In the end, the twins Elian and Elvio ended up joining Accalia, Cicero and I on our trip back to the Ember Court. I threatened to shorten their names to Ian and Vio but at their blank expressions towards the joke, I doubted either would answer to anything other than their full names.

    They kept to themselves during the journey home, only speaking occasionally to Accalia but mostly keeping to themselves, whispering back and forth to each other in words too quiet for my ears to make out. Towards the end of our journey, I steered my horse to trot next to Accalia's. She was a natural rider, telling me that Visilla must have horses as well.

    "What is their Gifted ability, anyway?" I asked, tossing a look backwards towards where the two somehow managed to ride their horses in complete unison, the horses trotting at the exact same tempo, each boy with an identical expression of repressed curiosity.

    "In our country, we call it 'the blessing'" Accalia explained to me, shooting a backwards glance towards them as well. "Elian possesses the blessing of controlling water, while Elvio controls fire."

    "But they're twins, how is that even possible?" I asked. I had never heard of two siblings from the same family possessing different abilities, much less twins. Interbreeding between different Gifted groups was even more infrequent in Naturian than Gifted/non-Gifted couples.

    "Their mother had the water blessing while their father possessed the fire blessing" she explained. "In our land, we believe the blessings we are given at birth to be an indication of the type of people we are. If given the choice between two different blessings from our parental lineage, we lean more towards the blessing that better embodies our character.

    "In our land, we believe that one's blessing symbolizes the quality they value most in life. For water, it is balance. For earth, it is strength. For fire, it is passion. For air, it is freedom. For light, it is truth and for darkness, it is control. If our stories are correct, then it would seem that, among the two possible blessings, Elvio values having passion over balance, while Elian values the latter."

    I considered her theory about the different qualities of the Gifted before asking, "have you ever heard of someone possessing more than one power- I mean, blessing- before?"

    She frowned at my question. "I've never heard of that happening. I don't think the balance of nature would allow for that to occur."

    "The balance of nature?" I questioned curiously.

    "Of course," she replied confidently. "It is from the world around us that men were first given the blessing. Nature gifted a piece of itself to six separate individuals as a reward for their appreciation of the earth. They swore to use their abilities to protect others, but a few centuries passed and people soon forgot the lessons taught to them by their ancestors."

    I listened, intrigued by Visilla's version of the Gifted origin story. While it differed from Naturian's legend, Accalia told it with such faith in its truth that it was hard to not be convinced that it was the truth. I wondered if it were possible for something to have more than one truth.

    "If a human were to possess more than one of the blessings, it would upset the balance of nature and likely lead to severe consequences" she shook her head. "Besides, it's impossible for someone to value two things equally. In the end, the quality they most value will win over the others when given the chance. That is how the balance between nature and man is maintained."

    I considered her words with significant thought. While it sounded like a child's tale at first glance, I couldn't help categorizing the different people I'd encountered into the boxes she described. Back in the throne room after the final trial, Marlowe had stressed to me the importance of keeping Naturian from witnessing a civil war, claiming that the good of the continent depended on the balance of power. I didn't know most of the other kings as well as I knew Marlowe and Kess, but Orion had exhibited an undeniable level of strength, both through choosing to defy his fellow kings to save my friends as well as being the first of our allies, despite knowing the possible danger standing against Nox might put his family in.

    And Kess? While he possessed plenty of attributes, I knew that out of the choices he made, the biggest ones were often motivated by his emotion rather than his logic. Picking me out of a crowd and making me a Garner participant. Opposing Nox in order to protect me. Killing his father and choosing to bear the weight of a crown for the sake of his people. He was at his best when he listened to his heart rather than his head.

    So what did that mean for me? Nox would easily fall into the Shadow Gifted stereotype of prioritizing control over all else, so did that mean that I would inevitably become the same? That someday I might not recognize myself as the girl with the motives I have now?

    But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how much my desire for control has already motivated my actions. Ever since I first agreed to Porter's plan, I had made my decisions primarily focusing on the goal of gaining some sense of control over my life. During the Garner I had been at my worst and most helpless state, and part of that reason was because I felt that I no longer had control over the things that happened to me. But through learning to control my Gifted abilities, I had gained that sense of power back, and I'd be a liar if I said I didn't find the thought reassuring.

    Feeling a sense of comfort and control over my own life and choices wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Still, I couldn't help but worry about how hard it would eventually be to draw the line between demanding control over myself and forcing the control of others.

