[Misa, I need you to come meet up with me,] Sev sent. Being connected to her reality anchor was convenient — unlike most others, his system didn't suffer from the same strange glitches and stutters that plagued most others he knew. [Are you done with Fendal? I'm not sure what progress looks like on that front.]

[Uh, yeah, more or less done, actually,] Misa replied. She seemed surprised. [You got me the exact moment the system linked me up to the town. How did you—You know what? Nevermind. I should be used to weird coincidences around you by now.]

[About that,] Sev sent. [Turns out I embody Fate. Or something.]

[You what.] Misa's reply was so flat Sev could practically hear it through the text on the system screen. [You know what, nevermind. We'll talk when I get there in person. I'll get Derivan to send me where you are. It's not going to tax his Shift too much, is it?]

[Not if I give him a Blessing of Travel, which I can do from here,] Sev said. [You go find him and let me know when you're ready.]

There was a long pause with no reply from Misa. Sev was beginning to wonder if he needed to follow up with another message before he got an abrupt new message from her, filled with barely-concealed amusement.

[Uh, yeah, I'm not gonna interrupt them,] she said. [You get your blessing ready. I'll get back to you. Later.]

[What?] Sev sent, confused. There was no reply.

It took about an hour before Misa sent him a message that she was ready, which Sev privately thought was about an hour longer than necessary. He wasn't sure he wanted to question her on why, though; there was a grin on her face that told him she'd be all too delighted to tell him the answer.

Maybe some other time.

"Had a safe trip, I hope," Sev greeted.

"I did." Misa grinned at him, somehow completely unrepentant. "You needed me for something?"

"Yeah." Sev ignored the look she was giving him — she wanted him to ask, and she knew he wanted to ask — and instead brought out the [Flame of the Phoenix] he still held in his pocket. The cracked amber still held warm in his hand, and now that he was paying attention, he could sense the way that warmth... pulsed, for lack of a better word. Like the beating of a heart.

"I need to heal this, and I need a strong source of fire-aspect mana to do it," he said.

"...And you called me because?" Misa asked, puzzled.

"Because," Sev said, this time with something of a glare directed at some corner of the room, "the only source of fire-aspect mana we have access to is so strong I can't actually share a room with him without getting burned. I can heal myself, but having to heal both myself and the egg isn't really ideal."

"Seriously?" Misa seemed bemused now. She glanced around the room, a slight furrow in her brow. "What is this place, anyway? You never said."

"It's a small basement underneath Anderstahl's main headquarters," Sev said. "Or their palace, if you're more used to that term."

"We're in Anderstahl?" Misa stared at the room around her. "This isn't anything like how I imagined it. And how did you even get here? The envoy's still not even halfway here. Even if you sped it up—"

"I've got divine connections, remember?" Sev interrupted, laughing. Misa was excited to go outside and see the city, that much he could tell; some things didn't change no matter how much danger the world was in. "Blessings aren't that easy for the gods to administer anymore," he continued, a little more seriously. "So I can't just abuse it. But for things like this, for getting people to the right places at the right time... it's worth it. We won't make it in time otherwise."

Misa's excitement was instantly replaced with caution. "Are things that serious?" she asked.

"Yeah," Sev said, his expression settling into something a little more severe. "Uh, the people I met up with here are apparently people I recruited in past... Resets, as it were. They have some idea of what's going on and they've been trying to keep Anderstahl stable. It's why it's the last Prime Kingdom to fall."

"I hear a but coming."

"But despite their efforts, their Prime Anchor is close to failure," Sev said. "In the order of days, not months the way the Guild thought. We can probably fix it up and prolong things with reality shards, but that's only gonna last us so long."

"Shit," Misa muttered. She strode up to Sev. "And healing this thing is gonna help us?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Sev admitted. "I'm willing to try anything at this point. It's not going to hurt, I don't think."

"Sure," Misa said dryly. "What's the worst that could happen. We get a pet bird that's always on fire?"

"Pretty much," Sev said. "You ready? It's not going to be easy to block the sun elemental."

"You've got a sun elemental helping you?" Misa blinked. "No wonder you need my help. Alright. I don't have enough mana stocked up, but I've got other tricks, at this point." She pulled out her bow.

