Minutes passed in shared silence as the two continued their descent into the depths, though it was not a tense quiet despite the grim subject matter of their previous conversation. Alarion had said his piece, he had answered her questions and when they stopped coming he had nothing more to say on the matter.

For her part Sierra was merely at a loss for words. Alarion didn’t really talk much. He could be a fountain of questions, mostly those of a purely practical purpose, but she could count the minutes she’d heard him express himself on one hand. And most of those minutes were on this staircase.

She did not know what to say, so for some time she said nothing. Until even that could no longer be sustained.

“I was born in Vitria.” Sierra said, her eyes straight ahead as they walked. “You probably guessed that, even if not all of us were.”

Beside her, Alarion turned his head. Just a slight look in her direction. Seeing that he was waiting for her to continue, Sierra did so.

“My family has a villa on the north shore, just off the water. A beautiful place, far removed from the busiest parts of the city. Or at least it was, the city gets more crowded every year.”

Alarion gave her a quizzical look. “Is the island really that small that you’re running out of room?”

Sierra laughed. “You have it backward. The island is large, but the city is just that big. It is not the largest in the world, that honor would go to the Bizarre, or perhaps Throne or the Century Cities if you lumped them together. Even so, Vitria is enormous. If you count the merchant cities we certainly rival any in the world.”

Alarion gave her a blank look.

“Only Vitrians can own land in the city itself,” She helpfully explained. “But the Empire has so much wealth that cities sprung up on the continent, just across the Gateway Bridge. Even on the bridge.”

That last seemed to spark something in the young man, his expression contorting as he tried to visualize it. ”How would that…?”

“You will see one day, I am sure of it,” Sierra replied before returning back to her original train of thought. “I am also an only child. The only one who lived long enough to be named, in any case.”

“Sounds lonely,” Alarion observed.

Sierra thought about his words for a short while before she replied.

“In some fashion, if perhaps not in the way you think. My mother was always there when I was young. Or a nanny. Once I was old enough to leave the house, to attend secta, I was everyone’s friend. That was lonely in its own way.”

“Hmm?”

“My father is the second seat in the House of Sorrow,” She said, to another blank look on Alarion’s face. “Which I now realize means nothing to you. Did they teach you anything?”

“Reading, math and language skills mostly,” He replied. “Not enough time for anything else.”

“And so I end up having to fill in the gaps,” She scowled. “All Vitrians belong to one of the seventy-seven houses. You know this much, yes?”

Alarion nodded.

“Each house in turn has seven seated members. The houses select them differently, but typically it is by some combination of politics, background, rank, aptitude, experience and other minor factors. These five hundred and thirty nine in turn make up the political body of Vitria. When an Imperator dies or abdicates, the Seated select a new one. They codify new laws and clarify existing ones, they hold hearings and tribunals. In short, they handle the day to day business of Empire.”

“So your father is strong?”

Sierra scoffed. “Physically, not at all. At least not for a Seated Vitrian. His induction was scholarly, and he never cared much for personal power. He does not need to, because no one would challenge him directly.”

Alarion mulled what she’d said until a question came to his mind. “Your father is of the House of Sorrow, but you’re part of Elena’s house.”

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“A Vitrian’s house is matrilineal.” When that word clearly flew over Alarion’s head, she quickly simplified. “Your house is always that of your mother, in order to avoid any confusion in the case where the father is unknown or disputed.”

“Ah.” Alarion replied. It made sense.

“That is also why some of the houses would show such interest in you.” Sierra commented with a tone that Alarion had not yet heard and did not like.

“You were telling me about how you grew up,” Alarion reminded her, deftly changing the subject.

“Mm,” She replied to his growing annoyance. “My father’s reputation preceded me everywhere. There were always expectations from my tutors. My peers were no better. Some were at odds with my father, which made us de facto enemies without exchanging a spoken word. Others were sycophants, interested in only what could be obtained from remaining in my orbit. There were some, I am sure, who were sincere, but to separate them was nigh impossible.”

“That sounds difficult.”

Sierra met his eyes, searching for mockery in their violet depths.

“I mean it,” Alarion said even as he withered under her gaze and looked away. “Trust is important.”

