Kaleth and the others are finally ready to face Enor and end the war once and for all. But being ready for it and actually managing to do so are two different things. And with Enor having tens of thousands of soldiers following every one of his comm...
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Nira kept biting the inside of her lip. In fact, she'd done it so much now that it had gotten sore, but she couldn't stop herself. She felt this urge to get more Eternal energy, and it was so hard to resist it when Yorin was around. Or even her father because he still had a tiny amount of it inside of him.
Nef kept watching her out of the corner of his eye, and he looked so damned worried about her. Somehow that just made her feel worse, though. She's been thinking about it for a long time, and she'd realized that she hadn't been treating Nef right for a while now. And yet he had still been willing to die for the second time back then just because he didn't want to leave her, even though the only reason she wasn't leaving was her being stubborn.
The fact that Nef wasn't blaming her for this and was simply assuming that it had been Eternal powers messing with her head that had been the culprit wasn't making it easier. She felt more guilty than if he openly blamed her. She would just have to find a way to make it up to him, she supposed.
They were currently sitting outside in the gardens behind the palace, the sun heating up the air enough for Nef not to complain about it being cold every few minutes. Not that Nira would mind beyond the fact that he would have been cold because she found it endearing and cute when he grumbled.
"I'm sorry for ignoring you," Nira said when the silence had dragged on for what felt like hours. She knew it must have been only a few minutes, but that was still too long.
Nef looked confused for a second before he seemed to realize what she was talking about and waved his hand dismissively. "Oh yeah, no, don't worry about it. I don't blame ya."
Nira sighed. He should. He should definitely blame her. That would make this easier to handle.
"Look, it was an insanely tough situation, and we somehow came out of it alive," Nef said, grinning at her. It was really hard not to smile back, so Nira didn't resist it. It probably looked at the very least awkward, and probably also pained, but Nef didn't seem to mind. "I mean I died, but let's not count that."
Nira didn't want to laugh at that. It had been horrible to witness. But when he laughed she couldn't help but let out a small chuckle too.
"I don't like how reminiscent this is of the last time we thought it was over."
Nira nodded grimly.
"Still wanna go back to Enoria?"
That was a really good question. She wasn't sure what she wanted. She still wanted to study astronomy. She still wanted to get her degree, but.... This whole thing had put things into perspective, and that perspective made it seem like none of this really mattered. But she couldn't stay here and eventually take over the throne.
No matter what her father or Nef said, she didn't think she would be a good leader. And even more, she didn't want to be a leader. Maybe Kaleth was right and it was time for the monarchy to end. She didn't really want to listen to a Garen talk about the state of Irithara, but her father seemed to agree with him.
