Lux's breathing steadied, but her thoughts were a storm.
She sat on the glowing platform, her fingers still trembling around her whip's hilt as the projection's fragments scattered into the air. Merir stood just a few feet away, his back turned toward her as he held his blade at the ready, calmly studying the path ahead for more threats.
And she... she was alive. She hated the pull in her chest, the rising awareness curling like a coil in her stomach: that it was because of him.
Lux clenched her jaw, the weight of her mother's memory pressing against her all over again. Guilt clawed its way into her thoughts—a disgusting, unwelcome feeling she didn't want to entertain—not here, not now.
Merir. That quiet, calculating, burdensome little brother. The one who shouldn't exist.
The one their mother had died to bring into the world.
Lux had tried to love him. She had.
When she'd held him for the first time, her small arms trembling as the nursemaid placed him in her lap, she had whispered promises that were as much for herself as they were for him. "I'll look after you," she'd murmured, her voice cracking beneath the suffocating grief she didn't yet have the words to describe. "I'll take care of you. For Mother."
And for a time, she made an effort. She'd shared toys with him. Held his hand when he was scared of storms. Taught him how to summon his light when the family instructors grew impatient with his fumbling. There had even been a warmness she'd felt for him in fleeting, honest moments—when he'd smile up at her timidly, or when he'd call her "Lulu" the way he had as a toddler.
But every moment of warmth eventually dissolved into the icy reality of her loss.
Her mother's absence was a constant ache, a wound that never really healed. She remembered every faint detail about her—the way her laughter sounded, the way her hands softly brushed back Lux's hair when she'd cry, the way her presence lit up the entire estate... and the harsh reality that she was gone, and would never return.
The adults had hesitated to speak openly about her death around Lux, but she had overheard enough. "She was too weak after the last child." "She wouldn't have survived childbirth no matter what."
Even as a young girl, she'd connected the dots. Merir's name had never been spoken with accusation, but in her mind, everything led back to him. He had taken her away.
Lux wanted to hate him openly, but she couldn't. That would make her the villain. So instead, she let it fester. For years, she convinced herself it wasn't her fault if she found reason to resent him—their father's disappointment when Merir couldn't meet expectations, his inability to summon light properly in his early years, the way he never took to their family's traditions as readily as she had.
All of it felt like proof. Proof that he was a mistake. A weak, empty thing that should never have been born.
And now…
She stared at him again, watching as he cut down another projection that surged toward their group with a single, precise strike. His focus never wavered, his calm demeanor unshaken. This wasn't the weak little boy she had grown used to seeing when they were younger.
This version of Merir terrified her in a way she couldn't explain.
"Get up."
His voice startled her out of her thoughts. Lux blinked, realizing—embarrassingly—that she was still sitting on the platform, her legs tucked beneath her and her glowing whip limp at her side.
"What?" she snapped automatically, her irritation flaring.
Merir glanced down at her, offering her a sharp, unimpressed look. "Get up," he repeated. "If you sit around like that, the next strike won't miss."
The words stung, but there was no trace of malice in his tone. Just blunt practicality.
"I didn't ask for your help," she said coldly, slowly rising to her feet.
"You didn't need to," Merir replied plainly, already turning his attention back toward the shifting pathway ahead. "We're on the same team. If you fall, we fail."
Lux froze at his words. For a moment, she felt equal parts rage and shame. She didn't want to owe him anything—not even her life. Especially not now.
Yet...
She hated this. More than anything else, she hated that he wasn't mocking her, wasn't using this as an opportunity to rub her failure in her face. He hadn't gloated. He hadn't thrown her actions back at her. He just moved on.
And somehow, that made it worse.
As the team pressed forward, Lux found herself becoming quieter. She had less to say, less to bark at the others—or at Merir. Normally, she would have taken every opportunity to storm ahead and establish dominance, to flaunt her strength like she always did.
But this wasn't "normal." Merir's intervention had twisted something inside her, an unfamiliar knot of conflicting thoughts she couldn't shake loose.
For years, she'd justified her anger toward him. He hadn't been strong enough. He hadn't deserved their family's name. He hadn't deserved... her mother—not the way she did.
But now, watching him move through the Crucible with a calm ruthlessness she hadn't thought him capable of, she couldn't keep pretending he was weak.
Sure, he wasn't perfect. He wasn't flashy. But each movement he made was deliberate. Calculated. Every feint, every parry, every strike—it was measured in a way Lux found simultaneously impressive and maddening.
She grit her teeth and forced her gaze forward.
Lux's thoughts spun in frantic circles as the team reached another platform—a larger one this time, but rife with sudden danger. A radiant projection ahead split into two smaller, faster forms, circling the glowing glyph in the center like vultures. The Crucible shifted beneath her feet, forcing her to step forward and brace herself.
All the while, though, her focus drifted toward that familiar ache in her chest.
Why had her mother's death never healed? Was it because she'd never tried? Or was it because she'd made her peace with using Merir as the wound's answer—the reason her mother was gone?
For years, it had been easier to hate him than to confront her own hurt. That hate had driven her, made her stronger, made her strive to be the brightest of the Solaris children. But now, that hate felt fragile. Hollow. And watching Merir fight—watching him survive where no one thought he could—pushed cracks into that hollow thing she'd clung to for so long.
"It wasn't his fault," she thought bitterly. The truth made her sick. "But it doesn't matter. It doesn't—"
Merir's voice broke through her spiraling thoughts.
"Stay sharp, Lux," he said, his tone calm but not unkind. "You're losing focus."
For once, she didn't snap back.