Azia shoved Cailin to the back of her mind. His offer had been fascinating, and yet his timeline left her weeks out from action. Her thoughts took priority, as they so often did. That wasn’t always a good thing.

  Where Seleth’s water had once transfixed her to no end, the rest of him drew her in again. Azia was embarrassed to admit how much trouble she’d had separating the two in recent weeks. He was purity, and purity was him. It was a reasonable error. Still, the title of “anomaly” rang true for more reasons than one, as of late. Ignoring that would be a disservice to his very existence, inexplicable as it was.

  She peeled through her notes in sequence dozens of times over. On every run-through, she kicked herself harder for neglecting his past. Not since she’d pried Seleth from a dark desert and pressed him on mismatched memories had she found anything of merit. Feelings and colors had been thrown to the wayside in favor of cerulean prowess. Azia wasn’t even sure if she could get anything meaningful out of him in the first place, for how vague he’d been all along.

  Her leads were weak. They were more of hypotheses than anything solid. There was a chance that telling him of the concept of manual stimulation would compromise the effort. There was a chance that it might not work at all, and there was a chance she’d been privy to a sunny coincidence. Scientifically speaking, Azia had little to lose by trying. In terms of his well-being, she had plenty to fear.

  What she knew of an anomaly and what she knew of Seleth were two different things. It had taken this long to stop and separate those, just the same.

  Knocking on his door required more effort than it should’ve. Azia’s knuckles stilled over the wood for at least ten seconds before she found the drive to try. “Seleth?” she called softly.

  If he was already asleep, she wouldn’t have blamed him. Part of her wondered what he even did in there half of the time. It wasn’t as though he had alchemy to keep him busy. When the wood gave way with the slightest creak, she jumped. “Yeah?”

  She hadn’t thought as far ahead as she probably should’ve. Fidgeting with the hem of her scarf wasn’t her greatest move. “I, um…are you…busy?”

  Azia doubted it. It was rare that she pestered him past ten o’clock, let alone with anything adjacent to research endeavors. “Not at all. Why?”

  “Were you…going to sleep soon?”

  Even before Seleth opened the door in full, she could see his smirk peeking through. He almost hit her in the process, and Azia stumbled several awkward steps backwards. “What’s up?”

  It wouldn’t come out as anything with an ulterior motive attached. Really, she knew exactly how it would come out, given who she was talking to. That was half of the problem. Azia’s lack of confidence was largely tethered to the former, and yet the way her eyes fell to the threshold was probably making her look worse. The sigh she let out was far, far too heavy, and each word came out through gritted teeth.

  “Do you…want to come see the stars with me?” Azia finally offered, strained in every way.

  Seleth’s face fell instantly. She’d figured it would. Whatever would replace momentary peace had a solid chance of ending up flirtatious, and she preemptively lamented it. His face was blank for longer than she’d expected. “Right now?”

  “Right now.”

  Seleth rubbed the back of his neck, still every bit as neutral. “You guys don’t have an observatory, right?”

  “No. We’d just be going outside,” Azia clarified.

  She thought to add “together” in there, somewhere. That might’ve caused a problem. Somehow, showing him blossoms born of alchemy hadn’t been this rife with connotations. The more romance she could shave off of a starry outing, the better.

  Where Azia was confident she would be forced to endure the deadliest grin, the smile Seleth handed her was shockingly soft. Happiness followed where it bloomed, and the tiniest sparkle in his eyes matched with the sky beyond pristine walls. “I’d…be open to it.”

  The fact that he didn’t press as to her intents at all was a relief. If Seleth truly took it as romantic, he said nothing. If he took it as anything more, he was just as silent. Azia let out a breath she wasn’t aware she was holding in the first place, adjusting the glaive shaft digging into her shoulder. “It’s really nice out, and everything lines up pretty good at this time of year, so stargazing is…easy. You don’t actually need any tools, or…anything.”

  She was stating the obvious. She was going in circles. She was overdoing it, given that he’d already agreed. Seleth still absorbed all of it without suspicion--or whatever skirted courting. “That’s fine.”

  Even now, the smallest part of Azia regretted her dishonesty. His interests were pure, and she could only offer half of the same. Whatever apprehension she carried showed on her face, apparently, and Seleth’s smile once more slipped in the slightest. “You okay?”

