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“As expected,” the Stilladìa huffs, leaning back against her beloved. Who has thankfully stopped squirming over such an idiotic sentiment as jumping ahead to save Argia Candente from her golden shower.
She could almost get jealous, but thankfully she is <span class="mu-i">so</span> beyond such petty concerns.
“I got scared for a moment,” he chuckles, and she glares at him.
“Scared how?”
“Don’t give me that look, runt.” He pats her forehead and then he slides his hands over her shoulders and kneads them and he is <span class="mu-i">good</span> at what he does so she lets it slide.
For now.
They will talk after she has kicked another of the Sisters into the grave.
“Scared Ansàrra would burn her new foster daughter?” She laughs—dry, bitter—laughs until her shoulders are shaking even under his soft hands and she is gritting her teeth and she is clenching her fists. “Scared she would miss a chance to let Argia Candente pass through the same betrayal and display how <span class="mu-i">proud</span> she is of her, and ‘oh, if only you had been as patient, then we could still be a family’?” She hisses. “<span class="mu-i">Scared?</span>”
A few of the people in the crowd turn their wide-eyed gazes to look at her—she is making a ruckus—but they are quick to turn away.
“I wish I could still get scared like that, love.”
“Argia’s betrayal was not real, though. Remember. Not completely. It was different from what happened to you.”
Lithala slumps against him, enjoying his embrace for a few moments.
And perhaps he is right, but she is too tired to muster up more anger.
Too hollowed out after everything that happened.
Then she turns her green eyes towards the Temple’s dais, and there Argia Candente is, hugging her friends. The friends that survived. Unlike her own, of course.
With her shiny new golden hand. Looking at the crowd.
Looking down for—
Their eyes meet.
And Argia Candente, puppet extraordinaire, raises her hand to wave.
“Starless Night,” Lithala of the Night Land seethes, raising her own hand in turn. “What a soul.”
“And you could have had it,” Helias muses, running his fingers through her hair. “Or so I think. Things were in a balance for a moment.”
“There was never much balance, love. Perhaps before she understood what her actual Trial was. But she asked me directly, and, well you know me. I have always been a terrible liar.”
“The worst,” he hums, kissing the side of her head.
She sighs.
Argia Candente lowers her hand.
Lithala lowers her own.
Then she opens her palm in front of her beloved’s face.
“Also, I won our little wager. What a surprise. You owe me eighty <span class="mu-i">fiorini</span>.”
[cont.]
