[ Smoke lingers heavy in the sky, ruins of Beliard still smoldering at their backs as Priya and Max keep watch over their camp, their companions snoozing close by. She examines ash and dirt wedged under her fingernails, mind fixated with the massive explosion that decimated the town, the fire priest and warriors they tangled with, the elementals. No sign of Hellenrae coming after them, but things are rapidly complicating regardless.

Thank you, is automatic, distracted. Max's determined sentiment pulls her back into the present to meet it with all her attention. Forgiveness for the incident with Aerisi's spear came quicker than she'd expected, or perhaps she's just used to the word being a curse under Hellenrae's tutelage. Max’s support, the whole party’s trust in her, ill-advised as it may be, stirs emotions Priya'd forgetten she had, catching dry in her throat. The looming threat of the Sacred Stone's wrath clings and haunts, something strangling off words before they can form. Emotion was an evil in the monastery, one to be crushed out with battle and punishment, suffocated in isolation. Atesh’s heartfelt kindnesses, Max’s flares of excitement or frustration, even Jeffy’s glee are more life than she’s felt in the last year or more. Astonishing how much of her was eaten away underground. ]

It took everything in me not to follow the stairs we found below the air temple.

[ the ones earth cultists and monsters poured out of hours later, so, good thing she didn't. Even for all she’s learned from her former master and what was beaten into her in the monastery, total control eludes her. If the others hadn’t been there, Priya couldn’t say for certain if she’d still refrain from storming the Black Earth Temple from below, suicidal as it may have been. If the spear still had its hold on her, certainly. Again, there's Max and the others to thank for that. Debts piling up. ]

You must be eager to hunt these fire cultists down to the last, now that they've crawled out of hiding.