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TOWERS
start
The moment Zahard steps outside the Tower for the first time in millennia is also the moment he realizes that he should have done this a lot sooner. There is a certain elegance in waiting for your time to come, especially when it comes to fate, and yet Zahard would give it all up in a heartbeat for the lush hills and endless skies that await him when his eyes finally get used to the light.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Enryu says, just a step behind him. He has his hand up, shielding his eyes against the sun. A breeze strokes through their hair. The sun burns down, uncomfortably warm, while in the distance, the first gray indications of a storm drift closer.
“Yes,” Zahard says breathlessly. “Yes, it is.”
settling
There are civilizations out here on the Outside—they both know this well enough, and neither of them are ignorant or disillusioned enough to forget their origins—but they are scarce and scattered all across the endless land. Without a set goal, one could wander for centuries without ever seeing another person, and that is exactly what they do. Zahard would have expected it to be lonely, just them in the endless, unforgiving Outside, but finds it surprisingly calming. Something about the way everything seems to be brighter, louder, realer than the Tower makes him feel more alive than he has in millennia. Zahard spends his time enjoying his freedom, the Outside, and his company.
Enryu barely leaves his side for the first few days. It’s less attachment, or codependency, and more of a simple wish to stick close to what you know in a vast and unfamiliar world. It’s not like he hasn’t been here before; it’s just that the endlessness of the Outside dwarfs that of the Tower by far. In a world like this, everybody feels grateful for every little bit of familiarity that accompanies them.
They are on their third day of hiking across a region of softly curved hills, graced with warm west winds and so green that Zahard still can’t quite believe they are real. It’s not the physical exhaustion, of course. Shinsoo might not work here the same way it does in the Tower, but it works nonetheless, and Zahard has had thousands of years’ worth of experience in using it to strengthen his body beyond any human limit. He could walk for three days and three nights without feeling remotely tired.
Zahard gets used to the comfort of sleeping with somebody’s back pressed so close to yours that you can feel their breath and every rise and fall of their body. He gets used to being woken up by the morning sun, and learns that he sneezes surprisingly easily from direct light. He gets used to gravity weighing him down, a constant, dull drag that reminds him just how different the Outside is.
He gets used to all that, and more, quicker than he thought. After millennia of sleep, he thought new experiences would overwhelm him—but instead, he welcomes them with open arms. Zahard thinks he might like getting used to new things.
explorers
One of these days, while Enryu sets up their sleeping quarters for the night and Zahard stirs soup stock and meat into edible broth—an activity, they have learned, infinitely better suited to him than Enryu—a thought takes hold. It doesn’t leave him while he’s taking the finished product from their small stove, and still doesn’t when he hands Enryu a steaming bowl.
“You know,” he says into the comfortable silence they’ve settled into, “have you ever thought about how we could be pioneers? Write down everything we see in books and maps. Document it all for the rest of the world to see.”
Enryu raises his head just to give him that particular look Zahard has gotten too used to over time. “Do you really want your name remembered?” he asks. “Written in history books for everyone to know?”
“We’d be helping people this time. Providing a service for future generations of explorers.”
Enryu hums. “And here I thought all that time you spent in there had been service to the people enough. Are you that set on helping others, that you’re even going to give up your egoistical little life here?”
Zahard ignores the urge to reply with what he should do, with what’s righteous and true. He’s been doing what he should for long enough that he wants nothing more than be free of it—yet the pursuit of freedom, he finds, is much more difficult than he ever could have anticipated.
“Again, you mean?” he asks with a small laugh, and shakes off the thought. Selfishness feels good, even in microscopic doses. “No, thank you. I enjoy being nobody too much right now.”
“There you go.” Enryu smiles at him without looking up from his book, and Zahard knows it’s all he has to say.
spar
It’s not really a surprise when sometime during a rest the next day, Enryu draws his sword—Atlas, destroyer of worlds—and points it right at Zahard’s chest. To anybody else, it would have been a threatening gesture. To Zahard, who has watched the Destroyer of Worlds being used to chop vegetables a few times too many, it’s little more than a friendly invitation. An empty threat, maybe, if he is feeling generous.
“C’mon,” Enryu says, a single nod into his direction. “Up for a spar?”
Zahard laughs and stands up. “I’m insulted you even asked.” He reaches for his own weapon’s inventory to draw Lecalicus. The shinsoo hums beneath his palms, but it’s not why Zahard chose it. He just needed a weapon, that’s all. Lecalius’ abilities are made for a different time and place.
