“What are we doing, Bevel?” Keria asked from behind her, huffing as they climbed the stairs.

Bevel rolled her eyes at her sister’s performance. It was so like Keria to pretend she was out of breath. As if Bevel didn’t know her sister couldn’t run out anymore. “I told you. Going to the gliders.”

“Yes, but you didn’t tell me why,” Keria said, grunting as she ran up behind her giving up the show once it was obvious Bevel wasn’t going to fall for it.

“We have somewhere important to visit,” Bevel said, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking. She’d thought about bringing Papa, but this was… it wasn’t a thing for her and her new family. It was one for the old.

“This better not be another one of your dumb games,” her sister grumbled under her breath. Bevel was pretty sure her sister hadn’t intended for her to hear that, but it wasn’t like she missed much these days. Completing the trials had made it easy to understand what the wind carried to her, even when a dozen people were talking at once. That… wasn’t always a good thing, she’d learned. Which was just another reason Esbee’s, with all its privacy wards, was one of her favorite places.

“It’s not,” Bevel said as she pulled out one of the many spare gliders that were kept atop the peak. “I told you, it’s important.”

Keria continued grumbling as she took the glider, though she didn’t articulate it into words. After nearly a minute of struggling with the straps, Keria gave up and asked Bevel for her help.

Another minute later, she had her sister secured and she hopped into her own glider. Then she carried them both to a hidden lab to the east.

One right on the cliff overlooking the Golden Halls below.

It’d been one of the things she’d remembered after seeing her parents during that terrible trial with her Papa. They’d talked about it, during the vacation after. Papa had offered to come with her, because of course he had. Mama Ari had suggested it might be better for her and Keria to go on their own.

After giving it a lot of thought, Bevel had decided she agreed with Mama Ari.

So now she and her sister were flying to the lab where their parents had died. And where they’d find their bodies.

They landed on the spur of rock and Keria practically tore her straps off, making Bevel frown. Those would be difficult to repair.

“I’m walking back,” Keria stated, staring at the glider as if it had attacked her.

Bevel shook her head. Sisters were so weird. At least, hers was. “Kay. This is it.”

“What is?” Keria asked, gaze skipping right past the collapsed entrance.

“The rocks,” Bevel said, frowning as she attempted to lift them. They were too close to use the suction trick Papa had taught her. She hadn’t quite figured out how to do that one safely from up close. “The lab where mom and dad died is inside.”

“I… you said… you were serious, about laying them to rest,” Keria said, staring at Bevel. “I thought you meant a ceremony, not…”

“You never listen,” Bevel grumbled as she marched over and picked up the largest rock she could reach her arms around. To her secret delight, she was able to lift it, if only barely. Stumbling a few feet away, she dropped it, huffing.

“Let me handle it,” Keria said, waving Bevel off as she went over and started moving the rock.

Bevel didn’t let her do it alone. With every bit she moved, Bevel’s grip improved, which soon had the sisters working together to clear the entrance. An hour or so later, they’d made enough of an entrance even Keria’s fat butt could squeeze through. Bevel diplomatically didn’t say that out loud, instead using her Winds Within to explore the area beyond.

Just as she expected, there wasn’t anyone or anything moving. Bevel let Keria lead the way, not entirely sure she wanted to go inside. The location wasn’t the only thing she’d remembered.

Closing her eyes against the sudden spike of pain and rage, Bevel forced herself to go after her sister.

She had to be sure.

They made their way through the outer halls, which were mostly just collapsed rooms and empty staircases leading deeper. It was obvious Balthum had simply moved in and set up a simple but functional lab. Hadn’t felt simple or functional the last time she’d been there. It had felt dark and terrifying.

A little distance and a lot of love could change so much.

It was almost disappointing how mundane it all looked now, compared to her memory. The shadows didn’t loom, they retreated. The halls didn’t echo with promises of doom, they surrendered their secrets with eagerness.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

They reached the end of the hall, where their parents still floated, suspended in the same liquid they’d died in. Just another pair of victims in Balthum’s tests.

Numbers on a chart.

The second Keria saw them, she ran over, first to their mother shouting at her to wake up. Then to their father, doing the same, one hand pounding at the transparent stone. There was enough force in the blows that it started to crack the tubes. Good. They would need to get them out if they were going to set them to rest.

Bevel let her sister rage against the tube until she slouched down, sobbing quietly. Mama Ari had been right. This was something they needed to do together.

Keria even more than Bevel.

Moving over, Bevel threw an arm around her sister’s shoulder, much like Papa often did for her. Keria turned into her and started sobbing even harder.

It hadn’t been real to her sister, Bevel realized. Keria hadn’t seen them die, so some part of her had held onto hope, even after Bevel told her the truth. It was stupid. Bevel nodded to herself. Stupid was fine.

Her sister never had listened to her. It would’ve been stupid of Bevel to think that she’d start.

After another hour, Keria finally composed herself. Which is when she noticed Bevel’s face was dry. “You didn’t cry.” The words carried a hint of accusation to them.