    The sight of the Ember Castle ripped me from my thoughts as I sped up my horse's pace, taking the lead at the front of our small group along with Cicero. After everything I'd learned today, there was only one person I wanted to talk about it all to.

    Accalia, Elvio, and Elian remained close behind Cicero and I, gaping as they took in the grandeur of the Ember Castle. I spotted Ash as we walked inside. He was pacing back and forth and had a worried look on his face.

    "Ash!" I called out to him cheerfully. His head snapped up as he rushed over. "Good, you're back" he said, briefly glancing over at Accalia and the twins who took turns whispering to each other. "Who are these three?"

    "It's a long story I'm hoping I'll only have to explain once," I replied, looking around him. "Where's Kess? And June will probably want to hear this too."

    Hesitancy crossed Ash's face as he looked away. "Kess probably isn't in the best state to hear anything important right now."

    "Why? What's wrong" I asked, worry creeping into my voice.

    "Today is the one year anniversary of his mother and sister's death" Ash explained in a grave voice. "He's not taking it very well right now."

    "Shit," I breathed, feeling the heavy weight of his words settle on me. Kess hadn't brought it up in so long and I never knew the exact date of when that horrible day occurred. "Where is he?"

    "The sitting room on the second floor, closest to his room" Ash answered.

    I turned to Cicero. "I have to go see him. In the meantime, can you tell Ash and June about our trip?"

    Cicero nodded. "I'll take care of it" he confirmed as I raced down the hall and up the stairs, my heart pounding hard in my chest as I climbed the steps as quickly as possible. Turning the corner, I raced to the sitting room, flinging the mahogany doors open to reveal a dark room, the only source of light coming from the fireplace.

He was standing in front of it, his back to me with a cup of whiskey in his hand. In the other was a piece of paper.

    Taking a sip from his drink, Kesserian spoke aloud, "stars, if even you are tiptoeing around me I must look pretty pathetic." He didn't bother turning around to see if he was right about me being behind him. Somehow he sensed my presence.

    "Not pathetic," I responded. "Never pathetic. Just... fragile."

    Kess's lips curled upwards into a twisted smile. "Fragile," he tested the word out on his lips. "That's got to be a first."

    "It's not a bad thing" I tried to strengthen the sound of my voice even as my chest felt weak, seeing the mess that was Kesserian Cinis up close.

    His eyes were bloodshot and gone was the aura of easiness and the reverberation of light that seemed to radiate from his every pore. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were sunk in from a lack of sleep. His white-collared shirt was wrinkled and untucked, the top few buttons open to expose the chest that seemed far too pale compared to its usual bronze color. He had yet to rip his gaze away from the paper in his hand, which turned out to actually be a picture.

    A picture of him with two women who could only be his mother and his sister. They both had an arm wrapped around his chest, hugging him from behind with magnificent smiles on their faces.

    I gently placed my hand on his shoulder while mentally reaching towards our Dolar Animarum bond, tugging on the imaginary string connecting our pain to each other. I silently urged his pain to be transferred to me, only stopping when he finally spoke again. "It doesn't work like that, you know." Aware of what I was trying to do, he sent me a weak attempt at a smile. "This pain isn't a physical one, Silvertongue. I have to suffer it all on my own."

    "That doesn't mean you have to suffer alone" I replied, squeezing his shoulder and silently begging him to not shut me out as I'd done with him so many times. Was this what it was like for him, every time he could see my suffering? Every time he tried to talk me out of the worst of my thoughts?

    No. It was far worse then, because I would never let him in. I would just scream and curse and blame everything on him in the hopes that he would just go away. Compared to my pain, a hurricane of disaster and destruction, Kess was a calm ocean, his internal war raging beneath the surface and hidden with an exterior of stillness and silence.

    I struggled to find the right words as he continued to stare at the picture, his emotions and thoughts detached from the body that gazed numbly at the photograph holding the only two women Kesserian had ever been able to depend on.

    "I can't tell you how to carry your pain, Kess" I managed to whisper. "I can't even carry my own most days. But time and time again you've proven yourself to be far better than me. Stronger. More understanding. You will get through this and you will come out the other side stronger. Of that, I am more certain than anything else."

    I held my breath for five slow counts before lifting my hand off his shoulder and turning towards the door. Before I took a step, his burning hand gently wrapped around my wrist.

