The day reaches noon, as the sun shines its way through the windows of the dining hall.

  Conversation snippets can be heard from Navaen soldiers and clergymen alike, a wisp of pride coating the air. The calm before the storm. Despite all the bloodshed, the spirit of the Navaen people maintains its strength.

  I walk through the clamor with a clear goal in mind: grab my food and return to our quarters, where Charlie awaits me hungrily. I wasn’t able to get him lunch due to the Chief rambunctiously pacing around for some undisclosed reason. I’m going to give him both of my servings to make up for the lost food. I’ll manage. He needs it more than I do—or at least, that’s what I’m telling myself. It’s times like these where I wish I weren’t so obnoxiously large, and I consider the convenience of Antarc’s dwarfhood.

  I approach one of the Navaen chefs, peering over his shoulder to see Sevilla in the back. I’d told her to make my servings suitable to Charlie’s inconvenient preferences.

  “Good evening, sir. My two dinner servings wouldn’t happen to be ready yet, would they?”

  “Are you the one who requested that disgusting slop? You Home-landers never cease to surprise me.”

  “Ha ha ha, yup.” I laugh to myself in embarrassment.

  “Our guest chef should be finished momentarily—Oh Navae, please let this foul odor leave the wares of my kitchen.”

  “Finished, Chef Zacary!”

  Sevilla chuckles heartily, handing me the plate as my nose is immediately blasted with an unorthodox combination of stinking herbs.

  “T-Thank you, Sevilla,” I say, plugging my nose.

  “For a dish to maintain nutritional value, certain measures must be taken to substitute meat. Live with it.”

  Sevilla shrugs as Chef Zacary sighs in relief.

  “Maybe I have some things to learn from you, Home-lander.”

  I walk away, holding my two plates stacked on top of each other with one hand while keeping my nose plugged with the other. I’ve smelled Sevilla’s food before, and it may have always looked disgusting—but this scent is something unfamiliar. What did she put in here?

  I move slowly through narrow corridors past groups of socializing legionnaires, observing me with a curious judgment in their eyes. Walking down the last set of stairs and toward the door of my quarters, I feel a paralyzing chill in the air behind me, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Home-lander. What is that foul odor?”

  The Chief asks, his voice cascading with icy calmness. Panic encapsulates my body as a variety of excuses scramble across my mind in disarray, and I stammer on my words. I turn around, unplugging my nose and showing him Charlie’s rations.

  “Oh, these plates of food? I’m vegetarian. I think life is sacred—just kidding… haha. I just—um, well, I uh, like how it tastes.”

  He stands silently, shooting a puzzled glance at me, scoffing.

  “Your taste in food is seemingly almost as unorthodox as your heritage. What are you, Zadahn Vali?”

  “I’m half Tiran, sir. Only know that because my mom is one. I don’t know who my dad is, and my mother never mentioned a word of him. She dismissed the topic anytime it was brought up, Chief.”

  I grab the feathers poking out of my frizzy white hair, gesturing toward them.

  An even bigger look of confusion unravels across his face.

  “You are a puzzle, Zadahn Vali.”

  His eyes shift down toward my plates, then back at me, a warming smile forming across his scarred and gaunt face. He chuckles as he disappears into the upper decks.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  I let out a massive—and confused—sigh of relief. I open the door of our quarters to see Alexandria perched on her bunk, reading a book illuminated by the sunlight piercing through the gaps in our wall, and Charlie lying on his back, staring at the ceiling solemnly. I close the door behind me. Alexandria hops down from her bunk, smiling.

  “Got your slop, buddy.”

  Charlie chuckles defeatedly.

  “But before anything, there’s something I need to say—something you might not want to hear. We’ve been through it all, man. Watching our buddies get slaughtered and brutalized by mechanical Hive monstrosities in the Aratel desert, sharing the last of our rations on days we thought were our last, which is why I should be the one to tell you—pick up your slack, Charlie.”

  He shifts his focus from the ceiling to me as Alexandria listens intently.

  “I know you have it in you. I’ve seen you push through life-or-death odds, so stop sniveling, and don’t make a habit out of—”

  “Zadahn, give him a break. Don’t you think that’s what he’s been telling himself repeatedly? You watched him give his all. Sometimes setbacks happen. It’s how he recovers from them—and berating him isn’t helping.”

