Alya Varkus kept her face turned sideways, the sharp sting of Nyra's slap lingering on her flushed cheek.
She was hyperventilating heavily, her chest heaving in jagged, desperate movements as her eyes widened in extreme shock. Her panicked gaze darted from the dirt upward, swiftly locking onto Damon's face, then whipping to Cythera, and finally to Nyra.
Suddenly, a raw, piercing scream tore from her throat. "Leave me be!"
She forced herself up, her legs barely steady as she wobbled on the uneven ground. Her trembling hand instantly flew to her midsection, her fingers clawing at the fabric of her outfit.
Looking down at her mid-section where the glowing golden sphere had just vanished beneath her skin, she whispered to herself again, "I'm alive."
Then, her frantic eyes locked onto the three people standing in front of her. "How am I alive?!"
None of them answered. The clearing fell into a heavy, suffocating silence, save for the rhythmic humming of the wind through trees. A few paces away, hidden completely behind the thick trunk of a scarred tree, Klaven watched through a gap in the brush.
A crushing weight of guilt settled over his features. Seeing her frantic, broken state—knowing he was the architect of the trauma that had shattered her mind—he could barely breathe. A terror warring with deep shame filled him as he looked at the princess he had personally hollowed out.
Still hyperventilating, Alya's survival instinct misfired once more. She bent down with frantic speed, her hand sweeping toward another jagged piece of scrap metal littered on the wet dirt.
But Damon was faster. With a casual flick of his wrist, he unleashed a sharp gust of wind that roared across the ground, violently blowing all the metal pieces and shattered robot chassis completely away from her reach.
Princess Alya's breath hitched. She snapped her head back toward Damon, her eyes flaring with gold-red light.
Before she could take another step, a brilliant vertical cuboid of light erupted around her, sealing her inside. She looked utterly stunned as the transparent, glowing walls grew from the ground to surround her, boxing her in.
When her unfocused, frantic eyes finally realized what situation she was in, Princess Alya froze, stunned — then panic flooded her face as she slammed her fists against the glowing barrier.
"LET ME OUT!"
Nyra crossed her arms, her brow furrowing deeply as she watched the display. "What's wrong with her? Madness isn't supposed to be a symptom."
Cythera stepped closer to Damon, her green-sapphire eyes tracking the slowly fading pulses of the golden sphere settling beneath the princess's skin. "Hey, Damon. You're meant to calm her down. The seal on her core's going to break if she keeps this up."
Damon didn't rush. He slowly walked forward, his boots crunching on the scorched grass until he stood just inches away from the glowing boundary.
Inside, Princess Alya was losing control, using her fists to constantly hit the walls of the cuboid, screaming, "Let me out! Let me out!" over the noise of nature.
Damon looked directly into the princess's eyes. He stood entirely still, calmly watching her erratic movements for a quiet moment. As thick tears welled in the corners of her eyes, noticing her actions were far from madness.
"No, it won't," Damon said, his voice dropping into a steady tone. He exhaled shortly, looking back at Cythera and pointing a thumb to Alya, "There's no emotional fallout strong enough to break the seal. She's not even sad. She looks more disappointed than angry. I doubt she's even claustrophobic right now."
Cythera tilted her head, her gaze narrowing slightly. "And how exactly do you know that?"
"She said she's alive. Twice," Damon explained, not breaking eye contact with the sobbing girl inside the box.
"The first time was in pure shock. The second time she asked... at first, it looked like she was just scared when she asked how she was alive. But it's not fear. She feels... disappointed that she survived. I mean, look at her. She's acting completely different from when I saved her the first time. She even seems desperate to grab something sharp."
Nyra and Cythera paused for a moment, the weight of Damon's deduction sinking in. The realization that the princess actively wanted her life to end cast a dark, somber shadow over the clearing.
Cythera turned her eyes toward the bushes where Klaven hid. He was staring wide-eyed at Alya's cuboid prison, pale as Damon's words echoed in his mind. Meeting Cythera's sharp gaze, Klaven shrank behind the thick tree trunk, staring down at his filthy boots.
Inside the barrier, Alya's frantic energy drained instantly. The princess stopped violently thrashing against the cage and collapsed.
