“Eden.”

  The nurse said the word as she brushed the child’s tangled hair and wiped the blood from her face.

  The medical tent was cold. A chill had found its way inside amid the fighting.

  The girl was just as silent as when the nurse found her. She had been holding a Republic knife and lying in a ditch, covered in blood.

  The war had only been going on for five years, and somehow, children were already being born into it.

  The nurse’s heart ached for the girl. She didn’t even know the child’s name. She would probably be fighting for as long as she lived.

  The nurse could do little about that, but she could at least show the girl comfort and kindness now. The battle was all but over after all, and every injured man and woman had already been seen to.

  The nurse smiled at the girl and expined the word she had just said. “My Mother told me it was an ancient human word. Back from before we knew the stars or even the Martians.”

  The girl seemed to shrink as the nurse wiped her face. She wasn’t used to this. She wanted her knife back. She wanted to cling to it.

  Yet the nurse continued to clean her with the wet white rag that was now stained red.

  “Eden means paradise.” The nurse said with a warm grin.

  The girl tried her best to imitate it. The nurse ughed and hung the rag before kneeling down to look into the girl’s eyes.

  “Paradise is a special pce,” she said. “A peaceful pce. Where no one has to fight or die or go hungry. It’s a pce where you can just…” The nurse sighed as the child bnkly stared at her. “Love. Where you can just love.”

  The girl had never heard that word either. She tilted her head as the nurse drew out another long sigh.

  “You don’t have a name, do you?”

  The girl shook her head.

  The nurse took her hand.

  “Eden,” She stated. “Your name is Eden, now. Because one day…”

  The nurse pushed back a lock of Nadeden’s hair as she told her, “You will be loved.”

  Blood drips down Smith’s back as they see the arrow in Nadeden’s hand.

  The arrow that she just pulled from Gelmida’s corpse.

  They look to Adamus. His eyes are wide. His breath is fast.

  Smith reaches to stop him as he steps forward, but it’s already too te.

  “What did you do?” Adamus demands an answer from his Mother as he tightens his grip on the broken sword.

  The arrow slips from Nadeden’s fingers. “I didn’t-”

  “Didn’t what? Do what you came here to do!” Adamus’s words drive Nadeden back against the mound of rubble. Shards of gss scrape against her as tears fall from Adamus’s rageful eyes.

  “This is what you wanted, right? To kill my Father for taking me from you? He was a better person than you’ll ever be! You’re not even a person! You’re a common murderer!” Adamus stomps his foot atop the mound and raises the bde over his head.

  “It’s your body that should be lying there.”

  Nadeden throws her arms over her sobbing face as Adamus thrusts the bde down.

  The stone meets metal.

  Smith tackles Adamus.

  “You want her!” They shout as they raise their bloody hand into a fist and strike Adamus.

  “You’re gonna have to go through me!” They cry out as they strike Adamus again. This time, they stumble as they knock both their hands into his stomach.

  The metal Smith summoned to protect Nadeden rusts and turns to dust as she watches the battle in shock.

  Smith is a pacifist, and yet they’re fighting without hesitation now. They look like they can barely even stand. Nadeden can only imagine what they went through to get here.

  Did they come this far to kill Gelmidas? No, that can’t be right. Then they wouldn’t be with Adamus. Her eye falls on Adamus, who grips his broken bde with both hands as he twists away from Smith’s next attack. He retaliates, swinging the bde in a focused ferocity.

  Smith smacks their palms together and then parts them to summon a bde from the blood hanging in the air. Their fingers dig into the iron as Adamus drives the broken bde down. Sparks fly.

  The stone holds against the iron long enough for it to rust. Smith lets out an uncanny yell as they fling the rusted iron at Adamus, shoving him back.

  Adamus merely twirls the bde and lunges at Smith.

  Nadeden wished for her son to never hold a weapon. Yet his elegance and precision with the sword tell her that this isn’t even close to the first time Adamus has drawn a bde.

  Every thrust and parry was taught by a master. Not a swordsman, though.

  His mentor was clearly more comfortable with a dagger.

  Nadeden can easily recognize the skills of Davon Yemer.

  She takes some small soce in the fact that there’s no sign of her within Adamus’s technique.

  However, Smith is another case. Each strike they throw has Nadeden’s name written all over it.

  Smith attempts to dash past Adamus’s bde with his next thrust, but stumbles instead.

  They topple into him with a punch that Adamus quickly recovers from. He shoots one of his hands off the sword’s hilt and snatches Smith’s torn shirt with it.

  His finger finds the hole in their chest left by the consciousness transfer machine. He uses the leverage to sm Smith into his knee.

  Adamus twirls away from Smith as they fall. He had pnned to stab them now.

  Yet Smith’s blood is all over him, and Smith is screaming at the iron within it. “Chains!”