Shinsoo doesn’t quite work the same way on the Outside as it did in the Tower. They are breathing air now, not holy water, and while shinsoo is still there—magic, aether, occult, whatever the locals like to call it—it is much more difficult and unpredictable to control than it used to be. It didn’t take long for them to adapt to the new circumstances, though. Shinsoo is used for important things, like crossing canyons and heating up water for soup, and when they spar, it’s just their bare hands, and whatever weapons they happen to have at hand. It’s better this way.
They step far away enough from their makeshift camp to not accidentally destroy anything they’ve set up. For a long moment, they just look at each other, evaluating the situation and coming up with strategies. Every muscle in Zahard’s body is tense in anticipation, his hands steady at Lecalius’ handle.
Enryu is the first to move. One moment he’s circling Zahard, looking for an opening, and the next he’s dashing forward so fast that Zahard has difficulties bringing up his needle to parry in time. Their blades barely clash before Enryu pulls back, attempting to land another hit, but Zahard won’t let him have that satisfaction. He draws back, getting himself out of attack range. They circle each other for a moment. Both of them are slightly out of breath, gripping their weapons tighter and studying each other warily. Zahard meets Enryu’s eyes and smirks. Then he attacks again, and the fight begins anew.
In terms of raw strength, Enryu is still ranked higher than him, but Zahard has experienced more battles than Enryu ever will. He’s rusty, but the movements come back to him as naturally as if they never left. Attack, attack, feint, parry, and attack again—the longer they spar, the easier Zahard’s movements get. Enryu must notice, too, because his grin turns manic and his eyes glitter.
It takes Zahard less than a minute to successfully feign an attack to Enryu’s left side and hit his head instead. Reflexes make Enryu turn his head quick enough to avoid any serious damage, but the needle slashes a long gash over his cheekbone. When Zahard pulls back a moment later, the cut blooms in the same dark red as his hair.
All of a sudden, Zahard feels reminded of their first spar.
He stops dead in his tracks as Enryu wipes a thumb over the cut, looking at the blood on his hand like it’s something he has never seen before.
“It’s funny,” he says. “I keep forgetting that out here, we’re not invincible anymore.” His hand lights up and the cut heals up like it never existed in the first place. “Everything is more intentional now.”
“It is?”
Enryu looks up to meet Zahard’s eyes. “Yeah,” he says. “I think it is.”
And before Zahard can react, he lifts his sword and attacks again.
This exchange of blows is quicker than the last. Enryu is trying to catch him off guard, Zahard knows, but it’s not like he’s just going to let that happen. With a few graceful steps he evades any incoming attacks, then ducks under an incoming blow to shorten the distance between them. In a moment, Zahard is directly in front of Enryu, so close he can feel his breath. He grins, and dashes forward to tackle them both to the ground.
The landing is hard, but Zahard succeeds in his goal: pinning his opponent down.
Now this reminds him of their first spar—it’s almost laughable how far they’ve come since then.
Enryu shakes his head and smiles. “That’s playing dirty,” he complains without any real annoyance. He stares up at Zahard with wide, red eyes, forehead sticky with sweat and chest still heaving and sinking heavily with every breath. Zahard wants to kiss him.
“Like you wouldn’t do the same,” he says, trying to focus on something that isn’t Enryu. To his dismay, that proves quite impossible. “I remember last time.”
Enryu grins, wide and teasing. “And I can’t remember you complaining,” he says, and Zahard groans.
”I hate you,” he tells him. Then, finally, he rolls off him to stand up and offers Enryu a hand. Do they touch for a moment longer than necessary? It doesn’t matter. Zahard doesn’t care.
“Good,” Enryu says, but there is no resentment in his voice. Atlas glows in his palm and disappears back into his weapons inventory. “Come on, let’s make dinner.”
Zahard follows him silently. And there’s that.
Whatever it is between them, it’s nothing they ever spoke about. In a way, Zahard had always known how they would end, from the first moment they encountered each other on the 76th floor. If, under nobody’s watching eyes, they curl into each other when they sleep, if they share kisses and, from time to time, a bed, that’s only for them to know. There is no rush, after all.