  Azia tensed, whether or not she wanted to. “Just…the last time we were out late at night in the desert together went a bit rough. Violent. Thinking about it again.”

  That was a lie. It was the only one she was comfortable setting free. At the very least, it made Seleth laugh. “I’ll play nice this time. You started it, remember?”

  She very much remembered. As to what he remembered, their quarrel notwithstanding, she’d hopefully find out within the hour.

  Azia wasn’t lying about splattered stars, more than visible across a deserted landscape. Spring treated her well, specks of light sprinkling down in time with what moonbeams blessed the sands. Even devoid of a telescope she’d once promised him, Seleth would likely get enough out of what his eyes could catch. She’d emphasized their splendor enough in passing that he peeked through every window on the way out. His muted excitement was almost cute.

  Seleth’s first lucid view--to her understanding--of the night sky above Tenaveris had been marred by falling toxins. Now, as she pushed the main doors open in full, starlight splashed across a black canvas above was a phenomenal trade. Where Azia so often chased clouds late into the evening, it was the first time in a while that she’d gone searching for the splendor of twinkling darkness. In a perfect world, it would’ve been Seleth’s first impression of the desert in general--if not all that he knew to begin with.

  Azia was afraid to turn her head, lest she find unnerving glass veiling his eyes immediately. Granted, that was half of the reason she was out here in the first place. For at least ten seconds, she was quiet, straddling unease and a peaceful atmosphere. If the sight triggered anything to begin with, she doubted it’d be instant.

  She was correct about that much. Seleth’s voice was a relief, and the happiness in every gentle word was warm. “You weren’t kidding,” he murmured.

  It was enough for Azia to smile, whether or not she kept it to herself. “Yeah.”

  Seleth slipped his hands into his pockets, taking slow steps down the marble stairs with his eyes cast high. Azia hoped he wouldn’t trip. “I feel like they’re better here than they were at the Research Institute. Even with all of the fancy observatory stuff, you know?”

  Distracted as she was, it took more than a moment for Azia to follow. It was her turn to nearly trip, and Azia stumbled on the steps at least once as she fought to match his pace. “The view is different in that part of Tenaveris. I’d argue we don’t really need an observatory. We don’t really need any astrological data in general, so we don’t bother much.”

  She was being literal about shunning a telescope, maybe. He hadn’t benefitted with starry sights far clearer--if not much more unnatural. In some ways, this was a reach. In others, it wasn’t. A barren gaze cast to the night instead was just as much of a hypothesis as all else.

  Seleth gave a weak nod, still fixated on the sky alone. When next he spoke, his words were as soft as they were slow. “Do you like stars?”

  She was no Cailin. If nothing else, she was being honest, versus her lesser interest in flowers. “I do.”

  His feet touched shifting sands at last, and Azia did the same. Seleth’s smile brightened somewhat. In that way, he was slowly coming to match all that was shining above. “I’m glad.”

  As to why it mattered, Azia wasn’t sure. Provided she was onto something in the first place--if Klare’s own guess had been anything to go by--she was walking a nostalgic tightrope with every sentence. She hadn’t quite decided if she wanted to push him off his own yet--or at all. For now, she treaded lightly with each question she could cobble together. “Is there a…reason you like them so much?”

  Seleth never gave her his full focus. Even now, it belonged to sparkling stars alone. “I dunno. I always have. They just make me happy.”

  He’d said as much, once. Part of his answer was new. Azia pressed with caution. “‘Always?’” she repeated.

  It might’ve been too far. Seleth’s smile finally slipped, slowly but surely. So, too, did his attention fall to earth, drifting down to an alchemist instead. In place of glass, Azia found the smallest twinge of unease. It was a start that she regretted seeking at all. “I…guess.”

  Keeping eye contact stung. Azia couldn’t pinpoint why, and half of her feared that her motives showed on her face. “Are there other things that make you happy? Or, I mean…things that you like?”

  “You,” Seleth teased, his lips curling upwards in the slightest.

  She didn’t entertain it. “Besides me. Besides anything since you got to the Institute. Besides anything since we…”

  Azia trailed off. Seleth didn’t let her. “Since we what?”

  Only now did she lose the drive to look at him. Where he’d thrown his eyes high, hers went low, crashing into the sand. “Since we met,” Azia mumbled.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  For a moment, Seleth didn’t speak. His voice, when it came, was quiet. “Why do you ask?”

