Lavastro felt the touch of her anger like a long estranged lover.

It had no need to enter her, having never truly left. Buried beneath reason and logic, cold calculation and thoughtful, measured consideration. Shackles of her own making, forged with a strength to match the flame of her temper.

And they’d been made strong indeed, for Lavastro had come to know her wrath intimately. Its extent as much as its prevalence. Perhaps the worst of all things she’d inherited from her father.

Yet she didn’t mind it now.

She felt the coals spark to life beneath her. The adrenal frenzy oozing into her muscles and giving them strength, the tint of red bleeding across the world and heartbeat roaring in her ears. The fury was almost blissful.

“You should calm down, sir.” Came a voice from behind.

It was a careful tone, inoffensive and as unchallenging. Save the almost reflexive hardness underlying it.

Lavastro found herself urged to behead the speaker all the same, the pariah’s presence was more agitating than ever in her anger.

“I’m entirely calm, sergeant.” Lavastro answered, not needing to force the steadiness in her voice. The rage had grown cold on its own.

“You’re lucid.” The Wrathman said. “That’s not the same thing. I’ve seen men make mistakes they knew were mistakes before.”

“Watch your tongue, speaking to me.”

“I’m watching your back, sir. It’s my job.”

“Your job is to protect me from danger, not question my actions.”

“There’d be plenty of danger in murdering a girl sent to the Sieve as a noble’s sponsor.”

Lavastro paused, halting her charge and drawing both of them to a stop midway through the sprawling corridor. She turned, looking at her bodyguard slowly. Suddenly regretful that she’d told him so much of the Sieve’s functionality.

No matter her frustrated efforts, she could think of no counter to his words.

“When did you become such an expert in politicking, Kleidra?”

“Don’t need to be an expert, sir.”

“What makes you so certain of my intentions, then?”

He hesitated for a moment, then answered with as straight a tone as she’d ever heard him use.

“Because, with all due respect, I reckon I am an expert on killers, sir.”

Lavastro held his gaze, without words for the second time in a day. With no noise to distract her, she could only revisit the sight of Gem’s task.

She roared, surprising even her and sending the Wrathman stepping back with alarm widening his eyes.

Magic came almost without thought, wrapping her in power and flooding every cell with might. Then her knuckles met the nearest wall, splitting it like a falling star and leaving marble to rain upon her feet as flakes and dust.

For moments she remained still. Not moving her body, nor even her mind. Simply caged by fury, fearing that any movement at all would be pushed past control by emotion.

It was only the voice of Kleidra that drew her back from the vengeful stupor. Uncharacteristically hesitant, yet without so much as a scrap of fear. Lavastro supposed it was a pariah’s compunction to remain undaunted in the face of magic.

“Sir, you need to control yourself.”

Of course I need to control myself, imbecile. Is there something less obvious you’d like to remark upon? The colour of my hair, perhaps?

Lavastro kept her tongue under a firm grip, forcing deep breaths. Feeling anger sapped by each one. Not for the first time, she found Manamis beckon to her.

It would cool her, she knew. Bring apathy and control. More, it would bring clarity. The sort of detachment that compounded her scimitar-intellect like a whetstone. And it had, after all, been the touch of Cutaris that had fed her fury to such levels in the first place.

She banished the notion.

“Sir?” Asked the Wrathman, reminding Lavastro of her situation and drawing her back to the present. She found a surprising calm.

“Yes.” She said, sighing. “I’m perfectly lucid.”

The man looked dubious, but not about to argue.

“Let’s continue.” Lavastro said, turning and beginning back down the corridor without another word. Kleidra followed her, eying the fissured wall as he went.

“It will be repaired by the Sieve’s staff.” Lavastro assured him, not looking back. Feigned nonchalance hid her worry. It was unlike her to lose control in such a way, and she imagined the other organisers would have little issue in finding out whose fist it had been to damage the wall. Vultures were rarely tested in finding weakness.

“That’s a lot of stone to be repairing.” Kleidra noted, almost muttering the words.

Lavastro suddenly found herself eager to change the subject.

“I’d have thought you undaunted by such damage as that. Don’t the forts of Wrath suffer a similar extent on the regular? More, even?”

“It’s different back there.” He shrugged. “Attacks come often enough that there’s not normally a chance for big rebuilding projects. Walls are all lacquered by the strongest mystics who pissed old He’aran off enough to end up fighting beside us. When they eventually break down anyway, we push forward and guard whoever repairs them from outside.”

