The boy gasped, choking at the force he'd been thrown into the air. Then, he cried out as his body broke through the surface, managing to screw his mouth shut before water flooded his lungs. Strong currents churned and toppled him in cresting waves, drawing him further from the surface's soft, wavering light and into the deep, cold whirlpool.  

Exhaustion tugged at the edge of his consciousness, sweetly telling him that if he relinquished his grip, he would be able to rest. But he knew those words were honeyed lies, shaking them off while trying to keep himself lucid. The tide's pull was too strong for him to swim up, and his body ached at every attempt. His heart raced, throat straining for something. 

He dared not to let this water in, aware of the invisible eyes watching him struggle and waiting for something.

I don't want to die.

The boy tucked his hands around his neck, pressing his fingers in the space beneath his jaw to keep from impulsively opening his mouth. Bitterly, he tried to gather his thoughts. He had to find his mother and Brother Tsering and warn them of… what. There was an elder - no, an imposter - who wore the face of someone from his mother's bloodline and peered into the reaches of his soul to speak terrifying atrocities— of danger to his family and one that threatened to kill him as well. 

Then why?

The boy opened his eyes, seeing nothing but the vast darkness surrounding him. The water's cool, biting touch had grown warm against his skin. Or perhaps he could no longer feel it. Nothing beyond the weariness in his soul, and he felt tired, oh so tired.

But he couldn't put that face out of his mind. He clung to his memories and the short-lived pride, no matter how sick they made him. The bone-aching embrace, the tears, the pleading, could that have all been done to trick him? When he closed his eyes, he remembered the specter's gaze, blank and hopeless, upon recognizing that it was not Tsering that he was speaking to but him. Were those warnings meant for his brother, a reflection on what had gone wrong or what the specter had seen? 

I can't breathe… 

He forced his eyes open a crack, reaching out a feeble hand.

Mother, Brother Tsering, help me… 

He could imagine his brother's kind eyes and feel his waiting hand. 

He could see his mother's knowing gaze and hear her gentle encouragement.

Yet, where was the strength to do more than plead for them to save him? Pathetic, he thought, recalling the specter's disgusted glare as if it could not bear to look at him any longer. As if it stared deep within his soul and found him not only lacking but also unworthy of life. Tears squeezed from his eyes as they began to close, the droplets floating upward as he sank deeper.

I won't die here.

As his eyes shut, a spark of silver glinted in the distance. It lengthened and narrowed until it was a silver cord, reaching for him and wrapping around his little finger like a lifeline. 

The warm touch, welcomed in the endless cold, loosened his grasp on his throat, and a few air bubbles floated above as his consciousness drifted away.

All was light, and all was blue. 

The boy opened his eyes slowly, feeling the crusting tears gluing his eyelids shut begin to peel away. While he was carried adrift in the endless sea, he now floated in a cloudless sky, buoyed by an upward wind. Blinding light pierced his eyes as they inched open, and he winced away from its glare, attempting to cover them with a hand. His arm protested the sudden movement, pulling back and away from him, pointing down rather than up. As his watering eyes managed to open, he realized that it wasn't only his arm going down but his entire body. 

He gritted his teeth, forcing his aching body to turn mid-air until he could see the distant ground below. A range of karst mountains blanketed the world with bright, verdant green woodlands and webbing pale blue rivers and lakes. I've seen this before, he couldn't help thinking, reaching out a hand as if he could pluck the rivers from the beds and glean over each drop of crystalline water until he remembered from where it came. This land was familiar to him, and it tugged at his heart as he peered westward toward the glistening ocean - gleaming like polished glass against the rising sun, reflecting the cloudless sky on its calm surface. 

It was a sight he'd never seen from above - not alone. His mother's arms would tuck him close to her chest to keep the freezing wind from nipping at his skin, and his brother's hand would find him somewhere amid their mother's robes as she walked across the zephyrs like they were solid ground. The heavens and the earth below were the same to her, and he remembered his fearfulness at their first flight and how she reassured him that she would never let him fall.

This is Jutai, he thought, but the familiarity he felt with his homeland was tinged with uncertainty. 

The silver cord around his pinky finger tugged, but he couldn't pay attention. Not when he searched the terraces cut into the mountain for buildings with cool-tiled sloping roofs, outcroppings where he practiced climbing with his brother, the waterfall where his mother's garden flourished beneath the flooded field spilling into the pooling lake where the children loved to play and watch her dance at the mouth's ridge. He searched desperately, uncaring as his stomach swooped at the ground's coming.

