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“I’m meant for greatness, destined for it by Pisces, Scorpio and Cancer,” I said fiercely.

“There’s a third option in war. Become outstanding.

Be venerated by the people of Cascada and see this war done.

I will be there when victory becomes ours.

I’ll stand on the hill of our final battlefield and be hailed for my part in our triumph.

They’ll call me their kysharna. Their saviour. ”

Mavus roared a laugh, and a snarl spilled from my lips.

“What did I say about laughing at me?” I snapped, fighting against my restraints, but they wouldn’t give.

“It ain’t you I’m laughing at, doll. It’s how deep it goes.

How all the lies have sunk so easily into your brainless minds.

It was too simple to make you all hate each other, now look at ya.

Ready to die for the cause.” He continued to grin.

“Every warrior on every battlefield believes the strike of their blade is the one guided by gleaming starlight. What makes you different from a warrior of Avanis swinging their sword in the opposing direction? Not a dot. It’s genius really. Eternal bloodshed…”

“What are you talking about?” I hissed. “The Stonebreakers are monstrous rogues who have murdered thousands of Cascadians and-”

“And Cascada is so pious, is it? So clean of sin?”

I bared my teeth at him. “We defend ourselves of course, but-”

“Well if ifs and buts were made of candy and nuts, I’d have meself a feast.” He puffed on his pipe and blew a smoke ring around my head.

I huffed out a breath. “What does a wandering drifter know about it anyway? You have no allegiance to anything. You don’t know what it’s like to have a cause.”

His face dropped, eyes sinister and full of a thousand bad deeds.

“Oh I have cause, lass. True cause. Greater than war. Greater than tit for tats. I am a pursuer of power in ways you cannot even begin to fathom. I have ventured these lands and I know its secrets like they’re stitched into me soul.

I know how to bend the earth, how to answer the call of the wind, how to stir the oceans and tinker with the truth of the flames.

I know the power of all four and I understand why dividing them might cause a disruption in these here Waning Lands that could crack open the sky itself. ”

My heart pounded as I got caught up in his words again, enraptured by them. It was wrong, speaking of the elements in such a way, but unless I was crazy to believe this lawless Fae, I felt like he was speaking the truth. He held secrets of this world and I wanted to know them.

“What have you learned?” I whispered, feeling like I might be struck down by the stars for even seeking the answers Mavus held.

He glanced toward the ceiling as if he feared the onlooking stars, then he leaned in closer still, the scent of fogweed drifting from him, sweet and enticing.

“You’re just a puppet in all this, lass.

One day soon, you’ll fight your last battle and your blood will mix with that of your enemies on a field of mud.

It’ll seep into the ground and all that’s left of ya will be abandoned there to rot.

That’s ya true purpose, it’s what they make ya for.

They’ll have ya believing it’s more than that, but I know better.

You’re cannon fodder, nothing more. It started when you were a babe and it’ll end with your blood staining the ground.

All they had to do was convince ya that ya death would be worthwhile for the ‘cause.’ But this war is eternal, lass.

The four elements are an even match, none is greater than the other.

They will clash time and again, generation after generation, warriors bred like cattle to supply the tide of death.

And it’s all for nothin’. At least, nothin’ that serves the common folk like you. ”

A shiver rolled down my spine, his words holding a disturbing ring of truth to them.

But it challenged everything I had ever believed.

That Cascada was the greatest land and that victory was only a few ferocious battles away.

I had always known we would win. It was a fact that had been hammered into me, denting my bones.

And yet, Mavus had a point. The Endless War held its name for a reason.

If we were truly the greater element, why hadn’t we won yet?

I leaned away from Mavus, not liking the uncomfortable thoughts shifting through my mind.

“Ask yourself this, lass. Who benefits from an endless war?” he purred.

That question hung in the air and I could find no simple answer to it.

The Reapers? Maybe. But they didn’t lavish themselves in riches, they didn’t take any direct benefit from the war that I could see.

They held power, yes, but they didn’t make decisions in battle.

The rulers of The Waning Lands could arguably be the root cause, but most had fought in plenty of battles themselves, they had risked their lives for the war as surely as the lower-ranking warriors.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “Do you?”

Mavus shrugged, placing down his pipe in favour of sipping on his tea. “Lowly Fae go to war to pay, and in the long grass, there they lay – I read that once, carved into the arm of a dead man floating in a few inches of bloody water.”

I swallowed thickly.

“I promise ya this, when you’re fighting ya battles, seeking the glory you’ve been chasing the tail of since society told you you’d never catch it, you’ll discover that out there on those hellish battlefields there ain’t nothin’ but blood to claim.

So go and seek your crown but when you find it rusted to the core, remember there’s a place for ya here.

When you see beyond the veil of society’s carefully constructed lies, I’ll be here alongside freedom.

We’ll both be waiting for ya. So tell me, lass, before you charge into a battle you’ve been moulded for, do you want to see the truth of war? ”

I frowned, unable to deny how much I wanted to bear witness to what he was talking about. Curiosity was my vice as always. “Show me.”

“Oh I will. We’ll dock not too long from now. Then I’ll teach ya what I do out here while charting the black, black seas. Your stomach may turn, and your mind might just do the same. But I think it’s time you saw beneath the shining veil.”