  Nadeden gasps as the metal encircles Adamus.

  It hangs idly over his newly soot-stained skin and long scorched back as he ughs. “Haven’t you learned!”

  The beast within him twists in agony at the metal until it rusts.

  Smith is already on him as the iron becomes dust. They rip the bde from Adamus’s hand and ssh him with it. The beast heals the wound.

  Adamus’s arms slice open into bdes of bone.

  Blood sprays onto Nadeden as she looks on in horror at the inhuman sight.

  Adamus sshes at Smith. They try to counter with the stone bde, but the force of the bone proves to be too much.

  They stumble under every strike until the bde flies out of their hands. It nds beside Nadeden atop the rubble.

  As Adamus prepares to deliver the killing blow, Smith yells one st time.

  Blood drips from their back but does not hit the ground.

  It rises into the air and grows in mass.

  The sight astounds Nadeden.

  Several droplets of Smith’s blood gather around each other and unch at Adamus in a hailstorm of iron daggers.

  The beast is unable to defend itself against such a furious onsught. Adamus is sent flying backward by the daggers that all pierce his body before they can rust.

  Smith’s dark eyes scowl. Their face appears to be that of a demon as they sp their palms together to fire their blood into Adamus in a solid iron jetstream.

  The projectile rusts just over Adamus’s chest. He grasps it before it can crumble and uses it to swing Smith down into the crater.

  The beast snaps the iron daggers out of Adamus’s body with but a single breath from within him. He flexes his bdes of bone before turning back to Nadeden.

  He doesn’t even see the broken bde make its way into him.

  Nadeden rushes past Adamus in the blink of an eye after stabbing him and leaps into the crater to Smith’s aid.

  “You, alright?” She asks as she kneels beside them.

  Smith coughs up what little blood they have left to answer, “Your… son. Is… an asshole.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Nadeden wearily jokes, now understanding why Smith and Cassandra must be friends.

  She helps Smith to their feet. Taking their hand as they rise.

  “We need to… get out of here…” Smith groans in pain.

  “Save your breath,” Nadeden tells them right before the crater is engulfed in an explosion of ash and soot. The broken bde is tossed out from the curtain of fluttering ashes.

  “You’d die for this woman, Smith?” Adamus asks as he steps out of the chaos left in his wake.

  Smith doesn’t have time to answer the question. Adamus lunges toward Nadeden as their colorless lips quiver.

  Nadeden dodges the bdes protruding from her son’s arms and snatches the broken Republic bde off the ground. She doesn’t want to do this. She can’t do this.

  What has Adamus become? Is this really the boy she once held in her arms? Can she really kill him just so she can survive?

  Her hands are unsteady on the hilt of the sword. She was never the most skilled with a bde, but she was servicable. That will have to be enough.

  Nadeden rises to hold the bde at Adamus. “Don’t make me do this.”

  “Why not? You know you want to!” Adamus swings at her again. Nadeden blocks the strike.

  “Please, Adamus,” She begs as her son pushes his arms further against the broken sword until fragments of bone and stone split off into the stagnant air.

  “FIGHT ME!” Adamus shouts as he smacks his Mother aside and lunges back at her with tears in his green eyes.

  Smith grips Adamus’s shoulders before his bdes can meet Nadeden and shoves him to the ground.

  Adamus screams in anger as he leaps to his feet and swings his bdes of bone at the pair.

  Smith and Nadeden dodge in unison and strike back at Adamus with equal fervor.

  Adamus crouches to avoid the pair’s blows. He slices at their feet before standing to ssh at Nadeden. She parries the ssh with the broken bde.

  Her wooden leg digs into the ground, stabilizing her as she pushes back against Adamus. She throws her sword down and grasps his arms.

  Her true leg lifts off the ground, her wooden one follows as she twists in front of Adamus, lowering his arms as she does so.

  She stares into his green eyes with her burnt one and her brown one as she puts herself between him and Smith.

  “Why Adamus?”

  Gelmidas asked as he held his son in his arms.

  Nadeden rested her arms behind her head.

  The sunlight shining through the hospital window warmed her as she spoke. “Well, your name is Gelmidas, and you're the Emperor now, so I wanted to give him a royal-sounding name. It made sense to me to have his first name and st name start with the same letter, and I also wanted to keep the ‘us’ sound because of your own name. That and he’s…”

  Nadeden sighed as she sat up in the bed to look at Gelmidas. “He’s us.” She chuckled.

  Gelmidas adjusted his arms to Adamus’s weight. “He is…”

  The boy was sound asleep now. Gelmidas shook as he gazed down at the child in his arms.

  “Look at you.” He held a finger over Adamus’s bnket. Gelmidas pulled the fabric to cover the child’s neck. “Son of the Scorched Archer.”

