A Venn Diagram of Understanding

Though Ignis sneered, he released his hold. The prisoner collapsed to the woodland floor, a marionette whose strings had been severed. A knot of visceral revulsion tightened in Cera’s stomach as she gazed down at him. The man’s head was thrown back at a grotesque angle, exposing the bruised and battered column of his throat. His hands lay slack in the soft earth. The ground yielded beneath her boots as she stepped forward and struck him, hard, across the face. It was less a calculated act of interrogation and more a primal compulsion to witness a flicker of defiance in his vacant eyes.

His head snapped to the side with the force of the blow, but the impact resurrected a venomous life in his expression. He fixed her with a look of pure, undiluted poison.

"Who are you?" Cera demanded, her voice raw.

His only reply was a wad of bloody saliva that splattered against her cheek. A wave of profound disgust washed over her. She wiped the spittle away with the back of her gauntlet and responded with a closed fist to his jaw. The sharp crack of bone and cartilage seemed to echo her own splintering composure. A hot, shameful fury surged within her—fury at him, but also at the utter degradation of the moment, at being compelled to enact this monstrous role.

"I will ask again," Cera whispered, the words spoken more to herself than to the man on the ground. Before she could articulate another question, a razor-sharp hiss of displaced air sliced across the back of his hand. Ignis had not moved, had not uttered a sound. A clean, crimson line blossomed on the captive’s skin, instantly welling with dark blood.

A blast of white-hot rage at the casual cruelty seized Cera. She spun on Ignis, a roiling sphere of plasma coalescing in her palm. It was a wordless reprimand, a miniature sun that seared the air and scorched the earth where he had stood only a moment before, forcing him to leap backward.

"I will handle this," she growled, the words feeling like ash on her tongue. The purity of her fury was a revelation, an absolute force that nearly consumed her. She turned back to the prisoner, lowering the conjured flame until it danced inches from his face, scorching the air he breathed and casting flickering, monstrous shadows across his defiant features. His eyelids fluttered against the intense heat. "What is your name?"

He gasped, his gaze darting between the fire and her eyes. "Alek," he choked out.

"And whose side are you on?"

A glimmer of pride, even in his current state. "Krysta's," he vowed, speaking the name like a prayer.

"The weapon," Cera demanded, her voice a low growl. "Where did you acquire it? How did you locate us?"

His lips twisted into a broken, wretched smile. "How does anyone obtain anything in this broken world?"

"You'll get nothing from him," Ignis interjected, his tone thick with condescending certainty. "Krysta's fanatics are loyal to the point of absurdity."

"Stay out of this!" Cera shrieked, whirling on him once more. Frustration stung her eyes, hot and sharp. She had never taken a life. The thought was a distant, terrifying bell she hadn't yet allowed herself to hear. She grabbed a fistful of the prisoner's tunic, hauling him closer.

Alek rasped, a triumphant light gleaming in his eyes. "He's right. I won't tell you anything."

In that instant, something inside Cera shattered. The crushing weight of her new reality, the fury at her enemies, the agony of her own compromised soul—it all converged. The scream that tore from her throat was not one of triumph, but of pure, undiluted misery. For one long, terrible moment, she forgot the blood on her gauntlet, forgot the soul she was about to extinguish. She unleashed the fire. It was not a calculated, precise strike, but a raw, unrestrained torrent of power that engulfed him, leaving nothing but the smell of charred earth and ozone in its wake.

When it was over, a profound silence descended upon the clearing. Cera staggered away, deeper into the woods, her mind betraying her body. She leaned against the rough bark of an ancient oak and heaved until her stomach was empty.

It was there that Ventus found her, a silent shadow in the gloom.

"I don't need you!" she lashed out, a reflexive, wounded strike. "Not you, not your brother!"

"Confusing us already? For future reference, Ignis is the insufferable one," Ventus said, his voice gentle.

Cera grimaced, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. "This isn't a joke. How much death have you witnessed that you can find humor in this?"

In the dim light, she couldn't quite discern the expression that erased his easy smile. "You don't know me," he said, and the three words held a universe of unspoken history. A moment later, he seemed to shake off the gravity. "Think of it as borrowing a little levity from a future where this is all over. War isn't a permanent state, Cera."

"Just go," she said. "I need to be alone. I will find my people on my own. Thank you for saving my life, but I can take it from here." Four of her people were missing. And then there was Cy, sent on a vital mission, his status now a gaping question mark.