  She’d known he would press at some point. Even now, Azia still hadn’t found a good answer to give. Honesty was becoming tempting, even at the cost of compromising her success.

  “You can tell me. It’s okay.”

  Azia’s gaze shot to his, whether or not she wanted it to. She was all but confident that her distress was radiant, at this point. Seleth took it with grace and a soft gaze she might not have deserved. It wasn’t as though the question was wholly innocent.

  When she didn’t push any further, he sighed. Again were twinkling stars a magnet for an anomaly, and his attention floated upwards once more. It was almost a relief, whether or not it left Azia steeped in something awkward. Ever so slowly, in terms of balancing success with compassion, she was starting to emphasize with Cailin.

  “I don’t know what I like,” Seleth finally confessed, his voice much too small. “Sometimes, stuff just…comes back to me. You know that.”

  She very, very much knew that. He might not have meant it in a way so explosive. “How much have you actually remembered since you’ve been here?”

  Seleth traced absentminded patterns through the sand with the tip of his shoe. “Not enough.”

  Azia paused. That wasn’t the response she’d been expecting. “What do you mean?”

  For once, he was the one to sigh, his heavy breath offered to the stars above. “Can I tell you something?”

  Whether or not Seleth could see, she nodded. “Of course. Anything.”

  Even so, he hesitated. “I think I’m forgetting something important.”

  The smirk was poorly-timed and possibly insensitive. Azia was glad he missed it. “I mean, all of it is important.”

  “No, I’m really forgetting something important,” Seleth insisted, his tone growing firm. “Whatever it was, I don’t think I was supposed to forget it. It’s that big.”

  Where his words were sharp, hers softened. “How can you be…sure?”

  The strain on his face was new. “It’s been bothering me for a few days. I’m pissed off at myself over it. Whatever it is, I can’t get to it. It’s aggravating.”

  “How do you know it’s that important?” Azia tried.

  Seleth squeezed his eyes shut, shunning shining stars. “I just know. I can’t explain it. I can…feel it.”

  Again, Azia hesitated. She was, with certainty, pushing her luck. “When did you say that started?”

  “Maybe, like, three days ago.”

  The timeline matched up with floral nostalgia. Azia’s heart skipped a beat. She hoped he couldn’t hear that, too. “Do you…want to remember?”

  Seleth scoffed. “That’s kind of the point, isn’t it?”

  He wasn’t wrong. Still, the discomfort in his expression burned, and Azia was a pendulum between curiosity and sympathy. The latter was winning. She wasn’t sure which one was the correct option, at this point. “I guess what I mean is…are you afraid of what’s in there?”

  Part of her really, truly expected a quick yes, given what horror had followed him out of sunny fixations. To be fair, Azia was afraid of the same--eliciting it, at least. The fact that it took Seleth time to respond was surprising. “A little. I’m gonna have to deal with whatever I get back, and not knowing what I lost is annoying. That’s most of the problem. I do want it, though. I…want whatever of it I can find.”

  Azia bit her lip. Now, more than ever, honesty might’ve been worth it. It still had caveats. “Seleth, I--”

  “I’m sorry I’m not figuring this out faster,” he murmured.

  When Seleth opened his eyes at last, the pain in his own matched Azia’s flawlessly. Hers was probably worse. “There’s nothing to be sorry about!” she cried, her voice far louder than she’d intended.

  “I thought I’d have remembered more about everything by now,” Seleth went on. “I’m trying. I promise I’m trying.”

  “Seleth, you’ve done so much for us already,” Azia argued. “If anything, I should be the one apologizing to you. The things you’ve done for people you barely know are amazing. The things you’ve done for me are amazing. You’re amazing. That’s plenty. I’ve asked so much of you, and I haven’t given you anything ba--”

  “You’ve given me more than you know,” Seleth interrupted softly.

  Azia’s eyes widened. She bit her words in half, swallowing all that was left. The faintest upturn of his lips wasn’t lost on her. “That really does make me happy,” he finished.

  Briefly, she did little more than stare at him as he eyed the idling stars. Azia took a deeper breath than she needed to. “I might know how to get your memories back,” she said.

