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And in return, she had asked him a question:What’s your pain?

To this day, to this very night, their answers chip away at his soul.

Standing opposite each other now, they face off across a chasm.

Allies against enemies. Enemies against allies.

Somehow, at some point, the two of them had chosen opposing sides. He can’t remember how it came to this, how they ended up fighting for different endings.

With the battle raging across the summit, his fingers tighten around his bow. On reflex, she nocks her own weapon. As they aim at one another, he smirks mournfully. This was only ever going to go one way, with only one outcome.

That’s fate.

So now he knows what pain feels like, every shift of its curves, every sigh of its breath, and every glint of its irises. He also knows what that other, pesky, final emotion feels like. It’s a permanent one, a stain that he can’t rub off.

He recalls when destiny had intervened, pairing them against their consent. What’s a god to do when his match is the last person he can stand? He resists.

That’s what he does. That’s what hedid.

And what does she do? Naturally, she makes him regret it.

Does he regret it still? No. Not one moment with her.

Their arrows tremble, and their bows shake, but neither of them fires.

But I don’t want to follow them into war. A giant part of me wants to stop them.

I’ve had enough of war to last a hundred lives.

You don’t want to know that side of pain, Envy.

Sorrow, weeping over the death of a soldier. Sorrow, caressing Wonder’s hair during the goddess’s torture. Sorrow, wearing a bandage across her nose, perhaps like some emblem of hurt and healing. Sorrow, cutting herself for…for those who have suffered under her watch.

Just like that, Envy knows. He knows why those old cuts exist. And he knows why she abandoned him, what the Court said to coerce her, what they’d threatened to do.

Out of nowhere, a goddess rams into Sorrow from the sideline. They go down, arms and limbs flailing.

Envy sees red. Zooming on the dragonfly, he twirls his arrow and lets it go.

In a nebula of light, the archeress rolls off Sorrow. Sprawled on the grass, his spitfire glances at him with tentative hope, then gains her feet to combat another archer, and another, and another.

She’s fast, her shirt fanning around her as she spins. And now he sees.

Sorrow isn’t attacking either side. She’s merely on the offensive, defending herself against anyone who targets her. Mid-flip, she looses an ice projectile that flings the last deity backward.

Closer to the ground, Envy thanks the dragonfly and bounds off, dread pumping him with adrenaline. His heels slam into the grass, but a dozen leagues and the water separate them.

So many harsh truths. So much change.

That earlier conversation around the lantern rekindles. The one about a myth.

The stars will shine their greatest when a deity asks for the truth. But a deity will only receive the truth if he or she is ready to hear the answer. And that immortal will only be ready to hear the answer if he or she is ready to change.

What truth? What answer? What change?

As all of it swirls in his mind, he comprehends. They both do. Since this fight began, they’ve known.

Myths, truths, changes. Legends, lust, love.