It's too cold here.

She nestles her head into the crook of her brother's neck, welcoming his warmth. Nominally, she's doing this more for his sake than for hers; the strangers dismissively remarked that, as a Mars Adept, she could warm herself, and she didn't have the heart to contradict them. Their sole concession to humanity was warming blankets for Kraden, and that mostly because even they recognized an old man would not survive the chill.

In reality? It's for her, though she hopes he gets some comfort out of it as well. Here, swaddled up and held in his arms, she can pretend for a brief time that they're safe and together and there's nothing else in the world - no Alchemy, no journey, no fear that she'll not live to see either her parents or her home. Nothing but the faint roar of the winter wind outside their tent and Felix in her arms.

Some nagging thought says it should have been Isaac, but of course that's absurd. She and Isaac were... Well, they were... That was... Anyway, that doesn't matter now, and the thought's almost funny. This is Felix. Why would she be thinking of Isaac when she's in her brother's arms?

The answer carries the weight of the doom she can feel coming ever-closer, and so she doesn't seek it out. She just buries her face in his hair, inhaling deeply, and shuts her eyes. One hand comes up to stroke her hair as the other presses against her waist, gathering her closer to him, and she smiles. It shouldn't be possible to feel so happy under these circumstances, yet...

I love you, she thinks, and doesn't bother examining the thought further. It's natural for a sister to love her brother, isn't it? The most natural thing in the world.

The wind howls outside. She doesn't care. It can howl down the whole world, and she'll be safe here, just so long as she has Felix to keep her warm.

---

It's taking every nerve in his body not to bolt.

Menardi looks like she'd love the excuse to take her mounting nerves and frustration out on something, but it's precisely that which he finds so tempting. He knows Karst, well enough to know the sisters are much alike - both have poor judgment when in a temper, both can be taken off-guard when thinking with their hearts over their heads. He remembers that from the one time he beat Karst in a spar, and she looked at him afterwards like she didn't know whether she wanted to tear his clothes off or his throat out... Yes. Well. He knows Karst.

And he knows Menardi well enough to know her movements aren't as steady as they should be, that her mind's not as clear as it should be. And that very lack is fraying her temper further, making her even less clear-headed. Add to that the flicker of worry in her eyes, as time ticks onward and Saturos doesn't appear...

He has no chance of beating her in a fair fight. He knows that. But he might have a chance of catching her off guard, and he equally might have a chance of taking to his heels and outrunning her, with Mercury's beacon burning blue in the sky. Kraden would be a lost cause, of course; the old man has no chance of keeping up.

But the same part of him that's screaming that his chance is now has also decided, quite to his surprise, that it doesn't care that much about the old man. It cares about the girl in his arms: the girl who just wants to go back home, the girl who's looking up at the beacon with the same fear as Menardi, if for the opposite reason, the girl whose friends are blindly doing their best to ensure the world continues drifting to its fated destruction...

Feeling every inch the traitor, he gathers her shivering form close to him and gives Menardi a look of weary obedience, with the right note of reproach to make her believe it. She just sneers at him, then resumes her sidelong glances towards the Lighthouse beacon. Looking at it directly seems to hurt her. If he could get her to look straight at it for a moment, and be blinded by it...

He buries his face in Jenna's hair and shuts his eyes against temptation. The world is at stake, Prox is at stake, his parents are at stake. The beacon is lit, besides; it's too late to back away now. Menardi, even weakened, is too strong a warrior to take lightly. He's not betraying his sister, he's not, he's not...

A snarl and the sound of footsteps come as a guilty relief. His head jerks up, and he blinks twice.

Saturos is bruised, bloodied, and barely on his feet. Felix's eyes flicker between him and the fresh stains on Alex's otherwise-immaculate clothing - about right for Saturos to have been leaning on him until a short time prior. Perhaps just before they came into view.

What happened up there?

"Saturos?" Menardi asks, disbelieving.

"We need to go." The lines of strain are clear on his face; he shoots a hate-filled glance up at the beacon, and he keeps his gaze on it even as his eyes obviously burn with the effort. "Now."

Without another word, they all comply. Saturos tries to run ahead, but staggers; Menardi wraps her arm around his waist for support, and they stumble forward at a decent speed. From behind, Felix eyes them, heart suddenly speeding. This is his chance. Menardi won't leave Saturos, not like this, and with him slowing the two of them down... He could outpace them, he and Jenna could outpace them quite -

He catches a sharp glance from Alex, and pushes back his thoughts. His chance already came and went. He let it pass. There's no use in fantasizing now.

As much to fill the awkward silence that follows as anything else, Alex begins filling them in as they follow behind the two. Felix can hardly believe his ears - Saturos, defeated? Defeated by four against one, a Mercury Adept among them, in the direct light of Mercury's beacon - but still, defeated? By a group including Isaac and Garet, who'd hardly seemed warriors worth any mention but a short time past?

Maybe, on this day and in this place, Menardi would have proven easier to defeat than he thought...

"You neglected to mention that you were sitting on your hands the whole time," Saturos spits over his shoulder as Alex winds down his tale.

"Nonsense," Alex says, smoothly as ever. His smile is angelic. "I kept them from finishing you off and bluffed my way out of further combat - isn't that enough?"

Saturos's eyes are slits. "Is that all you expect me to believe you were capable of, Mercury Adept?"

The smile flickers. "Much as I'd like my enemies to believe otherwise, my skills in battle are-"

"And as a healer? Swimming in that wretched blue light?" Saturos jerks his head. "You could have turned the tide of that battle at any time. You chose not to do so."