  Seleth turned to her so fast that Azia wondered if he’d made himself dizzy. Where her eyes had been wide with surprise, his own shock was far, far worse. “What?”

  “Some of them,” she quickly clarified. “I don’t think I can bring back all of your memories, but there’s something I can try.”

  Never did the same shock ebb in the slightest. “I’m listening.”

  Part of Azia wondered if he’d regret it later, once whatever fear came with flooding revelations settled in again. For now, she could at least give him the highlights. “There might be certain things that…trigger your memory, for lack of better words. I don’t know what they are, but they’re more than likely things you kept from before we met. It might be a reach, but I’m wondering if exposing you to those sorts of ‘triggers’ would be enough to get you somewhere. Maybe not by much, but it’d be…a start.”

  Seleth absorbed every word with equal parts patience and urgency. His voice mirrored the same. “What kinds of things?”

  Azia crossed her arms, hugging herself loosely. “I think the sunflowers might’ve been one of them,” she said.

  That, too, came with a different hint of shock. Admittedly, it felt good to get it off of her chest. There was still a non-zero chance that offering him even the gist was compromising her chances of this working at all. Azia had gone too far to stop, at this point. “Do you know any more of them?”

  “Maybe. I was hoping you might,” she said.

  “I told you, I don’t have much to go off of,” Seleth reiterated. “I’ve given you everything I remember, more or less.”

  Azia threw what false confidence she could into her voice, if not for his sake alone. “Then we’ll figure them out the hard way. I don’t know if this is going to work, but it’s the best I’ve got. Just as long as you’re…okay with it.”

  Seleth didn’t hesitate for a moment. “I’ll do it. Whatever I have to do, I’ll do it.”

  Ideally, Azia would’ve smiled. She would’ve preferred for Seleth to grin. Instead, they were both stagnant, strict eye contact rife with cold resolution alone. She stuffed what of it she could into her veins, and she enjoyed the cool reprieve that washed through her blood. Seleth looked away first, breaking their line of sight and lingering silence all at once.

  “You said ‘maybe,’” he began. “Did you…have something else in mind? Something that could trigger it, I mean?”

  Azia opened her mouth. Ultimately, she closed it just as quickly. One pointed finger spoke on her behalf, rising towards the starry sky above. Her eyes followed along, and his own did in turn.

  “Oh,” Seleth said plainly, cocking his head. “Is that why you…”

  Azia winced. “I’m sorry.”

  The way he chuckled was a relief, somehow. “And here I thought a pretty girl just wanted to go stargazing with me. Clever.”

  It had taken him long enough to dip into flirting. Azia didn’t fight her smile. “I don’t know if it’d be one of them. I don’t know how this would work at all. You said you remember stars from before, though, so I thought maybe seeing them again would trigger something. This is a lot more natural than the observatory, so that’s even better. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. For now, it was the only one I could think of.”

  Seleth tilted his head casually in the other direction, never once pulling his gaze back down to earth. “Makes sense. I can try. Dunno what ‘trying’ consists of, if it didn’t happen already.”

  “What did it feel like with the sunflower?”

  “I’m not gonna lie, I think I blacked out,” he said with a shrug, his hands never leaving his pockets. “I’m positive that I saw it. Next thing I know, you were yelling at me. Felt like someone punched me in the face. I have no clue what happened.”

  Azia was starting to second-guess this plan. Still, Seleth had already latched onto it. She hardly had a choice. “Just…focus, I suppose. Breathe. Take your time, and don’t force it. If it comes, it comes.”

  He inhaled. He exhaled. He locked eyes with a starry sky forever. “I can work with that.”

  There was nothing Azia could offer beyond vague advice. It wasn’t as though she would ever be in the same situation. The method was as much of a guess as the trigger, and the trigger was as much of a guess as the hypothesis itself. She’d been flinging dice into the sand for the past thirty minutes with little to show for it. The stakes were low enough, granted. For Seleth, they were surely far more intense.

  She didn’t speak. Neither did he. Her gaze was on him, and his gaze was on stars. Azia watched his every movement for the faintest flicker of change, although she prayed he wouldn’t succumb to the same crushing terror twice over.

  Seleth was calm, his shoulders rising and falling with the weight of slow breaths. What little tension he’d borne evaporated into the night sky, and she was fairly certain that his muscles relaxed in the slightest. She was more concerned about his face, versus anything else.

