Under the sunlit sky, a young girl with blonde hair and a light blue gown learns how to eat with different forks under an umbrella.
The diamond palace stands behind her, shining as the sunlight reflects off it. She uses each of the forks perfectly, but she looks bored and unengaged in the activity. Surrounding her on her left is a tall, well-built man—from his dress, a butler—and on her right, a woman who looks like a maid or a cook. Both are young, likely in their thirties, and given the similarity of their faces, they are twins.
As the girl finishes the proper dinner etiquette, she stands up. She moves inside the castle, where she practices fencing with the man, and later sits in front of a piano, tapping the keys. She is not happy with any of the acts she performs throughout the day, yet she executes all of these tasks flawlessly. As the day ends and her training finishes, she goes to her room’s balcony under the setting sun and throws a tantrum, roaring toward the sky, “I hate this life!”
The man stands behind the young girl near the balcony doorway, a silent presence as she vents by tossing her shoes around the balcony and pacing from one end to the other, likely thinking how else to release her anger.
Seeing her like this, the man calls out, “Sister.”
The woman arrives with a plate of pudding. Seeing the pudding, the girl immediately stops pacing and stands in place. As the woman hands her the dessert, the young girl sits on the balcony bench and eats, finally relaxing as the man and the woman stand behind her, looking at the red sky.
One morning inside the throne room—the same hall where Chaos begged the Empress—the young girl stands before the Empress, who sits in her chair. The man and the woman wait near the door. The girl looks slightly out of breath, likely from arguing.
“Why not, Mother?” she asks.
The mother replies, “We do not fight. That is for soldiers. We were born to rule, not to march!”
The girl’s desperate voice rises. “But Mother, why would people die for us if we are too cowardly? We hide behind doors while they die for us. That makes us weaker than them.”
The Empress walks up to her with a neutral face and slaps her left cheek, forcing her to fall to the right onto the ground. “Watch your words, EmShira,” the Empress says. “What you said is considered treason.” She leaves the room.
EmShira looks at the shining ground, her eyes blood-red with tears and rage, her fingers curling into a fist so hard that her skin turns white. That night, EmShira lies sadly on her bed when the man and the woman knock and enter her room. EmShira, who is looking through the balcony at the starry, half-moon night, turns from the sky to face them.
“Little bud, go!” the man says. There is a sadness in his tone, but he has made up his mind. “You want to protect our people? Then find a Heat user… learn the technique of Heat and come back as our general.”
EmShira is starstruck, unable to form words.
The woman says, “We have seen you grow up from a baby, little bud. We know your strength better than your mother.” She says the last line a little hesitantly. After a moment’s pause, she continues, “And we cannot see you sad.” She briefly turns to her brother, who nods. “Especially when all you are trying to do is good for this land!”
EmShira looks at them and says, “Craig… Cari… come with me then… we can leave together!”
The man chuckles, looking at the floor. “We cannot. We are bound by this house.”
EmShira gets off the bed and says, “But my mother… she will kill you if she finds out…”
Craig takes a deep breath and says, “Then we accept our fate. But your fate, little bud, is not here… it is out there.” He nods his head toward the balcony and the outside world waiting for EmShira, then looks at her and says, “Go find your calling… achieve your destiny.”
Before EmShira can say anything else, Cari steps forward with a wistful smile on her face. “You go… and come back as our Empress, so we can go next time TOGETHER!” She purposely tries to give EmShira hope, seeing her hesitant to leave.
Hearing her say that, without another word, EmShira takes a few brief steps and leaves.
One day around noon, EmShira arrives near a food stall.
Since she is a royal, she has no idea how the world works outside the castle. Her gown is full of tears and dust, but she keeps asking, “Do you know any Heat user? Do you know who can teach me?” She asks anyone she can find. She is oblivious to the world, but today, fate has plans for her. When she enters the stall and asks the same question, a known voice rings out behind her.
“Why are you looking for Heat users?”