“Eventually it became easy to tell who was fraudulent. After my unc-”

Sierra’s words died in her throat as she squinted, then looked to Alarion. He was looking back at her, and she could see the same relief in his eyes.

They could see the bottom.

“Thank the mothers.” Sierra breathed. Even with her Awakened physiology, her legs were on fire. Alarion had not complained, but she could only imagine how much worse it had been for him, trying to keep pace.

Clearly not bad enough, given how the young man abruptly rushed ahead, taking stairs two or three at a time in his desire to finally be back on flat ground.

“Alarion!” She snapped. Her words caught him mid-stride as she quickened her own steps to close the distance. “We go together. We have no idea what is down here.”

“Mm.” He nodded in chagrined apology.

Even with the end in sight, it took the pair two more minutes to reach the foot of the stairs. When they did, they were taken aback.

What had looked like a fairly simple landing from the stairwell turned out to be a cyclopean cavern that dwarfed the room from which they’d not so recently departed. Perhaps a mile in width and half again in length the walls of the cavern were covered in the same glowing sigils that had doggedly pursued the pair down the whole of the stairwell, though the intensity of the light dimmed dramatically as it sought out the far end of the room. That side of the chamber was a tangle of switchback fortifications. As though someone had taken some ancient castle from the world above and dropped it down in the midst of a cave a league beneath the surface.

The battlements were intricate. Festooned with iconography that neither Alarion nor Sierra recognized, the many layered walls seemed designed to be severed from one another, for soldiers to retreat in face of a breach to stronger and stronger fortifications, in hopes of outlasting even the most vicious attempt to storm their defenses.

Judging by the plethora of shattered gates and ruined stone that Alarion could see, even at a distance, things had not gone nearly to plan.

“What… is this?” Sierra asked. She looked to Alarion for answers, then clearly thought better of it as she scanned the ruined fortress again. “What could have even built all of this?”

Rather than answer her, Alarion began to walk toward the ruined fortress, his shrunken greatsword now in hand. Despite her misgivings, Sierra once again fell into step beside him.

As they grew closer, the signs of battle grew more and more evident. This was to be expected, given the damage to the fortress, but expectations did nothing to ease the discomfort of walking across a field of shattered bones.

“Fiends?” Alarion asked.

“They would have to be.” Sierra agreed. Most fiends destroyed during a subjugation were burned afterwards, meaning she’d never seen one after it had decomposed. Despite that it was hard to imagine that anything else could have left corpses with such distinctly inhuman proportions in such large numbers.

The trail of bodies continued in through the fortress’ ruined main gate, but curiously there were no signs of the defenders. Clearly there had been a battle, the impact of it was evident in every bit of shattered stone, every claw mark on rusted steel hinges. Fiends might have taken the bodies in victory, but there was no torn armor, no discarded weapons or spent arrows.

It was as though someone, or something, had systematically removed all evidence of one side of the conflict.

“None of this is right,” Sierra murmured once again. She had been making similar statements since they’d reached the landing, her nerves fraying further with every new oddity.

They advanced further through the chaotic weave of the garrison. Twice they had to double back as their path simply ended, or circled in upon itself. In one instance they chose to forgo trying to find the correct path and instead vaulted a wall entirely for sake of expediency. Their eventual destination was clear. The fortress was structured like a pyramid, with each set of walls and fortifications creeping higher and higher on the far wall of the cavern.

And at the top, a single, unbroken brass door.

In the end it took them longer to navigate the confusing mess of the defenses than it had taken to cross the enormous distance from the stairway to the fortress. Constructed by a genius, it would have been a nightmare to assault conventionally, without the aid of magic. As a fiend might.

Eventually the two stood upon the pinnacle, exchanging glances in front of a simple doorway built into the cave wall.

“Is this what the revenant wants?” Alarion asked. “For us to open this door for it?”

“Who knows?” Sierra replied honestly. “I do not see it here. Or any other way out. Nor do I think I would leave this place without answers, even if I could.”

“Together then?”

Sierra reached out her hand and joined his on the simple brass loop that served as the door’s handle.

“Together.”