    "Don't go," he uttered under a soft breath. "Please" he added as an afterthought, his entire composure almost buckling under the weight of his admittance.

    I mentally kicked myself before responding, "of course." I shouldn't have moved to leave in the first place. When I reached my dark places, all I ever wanted was to be left alone. I always tried to push him or anyone else away when they wanted to help me. I assumed that was what he would want as well.

    But Kesserian and I did not suffer in the same way. I might prefer isolation, but he had lived that way for far too long. He wasn't afraid of me seeing his grief. He wasn't afraid of letting me in. That was the true difference between us. That was why I knew every word I said was true. In every way that mattered, Kesserian Cinis was a better person than me.

    "How do you deal with it, when you go to that dark place?" His voice could have been mistaken as a flicker from the flames in front of us, it was so soft. My gaze cut to the ground as his hand grew tighter in mine, a squeeze of reassurance for the girl embarrassed of her own problems.

I wanted to brush off his question, at least then he wouldn't bother asking me further. I didn't want him to know that part of me. The part of me that was a complete mess, the part that refused to pull back the defensive layers because I knew it would only reveal to him the weaknesses I couldn't even admit to myself yet.

    But I couldn't do that again. I only decided to answer the vulnerable boy beside me because I was too scared that if I shut him out again, I might lose him for good. As much as I wished I was strong enough to wipe my hands clean of him and everything his crown represented, I knew I wasn't and might never be ready to lose him.

"I'm not the poster child for good coping mechanisms, Kess" I admitted, hardening my voice so that he might not hear the tone of disgust at myself. "I block things, I repress the thoughts I don't want to acknowledge and I'm so blindingly terrified to talk about my problems with anyone, even myself. I try to force my problems out with physical exertion, running and fighting and training even as my feet go raw and I taste blood in my throat. But the problem with that is that it only helps for as long as I'm moving and once I finally stop and go still even for a moment, the thoughts come racing back.

    "You can't run from the feelings, Kess. You can't run from the truth. Believe me, I've been trying to for months. You need to confront it. You need to let your emotions out. Not for anyone else but for yourself."

    His jaw was so clenched that it trembled as he looked over at me, pure fear and grief in his eyes. "I'm scared if I start, I won't be able to stop" he confessed in a breathless whisper.

    I stepped closer, bringing my hands to rest on his shoulders. "Then don't stop," I breathed. "Because I'm not leaving, Kess. You're not alone anymore. You don't have to put yourself back together all on your own. I'll help you, with every jagged, broken piece."

    Kess led one of my hands to his cheek, pressing the palm of my hand onto his burning skin. His entire body was shaking as sweat began to form at his brow. "I'm not sure if I even know how to anymore" he admitted with a tremor in his voice.

    I struggled to breathe, clenching my eyes shut before raising my head to stare into the eyes shining like fire. When it came to my healing, I didn't even know where to start. Yet I knew where to begin for him.

    "On this day one year ago, your father killed your mother and sister in front of you" I began, watching the pain that replaced the fire in his eyes, dimming the warmth of the man in front of me and leaving behind only the husk of a lonely and grieving boy. The look of devastation in Kess's face made me want to stop but I couldn't. He needed to hear this. He needed to face the reality of his pain.

    "They died, and you couldn't save them," I continued. "You did everything you could to protect them. You loved them fiercely and they loved you just as much. I know they did because if you hadn't grown up with love in your life, you would be your father. You wouldn't be the compassionate and selfless man that I know you are."

    Kess shook his head, stepping away from me. "I'm not selfless, Wren-"

    Placing my hands on either side of his face, his cheeks wet with tears, I forced him to look at me. "You bear the weight of a crown you don't want in order to protect your people from your cousin's greed. You created a refuge for the non-Gifted in order to protect them while every other kingdom has ignored them. You constantly sacrifice for others and expect nothing in return. Your mother and sister would be immensely proud of the man that you are, Kess."

    As if he couldn't bear his weight anymore, Kess crumbled to the floor at my words, moving to cover his face as a cry of pain echoed from his mouth. Shuddering, he muttered under his breath in an incoherent noise. I had to duck down to the floor and place my ear beside his mouth to hear what he was saying.

"It's all my fault" he was repeating over and over, each time clenching his fists tighter and tighter as the flames in the fireplace in front of us grew bigger with each confession.

