Two days after Catola revealed that Aurak had gone off to some noble lands far off, the prodigal son showed himself in my room, looking a little beaten up.

“Did you fight someone?”

Aurak had a smile on his face; one that I knew was of bright and blinding happiness. I got up from the bed and touched his face; his lips came to mine even before I initiated it. They burned against mine. It had been too long.

“I got you a present.” He told me between nipping my lower lip and gently grazing the side of my neck with his hands.

“Present?”

“You said you didn’t... birthday?” he half asked, half told me, uncertainly, before bringing to me a brilliant feather, one that looked like a quill I would use for the rest of my life. “So, today... is ... birthday.”

I sat straight at the thought of a birthday. So far as I knew, only the royals had birthdays anymore. It was almost like someone was calling me a princess.

“I know... you like to read, write.” He looked at me funnily then, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “This... yours.”

The quill could’ve been a feather from his wings, for all I cared, and suddenly I wished I had that lone feather I’d left back at Chiggortah.

“Did you go to... wherever, to bring me this?”

He nodded gently. “From... Brimstead. Strong Kretor. Difficult...”

“To capture?”

Aurak smiled before tipping my head, his lips at my ears. Whatever he said next didn’t matter, for I understood the heat from where my body met his, the way his lips felt so... as though he longed for me as I did him.

“I missed you too, Aurak.”

“Illy,”

 Sometimes, out of nowhere, Aurak would love calling out my name. As I drifted in and out of sleep that night, I thought of how much I loved that. How it mattered so much to belong, how it was important to be a part of something bigger than yourself and say that you loved them.

“Where’s Catola?” I asked Amadeus as we walked to the Brook the next morning, Aurak’s hand in mine, warm and comforting.

While I never really wanted to complain about Aurak, I knew his only real shortcoming was his temper. I only found about that today while I watched him spar with Amadeus near the brook. I long gave up picking up a weapon, but I knew if it came to it, I would fight.

A cold filled the air just then, as if a scream, like a horror that I’d never really felt before. I stood on grass frozen as the air now. Blue, probably white, were the colours of the emotions that ran through me right then, as I watched Aurak turn to stone as well. Amadeus turned to me, his eyes giving away nothing.

“Yugas,” I ran to his chambers earnestly, my voice louder than required. “Something’s... happened!”

Yugas nodded; his expression grave. “Yes. Though now, no Jemdor can question your obedience to them.”

“What do you mean?”

“Only Jemdors can sense what you have sensed right now,” Yugas told me as he stood from his chair, his robes a colour that somehow didn’t seem to fit the way I felt, as if an unholy sadness has taken me over.

“And what have I sensed?” I asked, partly sure of the answer already.

“The passing of a Jemdor.”