She turns to see a forty-year-old Golas. She answers, “I want to protect the people who protected me my whole life.”
Golas looks at her, chuckling, a little surprised. Most people would look at a stranger suspiciously, but this girl is so unaware, yet the raw conviction in her voice is undeniable. He says, “Whole life? Aren’t you too young to say that? You look young!”
She replies, “I have lived enough.” Then she turns to the owner, nagging him again about a user.
Golas gets up and walks over to her.
As he moves, to his left sits a teenage Taglia, ripping meat from a chicken leg, his dead eyes staring at the dusty ground in front of him. Golas tells her, “I am a Heat user. If you truly have presence, which I think you have, I can teach you.” He pats her on the shoulder as EmShira stares at him.
While she is unaware of how the world works, as a royal, she has an accurate sense of humans, and to her, Golas seems like Craig. Golas walks up to young Taglia, with EmShira slowly following on his left. Taglia stands up, finished with his chicken leg.
Golas asks, “Your name, young miss?”
She answers, “EmShira.”
Golas looks at Taglia and says, “I am Golas, and he is my student… Taglia.“
Given her royal upbringing, EmShira bows formally from the waist up. Seeing this catches Taglia off guard, so he instantly looks away, breaking eye contact. As she finishes her bow, he nods his head in return without looking her directly in the eye.
It is dark.
Cari’s voice rings out in the pitch black. “How long has it been, brother?”
A moment later, Craig’s voice replies, “Two, three years? I don’t know.”
Cari says, “I still don’t understand why she hasn’t killed us yet.”
Craig says, “Fate, sister!”
Cari snaps, “Fate, my ass… it should have put us out of this misery long ago!”
Craig replies calmly, “Then our purpose isn’t complete.” After a pause, he asks, “Do you have doubts about that night’s decision?”
Before Craig can even finish, Cari says, “Not for a second… you?”
Craig lets out a light chuckle. “I only wish I could see our little bud before our death.”
Suddenly, what sounds like a heavy prison door swings wide open, and light spills in from above, likely from the top of the staircase.
A shadow appears, slowly stepping down each of the stone steps, taking her time. Craig and Cari—trapped inside the hole, chained by their wrists, ankles, waists, and necks, caged like wild animals in the castle dungeon—squint their eyes, trying to see who it is.
As the shadow stops in front of them and their eyes adjust to the light, their eyes widen. It is EmShira. Now a young woman in a purple gown, her blonde hair pulled back tightly in a bun, she simply squats down. Like ripping off loose thread, she tears off the thick metal chains one by one, keeping her focus entirely on the shackles, not yet looking them in the eye.
Before they can say anything, she stands up and bows, her voice tearing up. “Please forgive me for letting you be tormented like this for who knows how long.”
The twins slowly stand.
Craig says, “Little bud… please don’t…”
Cari cuts him off, stating, “She is not a little bud anymore, brother.” Cari walks up to EmShira and hugs her tight, locking her arms behind EmShira’s back. EmShira huffs out a laugh to smile, but a splash of tears escapes her eyes.
After the reunion, EmShira steps out of the castle and into the daylight. At the entrance, sitting atop a stone pillar, is the same young Taglia who appeared in front of Makisa. He dangles his feet in the air, counting stolen coins by dropping them from his right hand into his left. Surrounding him near the gate, the entrance, and the path connecting the two, are a dozen or more passed-out elite soldiers. They are not cut or slashed; there is no blood. They have simply been effortlessly incapacitated.
EmShira walks up to him. Seeing her, he puts the coins in his pocket and hops off the pillar. She places a hand on his sternum and says, “Stay!”
Her voice is full of yearning, holding a desperate hope that he will say yes.
Taglia scratches his hair, finally making eye contact. “I will… someday,” he replies.
Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he starts walking backward until he disappears through the gates, leaving EmShira standing there with the exact same wistful smile Lesca had after they first met.
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