Ventus's expression hardened. "Listen. The princess assigned us as your support. You're in the most capable hands there are. We've lived with the horrors of war since we were six years old. I get it. This world you’ve been thrown into is hell. But you’ve also been handed the kind of power my brother has craved his entire life. You give us orders. You command the army. Hell, that means you effectively rule a piece of the world—and maybe all of it, when this war is done."

He paused, letting his words sink in. "That probably just adds to the pressure. But my point is, use it. Use me. Use us."

Cera's shaking subsided. She looked up at him, her eyes still shimmering with unshed tears. Without a word, she straightened in a single, resolute motion and tossed her tangled hair over her shoulder.

"Fine," she said, her voice brittle but firm. "I understand. I'll pull myself together." With a determined stride, she turned and marched back toward the makeshift camp.

A small smile touched Ventus's lips as he followed her with a light, almost skipping step.

Ignis watched them approach, his brow furrowed with suspicion. "What did you say to her?" he demanded.

Ventus waved a dismissive hand. "Nothing your particular brand of genius would comprehend."

Ignis rolled his eyes. "I doubt that. If our spheres of comprehension were a Venn diagram, yours would be a small, sad circle entirely consumed by mine."

Ventus just chuckled. "Good one, bro."

Ignis pouted, falling into step beside them. "Seriously," he pressed. "What did you say?"

But Ventus remained silent, his gaze fixed on Cera's determined form leading the way.

For Cy, fury was a physical entity. It burned behind his eyes and coiled like a hot serpent in his gut. He had been attempting to suppress it, to maintain a veneer of professional detachment, but now, alone and airborne, he let it run free. His rooftop leaps were no longer fluid and silent; they were jarring, furious landings that sent shudders of impact up his legs.

He hadn't even known about his new assignment until Carmine had mentioned it so casually that morning, dropping the fact that Cy was now Cera's subordinate. The old tactician had withheld the information deliberately, knowing full well the reaction it would provoke. Cy, the master of his former trade, was to be held in reserve—a contingency plan should the first gambit fail. It was exactly the kind of cold, chess-like maneuvering he had come to expect from Carmine.

That did not mean he had to accept it. In his mind, there was no more odious pairing. He had distrusted Cera's leadership from the moment she arrived, and he had no desire to serve under her. She had recruited his sister, Perla, behind his back, shattering the vow he’d made to keep her from the front lines for as long as he lived. And while he knew Perla had a will of her own, it did nothing to erase the image seared into his memory: his own five-year-old arms wrapped around her small, lifeless, blood-soaked body, dragging her away from the steaming entrails of a tiger.

His sister possessed a dangerous combination: the heart of a scholar and the spirit of a warrior. In that, they were the same—she would do anything to protect those she loved. For years, he had deflected her pleas to join the fight, knowing she understood neither the true limits of her own fragility nor the depths of her strength.

For seven years, he had shielded her with his own brutal, primitive form of protection. It had been difficult, but it had been possible. Then came Cera—the newcomer who, apart from himself, hated death more than anyone—and made Perla a lieutenant.

Cera had forced him into an impossible position. One part of him, the traitorous part, wanted to thank her for giving Perla the one thing she truly wanted. Another part wanted to strike her for her naiveté. He could protect his sister now, yes, but it meant he would have to watch her walk into the fire. He would see her as she had been all those years ago, and this time, there would be no miraculous recovery. She would likely give her life for some nameless soldier, an act the saints would call martyrdom and he would call a waste. He still couldn't fathom it, that she had traded her life for their grandmother’s, a woman whose memory was already fading into nothing.

Cy’s jaw ached from clenching his teeth. This is no time for an enemy attack, he thought, his anger dulling his senses, scattering his focus. Any competent opponent would make short work of him in this state. But then his thoughts would circle back to Perla, and the rage would ignite all over again.

The team was slipping through his fingers. He froze mid-crouch on a thatched roof, closing his eyes. Focus. He forced the looping, useless thoughts from his mind, pushing them out until there was nothing left but the mission. He extended his senses, honed by years of tracking silent predators and wary prey, searching for his people. He tried to pinpoint Jiro first, the easiest of the group to find. Jiro had no respect for the natural world; where another man might walk around a tree, Jiro would shoulder his way through it, leaving a trail of discord in his wake.

Cy tuned out the rustle of leaves, the call of a distant night bird, the ambient hum of the forest. And then he felt it. Not a sound, but a vibration. A whisper of ozone and the faint, alien crackle of static, emanating from beneath one of the ramshackle huts below.

He dropped from the roof, landing in the shadows without a sound.