glad his friends had found some sort of happiness in this mess of a world. On the other hand, he kind of wished they would be a little bit quieter about it. It wasn’t like he could plug his ears or drown out the sounds, since he was supposed to be on watch. Still, he felt incredibly awkward at all that he had overheard tonight. Awkward, and perhaps a little bit left out. Not that he envied his friends and their various emotional struggles. A steady temper and a cool head were things to be treasured, especially in times of crisis. But it did make him feel a little distant from his friends and their emotionally explosive lives. He supposed that was how it had always been. Even during their first adventure, he had always been the calm one. The one they all depended on to keep a level head. The one to stand firm in times of danger and console them in times of grief. It wasn’t a role he resented in any way, but it did make him feel like a bit of a stoic. He supposed it was only natural, with him being the prince of earth and all. Rocks weren’t terribly exciting, after all, but they sure were dependable. He noticed, to his relief, that the noises coming from Amber’s tent had finally gone silent. Standing up and stretching with a small groan, he left to tell Adam to relieve him. After tonight’s watch, he deserved a good, long rest. Adam stood guard at the edge of the camp, but his mind was elsewhere. When a somewhat disgruntled Sven had told him to take the watch, he had still been tossing and turning in his tent, brooding over the nature of choice and leadership. Amber’s words still wouldn’t leave his head. “I can’t make your choices for you.” Could he make someone’s choices for them? Could anyone? And if they could, should they? For some reason, the question just wouldn’t leave him be. He thought about this world, about everything he’d seen. About the enemy kingdom and their factories and smog. About their own kingdom, stagnant and unchanging. It all seemed to swirl around and around in his head, his every thought circling around those words… “I can’t make your choices for you. I can only help you do what you choose to do.” He looked up with a start as it all fell into place. Suddenly, everything seemed to make perfect sense. Without even looking, he pulled his sword from its sheath, water magic almost singing in the air around him. “I know what I need to do.”