"It is not!" I snapped at him, moving to grip his fists but they were now scorching hot. Snatching my hands back, I continued talking in an attempt to calm him. "Kess, your father's sins are not yours to bear. He thought you weak because of your friendships with the non-Gifted soldiers like Torren and Freddie. He claimed you were foolish for loving your mother and sister. But he was wrong. He was the weak and foolish one, not you."

The flames in the fireplace began to lick up the mantel, slowly slipping through the confines of the fireplace due to its size. Kess was going to burn the entire room down with us in it. I concentrated on creating a dome of shadows to protect the room from the growing flames, trapping Kess and I in the middle of it.

"Kess, look at me!" I ordered, gently grazing his cheek to find it burning too hot to touch. The scent of smoke filled the air as I tried to break through to an unresponsive Kess. The flames around us grew bigger. The fire wasn't capable of breaking through my shadows but that just meant that, as the flames grew, they crept closer towards us.

"Kess!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. "Kess, let me in! Please, let me in!" I begged. He was going to burn alive from his own grief. The flames raced towards us as I attempted to pull Kess further away. I couldn't manage to hold onto him for longer than a second, my hands blistering as I pulled them back. I created a second shield of darkness surrounding us, trapping us together as the flames continued burning on the other side of the shadows.

I leaned forward until my mouth was beside his ear. "I'm not leaving you, Kess." I cried desperately. "You are stronger than this moment. Better than your worst day. You are worthy of love and life and happiness and I hate that people in your past have made you believe that you are less. I hate that you have suppressed this pain for so long but I need you to know that you deserve so much more.

"You are so loved, Kess. By your friends, by your people, by every life you have touched in some way. I know I've said that you're the worst thing that ever happened to me but I was wrong. I was so, completely wrong." I took a shuddering breath as my tears fell onto his shoulder and steamed from the heat of his skin. "You weren't the end of my life, you were the beginning of it. You brought light into my dark world and gave me a reason to keep breathing. You are my hope, Kesserian, and you are so much more to so many other people. I love you. Please, please, let go of the pain."

In a split moment, I felt him snap out of it as he reared back in realization, staring in amazement at the shadows swirling around us. "Wren," he breathed, watching as the shadows subtly shifted around us, no particular pattern to their movement. "This is incredible."

I dropped the shadows as my arms automatically reached towards him before it registered in my mind. The room was no longer burning from the fire, only the scorched wood of the floor a reminder of Kess's grief. I collapsed on top of him, clinging tightly despite the unnatural heat of his skin as he slowly stretched his arms across my back.

"You're not alone anymore, Kess," I whispered in his ear. "I'm here every step of the way, for the good days and the bad ones. In a ballroom or on the battlefield, I'm going to be right beside you. Through the fire and the storm."

Kess's arms tightened around me as his head dropped into the curve of my shoulder. His breathing shuddered with what could have been cries or laughs. I didn't care. All I knew was I wanted to be there to witness all of his future laughs and cries.

"She would love you," he muttered, lips brushing across my skin. "I just know it."

I grinned against my own tears. "And I would beg to hear every embarrassing childhood story of yours" I replied, inhaling the woodsmoke scent of his hair. "Something tells me you went through a terrible music phase."

He scoffed. "I wouldn't consider the recorder terrible" he played with a strand of my hair, twirling it around his finger as he held tight to me. "I'm glad you're here right now."

I rested my chin on his head. "I saw my father today," I said, confessing what I had originally meant to confide in him about.

"Holy shit," Kess breathed. "Are you okay?"

"Probably not," I answered truthfully. "But I'll get there eventually." I pulled the letter my mother wrote me from where I had shoved it into my pocket after my father had given it to me. "She wrote this for me. She meant for me to read it when I turned eighteen."

"One year surely falls within the margin of error to read it" he replied, resting his chin on my head as I removed the pale piece of paper from the envelope. Her handwriting marked the front and back side of the paper, the words taking on a delicate swirl that seemed to be an in-between of formal cursive and the normal straight lines of regular writing.

"Are you sure you want me to be here when you read it?" Kess asked softly as I took a moment to steady myself through deep breaths.

I nodded. "I doubt I'd even manage to read the thing if you weren't here. You can read it over my shoulder, I just don't want to read it aloud."

Kess nodded. "Take however long you need, Silvertongue. I'm here for you."

With his encouragement, I found the strength to open the letter, my eyes scanning the first line as I became entranced by my mother's words.