  It was the first time she’d actively hoped for glass. As to when it would shatter, should she earn it, Azia wasn’t sure. She’d been the one to crack it last time, after all. Knowing what she knew now, she wondered if it could simply run its course. How long that would last, too, was beyond her.

  Seleth hardly blinked. Azia was just as guilty of the same. There came a point when she swore she saw soft focus flicker and fade, the most delicate haze draping his pupils instead. She resisted the urge to cross her fingers. She wasn’t sure what she was praying for anymore, and she tossed her messy cluster of wishes high into the starscape above.

  What clouds were meant to touch his eyes never reached him in full. They reached stars, without question. In lieu of flooding memories, the blackened sky exploded into the worst of seas, instead.

  The tiniest hint of budding fog in his eyes cleared instantly, shamed one thousand times over by that which burst to life above. Seleth blinked heavily several times over, robbed of starlight and cursed with darkness. “What?” he breathed, flinching.

  Azia couldn’t move. Her eyes were glued to the same, expanding and gushing as sickening clouds swallowed every star in the sky. It was rare that she saw it happen firsthand, spontaneous and rapid. It was rare that it was so rapid at all. In every direction, they billowed, rolling waves blotting out any shreds of moonlight they could find. A blossoming storm grew to snuff out each tiny light, one by one. It left little but darkness, both true and not.

  Seleth was at her side immediately, his gaze cast once more into the swirling void of black. “Is that--”

  Azia’s hands were on her glaive before she could think about drawing it at all. She unsheathed it so quickly that she nearly hit him with the shaft. “It’s not supposed to be!”

  “Right now?”

  In the dead of night, her visibility was abysmal. She’d dealt with it before, somewhat, in the form of hazes far softer and much thinner. Every Drizzle was hardly enough to steal moonlight from her in full, and the aid of a little lamp had done enough. Now, whatever darkness smothered her was enough to slash her view to shreds. Azia was lucky if she could see what lurked more than five feet in front of her. Leveling the glaive with nothing was useless, and yet she swung the weapon down before her anyway.

  When she was silent, Seleth pressed. “Did Cailin predict this one?”

  With her eyes on the writhing sky alone, Azia shook her head. “He said it wasn’t supposed to Rain until--”

  The tiniest flicker of blue deep within bubbling clouds was faint enough that she thought she’d hallucinated it. It was far from the sweet colors she’d come to associate with purity. It wasn’t supposed to crackle, nor should it have splintered. Above all else, it wasn’t meant to happen twice. Thrice. Four times.

  She’d seen it recently. That much alone should’ve guaranteed that she wouldn’t see it again any time soon. Even high above as they were, every newborn bolt was enough to strike at Azia’s soul. She could hardly feel it beating at all.

  “No!” she shouted.

  Seleth’s presence at her side was palpable in the dark. It was her one saving grace, as was his voice--rising panic or not. “What’s wr--”

  Sirens were louder than him, if not painfully delayed. Cycling blasts beating her eardrums were second only to the sound of her own racing heart. Azia’s eyes darted to the Institute at her back, and yet fear left them snagged in the updraft of a brewing storm. The warning was useless, in the end. The sight had already spoken for itself, long before one droplet of disgust could fall to plague the sands.

  “Attention. Precipitation identified within immediate radius of the northeastern boundary. Estimated time to Downfall is approximately one minute. All certified dispatch units are to report directly to the northern quadrant for suppression operations.”

  “One minute?” Azia cried.

  The "immediate" part sufficed for acid to sting her blood, in turn. She was conscious of the way Seleth’s hands slowly came aloft, stagnant and steadied. Her ears were devoid of bubbles both pure and not. For now, bracing against the earth was the most he seemed to opt for. “It’s alright. I’m here.”

  The sentiment should’ve been comforting. In a way, it was. It didn’t silence shrill reminders, screeching into the night. “Severity is Tier Three. Close all windows, and do not exit the Institute. If you are currently outdoors, return to an enclosed room on the lowest--”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Azia could see Seleth’s head snap towards her. “Isn’t Tier Three the--”

  “Yes,” she interrupted. “It’s a Thunderstorm.”

  “Cailin said these were supposed to be rare!” Seleth yelled, exasperated.

  Azia bit her lip. “They are.”