Her legs gave out, and she dropped to the dirt, burying her face in her arms as deep sobs racked her body. She briefly looked up, staring blankly at her palms as if unplugged from reality, before hiding her face once more with a broken cry.
Nyra took a step back, her voice dropping into a quiet, unnerved whisper. "What's—"
Alya's shoulders trembled. From inside her folded arms, she suddenly whispered something. It was an incredibly faint, soundless breath, completely buried under the wind.
"I can't take it anymore."
But Damon's ears perked up instantly. His eyes narrowed, the deadpan expression vanishing as he leaned slightly closer to the glowing cuboid.
"What did you say, Alya?" Damon asked, his calm voice cutting through the quiet clearing.
"I said I can't take it anymore!" she wept, her voice cracking as she sniffed and gazed up. "When it was gone… when I didn't have my core, I felt absolutely nothing. And it was perfect. It was peaceful."
Damon stared down at her through the translucent light. "Why would you…" He turned his gaze to a piece of metal that the Princess had clutched earlier. The memory of her holding it to her neck quickly flashed in his mind.
"Why do you want to kill yourself, Alya?"
"Why wouldn't I?" Alya snapped her head up, her tear-stained face flushing with sudden, desperate heat as she locked eyes with him. "I know you barely interact socially because you don't want to. But I do, Damon. And I can't."
She squeezed her eyes shut, fresh tears escaping.
"My parents are always treading so lightly around me, because I have a gift I never asked for. I never asked to be able to take cores without loving the owners!"
She opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on the three in front of her, "If one tree dies in a field, no one notices. If one star disappears from the sky, not a single soul realizes it. If I—"
"That might be true," Damon cut her off smoothly, his voice flat and unyielding. He walked right into the cuboid as if through golden water.
Alya's breath hitched as she stared up at him.
"But if you think about it this way, the ocean contains many seas of sand," Damon continued, gesturing vaguely to the ground.
"If you try to take just one grain from it, the others would be moved. Shifted. Disturbed. Your parents walking on eggshells around you tells me I might've been wrong about them. It means they care. Do you have any idea how cruel it is to disturb and harm people when all they ever do is care for you?"
Alya flinched, her lower lip trembling. "But I never asked them to put the cores in me."
"I'm not defending your parents' actions," Damon said evenly, dropping his hands into his pockets. "I'm speaking entirely from my own experiences. Parents sometimes have to make logical choices, Alya. It doesn't mean those choices were easy to make. It just means they had to be done."
Alya sniffled, looking at him with a mix of awe and profound exhaustion. Her voice softened, losing its frantic edge. "Have you…" She wiped a tear and sniffed, "Have you ever felt like ending it, Damon? If you haven't, you have no right to talk to me like you understand."
A memory warped in Damon's mind. He remembered the suffocating silence of his Earth bedroom.
The ring gifted to him burned against his bones until he yanked it off. It clinked across the table, rolling straight for the open window. He lunged, catching it at the absolute edge. Freezing above the abyss of blurred city lights, almost falling from there himself.
"No," Damon said bluntly, as he snapped to the present. "But when my life was falling apart, there were several times I fully thought I would die."
"Then why didn't you?"
"Because I care," Damon said. "I care about others. If I died, I knew those who cared about me at the time wouldn't like it. If I had just given up and died, I would have never found out that my mother was actually alive. If I died, I wouldn't be standing here today to talk to you."
He let out a short, heavy sigh.
"I didn't choose to have my father's core, but it had to happen. I didn't choose to be a Chosen One, but it had to happen. I realize now that this kind of power has its own costs, and I'm paying it every single day. Even while saving you just now, I feel like I'm about to have a purge."
Nyra's breath hitched as her eyes widened and swept over her brother.
Alya's golden-red eyes widened slightly, her gaze tracing his face.
"I didn't save you because I cared about you like that, or because of some noble, heroic scheme," Damon stated casually. "I saved you because you are the Princess of Sunspire. If you had died in my hands, my family and I would be blamed, and your parents wouldn't hear reason. You see?"