They have all the time in the world.
return
Zahard doesn’t know how Enryu does it, but occasionally, he will leave to return to the Tower. It isn’t the kind of trip he announces, so it’s often only when Zahard wakes up and doesn’t find anybody sleeping next to him that he knows exactly where Enryu has wandered off to. He always returns after a few days, bringing some story or a piece of news back as a silent apology. Zahard never minds the absences, but he thinks it’s sweet, so he listens with genuine interest every time. It’s nice, to hear bits and pieces of the world he left behind.
“Your little kingslayer has advanced to the 164th floor,” Enryu tells him this time when he comes back. Zahard has noticed the shift in shinsoo a few minutes ago, but he still pretends to flinch a bit when Enryu suddenly appears next to him. “The Guardian they’ll encounter next is supposed to be an especially challenging one. I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll defeat that one.”
“Hello, Zahard, I’m back,” Zahard supplies. “I’m sorry for running off like that, but I’m back now, and I will cook dinner today as an apology.” After a moment of consideration, he adds, “I missed you.”
“No, you didn’t.” Enryu sits down next to him with a sigh. They are surrounded by one of the gigantic forests Zahard had been so keen to see, some few days ago, and he’s feeling somewhat smug that he arrived here while Enryu was gone. The fallen over tree they are sitting on must have been a giant in life, and even now spans dozens of meters in size. Without shinsoo to act as safety net, the height thrills Zahard more than any airship ever did.
“You don’t know that,” he answers, like it’s a game they’re playing. “I might have. How are things in the Tower?”
Enryu lets him have the win this time. Zahard sees it in the way the corner of his mouth curls, and how he stretches to hold his face into the last few patches of afternoon sun. “They’re managing,” he finally says. “There’s been calls for a more democratic system, but nobody’s really been able to enforce anything yet. A lot of people think they can become the new King, there’s bloodshed and death, and everything is the way it usually is. They’ll figure it out eventually.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. The Tower always finds an equilibrium, give or take some centuries. Someone will climb back to power and whip the whole place into shape again. It’s just a matter of time.”
Zahard huffs. “Look at you, acting like you’ve been there for millennia. You really think there’s just going to be a new king? He’s not going to have the blessing of fate. He won’t be a true ruler.”
“What,” Enryu asks, a smile around his lips. “Is that jealousy I hear?”
While Zahard wasn’t paying attention, he leaned closer—so close that his breath is brushing over Zahard’s lips now. It’s so easy to get drunk off the way Enryu looks at him—red, red, red. Nothing else in the world ever mattered. "Rest assured. No matter who sits on the throne in the Tower, there's only one king I acknowledge. Coincidentally, he's right in front of me."
"Oh yes?" Zahard grins. His breath ghosts across Enryu’s lips. "Prove it, then."
"You're a greedy person, Zahard." Enryu laughs, and then he leans in and kisses that grin right off his lips.
green
Even before he entered the Tower, Zahard has never seen the ocean. He has seen stories, of course, and has seen countless reconstructions, from the Guardian’s test on the second floor to the amethyst beaches and sky of the 127th, but nothing could ever compare to the real thing. He stands barefoot in the crashing waves for what feels like an eternity, mesmerized by the shift in dark, emerald green water and the gray, cloud-heavy sky mirrored in it. It is so simple, and yet to Zahard, who has never been allowed simple, it is everything.
Only when soft splashes announce Enryu’s presence does he allow himself to turn around. Without his coat and with wet hair brushed out of his forehead, he looks younger. More vulnerable, though Zahard himself knows best that he’s getting fooled by appearances.
“It’s warm,” Enryu says. “Softer than I expected.” He doesn’t elaborate, just turns around and pulls his shirt over his head to toss it onto the shore. Zahard tries not to stare as he walks deeper into the waves. A few last steps and he jumps—a splash, and he’s completely underwater. Curiously, Zahard watches as he swims a few meters before he emerges again, a spot of red in all that green. His hair sticks to his forehead and his eyes narrow in joy.
“Come on in,” he says. “It’s nice. But be careful, you can’t breathe underwater here.” Like Zahard needs a reminder. Like he has ever forgotten just how unforgiving the Outside is.
“I know,” Zahard says. “Don’t worry about me.” After a moment of consideration, most of his clothes join the small pile by the shore and he lets himself sink into the water. Enryu is right, it is warm. Zahard read about underground springs and currents ages ago, but he stops thinking and just lets himself float for a while. It’s a nice distraction from everything else—just him, the water, and the wind above. Lets him turn off his thoughts for a moment and just be.
