Ash and Exile

She carried him out. She blasted a hole through the rock, straight up to the surface, bypassing the shaft. They emerged into the night air of Silver-Wick.

The town was in chaos. The earth was shaking. Without the machine, the Veil was dissolving. The real atmosphere of the valley—wild, magical, turbulent—was rushing in. Buildings were crumbling. The "Null" nature of the town was gone.

Samira gently placed Kaelen on the wet grass of the hillside, overlooking the destruction.

Slowly, the fire receded. Her skin cooled, returning to the soft brown of human flesh. Her hair settled. She collapsed, naked and shivering, huddled in the mud.

She waited. She waited for him to cover her. To hold her. To thank her.

Kaelen stood up. He took off his coat, but he didn't put it around her shoulders. He dropped it on the ground near her, as if afraid to touch her.

Samira looked up. Her eyes were human again, swimming with tears. "I saved us."

Kaelen looked down at the burning town. "You destroyed it."

"It was a prison, Kaelen. It was a torture chamber."

"It was order," he said, his voice shaking. He looked at her, and she saw the wall slam down behind his eyes. The connection was gone. He was the Inquisitor again. "You... you are a Level Ten threat. You just leveled a settlement."

"I saved your life!"

"You should have let them bind you," he whispered. The words hung in the cold air, cruel and honest. "Better a prisoner than... than *that*."

He took a step back. Then another. He looked at her as if she were a bomb that hadn't finished exploding.

"Go," he said, his hand drifting toward his holster, though he didn't draw. "Go before the reinforcements arrive. If I see you again, Samira... I will do my duty."

Samira stared at him. The man she had brewed tea for. The man she had trusted with her father’s words.

She realized then that there was no place for her in his world. There was no place for her in any town. She was too much for the humans, and too human for the monsters.

She stood up, clutching his coat around her not for comfort, but for dignity. She looked at the ruins of Silver-Wick, and then she looked at the dark, wild forest stretching out beyond the valley.

"Goodbye, Warden," she said. Her voice was dead.

She turned and walked into the trees. She didn't look back. She walked into the dark, where the monsters lived, leaving the lights of humanity behind forever.

Kaelen watched her go, standing alone in the rain, the savior of nothing.