Outside the perimeter, Nyra leaned toward Cythera, whispering loudly, "Why is he seriously debating life or death with her right now? He says he feels a purge coming."
Cythera kept her eyes locked on the cuboid, a faint, deeply impressed trace of a subtle smile touching her lips. "Your brother is quite smart, Nyra. He's knowingly achieving two things at once while speaking to her."
"What do you mean?"
"One, he's ridding her of her floppy logic towards death," Cythera explained softly. "But he's also talking to her long enough to shift her focus away from the fact that she essentially just came back from the dead. He's reducing the negative clash of emotions she must be feeling to reduce the… what's the word?"
"The weight of any emotional fallout she might have, so the core stays sealed?" Nyra guessed, her eyes lighting up.
"Yes," Cythera nodded. "That."
Inside the cuboid, Damon wasn't finished. He stepped even closer to the barrier, looking down at the quieted princess.
"I know sometimes it's hard," Damon said, his tone easing slightly.
"I know you feel like you can't take it anymore, and the idea of doing this—living for others thing—feels sacrificial. But at the end of the day, you can choose to leave permanently and leave your loved ones in a lifetime of pain. Or, you can choose to live temporarily like any other person and give them a lifetime of joy. And if you truly loved them, their happiness would rub off on you."
Alya looked down at her lap, her breathing finally forming a rhythmic, steady pattern.
"Have you even tried to grow stronger, physically?" Damon challenged gently.
Alya remained silent, slowly shaking her head.
"No. So you still have other options left. If you get better physically, your parents could release the seal on your core, and a purge wouldn't hurt that badly. Death is just the easy way out, and it would be foolish not to try, Princess Alya. But wanna know what's worse than a fool? A coward."
A sharp flicker of hurt cut through her dull gaze. Her eyes widened, mirroring the sudden fracture in her silence.
"So please," Damon said. "Think about what I said. This is coming from someone who experiences something similar to your situation every single day."
Damon's blue eyes darkened slightly with memory. "You said your family basically always tiptoes around you. There was a time I would have given anything I owned—anything—just for my family to be around me."
Alya stared up at him, her chest no longer heaving. A strange, quiet warmth flickered in her eyes as she absorbed his words. "You might be right," she murmured, her gaze lingering on his face. "But also… You have the chance to do things I never could. Yet you deem it completely worthless."
Damon let out a dry, deadpan groan. "Are you seriously bringing up this point again?"
Alya blinked, a tiny, almost imperceptible tilt of her head showing her sudden curiosity.
"You literally have a chance to grow physically without pain," Damon countered, counting on his fingers. "Without the fear of a purge. Without the fear of your mother seeing you train your body, and you watching the light in her eyes dull because she knows your training hurts you. You also have something I don't have—you can grow for free, and I can't. You seem to be good at stuff. Stuff you actually want to be good at."
He rubbed the back of his neck, sounding slightly annoyed. "This might sound weird to you, but I am bad at the stuff I want to be good at, and perfect at the stuff I don't want to but absolutely must care about."
"Like what?" Alya asked, her voice completely calm now.
"Like what? These are Earth things I don't think you'll understand, but… Before my mother died, I was trying to get perfect at playing drums. I was good at chess, but I wanted to get better at games on a console, get better at basketball too, if you even know what that is."
Damon said, a wry smile cutting through his serious demeanor. "I was hoping to get an internship and live a life simple enough where I'd have enough money to buy tickets to watch every single one of my girlfriend's games. I didn't want much. There's nothing so complex about that. If you think strength is a privilege, you're wrong; it's a responsibility, Princess."
"Now? Now I have to get better at killing and tactical thinking, even when I don't want the power for myself, but for others. Not that I hate my powers, they're pretty cool, though I'm sure you get me. I'm not a person of weird shitty pride, but I can say it whenever you ask me—I am selfless for those I care about, and that is my imperfection. I suggest you adopt it. "
Alya looked at him for a long, quiet moment, the golden glow in her irises softening into a gentle, brilliant warmth. A tiny, subtle smirk tugged at the corner of her lips.
"Now you're just lying," she said softly.
Damon raised an eyebrow. "About what?"