But even amidst the unconditional calm of the sea, Zahard doesn’t feel at ease. Something is missing, and chasing after the what exhausts him. Not even in complete silence—especially not in it—can he find the answers he has been looking for all this time. It feels like trying to catch a cloud with bare hands: impossible, yet so close that he can feel dew on his bare skin.
It frustrates him to no end.
The thought only comes to him much later. By now, they are sitting up on a sandy cliff over the beach, letting the wind run its fingers through their hair and watching the waves crash below their feet. Zahard’s fingers dig into the soil, dark and rich. They come away dirty and full of dust, but he doesn’t care.
They don’t speak much. Zahard, because he is still watching over the movement of the ocean devoutly, and Enryu because, Zahard assumes, he respects him enough to let him have his moment. Maybe he just doesn’t have anything to say. He’s come to find out that despite his usual demeanor, Enryu can enjoy silence just as much as a conversation.
“You know,” Zahard says at some point, when the waves alone become too monotonous, “I’ve often thought about asking you to teach me how to open the gates again. Every time you return to the Tower, it seems so effortless. If I were to go back, I’d have to claw my way in there, and even then I might not be welcome.”
Enryu hums. He turns from watching the ocean to Zahard, brushes a few strands of hair out of his face. His hand rests on his temple. “Do you think it’d be good for you?”
“No,” Zahard says. “Not right now. That’s why I didn’t ask.”
Enryu’s smile is soft when he kisses him. Zahard lets him but pulls away after a moment, much to Enryu’s dismay.
“I’m still going to, though,” he says, a smile against Enryu’s scowl. “Just not yet.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Enryu says. “Can I kiss you again?”
Zahard doesn’t bother with an answer, and leans in.
mourn
It’s Enryu’s idea, not Zahard’s. They’ve been traveling for two or three months at this point—enough time for Zahard to get used to purple sunsets and the crashing of waves and the soft breathing of another person next to him, but not nearly enough time to be at ease. Restlessness has slowly settled in his body like a parasite; in his feet that won’t stop walking and his heart, which won’t stop aching for something that even in a world this vast, lies still out of reach.
Enryu brings up the idea when they’ve climbed the top of a mountain, all gravel and ice, on day’s end. The air around them is cold enough that Zahard sees every single one of their exhales, and it bites through tissue and bone when they inhale, but the view makes it all the more worthwhile. Up there, in an eagle’s nest on the top of the world, Enryu brings it up for the first time. Not gentle—few things about Enryu are gentle, and certainly not the way he chooses his words—but careful. Not delicate, but deliberate.
“I spoke to Viole when I visited the Tower the other day,” he says and Zahard looks up from whatever nothingness at the sky he was staring at. For all their talk about the kingslayer, tower-feller, Zahard didn’t think Enryu ever saw him personally. Not since their fight in the throne room. It feels decades ago, though it has only been a few months.
He hums. A sign for Enryu to continue. “And?”
“They are still climbing,” Enryu says. “174th or 175th floor, I’m not sure, but they are making quite some progress. Another few months or years, give or take, and they might be the first ones to ever reach the top.” In an ordinary conversation, this might have been enough to make Zahard’s heart skip. The top of the Tower is what made him climb in the first place, and even though that wish has been long since out of reach for him, it does something to him, knowing that there is finally somebody who will reach it.
But what truly shakes him is what Enryu says next: “We spoke about the Outside briefly, you know. He told me where Arlene has been seen last.”
Zahard’s eyes fly wide open. “What?” he asks, though he heard Enryu perfectly fine.
“It’s not that far away,” Enryu says. “We could be there before nightfall. If you want to see her.” I want to doesn’t have to be said to be obvious to both of them. A sibling reunion, millennia overdue.
In the end, it isn’t a matter of question. All Zahard has to ask is, “Where?”
Enryu looks away. “Follow me.”
Looking back, it only ever could have ended one way. The village’s inhabitants are friendly, though reluctant to answer their questions at first. Yes, they have seen a woman called Arlene, though it has been a while. What is their business with her? Neither Enryu nor Zahard has an answer to that, which earns them suspicious glances. Are they here to cause harm?
Zahard takes a deep breath at that, uncurling his fingers one by one. No, they are not here to cause harm. They simply want to talk to her. Is that possible?
