3

When the night has swallowed the sun and all is quiet Sol and Yohan linger by the pier's edge. Their legs dangle from over a wood plank as they sit shoulder-to-shoulder, their fingers twined like strong ivy, branches growing together in the soil.

Amid the darkness, out rise dead stars and souls, memories that so often lay dormant amid the core of this land's heart. "I think… I want to try using my Gift again,"

Sol says as he stares out to the little lights bound to villages across the lake, whose reflections slither into the water like thin strips of warm string being pulled apart, undone at their every seam.

Yohan squeezes his hand, as the two of them continue to observe the horizon, he asks Sol, "Are you certain?"

And a smile takes Sol's lips. " Yes, "

his voice is barely audible over the whispers of the celadon leaves above them, that brush together in a fleeting dance.

"Tonight?"

Yohan looks to him, but Sol for once, does not look back.

"I would like to,"

he whispers, as the wind blows the hair out of their faces, Sol releases Yohan's hand. Finally, he turns, and their eyes meet. He flashes his beloved a grin full of delight, happiness of the purest kind.

Sol brings his hands to his chest, then makes two palms around a small nothingness, as if coddling the air. He closes his eyes and concentrates—not on the fear, but on the love he has been witness to and was given these past few months. On everything that has made him feel so undeniably warm and at home in this world. Until that warmth frettles out then grows, pulsing, in the mid of his palms.

Sol's Gift fills the air abound with color—hot, brilliant sunflower golds. The loving heat illuminates Yohan's face. "Sol!"

he gasps. "This is—"

"Light magic,"

Sol whispers. A tear slips his skin and he laughs so lightly that it is barely audible, Ah, how silly it was to fear this, out of all things, Sol thinks as he makes the orb turn into a fish of light above the lake with a swift, flick of his wrist.

Sol loses himself to the rhythm of his own magic, the fish turn to hordes of fireflies above the water, that sway under his control and leave trails of light across the water's darkness. He is in his element again— free —and no one, not a soul, can take this from him again.

The entirety of the lake's surface lights up alongside Sol's heart. And Sol lets his magic run free as he falls, into Yohan's arms. He is sobbing now—as trivial as it seems now, he'd been so afraid that his Gift had left him for good, rarely has he felt anything stronger than the relief that hits him tonight like one large wave.

The firefly lights catch onto the water and Yohan leans in to kiss him, chaste and slow. Sol rests his palms against the knight's heart. He is so glad. So, so glad that this was always here, resting and waiting inside him, for the time when he would be ready to embrace it again.

"It's beautiful,"

Yohan tells Sol, his breaths ghosting against Sol's lips, his fingers thumbing at Sol's jaw—he grins and Sol's heart soars. "You're beautiful."

They linger well after curfew, following the light Sol creates, that eventually leads them home.

* * *

The scent of mildew instills itself in the morning air as Sol slips out of the cottage without a sound.

A thick, gray fog has enveloped the land. For once, Yohan sleeps soundly; Sol wonders if he may have made love to him a tad too… intensely, last night.

As he reminisces on the trail of kisses he left down Yohan's neck— how his beloved had moaned and begged for more —Sol rushes down hillsides, making his way over to the King's manor in order to pick up his tools. And to bid a final farewell to Celestina, who is still watching over His Majesty's recovery.

To Sol's surprise—despite not having warned her about his visit in advance—Celestina is already waiting for him on the veranda when he arrives. Rain trickles down on bare rooftop, the pinpricks of droplet sounds bounce against ceramic, some meeting a ghastly end as they slide down the roof only to be squashed upon hitting the dirt ground.

"You seem to know a lot of things,"

he tells her, his face still, stoic as he blinks then observes her with the curiosity of wildcats observing lions.

"Is that so?"

Celestina's newborn smile reaches her eyes, there is something unsettling, ancient about her features today. All the colors have been stripped from her face, as if she has not been touched by sunlight in years. "As always, you pick up on things quickly."

