The Sargons were gone when Alize awoke. The daylight illuminated a room lined on each wall with a bench covered by a long cushion. Only the fourth bed was made. The metal hooks on the walls were already mostly covered with clothes. Alize drew her fingers across a draped chiton that was patterned black and ochre. It was coarse linen and stitched with gray thread. Just like the Hrumi chiton.

Turning, her eyes stopped at the two black iron Sargon helmets resting on the only table. Hammers had smoothed the curve over their scalps and two jutting pieces of metal represented the cheekbones. The distorted brow line over the thin eye slits made the helmets look enraged.

At first Alize shirked from them. She had never been so close to the armor of her enemies. Their eye slits watched her and she could not help returning their gaze. Even in the mounting sunlight, she wondered at the depths of darkness underneath.

As the morning softened, Alize grew bolder. She moved stiffly, for the tenderness in her wounds, but reached out to touch the nearer helmet. Her fingers traced over the ragged edges and its cold pocketed surfaces. It weighed heavier than she had expected. The metal was mangled in ways she had not noticed before she cared to look more closely.

When a knock sounded at the door, Alize fumbled with the command whistle she had been examining. She returned it besides the helmets and pulled herself onto her good leg to grip the latch and crack the door open.

Kell’s brown eyes met hers. “What are you doing standing?”

“I had to see who was at the door…” Alize responded.

“Ah. Right.” Kell stepped inside and closed the door behind him quickly. “But you should take it easy. Your leg didn’t look so good last night.”

Alize bristled at the authority in Kell’s words, but his tone reflected concern alone. Like a friend, she imagined. The thought sat strangely in her mind. “Doesn’t feel so good either,” she murmured ruefully as she settled down onto her couch again.

“I thought you might be hungry.” Kell handed Alize a sac. She sifted through its contents and selected an apple. The same moment she bit into it, she looked up to see Kell studying her.

“We need to talk,” he stated as she swallowed.

Alize faltered. “Sure.”

Hesna hated the word sure. She said it meant if I must, a sorry excuse for consent. But Alize dreaded broaching the obvious subject with Kell. She feared his treatment of her somehow reflected her own deviations from Hrumi practices. None of her captured sisters had been released. Alize was not prepared to be different. “Can I eat first?” Before waiting for his answer, Alize took another bite of the apple.

Kell puffed out his cheeks and sat on the chair across from Alize, looking everywhere but at her. For a moment his eyes rested on the Sargon helmets.

Alize’s gaze followed, and then she wrenched it away, nearly choking on her food. She did not want to think of Kell and Davram donning those helmets.

The silence was quickly becoming overwhelming. “So, where have you been this morning?” Alize asked.

“Funny story.” Kell offered a tight smile. “The Hrumi they captured yesterday escaped! The jail keeper and the trackers are outraged – they even tried to convince Prince Nader not to open Talend’s gates this morning. So I got called in, and reminded them that she’s wounded, we’ve got her horse, so she can’t go far. Someone’ll probably pick her up again soon enough. So life is continuing.”

Alize had stopped chewing as he spoke. She had not considered the risk Kell had taken to keep her hidden. Yet another favor.

“Will you be punished?”

“Only if Prince Nader finds out. He’s one of the three heirs to Jorin’s throne, so it’s not ideal to be on his bad side.” Kell replied. “Although if Onder has returned, Nader might let it go. It would be easier, however, if this all stays quiet.” He gave Alize a pointed look.

She stumbled over her defense. “Urg. I just had to leave the other town, I had to-”

“Look, I get it. But I’m counting on you to be more discreet this time. It’s not just your neck now.”

Alize hesitated. She understood what Kell was saying, yet it made no sense to her. “Why did you do that?”

“I thought this would be the best way to help you.”

Jerking her head down, Alize stared at her hands while she considered the claim in his response. That he intended to help her. And he had, at least so far. Sargons had helped her, and she was grateful for it.

But did it change anything? Was a fisherman kind for returning one fish to the sea while he snared all the others? How much could one act of kindness reframe every else?

And why her?

I am not different.

Alize shivered. She knew what she was. And that meant she knew what Kell was, however gentle his smiles. Locking her eyes on his, she mustered her courage. “You said you’re in charge of the captured Hrumi. Then you’re,” Alize voice’s fell flat, “you’re a soultrusser.”

“No. Let me explain.”

“I understand exactly-”

“You don’t know my story,” Kell said firmly. “You don’t know that my grandmother is Hrumi.”

Grandmother? Only willow women had children. Only willow women would ever associate with men in such an intimate way.

Alize shuddered. “That’s not possible.”