Lavastro said nothing, working through the logistics silently in her head. The results left her queasy.

“What are the usual casualties?” She asked. Quiet.

Kleidra’s voice was no different as he answered. Still strong, still steady. Like practiced hands on a rifle.

“It depends on the repairs and what we’re fighting. Usually dozens, sometimes hundreds. Once or twice there were practically none, when the enemy was too stupid to even realise we were outside.”

Lavastro had no words.

“My condolences.” She forced. Hard, formal. Kleidra didn’t answer, unsurprisingly, and they continued their walk in silence. He must have thought her entirely unregretful.

I am regretful. Lavastro thought. But not sorry. Never that. If a dozen Wrathmen must die to strengthen the Empire and save a thousand more, so be it.

She felt no doubt in her conviction, no strain against the spine of her resolve. Still she remained silent. Still she made no noise but the clicking of boot heel against marble.

Still she listened for every sound to come from the Wrathman, as if fearing the mumbled curse she might find among them.

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Still she remained silent, as anyone would. Few had the strength of will to do as Lavastro did, to make statistics of her people and balance equations with lives as the remainder. Fewer still to face those very lives, whose friends and families had died in transaction, and retain the will to do so again.

It was a painful reminder of her weakness. A weakness she swore to one day purge.

Sleep dust caked Gem’s eyes as she woke. Thicker than she could remember finding, dense enough that it formed a crust binding her lids together. Holding them shut.

She groaned, reaching up to clear it with a knuckle, then gasping as the hasty movement sent a web of agony shooting down her side.

“She’s awake!” Came a voice. Excited, Gem thought. Male, she knew. Any other details were lost behind the fog swirling about her senses, deadening the world and rending thought.

The pain faded gradually, and Gem moaned in sheer relief when it finally did. The feeling’s absence brought clarity, and that clarity made way in her hearing.

“-remember, Gemini?”

She moved to blink, eyelids made motionless by the crust. Her mind was occupied by words reaching it a moment later.

“Gemini? Gemini can you hear me?”

A boy’s voice. Crow Tempora’s.

More carefully than before, Gem raised a hand to scrape away the filth clotting her sight. Light stung her eyes as they opened, tears blurring them and head throbbing. Even so, sight was a greater relief than she could put into words.

“I hear you.” She said, voice a croak. Her throat was rough and stiff as if from atrophy, filled with phlegm.

How long have I been asleep? She found herself wondering.

Through the haze of her adjusting eyes, Gem saw relief wash over the blonde boy beside her. Shoulders slumped, face relaxed. Eyes aglow.

“Shit, but it’s good to see you awake.”

He turned, calling out with a voice that might have woken the dead.

“Astra! Come through, hurry!”

His sister appeared in mere seconds, frenzied worry set deep into her face. A single glance at Gem and it made way for shock, then a joyous relief to match her brother’s.

“She’s awake.” The girl gasped, smiling as she neared.

Gem felt a sudden annoyance at being spoken of as though she weren’t present. It brought back jaw-tightening memories of sitting beside her father like a decoration.

“She’s also perfectly lucid.” Gem observed.

Her lungs flooded with fire the moment she finished speaking, sending a new bundle of agony to uweave across her ribcage. The air caught in her throat, muscles twisted into spasmic coils as they tightened with the sensation. She cried out, despite herself.

“Are you okay?” Crow gasped, leaning forwards and bringing his hands to hover beside her, as though they might draw the pain away through gesture alone.

Of course I’m not okay. She thought, sulferously. Gem dared not say it outloud. With the protests of her lungs and ribs, speech was no more appealing than drinking vomit.

“Of course she’s not okay.” Astra Tempora snapped, words sulferous in her mouth.

Gem might have felt disconcerted, had torment not driven away all other sensation.

When at last the pain was little enough for movement and breath, she was left sweaty and gasping where she lay.

“Pit.” Crow breathed. “Can I get you anything, Gemini?”

“Gem.” She answered him, careful to keep her words light and low to avoid her body’s protests.

“Right.” He said. “Gem. Sorry, I forgot.”

“Where am I?”

The pain made it hard to think of anything at all, but she was certain the room around her was not familiar. Crow hesitated again before answering.

“Deka’s quarters.” He sighed. “We didn’t have time to reach yours, and she was closest to the entrance.”

It wasn’t so difficult to accept, after hearing of her time spent unconscious, but Gem was far from happy. Can I have…” Gem inhaled again, feeling a protest deep in her torso. “Some privacy?”

