The Price of Loyalty

Haku moved her ankle, which had been broken moments before, and it rotated easily, as if it were perfectly healed. She cautiously put her hand on the ground to push herself up. Unsure, she put her whole weight on the healed leg, and it held without issue. Haku's face lit up, her eyebrows shooting up at her forehead. She began jumping and threw herself into Lily's arms.

"How did you do that? And what happened to your hair? We thought you were dead!"

"My hair?" Lily asked, confused, tilting her head to the side.

Haku reached behind Lily's neck and pulled the white locks forward, as if she had forgotten Lily was blind. It also looked like Lily had forgotten she was blind, because when she saw her hair, she started to scream. The deafening, high-pitched sound painfully sliced through their eardrums. Lily wasn't blind anymore.

"How could this happen? I spent a lot of time on my long hair, and the orange was so unique; it perfectly matched my teal-colored eyes. White is such a nothing color!" Lily held a long lock in her hand, looking at it like a mourner. Her face hollowed by grief, and she was muttering so fast it was as if she were reciting a curse.

Haku placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and smiled sweetly, acting as a stable pillar on whom Lily could lean.

"Don't worry! Maybe all great mages have white hair. Master had white hair, too."

"But he's old!" the now white-haired girl shrieked, brushing the red-haired oni off and burying her face in her hands, as if crying.

Haku stroked her chin thoughtfully. "You have a point."

In response, Lily wailed again. Zel glanced at Ren, whose face held a huge, relieved smile. The warm wind swept his blue-dyed hair back. His black roots were growing longer with the passage of time. He blinked his long eyelashes rapidly to protect his eyes from the sand.

"How did you know?" Zel asked, his voice sharp with curiosity.

"I have a game in my world that works on the same principle. Different pieces can move in different ways. We could all be different pieces."

"What are they?"

"Haku is the knight, you and Lily are rooks or queens, and I'm the pawn."

"You know this game?"

Ren shrugged. "I liked playing it. It takes calculation and logic to win."

Lily retracted her hand from his chest, and Ren cautiously squeezed her upper arm to make her look at him.

"Are you feeling okay? You used so much—"

Lily smiled warmly and hugged him, resting her face on his shoulder. Ren stammered, his face flushed, while Haku's feet were rooted to the ground, watching the scene like a statue.

Zel hated seeing this. He didn't know what had happened between the three of them while he was away, but he hated feeling like he was second best. All his life, his father had made him feel like he would never be enough.

"I feel great! Like I could destroy the whole world!" Seeing the others' strangely confused, scared faces, she waved her hands and shook her head forcefully. "I won't, of course!"

Zel scratched his ear. He felt that everyone was getting stronger, surpassing him, and that only he was left behind with half his power.

"You all are stronger now, aren't you?" Zel asked the question, sharp with raw envy. "I can feel the difference. What happened to you just a moment ago?"

"I felt my clone trying to consume me. My nose and eyes filled with it. I saw nothing but blackness. My muscles began to melt and relax against my will. The darkness didn't just take my sight; it began to pull my very essence, stealing my strength and consciousness in slow, suffocating waves. My body was no longer mine; it was just a husk pulled under. Then, as if by magic, it changed. Strength flowed back into my limbs, and adrenaline rushed through my body. My own body demanded and began to absorb that ancient magic that had been targeting me. So, now it's a part of me." She tapped her chest.

The group remained silent for a long moment, staring at the white-haired prophet. Lily's words, still heavy in the air, mixed with the shock of the battle and the lingering tension of the tar. Their bodies were shaking from adrenaline, their minds reeling from the fight and the miraculous healing that had occurred.

Overwhelmed by the multitude of events, they took a moment to pause. They set up camp and tried not to think about what to do next—how to get Ren out and how to restore Zel's power. They had no clues. They had finished the map on Ren's back, and there was nowhere left to go.

That night, the evening music of the insects entertained Zel, who tossed and turned on the ground. He had started calling himself Zel at the age of 12 because he disliked the name Ezekiel. He cautiously pushed himself up, making sure not to wake the others. He rummaged through his bag and crept over to Lily's sleeping area. He quietly opened the cap of her water bottle and swept the contents of his palm into it. As he crept back to his own spot, he let out the breath he had been holding. With a huge smile, he crawled back under his blanket and pulled it up to his ears. He closed his eyes and fell asleep. His strength was about to leave his body when someone spoke next to him.

"Zel, what did you put in my water?"

The boy's eyes snapped open, and he stared at Lily, who was lying with her back to him. She slowly pushed herself up and looked at him, accusatory, with narrowed eyes.

An awkward laugh escaped Zel's lips, and he scratched the back of his ear. "Just some herbs. I wanted to help my blind friend, but it looks like I got caught."

"Indeed," Lily said, glancing at the oni girl, who didn't look like she had just woken up. Haku sniffed the water, her small nose twitching as she tried to absorb the aromas. Then she stuck out her tongue and let a drop land on it. After tasting it in her mouth for a while, she turned to Lily.

"It's poison. Not a very large dose, just as those people said."

Zel didn't know who "those people" were—the people who had discovered Lily was poisoned.

Zel's face dropped, and fear flared in his eyes. "How do you—?"

"Oni have an extremely sensitive sense of taste. And thanks to our blood, poisons don't affect us. That's why I tasted all of them so that I could recognize them later." Haku puffed out her chest proudly, then sighed when she saw Zel's same bewildered expression. "Oh, right, you weren't asking me."

"I saw a prophecy right before we went to sleep. I saw you putting something into my water, my food, and the tea you brought me every day," Lily hissed angrily. "Why did you do it?"

Zel remained silent. He was afraid. He was always scared. He pressed his lips together, intending to say nothing, but this only enraged Lily further.

"We've known each other since childhood! I thought the bond between us mattered!"

Zel gritted his teeth as he stared at the ground. His dark eyes grew even darker.

"You don't know me at all! You don't know anything about me!"

Lily recoiled from the painful words, as if she had been stabbed in the heart with a knife. Zel took advantage of the brief shock and tried to stand up and run, but the prophet easily chained him to the ground with magic. She walked over to him and lifted his head by his chin. Their eyes locked. Zel looked resolute and timid, like a small child awaiting punishment. A vision suddenly consumed the white-haired girl, her body frozen in place like a crash test dummy. Zel saw the trance as his only chance to escape the situation before Lily's renewed magic overwhelmed them all. His hands darted to the ground, finding the small hunting knife he'd dropped earlier. He sprang to his feet, lunging the few paces to the immobilized Lily.

He made it just a few feet before Lily snapped out of her trance. Her movement was neither quick nor absolute. She turned toward him, her head moving first, then her body following. The air froze. Lily's teal eyes first turned glassy, then filled with something Zel had never seen: not just hurt, but an old, ancient rage.

Before he knew it, the girl's hand lifted, and he was sent flying through the air and skidded across the ground. His heart was hammering against his ribs. Blood dripped from his black hair. He felt a sharp, ringing pain in his ears, a raw sound of sheer power that threatened to shatter his very senses.

A new, raw energy radiated from Lily, stretching the shadows of the camp.

Zel lay stunned, for a single terrifying moment, the landscape seemed to dissolve into a vortex of color, consumed by the ancient, furious magic Lily could no longer control.