“Look, I don’t know how you feel about me, but I don’t want to have this conversation until you trust me enough to listen to what I’m going to tell you.” When Alize said nothing, Kell continued, albeit cautiously. “I know you grew up Hrumi, but there are a lot of things you might not know about the clans.”

Alize’s tolerance snapped. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Hear me out-”

“How could that even make sense-”

“Are you going to listen?” Kell demanded.

Alize glared at the Sargon. He held her gaze. She found reproach in his brown eyes, but none of Celillie’s coldness. Alize faltered, breaking contact and nodding begrudgingly to Kell’s question. She would listen. That much she would give him.

“Why do you think the Hrumi are hunted, Alize?”

“You know why.”

“Please. Humor me. Why are the Hrumi hunted?”

Alize narrowed her eyes at Kell. “Because the suffering of our souls grants the High Prince eternal life.”

Kell let her answer hang in the air for a moment before drawing a deep breath. “I’m here to tell you that’s wrong. We don’t soultruss. No prince is immortal. Jorin is one of the rare High Princes that has lived long enough to see a grandchild grown.”

The silence expanded to fill an ocean.

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“What?” Alize managed finally. “Your prince lives long with the power of Hrumi souls!”

“No, he doesn’t,” said Kell. The patience in his voice was almost as aggravating as his denials. “The Deku are the only known immortals, and even the Hrumi must agree that their price is too high.”

“Even the Hrumi?” Alize repeated, struggling to keep her voice equally steady. She could hear how Kell’s composure leant his words credibility. That scared her as much as it infuriated her. “You think the Hrumi are so morally corrupt that we don’t condemn the Deku?”

“That’s not what I meant-”

“That’s what you said!”

“No it’s-” Kell stammered, “No. You’re right. Poor word choice. Let me try again. Do the Hrumi condemn the Deku?”

Listening to Kell flounder, Alize frowned. She had not expected any concessions from him. “Of course we do.”

“As do we. That’s why princes would never soultruss. The Hrumi fear us for a crime we do not commit. We’ve never learned why the Hrumi harbor this fear, but Sargons don’t soultruss, and they never have, not a single Hrumi, not in any province.”

Against Kell’s soft words rose the force of Alize’s memories. She smoothed her hand down her arm to touch the white scar from the Sargon sword. “But the Sargons hunt us, everywhere!”

“Yes,” Kell agreed, “but the princes oppose the Hrumi for an entirely different reason.”

Alize swallowed her instinct to demand what Kell meant. I already know the truth, and nothing he says can change it.

Kell offered his version anyway. “The Hrumi are kidnappers, Alize. Where do you think all those little girls come from?”

It took Alize a moment to realize Kell was referring to the rescued children. The children that came to the clans broken and bleeding, and screaming in their sleep.

Kell was accusing them of kidnapping those children.

Alize bit back astonishment. The clans had no need to invent stories when they lived among them. And she could not believe that Kell, a Sargon, did not know about the ravaged villages in the east. He had to know. He had to know and that meant he thought she was guillible enough to believe his lie.

Alize reacted with contemptuous forced laughter. “Kidnapping? That’s your great defense for stealing our souls?”

“We don’t-”

“Your princes,” Alize interrupted, unable to hear Kell’s explanation a second time, “are committing the most atrocious of crimes, and you dare accuse us of some petty, false lie? The Hrumi save every child we take!”

“Have you taken a child, ever?”

“It doesn’t matter!” I seen the aftermath enough times.

“They’re not rescues.”

“Of course they are!” Alize railed, “We are the only reason those girls survive!”

“Or is that a comforting story?”

“How is that story comforting?!”

“It makes you the hero.”

“How dare you!”Alize’s anger blistered. “We are not guilty of anything! Your crimes fuel this war! It doesn’t matter how you spin your lies to forgive yourself!

“Alize-”

“Don’t say my name!” Alize launched to her feet despite all the throbbing in her injured leg. “You pretend to help me when I am injured, you act benevolent, all to deceive me? You are despicable!”

Kell watched her wide-eyed. “What are you doing?”

“You think I would stay here to listen to a Sargon?” Alize exclaimed as she stepped towards the door.

In one swift movement, Kell lunged forward and seized her.

Alize drove her elbow into his gut.

Kell crumpled with the impact, but instead of releasing her, he twisted her left arm, straining the stitches that he had so painstakingly sewn the night before. Alize convulsed with the sharp pain and Kell secured his grip on her wrists. He pushed her down until her chest pressed against the carpet.

Just that easily, the Sargon won.

Alize would never accept it.