“I told you I saw them die,” Bevel said, voice cracking despite herself as she stood up, turning to get away from her sister and the accusation in her voice.

“You… you never told me what happened,” Keria said, voice low.

Bevel nodded. That was true.

So… she started.

Bevel had been much younger then. Hadn’t understood why their family had been taken into the night.

Or what it had meant when her father had begged with the mage, asking him to spare Keria.

Not both his girls. Just her sister. Keria had always been his favorite, so it hadn’t even affected Bevel. No. That wasn’t entirely true. Bevel had been delighted. She’d always been his second choice, so thinking that he wanted to leave her sister behind while the rest of them went off on an adventure…

It had pleased her, in a way.

She’d hated herself for that, after. Blamed herself for it. As if her desire to be wanted by her father was the reason for…

Stupid.

Old jerkface had listened to their father, in his way. He hadn’t brought Keria with them. Keria had been taken to a separate lab, though Bevel wouldn’t find that out until later.

Instead, old jerkface had taken the three of them to this lab. He’d stuck her parents in the vats they still floated in, her father thanking him for sparing Keria the whole time. Her mother had kissed her head and promised her it’d be fine. That they’d all be home safe soon.

It’d been a lie. Bevel still didn’t understand why her mother had lied. She’d hated her for those words.

After they’d been put away, Balthum had been surprisingly kind as he’d led her to his secret facility beneath the ocean. He’d even given her some sort of sweet treat as he instructed her to get inside the box.

Despite all the scary stories she’d heard about him, Bevel had started to wonder if maybe old jerkface wasn’t so bad.

Then the pain had hit.

It had tried to change her, to make her into something else.

Bevel had always been in tune with the wind, though before that moment it had been little more than knowing when it was about to shift. Locked in a box, under the ocean, that changed.

Writhing in pain, she’d called out for help, and the only thing to answer were the Winds Within.

Balthum hadn’t been prepared for her to emerge from the box. In her panic, she’d managed to knock him into some other experiment he’d had running.

Whatever it was, it must’ve been more important than her, because he didn’t chase her. Not at first.

Bevel had swam to the surface, completely unfamiliar with her new connection to the wind. It tugged at her and only left her confused as the waves tried to pull her down.

Somehow, eventually, she’d made it, climbing up and collapsing on the stone. If Balthum had bothered trying to find her, it would’ve been easy. It wasn’t like she’d thought to hide from him. Not in any way that mattered.

When she woke, tired and hungry, she did what only felt natural. She cried.

Only after the tears had dried did she start to climb. Near the top she spotted some of the berries her mother had shown her once. Bevel didn’t get the opportunity to leave Tetherfall often, but her mother had been one of the people sent out to gather food, and had insisted on teaching her daughters which plants in the nearby hills were edible, even if she’d had to bring back entire branches, hidden from others, to show them.

After eating the berries, Bevel looked around and realized she wasn’t far from where he’d taken them. It was a drop of twenty feet or so to the outcropping. Nothing for someone who’d grown up on the nets. At least, that’s what she’d thought when she started.

Turned out climbing stone was a very different thing from climbing the nets.

Her hands were bloody and broken by the time she reached the outcropping and made her way inside. Stumbling forward, she made it to the tube with their mother. When she’d left, her mother’s chest had been rising and falling, her eyes closed.

By the time she got there… her eyes were open, face frozen in fear. And her chest no longer rose or fell. Turning, Bevel pounded on the glass of her father’s tube.

Unlike her sister, years later, it had had no effect.

It wasn’t until years later that Bevel realized Balthum had killed them in retaliation for her panicked escape. And it hadn’t been until Papa came along that she discovered that it hadn’t been her fault he’d done so.

As Bevel finished telling Keria everything, she was met with silence.

“You… he killed them because of you. He said… he said I could thank my sister for what he did to me…” Keria said, hands flexing and unflexing.

“Sorry,” Bevel offered weakly, not sure what else to say.

Keria let out an inarticulate scream of rage, hand smashing against their father’s tube again.

“Maybe… maybe Papa can do something. He might-”

“He’s not your Papa!” Keria screamed, turning around and pointing behind her. “Our father is there. He’s right there… and you…”

Bevel nodded. “He was our father. And he was your Papa.” Bevel let out a long breath. “But he wasn’t mine. He never loved me. I remember days where I went hungry, so you could eat. The fights mama had with him.”

Instead of words, Keria just let out another scream of rage, rushing towards Bevel.

Bevel could’ve easily dodged it. Instead she caught her sister in a hug, only hurting a little from the force of the impact. “He loved you more than life itself Keria. You had a good Papa. Almost as good as mine.”

This time, Keria didn’t scream, she just sobbed in her little sister’s arms. There was one more thing, Bevel wanted to say, but instead of letting it reach her sister’s ears, she had the wind carry the words away, hiding them in the dark with all the other buried secrets.

“He was never my Papa. So, no… I don’t have any more tears.”