  “Zadahn is right. I don’t deserve the food. I wasn’t strong enough, and now I’ll face the consequences. Failure is nothing new to me. You know what I was born into—the expectations of grandeur, of maintaining an empire of golems since birth. The life-blood of something larger than myself courses through me, and I’ve done nothing to utilize it. Today was a wake-up call for me, Zadahn. You’re my brother, and we’ve been through it all, but I’ve been behind you—cowering in avoidance of any genuine growth or initiative. I’ve been cowardly.

  The room goes silent, as Alexandria and I process how to help Charlie with his grief. He gets up out of his bed, walking toward the window. I grab him by the hand.

  “You’re nowhere close to a coward. There’s nobody in the world that deserves to eat more than you. You have kindness—kindness that sometimes even inspires me to change the way I view people, Charlie. If that makes sense.”

  Alexandria adds in, “You’re a beacon for us, Charlie. Our moral compass, in a sense. Without you, we’d have died before we even formed a guild. There is no Golden Roundtable without Charlie Bykof.”

  Alexandria grabs Charlie’s head and presses her forehead against his, as the previously cold atmosphere of our war-bunker is filled with a familial warmth, distracting me from what’s to come.

  Charlie, with tears streaming down his dark green birthmark, grabs the plates out of my hand and begins eating. Alexandria and I hug him while he chews.

  “I-It won’t h-happen again,” he says with a mouthful of tears and food alike.

  “Where’s Antarc and Sevilla? Shouldn’t they be done by now?”

  “Probably wrapping things up with Raeis. They get specialized instructions since they’re Attunementless.”

  “I wonder what he’s teaching them. I know Antarc won’t tell, but maybe Sevilla will—”

  All of a sudden, our door opens, and Sevilla and Antarc walk through, panting and drenched in sweat, simultaneously plopping onto their beds face-first. Alexandria quickly shuts the door behind them.

  “First training, then cooking for a legion of hungry war-machines, then even more grueling training. What a day.”

  “Gods below, I couldn’t get at least one elemental affinity? Whatever. One step closer to pulverizing the Ministry and Central Authority—and rescuing Orbona.”

  Antarc sighs.

  Both Antarc and Sevilla notice Charlie eating. They smile.

  “Good to see you guys,” Charlie says.

  “You too, man,” Antarc replies.

  I’m happy to be with these guys. We’re going to be together forever—alive or not. These are my people. I savor the moment of calm as the sun plummets beyond the horizon and night falls. The five of us lie sprawled on our beds, on the verge of sleep.

  All of a sudden—

  Knock, knock, knock.

  I nervously walk up to the door as my guildmates sit up, rubbing their eyes. I open the door to be greeted by Chief Raeis Fawra—but strangely, the air around him doesn’t feel as cold as usual. He glances down.

  “May I enter, Golden Roundtable? I apologize for the late hour.”

  “O-of course, Chief. Is something wrong?”

  He looks toward the room, and at the confused faces of my guildmates and me.

  “I know.”

  My stomach drops.

  “You passed.”

  “W-wha—?”

  “Willpower is one’s most important trait. It can be demonstrated in many ways, but above all, by overcoming your fear of adversity. I gave you a clear and thorough warning of the punishment you would receive for feeding your friend, and you all went through with it regardless of what you would have to endure. That is willpower, in its purest and most potent form.”

  I’m stunned, relieved, and warmed above all else. This man may be a cataclysmic force of death to his enemies, but his messages resonate with a part of me—no matter how cruel they may seem. Even I can recognize that this wisdom can only be acquired through the understanding of life—and the meaning of taking one.

  “Do not mistake the passing of this trial for leniency. Do not make falling behind a habit, Charlie, or there will be consequences far more dire than starvation. Goodnight, Golden Roundtable. You have given Navae pride today.”

  As the door shuts behind him, a cozy silence envelops the room.

  “Things work out, I guess,” I say, as my stomach rumbles.

  Alexandria reaches under her bed, grabbing an untouched—albeit cold-looking—plate of dinner. She walks over, handing it to me.

  “I saved one of mine for you. Couldn’t let you go without dinner. Karma’s real, Zadahn. You should practice being nice like this more often.”

  “I’m always nice, aren’t I?”

  Alexandria scoffs, walking over to the light-lever and switches it off. She lays down in her bunk.

  “I’m grateful for you guys.”

  Charlie says, as I close my eyes.