"Please tell me you're not going to shoot me with that," Sev said.

"I won't," Misa said, aiming her bow at Sev. "Tell you, I mean."

"Misa."

"It won't hurt!" She drew back an imaginary arrow, and Sev flinched; he felt the Concept materialize in her fingers, and she gave him a reassuring smile. It was a warm one, too, surprisingly — not a trace of the humor she might normally find in this situation. "Seriously, this is the next best thing to me sitting here and blocking. It's just going to be an arrow loaded with the concept of Regulation. You ready?"

"I guess I have to be," Sev said, grimacing a little. This felt reminiscent of needles, somehow. He didn't know in what way, but the memory felt like it had something to do with Earth. "Let me just call him out. Solar?"Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

A door creaked open, and Sev tried not to take a physical step backward as the wave of heat nearly crippled him. It was already being suppressed as much as the sun elemental was capable of doing—that suppression was just limited.

Said elemental spoke with the cadence of a crackling fire and with a voice that sounded both like a roar and a whisper. "I am here."

"Whoa," Misa said. She stepped forward. "You doing okay there, buddy?"

The sun elemental paused, turning to her. He seemed puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Somethin' about your fire." Misa frowned, looking Solar up and down. "Dunno how to place it, exactly, but it feels a little... off. Like you've got something on your mind."

Sev gave Misa a confused look. "When did you learn how to read fire?"

"I've been spending a lot of time around my mom," Misa said dryly. "You pick up a thing or two from an [Intuitionist]. That, and we might have figured out a new way to use [An Anchor of Heart and Home]."

Sev paused. "You didn't."

Misa grinned and placed a finger to her lips. "We'll talk about it later," she said, turning back to the sun elemental. "But seriously. Your name's Solar, right? Is everything alright?"

There was a long pause as the sun elemental studied her; then he let out a sigh, the sound crashing against the walls and blasting a wave of heat at their feet. Misa didn't hesitate to fire her arrows of Regulation, plating one in herself and the other into Sev's thigh; he felt relief flood into him as the temperature around him abruptly cooled into something tolerable.

"It is not," Solar admitted, though the admittance was a little begrudging. "But there is little you or your friend could do about it. Simply let me give you the help you seek and I will be on my way."

"You don't sound like you want to leave," Misa responded. Sev could hear it too, now — the note of reluctance in Solar's voice.

"It is..."

Hesitation. Sev couldn't help but join Misa in her worry, now; he saw the way the sun elemental seemed reluctant to speak, almost like he was afraid. What was there to be afraid of? It couldn't be the others here, surely; Muchen and Aisha had been nothing but kind, and Gerald... well, there was clearly history there. But he'd detected nothing malicious.

"It is nothing," Solar said after a long moment, clearly still trying to avoid the topic. Misa folded her arms across her chest, unconvinced, and now Sev joined her in her skepticism.

"You can talk to us," he said.

Solar sighed once again, though this time the impact of his heat wasn't felt as thoroughly. Misa's arrows helped. "It is not something that others can help with," he said plainly. "There are few of us left — sun elementals, fire elementals. The stone endures. The oceans wax and wane. But fire only grows or burns away, and we are no longer in the first phase of our existence."

Sev frowned and glanced at Misa. "You're telling me that other sun and fire elementals are... what? Dying?"

"Did you not find it strange that so few of us remain?" Solar asked. "How many of us have you encountered on your journey?"

"We haven't met that many elementals to begin with," Sev said. "Earth elementals and shadow elementals, primarily. But nothing of air or water or fire. We didn't think it was a trend."

"I see." Solar was silent for a moment. "Perhaps the situation is more dire than I expected. In truth, I have not been outside for a long, long time. I have been informed that this place is safer for me than most places would be."

"I mean... you're not wrong, there," Sev admitted. This location in particular was fortified against the Void, partially by sheer proximity to the Anderstahl Prime Anchor and partially because it had to be to preserve the contents of his workshop between Resets.

"How long has it been since you've been outside?" Misa asked.

"Too long." The admittance was reluctant. "I have not seen the sky in many an eon."

"...You mean eon non-literally, right?" Misa asked. "Because an eon is like a billion years."