It is an elderly woman that finally steps to the front, snow-white hair pulled back into a strict bun. She tells them to follow her with no further information given, and Zahard’s stomach drops.
“Will she lead them to Arlene, Enryu asks. In the silence that follows, Zahard instinctively knows.
Knows, when the woman doesn’t give an answer. Knows when she looks at them with something that might be pity, might be sorrow—then turns around and leads them out the village. He has time to deal with the realization all the way up the hills, to a grove hidden away from view, and yet it only feels real when he sees the grave.
There is no such thing as immortality out here, and contracts are no longer binding. Arlene fulfilled her role the moment God watched her say goodbye to her son; it couldn’t have taken long after that.
Still, it feels surreal. Wrong.
Neither of them speak as they step closer. Zahard hovers behind Enryu at first, unsure if he is allowed to even exist within this place—after everything he has done for and to her, and after all that happened between them. But then Enryu steps to the side, looking at him. Zahard takes the empty space to his right, and finally looks at her grave.
They didn’t put her name on the stone. He wonders if Arlene would have minded, this numb anonymity after death. Zahard is quite sure she’d have hated being forgotten, and finds a certain kind of schadenfreude in that. He only wishes it wouldn’t hurt this much.
Over the time, he has forgotten how to cry. His eyes don’t burn and his shoulders don’t shake with suppressed sobs, but it doesn’t stop the grief from taking hold of every part of his body. His hands, which committed the crimes that pushed her away; his mouth, that spoke the words that ultimately drove her to insanity; the empty cavern in his chest where a heart might be still beating, deep inside, harboring millennia worth of resentment and ache—they all tingle and turn numb. Detached from his body, until he is sure that everything that once caused her so much pain is no longer part of himself. It’s a cheap escape, Zahard knows, but he has never learnt how to deal with the death of the people he loved the most.
Enryu doesn’t ask if he is okay, something Zahard is incredibly thankful for, and he doesn’t ask, either. Whatever hollow wreckage he is becoming, he is sure Enryu mirrors it. Zahard doesn’t know what relationship the siblings had, and never imposed enough to ask, but he knows it must have been complicated. Still is, if the way Enryu’s eyes turn into bottomless, hollow pits is anything to go by.
They stand at that grave for a long time. Enryu kneels down after a while, so close his knees almost touch the headstone, and puts a hand to the bright granite. Zahard silently watches as words appear in the stone under his touch. It is a slow process, and an exhausting one, but after an eternity and a half, Enryu steps back to take a look at his work.
Arlene Grace, the stone says. Whom the Tower loved, but did not save. May she rest in peace.
Zahard cannot breathe.
“It’s what she would have wanted,” Enryu says, and that’s the end of that. The rest is silence.
Only later, when the sorrow has ebbed away into numbness and Zahard feels like he could morn not a moment longer, does he take a long look at Enryu. In the rising moonlight, all the red has washed out of his features, leaving only black and white behind. Still, his eyes are piercing as ever as he looks back.
“I think I want to go back,” Zahard says, and it might well be the most difficult thing he has ever said. “Not forever. Just for a while.”
“It’s time?” Enryu asks.
Zahard silently nods. Enryu stops and turns around; wordlessly, he takes Zahard’s face between his hands and leans closer until their foreheads touch. “It’s going to be alright,” he says, quiet enough that Zahard feels the words more than he hears them.
He takes a shuddering breath and allows himself to believe Enryu for once.
one
The doors creak open soundlessly, and Zahard’s silent steps echo through the Tower’s first floor like thunder. He has seldom felt as relieved as when shinsoo rushes into his lungs, filling every part of his body within the span of a few breaths. Entering the Tower again, after everything, feels like a weight too heavy for him to carry, and yet it releases him from shackles he didn’t know were chaining him down to begin with.
A familiar figure waits for them right in the middle of the hall, illuminated by an empty tank. The skeleton of a Steel Eel rots in the distance, eternally conserved by the shinsoo around it.
“Welcome back, my King,” Headon greets, folding his staff over his heart with a small bow. Zahard shakes his head.
“Stop it, Headon. I’m not a king anymore.”
“As you wish,” Headon says, an unmistakably mocking tone to his voice. “Shall I make you take the test of the first floor again, in that case?”
Enryu presses into his side, a reassurance, but Zahard has had millennia to learn how to deal with Headon. “Just let me roam the Tower for a while,” he asks, using a tone he hasn’t had any need for in a long time—diplomacy, willing to give up his pride for a greater goal. “I promise not to wreak havoc now.”