Where is it? Where is my home? My family?

He knew it might have been impossible to find with as much greenery covered the land, but something inside him ached with loss. The cord's tugging slowed, and his stomach swooped as the careening fall ebbed into a light descent. A mountain peak awaited him, but he had never seen something like this. Fire carved craters into the earth, leaving scorching tunnels within the mountain's face. Parts of the ground still smoldered and gave off steam, wafting with pale, thin streams disappearing into the sky. As the boy's feet met the ground, he looked around helplessly. The highest peak of Jutai, known as the Thunder Keep, was reduced to a hollow mockery of its majesty. 

He bit down on the inside of his cheek to stifle a sob, shutting his eyes and turning his head away from the devastation. 

Why would anyone do such a thing?

"The Lord of Calamity may return any moment, my lady!"

The boy jumped at someone's voice, tensing up with his hands balled at his sides. Through the veil of steam dispersing with a breeze, he saw a woman kneeling on the ground with something long lying on her lap. Above her, two people stood. One, a dark-haired young woman with a pock-marked ashen face, gesticulated wildly as if she were flying into a rage, though she gave the kneeling woman a wide berth. Meanwhile, the other, a broad-shouldered and solemn woman wearing a warrior's veil with its adorned ribbon, stood behind her, arms folded and eyes downcast. 

He thought the voice that came from the animated of the two was jarring, but the quieter, empty "He won't" chilled him to the bone. The three women bore weapons of different make - while the woman wearing the warrior's veil took a wicked-looking axe, her slighter counterpart carried circular blades on her hips. The kneeling woman's weapon was set aside, and the boy marveled at the golden blade still burning with the breath of fire. 

"There is no way to know that," the animated woman argued, seeming at her wit's end. She groaned, looking back to her taller companion, who met her gaze with a headshake. Then, she sighed and turned around, her voice softening, "Nyima," and the boy jolted at the name, his eyes widening as he stared at the kneeling woman's curved back. "I know what fondness you held for him in the past, but look around you…" then she jabbed an accusing finger at the kneeling woman's burden, "That is no longer the man you once knew. It is a mockery, a hollow shell, a—"

"Enough," the kneeling woman demanded, silencing even the mountain crows cawing in the distance. "He is dead, and this will be his burial site. As the last son of Jutai, it is what Sonam deserved."

The boy's eyes widened, his hands falling limp at his side.

What?

The passioned young woman's hands shook at her sides, her voice high and reedy, "If he were a son of Jutai, he would not have caused this."

The taller lay her hand on the woman's shoulder, then wheeled her away, only sparing a glance back to say, "We'll wait for you," before beginning to lead her companion down the mountain.

The boy watched them go. The blood rushed through his ears with the roar of the ocean. He looked down at the silver cord, stepping slowly over shards of glass and around cooling slag. The cord's slack lessened as he approached the kneeling woman — Nyima, the boy's mind called deep from within his heart because he saw the peeking golden sash beneath the four large iron discs strapped to her back. A serpent sewn in white gold carried a silver heart flower in its jaws, flying over waters and misting mountains to the dawning horizon. It was a beautiful tapestry, a masterwork of embroidery. 

His gift to his intended. 

Horror stole his breath as he walked around her side, looking down at the long shadow on her lap. The same face that'd been twisted with grief, hardened by fury, and blanketed with emotion the boy could not place as he sank beneath the waves laid still and inexpressive as if he were merely sleeping. 

He's real, the boy thought dully, watching the lustreless scales harden beneath the man's eyes. For he was a man, the Lord of Calamity as they called him, the last son of Jutai as Nyima referred to him - and...

"Sonam."

The boy snapped out of his stupor, glancing aside. His heart leaped at this woman - Nyima - looking directly at him. 

"So you kept your word, you returned," she said with a rueful smile.

He bit the inside to keep from screaming because although the face was much longer and defined by adulthood, the eyes were the same. Nyima's gold-flecked eyes shone like burnished bronze. But those too-familiar eyes were clouded by grief. She stared at him, but he felt like she saw someone else through him. The man in her arms, perhaps. 

The one who shared his name.