  Nadeden lowered her head. “Can we… not tell him about that?” The question was an unsure one, yet Gelmidas took it as gospel.

  “I understand.” He stated as Nadeden turned over in the hospital bed.

  “I do want to keep him, but…” She choked on the words. Her arms slipped onto the bnket. She clutched at it. “I don’t deserve him. I don’t deserve you.”

  Gelmidas stood up from the metal chair and sat on Nadeden’s bed with Adamus still cradled in his arms. “Nadeden... My lovely, amazing Nadeden.”

  He lifted her head with a stretched-out hand. Nadeden gazed into his green eyes, hidden beneath his gsses.

  “You are not a monster. You are not a heartless killer, you aren’t even a brave warrior. You’re a scared little girl who was forced to hold a knife when you should have been holding your Mother’s hand. You get to be that Mother now. You get to bring something good into the universe.”

  Gelmidas leaned forward and gave her one st kiss. Nadeden gdly accepted it, just like how she gdly accepted Adamus being handed back to her.

  She cradled the boy in her arms. He let out a yawn as his green eyes opened only to shut at the sight of his Mother. Adamus went back to sleep again. He knew that he was safe with this woman.

  Gelmidas whispered to her, “I do hope that he turns out like you.”

  He rested his head on Nadeden’s shoulder. “Because I love you, Nadeden.”

  She smiled and began to cry. “This isn’t how it was meant to go.”

  Nadeden clutches her chest.

  It grows red and painful.

  She takes one st look at Gelmidas.

  “I have to think of st words now.”

  Her memories fade.

  Smith is in front of her now as the bde tears into her.

  Smith leans under Nadeden’s weight.

  They struggle to hold her as Adamus rips his bde from her heart. Her skin is torn by the bone.

  The beast crawls back inside Adamus as he watches his Mother bleed out.

  “No,” Smith mutters, kneeling down as they hold Nadeden.

  “No. Get up.” They wrap their arms around her. Nadeden’s hair crashes against Smith. She stares at them as they hold her.

  Smith’s fingers dig into her skin as they plead. “Move, Nadeden, please, move…”

  They hold Nadeden above them. She should be standing. She should be saying that she’ll simply walk it off.

  You’ll be fine, Smith thinks. You’re alright. Nadeden, please tell me you’re alright.

  Their thoughts become a scream as Nadeden’s body, full of scars, slumps onto the ground full of ashes.

  “SAY SOMETHING!”

  A hand finds its way onto Smith’s face.

  The palm that Nadeden once cut open to fuel the consciousness transfer machine that saved Smith’s life, that sealed them in this human body, now caresses their cheek.

  Nadeden is smiling.

  She mutters three words.

  Three words that will haunt Smith for the rest of their life.

  Words that they will carry forever until their own dying breath.

  “I love you.”

  Nadeden’s hand goes limp.

  She falls to the ground.

  Adamus stands over her. His body trembles. He presses his hands to his lips.

  He got what he wanted.

  He has killed the Scorched Archer.

  He has killed his own Mother.

  The beast within him is silent as he cries.

  Smith remains frozen.

  They are locked in a moment in time.

  They can’t stand. Their knees are pressed into the ground. Sealed in it.

  A snap echoes in the distance.

  Smith is engulfed in a fsh of blue light.

  Their eyes swell as they colpse onto the sand. The tide crashes against the beach.

  Shallow water engulfs Smith’s bleeding hands. They gaze upon it with a bnk face.

  Mystic walks over to them. “Gd I found you. You’re on Ourobeel, Anvil, and Cassandra are here too. We’re gonna investigate the runes on-”

  She gazes down at Smith.

  They tear Nadeden’s bandana from their neck and press it into the water.

  Mystic nods. “I see.” Her silver hair flows in the wind as she walks away.

  Smith is left alone on the beach.

  Their eyes continue to swell.

  Their emotions, their mind, and all their thoughts are spiraling.

  After all that…

  Everything we’ve been through, and she-

  Nadeden had held a hand out towards them as rain poured outside the Bioship on Terra-gilma.

  She needed a ship. Smith couldn’t build her one, so they found her one.

  She came back to save them. Time and time again.

  She was heartless at first, cruel even.

  She…

  She loved Smith.

  She really did.

  Smith finally sees that now, after all this time.

  Nadeden did care about them, and they cared about her, far more than they ever knew they would.

  All that time. All that effort and she’s just gone now.

  Dead.

  Just like Granix.

  Just like everyone at the Forge.

  She’s…

  Water drips onto the cloth.

  Water that does not come from the ocean.

  Smith’s eyes strain.

  Something is in their throat.

  A lump.

  They choke on it as their vision turns blurry. Watery.

  Waves crash against the sand, a gentle breeze strikes the air, and Smith weeps for the dead.

  End of Book One:

  The Scorched Archer