The night bowed out in silence, letting the sun greet us once again. The human inn, so warm and full of life yesterday, was now steeped in a cold chill, while the once-freezing street slowly began to warm under the first rays of dawn. Through the window of my inn room, a beam of golden light touched my face like a morning greeting. My body, however, was heavy, utterly exhausted and drained by the emotions of the previous night, begging for a few more hours of rest that I knew I didn't have.

I lay on my bed, on top of the woolen sheets, completely uncovered. My face was turned toward the small, rustic mirror hanging on the wall, catching a glimpse of the contrast between my unusual, celestial beauty and the simplicity of that room. My cheek was pressed against the wooden bedframe, and the blue strands of my completely tangled hair spread across the mattress like disordered waves.

I closed my eyes again, trying to soak in the comfort. I just listened to the morning chirping of birds and the gentle rustling of leaves in the nearby trees. But suddenly, the wind carried a harsh friction. A sharp, grating sound. Something like... screaming.

I shot up from the bed, still dizzy from my own sudden movement. I ran barefoot down the inn's narrow wooden hallways until I reached the main door. Pushing it open and stepping outside, I was met by bright sunlight, but also by a strange, unsettling wind.

Before me, in the dirt square, stood a group of five individuals I had never seen before. They wore identical outfits forged from tough leather in shades of dark red and black. On the chest of each, the sharp symbol of a skull with a tear carved beneath its left eye gleamed. They all had their weapons drawn and radiated an undeniably hostile, dangerous aura.

Yae and Stella were already out on the street, standing squarely in front of the bandits, locked in an argument that looked ready to explode. The villagers, who had welcomed us the night before, were panicking; some watched the scene from afar, huddled in corners, while others hid behind the doors and windows of their own homes, terrified.

I walked toward our group, keeping a close eye on the mercenaries' every move.

"Look at that, and who is she?" asked a youthful, male voice coming from one of the boys at the back of the gang, jutting his chin in my direction.

"Who are they?" I asked, ignoring him as I approached and stood beside my sister.

"A bunch of egocentric weirdos calling themselves The Twelve Tears of Hollows," Yae replied in a disdainful tone, casually fixing her pink hair.

One of the group members, visibly shorter and more agile than the rest, took a slow, threatening step toward Yae.

"I'd like to hear you say the same thing when you're bleeding out, with my dagger pressed against your pretty doll neck," hissed a feminine, extraordinarily raspy voice from beneath a hood.

"Control yourself, TwixtTwo," ordered the tallest member. His deep, resonant male voice echoed across the square. He was the undisputed leader.

"Control yourself, control yourself, control yourself! That's all you know how to say lately! Where is the action? They asked us to come here and collect the overdue debt this scum owes us, and here we are, wasting time chatting with strangers!" the girl justified, making a sarcastic hand gesture mimicking a mouth blabbering on.

"What debt?" I asked, turning to the villager closest to us.

The elder lowered his head, crushed by shame.

"Our king is at war with a neighboring realm, my lady. And the Twelve Tears of Hollows protected our humble village during a surprise attack by enemy troops..." he murmured, his voice cracking.

"And what is the price of this blood debt?" I questioned, turning my face back to the mercenary leader.

"Their lives. For our services, they must provide us with fresh supplies and a fixed sum of fifty gold coins every month," the tallest man explained, with the utmost natural indifference in the world.

"But, why?..." I stood there in shock, my gaze instinctively jumping to the remnants of the feast and the food on the inn's floor. A brutal wave of guilt hit me squarely in the chest. My heart tightened under the weight of our celebration from the night before. "If you have a debt of gold and food that you clearly can barely sustain, why on earth would you squander and waste all of it on a feast for us?!"

"Because you are our divine saviors," the villager beside me answered, his head bowed low, tears in his eyes, clinging to a blind faith.

"And if they don't pay you what they owe right now, what do you intend to do?" Yae asked, her voice dropping to a dangerously calm pitch.

"We'll take the youngest children, the leftover food in the pantries, along with their delicacies and whatever valuables they have," TwixtTwo replied, twirling a gleaming dagger between her gloved fingers.

"Not our children!" a desperate villager screamed from the back of the square, rushing toward the gang.

"Come try and stop me, old man," TwixtTwo challenged, letting out a cruel, sadistic laugh.