For a second the boy didn’t move. Taking a moment to realise what she was asking, turning to his sister. The two silently nodded.

“Of course.” The blonde girl said. “Let’s go, Crow.”

The twins were halfway stood when Gem remembered her most burning question.

“Wait, how long have I been… asleep?”

They exchanged looks, suddenly uncomfortable.

“You were quite hurt…” Crow began, speaking slowly. As if to a child. An invalid.

“How long?” Gem asked, louder. She felt a twinge of warning from her lungs, ignored it. Kept her eyes focused on her teammate’s.

Discomfort touched the boy’s face for moments more, then he answered.

“Half a day.”

Gem stared at him, heart sinking.

“No.” She snapped, throat convulsing with the urge to cough as her lungs shuddered. She couldn’t have slept so long. Couldn’t have been so wounded as that.

“We’ll be back in an hour if you need anything.” Astra Tempora muttered. She practically forced her brother from the room, closing the door behind her. Leaving the room silent but for Gem’s breathing. Dark but for the low glow of dull lamps on its walls.

Gem felt a strange gratitude for the girl’s iciness. She’d saved her the trouble of repeating that they leave.

Her silent thanks turned to silent thought, growing deeper in the darkness. Opening in her like a hole to eclipseum itself.

She stretched her mind, thought back to what had happened in her previous task. It took only moments for the memories to grow painful, but by then they were too captivating to move on from.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Gem wanted to vomit as she recalled the noise. Haunting, chilling, paralysing and revolting. Made all the worse as it permeated viscera rather than air.

It seemed wrong to her that she should recall it so vividly. Surely her mind ought to have been too preoccupied to sear such things into itself.

Surely having such a dreadful echo in her head was more salt than any wound needed.

Gem was sick. A tremble seized her, taking muscle first, then seeping deeper to leave her throat and lungs writhing beneath. Tears wetted her cheeks and snot clogged her nose as she sobbed.

Crying like a child. A little girl, thrown into deeper water than she could stand in. Learning only then that she wasn’t the swimmer arrogance had led her to believe.

Like a child? No, I am a child. A year younger than the most junior contestants here, more powerful than any of them. And stupid enough that it couldn’t save me.

Tears slid like rain to wet the bed beside her. Gem felt disgust even as they spilled.

Then a thought took her. One that carried relief enough to purge all worry, one that had been with Gem her entire life. So constant as to leave her suffocated and stifled.

She could contact her father.

Gem shifted where she lay. Slowly at first, carefully. Fearful of the pain her body would retaliate with, were she to disturb it. It hurt to move even that much, but the feeling dulled.

She soon managed to shift her position to a seated one, back resting against a propped pillow and ribs keeping blissfully quiet.

They remained silent as she turned her head, silent still at the craning of Gem’s neck to peer beside her bed. Silent even as a relieved breath caught in her throat.

She’d travelled light to Udrebam. Bringing only one small case to hold some personal belongings, and, knowing that the Sieve provided clothes for its contestants but disapproving of Alliance taste, two of her own outfits.

That same case was meeting her gaze, barely a foot from the bed and standing on its side.

Handle tantalisingly close to reach.

It was difficult, hooking her fingers around it. More difficult to retract an arm with the stabbing of her ribs ringing out for every millimetre it moved. Gem managed regardless. Pulling the suitcase to rest atop her, then fiddling with its seal.

Rummaging around for her resonance stone took only moments.

Gem hadn’t looked at the relic since leaving for Udrebam, but she recognised it easily. Little smaller than a fist, it was cobalt blue and smooth to the touch. Surface as unblemished as her skin, magic as precious as her smile.

She turned it over in her palm, studying it absently and trying to think of how to proceed. What to say, how to say it.

Gem curled her fingers tight around the stone and pressed her will to it.

The connection was instantaneous, jarring as always. So deep and invasive that her three dozen experiences with its like seemed no experience at all.

Thoughts flowed from her mind. Moving down her neck; through her shoulder, bicep and arm. Leaking from the tips of her fingers and oozing into the stone’s body, its surface rippling as they did.

She fought to concentrate them. Seizing her own mind tight, then squeezing it into the shape of coherent words and sensation.

Gem found herself weeping again as she did, the communication of a resonance stone drawing emotion from her to fully capture her message’s essence.

Laying back once she was finished, she seized her breaths and shut her eyes in wait of a response.

Hours passed without any answer at all before she finally succumbed to sleep.