"Is this true, Alex?" Menardi demands. Felix does not miss her hand tightening around her scythe.

Alex is sweet as the morning dew. "Forgive me, for respecting your warrior pride-"

Menardi lets out a high, manic laugh. "You? You speak of warrior pride?"

Saturos stays silent, but his gaze is murderous. Alex licks his lips, eyes growing warier above his unwavering smile, and lets out a little laugh in turn. "Surely you can't be questioning me? I, who desire the ignition of the Lighthouses just as much as you do? Whatever would be my reason for in any way impeding your possession of the Mars Star, and-"

"The girl."

For one insane second, Felix thinks that he's referring to Jenna; that it's nothing more than a product of his own fixation is proven a moment later, when Alex bursts out, "Were you deaf, Saturos? Certainly you heard our conversation atop the Lighthouse? Mia and I are no allies, and-"

"Allies?" Saturos gives a laugh that turns into a wet cough, and Menardi grips him harder as he coughs into his fist. It's hard to tell in the blue glare from the Lighthouse beacon high above, but Felix thought it might have come away red. "I said nothing of the sort." He clears his throat, trailing off into a series of small coughs. "It matters not to me in the slightest how she feels toward you. How do you feel toward her?"

The smile drops off Alex's face. Tightly, he says, "Mia is naive, pious, and utterly lacking in comprehension of the powers at play. Any attempt to reason with her on these subjects is hopeless. She will never understand, until all four beacons are lit - perhaps not even then -"

Saturos makes a dismissive gesture with his free hand. "Why don't you try answering the question, Alex?"

"I did!"

"He was asking if you deliberately refused to intervene out of fondness for your cousin's pretty little face," Menardi says over her shoulder. "Yes or no? Which is it, Alex?"

Alex's lips press together in a thin, tense line. "You two are being absurd. Perhaps you'll see sense when you're further from the fount of Mercury's power-"

"One syllable, Alex. Or rather, one of two," Saturos says. "Which one? Look me in the eyes and tell me."

Alex's face tightens further, and he trains his gaze on a spot just over Saturos and Menardi's heads. "As I said, the lighthouse's radiance is clearly having an untoward effect on your psyches... I'm sure you'll feel better later."

Saturos gives an unpleasant, sly little laugh. "You're fond of her, aren't you?"

Something tightens until it snaps. Felix raises an eyebrow at the ice in Alex's eyes. "I will not be mocked by a man who lost because he made sure he sent his w- partner ahead of him, out of harm's way."

Saturos's teeth snap shut into a snarl. "That was to watch the hostages!"

"I could have done that-"

"And you didn't!"

"No, because you'd sent a vastly overqualified warrior to guard a pair of novices and an old man," Alex sneers. "What more could I have done? Challenged her to a card game to pass the time while-" He cuts himself off, but even Felix can hear the words hanging in the air: while a bunch of novices shoved your teeth down your throat and made you swallow them.

"Oh? So now you're claiming you're not worthless as a warrior-"

"Warrior? Whyever would that be necessary? Where would they have gone?" Alex laughs, but the air of affability is gone. Felix half-wonders if he remembers the rest of them are there. "This is my homeland. What do these children of earth and fire know of Imil? What do they know of the white wastes, awash in Mercury's light? They could run wherever they wanted. I would find them. And, by the time I did, they would be begging for me to take them back." His eyes are shining blue, and Felix thinks this is the first time he's seen Alex's real face. "This is my domain. Don't forget it."

Saturos eyes him a moment longer, and gives a short laugh. "The light of Mercury is deranging my head? Pfeh..." Then he faces forward again; the movement carries a gesture of dismissal. Felix doesn't think Alex is in a state to notice.

Or maybe he does. "I notice you didn't deny what I said," Alex says sweetly, his angelic smile returning.

"He doesn't need to deny it. It's absurd." Menardi's voice is flat and hard. "Nor does it matter. There won't be Mercury's light next time. And I won't leave him."

"Menardi-"

"If you value your dear cousin's life, you'll find some way to keep her away from the battlefield, by fair means or foul!" Menardi snaps, overriding Saturos's interruption as though it wasn't there. "Because I'll stand with him next time, and no one and nothing will prevail against us! So, if you value her hide, you had best make sure she isn't there, am I understood?"

Her eyes are alight with a terrifying fire, and Felix realizes, with a sick twist of his stomach, that Isaac and Garet might have survived, but not for long. They will not let this insult pass. There might have been a slender chance Saturos would let the boys live if they were defeated here, out of sheer contempt more than anything else, but now...

Alex, for his part, just looks back at them with a set smile and eyes as cold as ice. Menardi's too furious to see it, but Felix thinks he might see the plan unfolding behind Alex's eyes; warping in and seizing his cousin as she lays prone on some foreign battlefield, then warping off before the deathblow can come crashing down upon her. It will end their association, of course - Saturos and Menardi will not forgive being denied their vengeance, even in this small thing. But they have no need to be associated any longer, save Saturos and Menardi's convenience and Alex's curiosity.

Or perhaps he's thinking something else entirely. Who can tell, with Alex?

Felix looks off to the side, into the drifts of snow, and sighs. He wonders, sincerely, how they can hope to alter the foundations of the world while half-blinded by their own petty concerns, puppets dancing on the strings of the desires they insist they don't have. Alex and his cousin, Saturos and Menardi, him and Jenna -

Felix freezes, and retreats from that thought. No. Not him and Jenna. No. Wrong. Completely different. Completely.

But even as he denies it, it dawns, deep in his gut, that he's failed his sister in yet another way, and this one he can't fix.