"Elementals such as I experience time differently," Solar said, and then a little bit more sheepishly, "...but perhaps I did mean it metaphorically."

Sev chuckled a little at that interaction. "Let's do this outside," he suggested. "It'll give us more space away from the heat, anyway. And we can protect you if the Void tries to do something."

Solar shifted, clearly a mixture of excited and nervous. "Are you certain?" he asked. "I do not want to put others at risk..."

"I'm sure I can call in a few favors," Sev decided. A divine barrier would keep most of Solar's heat out and away from the general populace of Anderstahl. Worst case, he'd have to ask one of the gods to help him out.

A small part of him worried that there wasn't enough divinity left — that he was wasting it on trivial matters when it could be needed for something important later on. It was a genuine concern, too; there were other things he could prioritize here. But something deep within him told him that this was the right thing to do.

Maybe it was the part of him that saw the sun elemental right on the verge of guttering out. Despite the immense heat, despite the sheer power of the flame...

Deep within that flame was a candle close to burning to its end.

What was a single life in the context of the universe? Not much, surely. But Sev didn't know if they would need whatever divine power would be spent on this at all. He didn't know if divinity would help them in the end, not the way the Grand Anchors might, or the way the [Flame of the Phoenix] might. All he would be doing was holding on to power just in case, and if that was all he was going to do, then he might as well do nothing.

No. If he was going to use his power, then he would use it to be kind.

It was just who he was.

It took a bit of work. Getting Solar up to the roof of the Anderstahl castle—Sev had simply decided to just start calling the building a castle, even though it was really more of a skyscraper, which was a word he hadn't thought about for a long, long time—was a more time-consuming task than he'd anticipated.

It had taken a divine favor. The Goddess of the Inner Flame had responded to his request. Her domain didn't quite overlap with what he needed, but it was close enough; her favor granted him a Blessing he could use to turn that outwardly-generated heat into an internal flame.

Which—as was often the case when it came to the gods—was really more of a metaphor for hope and life. Solar's expression when the Blessing had touched him had been a delight. There was fear and tension on his face that just melted away, and the sun elemental let out a long, low sigh of relief almost as soon as the divine power settled.

"Thank you," he said, his voice soft. "This—It will not last forever. Will it?"

"Unfortunately not," Sev said. "But you can keep it burning on your own."

"That is easier said than done," Solar said. "...But it feels possible now, at least."

"Come on, you two!" Misa called down from further up the stairs, "There aren't that many stairs left!"

Sev glanced at Solar. "I don't suppose I could convince you to carry me?" he said, half-joking.

Solar glanced down at his hands, made of pure fire, and then at Sev. "Will you survive?" he asked plainly.

"With the Blessing in place?" Sev considered the question with more gravitas than was perhaps strictly necessary. "...Maybe."

Solar snorted his first real laugh at this. "I am willing to make the attempt."

When they did make it to the roof of the skysc—castle, Sev nearly fell out of Solar's arms. The sun elemental froze the instant they pulled open the door onto the rooftop; the sun streamed in through the clouds. They'd managed to time it somehow so that it was almost exactly sunset, and the sky was ringed in hues of red and yellow, nearly the same colors as Solar's body.

"Thought you'd like the view," Misa said with a cheeky grin.

Solar swallowed. Sev carefully pulled himself out of the sun elemental's grip so they could both have an unobstructed view of the quite-frankly beautiful sunset. Truth was, there was rarely time for them to sit and stare at their surroundings, and it had been a long time since he'd truly appreciated nature's wonders...

...seeing Solar's wonder at the sight reminded him that it was sometimes worth sparing a little time to remember what they were trying to save.

"Alright," he said softly. He placed the [Flame of the Phoenix] onto the floor, stepping back several feet to give Solar space. "Whenever you're ready. But take your time."

"I am ready now," Solar said. Something about the sight had apparently energized him, and now Sev saw him absolutely brimming with fire-aspect mana—so much so that he couldn't tell where the elemental ended and the mana began. He watched as Solar directed that energy to coalesce around the stone, and he brought his own healing to bear at the same moment.

Crack.

The sound echoed in the air, and something in both the mana and the threads of divinity before him yawned open.