Yae took a firm step forward, ready to slice the girl apart, but, surprisingly, Stella thrust her arm out sharply, blocking my sister's advance. The two goddesses glared at each other. The tension between them crackled in the air, and then Stella slowly shook her head.

"It's a price that must be paid, Yae. They owe, they pay. It is human balance," Stella decreed with atrocious coldness. "You should have listened to me last night when I warned you about getting involved in these matters."

Yae gritted her teeth. She violently shoved Stella's arm down and, in a single, fluid motion imperceptible to mortals, snatched the small knife from the belt of the villager standing next to us. Apparently, due to the ensuing chaos, no one had noticed the theft. No one, except me.

"Focus on our priorities, Yae! We are not here for this!" Stella hissed. To everyone's shock, she raised her right hand and delivered a sharp, resounding slap across my sister's face.

Yae stood completely paralyzed for a few seconds, trying to process what Stella had just done. Slowly, very slowly, Yae raised her own right hand to her flushed, hot cheek. Then, she turned her face back to Stella with predatory slowness. Yae's feline irises now glowed an incredibly intense, heavy shade of white and purple, carrying an expression of the purest, deepest disgust.

"You don't even deserve the title of Primordial," Yae replied. She aggressively shoved her shoulder against the goddess of light, walking past her without looking back, and headed straight for the Tears of Hollows.

Stella stood rooted in place. Her chest heaved with frustration, hands clenched into fists. She looked at me. She extended her perfumed, immaculate hand toward me and asked:

"You're coming with me, aren't you, Neiva?"

I looked at her hand and then into her golden eyes. Was she... was she really planning to abandon us all here? Abandon the townspeople to slavery and death? Ignore the argument we had just had yesterday? I was torn between centuries of friendship and morality. Above all, could she really ask me, with all the seriousness and selfishness in the world, to abandon my twin sister to fight professional assassins alone?

"You aren't going to abandon me here in the middle of this filth, are you?" she pressed, her gaze ruthlessly cold and heavy.

"I... I can't do this to them, Stella... I can't do this to my sister!" I answered, desperation strangling my throat.

Stella's outstretched hand moved an inch closer to me, and her golden gaze seemed to pierce my conscience. That gesture wasn't a friendly request; it was an absolute command carrying a severe punishment if I dared to deny it.

"I tried very hard to see things from your dreamer's point of view, Neiva. I swear I tried. But the truth is, the other Primordials we dragged with us are so incompetent they didn't even have the ability to wake up amidst all this screaming and disorder." Stella finally tore her eyes away from mine and locked them on Yae's back as she marched into conflict. "And her? She is driven solely by the rabid impulse of a beast. That impulse and that empathy for the weak will be the literal end of all of you in this world."

Her eyes of light were more intense and furious than ever. Her hand was so close to my arm! But my heart had already made its divine choice. I couldn't... I simply couldn't comply with that blind cruelty.

"No!" I yelled. In a burst of rebellion and sadness, I slapped my hand hard over her fingers, pushing her away.

Stella's gaze grew even colder. It became hostile, impenetrable, and hopelessly disappointed. The centuries-old trust between us had just shattered in the middle of the square.

"No?" she whispered, staring deeply into me, as if locking the door on our friendship forever.

In the background of the square, out of the corner of my eye, I could see Yae standing face to face with the mercenary group. In a lethal fraction of a second, my sister feigned a retreat to gain momentum and, in a single attacking motion, spun her body and sliced deeply into the side of one of the gang member's necks with the stolen knife, in a continuous and perfectly accurate twirl.

"I hoped that, at least you, would be more honest with yourself," Stella concluded, disappointed by my choice.

She turned her back, indifferent to the blood spraying at the far end of the square, and started walking quickly toward the dark edge of the forest. Somehow defying the earthly rules of Primitia, Stella forced her enormous wings of light to tear open across her back. Wherever her immaculate feet touched the grass, the flowers instantly rotted. The surrounding air became extremely thick, thin, and suffocating. The wings of light braced themselves and beat violently.

Stella took flight and disappeared into the pale skies, abandoning us in the middle of the chaos, fulfilling the exact promise she had made to me the day before.

The sharp, loud clash of metal blades grabbed my attention, forcing me to turn my head and forget the goddess of light's escape. I looked back at Yae.