A thousand questions set on Sonam's tongue, vying to be asked first, but what came out was one he felt deep within her heart — "Are you really Nyima?"

Her brow twitched, the mocking expression shifting with widening eyes, then shuttering lids, "… Yes, and no." She turned her head away, facing the corpse lying on her lap. "Ridiculous, I stood to think he would return to take my life. He always kept his word, no matter how horrible."

Sonam frowned. "What do you mean? Did I do all this? Is this…" He looked down at his trembling hand. The silver cord shivering halfway to where it remained still and taut, affixed to the corpse's chest, dampened by blood and tears falling from Nyima's eyes. "Is this my fault?"

Nyima raised her head, drawing shaky breath, then said, "No. It was ours. He was too mindful of my hurts. And I believed he could only find fault in me." She placed her hand over the sash, brushing the fabric with his fingers. "We stood side by side, but he fell alone at my hand. When he swore to return, I thought I would stay and await him. It was the least I could do."

"What?" Sonam asked, aggrieved. "He — I — tried to kill you, didn't I? I killed everyone, as he said. Father, Mother, Pema, Brother Tsering…! Jutai is gone, and it's all my fault, isn't it? Nyima, you wouldn't harm me if I wasn't…"

She shook her head, sighing, "You're right and wrong."

Sonam stiffened, swallowing hard when her gaze snapped to him.

"Jutai did not fall because of Sonam, no matter what he was led to believe," her hand curled atop the man's chest. "And he did hurt me..." She shifted her gaze to him, gingerly tucking a braid behind his ear, "By keeping all of his thoughts to himself, by not confiding in me...." Her hand smoothed down his collar before resting on his chest, where something sharp tore through his robe. The scaled skin beneath it crusted over with blood. "I lost him a long time ago. And when I took his life, I couldn't see him as him anymore."

Sonam brushed a hand over his own chest, frowning as she said, "Sometimes I wonder if I ever knew him." 

"Nyi-"

He jolted when she glowered at him sternly. "But he is not you," she said indignantly, her voice gentling with something that reminded him of his mother's reprimands - firm and sad. "The you before me now is just a child, unaware of the fate he's been burdened with. A child with a heart fettered by love."

In the morning light, Nyima's eyes glittered with tears.

"You feel so deeply. It tore you apart once and untempered, it will again," her voice trembled at the last word, pitching then quieting as she lowered her head and clutched the corpse's robe, "I only hope I am there to piece you together, to help you regain your strength by giving mine. Just as you did me."

Heavy-hearted, Sonam looked down at the thread and wanted nothing more than to attach it to the leg of that horrible specter and drag him down to kneel before her in penance. But he didn't know how; he wasn't sure what magic had brought him to where he was now—this horrible, bleak world.

After silence, he asked, "Can he come back?"

She shook her head slowly. "No, he destroyed the connection between this vessel and his soul," her knuckles brushed against the cord, and he saw the frayed, greying threads connected to the corpse's chest when its robe was nudged aside; how the string looked tattered and worn as if it were coming apart. "If possible, you could inhabit this body. But you do not belong here."

"Nyima, I—" Sonam started, his heart twisting painfully when she looked up to him with wet eyes and a sad smile. He turned his eyes away, screaming within himself for his cowardice. For being unable to face her. "Do I always make you cry like this?"

Sonam sniffed, his shoulders trembling. A hand hovered low in his periphery, scarlet crusting beneath crescented nails, but it withdrew just as it reached for him. He turned back to her, finding her face much closer than before. Even kneeling, Nyima was taller than him, but she leaned her head down to rest her forehead against his.

"That's our fate, I suppose," she answered, and Sonam bit down on his tongue to keep from protesting. Instead, he reached up to touch her cheek, hoping to brush away her tears. His eyes widened as his fingers came into view, translucent and fainter than he'd ever seen them. The silver cord's unraveling quickly reached the knot around his little finger and began to break apart bit by bit.

"Goodbye, Sonam."

He looked at her desperately, reaching for her as the world melted away. He wasn't sure when he closed his eyes, but when he opened them, criss-crossing wooden beams loomed above his outstretched hand. 

"Sonam...?"

He blinked slowly, a tear rolling down his cheek as he turned his head to the side. 

And there, seated beside him, was a young girl watching him with concern. His tear-soaked face reflected in dark pools ringed with sunlight.