"You said you didn't save me because you cared about me," Alya said, her voice carrying a lingering yet challenging note as she shifted against the barrier, her face covered with a new youthful warmth. "But then why did you rescue me in class? The exact moment I revealed I was Alya Varkus?"
Damon sighed heavily, running a hand over his face as he removed the cuboid of light and walked away, "I'm resisting a purge right now. I'm not in the best of moods to answer questions. I am glad you're okay, though. Now, we have to go look for Doran and—"
"Answer the question, Prince Damon."
"Fine. In that moment, I wasn't exactly thinking 'Oh my god I have to save the princess,'" Damon admitted, looking away for a split second as he calculated his own past actions. "I was thinking I needed Doran to follow me — his secondary target — so Cythera, Mirea, and Lior could be safe, and with any luck, they'd help me go check on my sister to see if she was safe and then check on Rika."
Nyra's eyes widened slightly, a soft smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
Damon paused, his deadpan expression returning as the raw math of his own memory hit him. He looked back at Alya, completely stunned by his own realization.
"Hm. So now that I actually think about it… I even put you before my own sister. I went through all this trouble to save you, and now you wanna kill yourself? Yeah. No way."
Alya's eyes brightened, a soft, distinct flush rising to her cheeks as she kept her gaze locked squarely on him.
"I wouldn't say I don't care about you," Damon muttered, clearing his throat as he awkwardly looked away from her intense stare. "I'm just saying that, in that exact moment, my care for you wasn't exactly the fuel for my actions. Point is, live for others till you find a reason to live for yourself. Are you satisfied now?"
Suddenly—
High above the clearing, a sudden shift in the wind drew every eye toward the sky. Queen Thessa descended through the canopy like a localized storm of absolute authority.
She floated down effortlessly, flanked on either side by Hazel, the fairy, and Draven, whose pendant caught the sunlight as it flicked wildly against his white hair in the wind. The trio touched down with impossible grace, landing softly on the ruined, cratered earth without kicking up a single speck of dust.
Draven thought, 'Wow... This should be interesting.'
Queen Thessa's sharp sapphire eyes swept across the battlefield—taking in the scorched grass, the shattered robot chassis, and the frozen, unhinged Princess of Sunspire.
She walked straight to Damon and Nyra without a word. Her rigid, regal mask vanished, replaced by a mother's fierce protection as she pulled both children into a tight embrace. Enveloped in her familiar scent and safety, they finally exhaled, letting the heavy tension drain from their shoulders.
Releasing them, Queen Thessa gently examined both of their faces for injuries before her gaze shifted to Cythera, who was still dropping onto a respectful knee.
"You can stand up, Cythera," Thessa said softly.
Cythera rose smoothly into a respectful stance. Without looking toward the bush, Queen Thessa spoke, her voice cutting through the clearing with casual ease.
"Klaven Voren, you can come out. Now."
Behind the trunk, Klaven's breath hitched. He didn't hesitate. Trembling, he stepped out from his hiding spot. Alya's eyes locked onto him, her breath catching as trauma flickered across her face—but the Queen's sheer gravity kept everyone anchored.
She exhaled in relief, "I'm proud of you both. But more importantly, I'm glad you're okay. I admit, I don't entirely understand what's happening, but it seems you children have managed to have it sorted. Did I come here for no reason? Hm?" Queen Thessa murmured. She reached out, her thumb gently flicking a stubborn piece of filth from Nyra's cheek.
As she did, a tiny white blur popped out from the thick tresses of the Queen's silvery white hair. Daichi, in his miniature dog form, let out a soft barking yip and dropped perfectly into Damon's open palm, shaking out his fur.
'Good boy,' Damon whispered mentally.
'Told ya. With a piece of meat, I can do anything.'
Damon chuckled and ruffled his dog's fur.
Hazel immediately flew over to Nyra, hovering around her shoulders to fussily check her goddaughter for scratches. Queen Thessa clasped her hands elegantly in front of her dress, her calm, unyielding gaze settling squarely on her son.
"So, Damon..." the Queen said, a faint, knowing tilt to her lips as Hazel now checked on Damon wildly. "Which of you will tell me precisely what's happening here?"