“And who will be the warrant of that promise?” Headon asks. “Your companion, maybe?” His eyes dart to Enryu. “Don’t try to fool me. I know of your little visits to the Tower, even if I didn’t condone them. Just because Irregulars don’t have to ask for permission to climb doesn’t mean they don’t announce themselves with every step they take.”
Enryu ignores him, smiling wordlessly. With a certain kind of satisfaction, Zahard watches Headon’s expression. He keeps his face and voice stoic, but Zahard knows that Enryu must annoy him to no end. It’s well-deserved, in his opinion.
“Do I need a warrant?” Zahard asks, after drawing the silence out as long as he could. “I’ve served this Tower since before time was officially recorded. I oversaw its rise and fall, and didn’t lift a single finger.” Lies, technically, but if Headon doesn’t know of them, they don’t matter. “Do you really think I’d use this as some form of childish rebellion?”
Headon holds his stare for a long, long moment. Only when Zahard thinks he won’t get an answer at all does he slowly take a step to the side. His staff is lowered, glass orb pointing at the ground. “Go, then, my King,” he says. His tone won’t tell anything he truly thinks, as usual, but Zahard likes to think that admitted defeat layers into it. “The Tower is yours. I won’t stop you.”
Zahard shakes his head without smiling, because after so many years, Headon still doesn’t get it. “It never was,” he says and walks past him. “Thank you for the welcome.”
Without turning around, he knows that Enryu will follow.
The way up the stairs takes a long time from the first floor. They lost the privilege of warping when they left the Tower, but Zahard doesn’t mind taking the long way. Enryu leads them through the mazes with the unfazed foresight of a Red Witch. They don’t get lost a single time, but the journey drags on. Zahard doesn’t mind. The hours, days, weeks they spend finding their way through the staircases are moments well spent.
The floors pass by them mostly unvisited and unnamed. Zahard loses track of the floor numbers a few days in, when he decides that without a clear goal in mind, keeping count barely matters anyway. Nevertheless, after almost two weeks of climbing, he recognizes the shift of shinsoo the moment they reach the next floor. Even before they leave the eternally-dark stairs, even before seeing a single sign, Zahard knows exactly what floor they are on.
Where the stairs end, blending seamlessly into a blue sky and golden fields, the nostalgia hits him hard. For a moment, it replaces the shinsoo around them, forcing him to inhale memories where holy water is supposed to fill his lungs. A breeze tugs at his hair.
It’s not the first floor they have visited since their return, nor the most important one, but Zahard still thinks of it just like remembers it—with a certain fondness. Once upon a time, a story took roots here.
“It’s been a while,” Enryu says. It’s the first time they’ve spoken in hours. Silence accompanied their days-long journey all the way up to this floor, yet Zahard is suddenly thankful for another voice to drown out the silence. “I missed this place. Didn’t think we’d ever return.”
Zahard looks at him: long-lashed eyes closed to enjoy the breeze, hands shoved in his red, faded coat. The violent yet peaceful aura that sends soft ripples through the shinsoo around them: red, red, red. He doesn’t belong into this world, painfully obviously so, and Zahard is thankful for it. It makes him feel less like a foreign body, himself.
And sometimes—Zahard always thought he left love behind in a previous life, but in his quietest moments, he thinks he could be tempted to reconsider.
“Yes,” he says. “It’s nice to be back.”
He knows he will never be content, not as long as the Tower is standing. Maybe one day, somebody will tear it to the ground, bring down the barriers that have separated its vast ecosystem from the rest of the world. To live in the Tower is to refuse yourself to breathe, no matter how well you try to conceal it. Its pull is undeniable, and no matter how much Zahard tries, he doubts he will ever be able to outrun it completely. Fate is a fickle thing, and once it ties you to something, you will never be free of it.
But he is no longer chained to the Tower. Zahard can leave now, wander the green hills of the Outside as much as he wants, and he isn’t alone anymore. As long as he can go wherever he wants, as long as Zahard has the freedom to choose--he will be content.
“You coming?” Enryu calls a few steps ahead of him. “I’m starving. Let’s find an inn and get some proper food.”
Zahard laughs and finally turns away from golden fields and soft breezes. They can come back any time they want, after all.
“Slow down,” he says. “We have all the time in the world.”