Celestina tilts her head then chuckles. "What a good student."

"It's not as if you are trying to hide it,"

Sol whispers, as if an onlooker could overhear, even though they are the only two figures to be seen amid this vast, endless fog. "Who are you, really?"

Sol does not break her gaze, not once. "A spirit? A Rider?"

he asks her. "Who am I speaking to?"

"You don't want to know."

Sol stops for a moment. "I think you want me to know."

And she laughs. "Perhaps… It has been a while"—Celestina grasps at her elbow—"since I have properly told someone."

She lowers her gaze with a sigh. "But the truth may weigh on you. Sometimes peeling back reality is more pain than it's worth."

"Does Yohan know?"

She nods.

Sol heaves in another breath as he strides up the veranda and their shoulders align for a brief instance. "Then,"

he utters, "I want to share this burden with him."

How much more hurting weighs on his beloved's shoulders? Sol wonders if he could at least relieve him of a scar. He makes his way over to the inside of the manor, its halls have been gutted of its staff today.

Behind him, Celestina follows, her steps tranquil despite the heaviness crawlng through the air. "You are aware of the curse,"

she tells Sol, and although Sol was not quite certain in which ways the two were connected, he isn't surprised in the least that these are the words Celestina starts with.

"Are you like Yohan, then?"

he asks her, as he enters the King's empty study then leans down to grasp the remainder of his belongings that had briefly taken up space, life here.

"I wish I were."

She laughs, but in an empty, broken way.

And Sol freezes from where he'd been sorting his empty, collected vials. Now, he is lost. "What are you then?"

Lost, and a tad fearful. "I sensed something on you. A presence. Something… it's more than I can explain, but I feel it at times. I feel it right now. "

Morbid curiosity fills his insides, and Sol's eyes widen. He doesn't know, but he must, he must. "If you aren't like Yohan, then why does that thing feel so similar to the stench that follows him?"

A sigh filled with distant dreams and longing leaves Celestina's lips, and she squeezes at her elbow. "Sol,"

she whispers, her voice full of dread, yet acceptance nevertheless. "That's because we are similar."

Their eyes meet again, and there is it once more, that strange dark fog which dances through her gaze. "I am the curse's vessel,"

Celestina tells him.

"Vessel?"

Sol's mind is emptied, then filled with a thousand questions. As he holds his breaths, he does not understand, none of this makes sense. "Aren't Riders the vessels ?"

Sol stares at Celestina, worry afloat in his gaze. "If you aren't one of them, then how—"

Celestina raises her fingers in the air. She twists her wrist, as if unraveling something— herself —from the world, and the cloak of illusions that had coated her skin melt away in dark splotches that leave shadows on the floor. This is the presence Sol had been feeling. But it is so strong now, he does not even need to concentrate for his skin to be chilled, his throat to tighten. Whatever lives inside her fills her with a magic so powerful, a stench so putrid, Sol knows if she were to attack him here he would not survive.

Celestina's face morphs into that of the young woman's from the painting; except, her eyes are void of light, full of oblivion and the monsters that keep children up at night. Dark tendrils of shadow that surround her reach out to Sol and touch the underside of his chin.

As Sol faces a presence he believed could only exist in legends, he braces himself for what may come next, he wonders if she will take him as Rider, too.

If this is how Riders are made.

"Celestina?"

He is surprised by how calm he sounds as the words leave his lips, "Are you going to kill me?"

Celestina wanders around the room, circling Sol, with her palms clasped together behind her back—a trail of shadow follows behind her, a heavy cape of sorrow. "No."

She tilts her head to glance back at Sol from over her shoulder—although she is smiling, Celestina's expression is all but bright. "I'm going to tell you a story, Sol."

An iridescent tear streams down her cheek, her eyes gloss over, reflecting the firelight like glass. "It is a story about my father— the Old King —who cursed his daughter to an eternal life of oblivion."