“Nocturne take you!” Alize shouted, “No Hrumi will ever-”

“Are you completely mad?!” Kell hissed in her ear. “You’re badly wounded and you try to leave? You’ve got no sense at all!”

“I’d rather die than stay here!” Alize sneered, her voice muffled in the carpet. “It doesn’t matter why you hate us, if you hate us all the same!”

“I never said I hate the Hrumi! Don’t assume you know me!”

“I know your pitiless world.” Alize gasped.

“That world isn’t real!” Kell tightened his grip. “But other dangers lurk outside that door - not just from the soldiers who would recapture you, but a slew of Conjurers who clearly want you dead and we still don’t know why!”

Alize twisted against Kell, but could not deny his words. The Conjurer in the woods had wielded power she had never imagined.

“And maybe it doesn’t matter to you,” Kell paused, “but it will be very bad for me and Davram if anyone discovers that I arranged your escape.”

Alize wanted more than anything to rebuff his words, to throw them in his face. I don’t care. This was what came of letting Sargons help her: they would use it to control her.

But Kell spoke as if she did care, and strangely enough, that gave her pause. For all his lies, he still had not soultrussed her.

Alize clamped her eyes shut. Kell’s grip on her arms hurt her, but she feared if he released her, honor obliged her to keep fighting him. Her instincts tangled, floundering like an eagle in a wind storm, jostled from each perch she found.

“But I know what you are,” she muttered. The aggression in her voice had diminished, though the bitterness remained. Something had to mask her inner upheaval.

“Maybe you don’t. Maybe you could give me the dignity to define myself.” Alize heard Kell sigh. He abruptly released her. “For instance, I would rather not use force as a basis for conversation.”

After a moment, Alize pushed her palms down, now free from his grip. She was free to choose her next action. Slowly, she shifted to a sitting position.

Kell watched her guardedly.

Without him, she would still be in the prison cell, awaiting the soultrusser. She remembered how Kell had seemed untroubled to let a Hrumi tend his wound in the steppes. He did not think they were enemies. And he had handled her dagger with care. Try as she might, Alize could not quite believe that Kell intended to harm her. It was not the same as innocence, but neither was it guilt.

“You I can deal with,” Alize conceded, though she could not meet his eyes while she said it. “But you have told some outrageous lies.”

“I understand that you think that. If you prefer, we don’t have to talk about it ever again.”

“That’s little comfort if you still believe it.” Alize responded tersely.

“Fine, but really, you cannot leave.”

Alize glared at him. “Now you’re going to order me around like Davram?”

For an instant, Kell’s pupils dilated and his nostril flared. He looked like he might lose his careful composure. Some part of Alize wanted him to get angry, would relish him turning into the Sargon she kept expecting him to be. But as she watched him struggle, that desire faded. It was not Kell’s fault that he believed his prince’s lies. In fact, it relieved Alize a little. It was easier to believe Kell deluded about the Hrumi than to believe he rejected everything her sisters truly stood for.

Exhaling his ire, Kell shook his head. “I just want to give you the time you’ll need to heal.”

Alize winced, initially hearing his words as patronizing. But she forced herself to listen again, this time to the meaning. Kell wanted the same thing she did. At least for now.

Alize crossed her arms and waited for her pulse to slow.

Kell spoke again. “We can do this the hard way or the easy way. I am completely committed to either but I prefer the easy way. If I feel I can trust you.”

Alize locked her gaze on the floor. Her thoughts turned to Hesna and her words about uncertainty: to let only the past direct the future limits us to our assumptions.

Raising her head, Alize asked, “How could you possibly trust me?”

Kell met her eyes. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Well, I don’t know.” They regarded each other a moment, the moon suspecting the tides, before Alize shifted her gaze away and sighed. “I won’t face what I know I can’t fight. I’ll stay until someone has a better idea.”

Kell blinked. “That’ll do.” He rose to his feet and began fumbling in his bag. “For my part, if you say you won’t leave, I’m going to believe you. And I brought you this.” He produced a metal hilt. The elaborate rune engravings stole Alize’s breath before she even saw the blade.

A Sargon relinquishing her soul.

“It’s dangerous for you to handle that Kell!” she gasped as she accepted her dagger from him. This marked the second time he had returned it to her. The familiar weight in her hands represented a certain irreplaceable security.

Kell asked, “Is there magic in it?”

Alize clamped her eyes shut. She could not reveal the Hrumi soul protection to a Sargon. But Alize resolved to attribute the inquiry to Kell’s ignorance, rather than any sinister intentions. It was, after all, only a question.

We must never fear questions, Hesna had said, or we risk building places in ourselves where we fear to venture.

Kell continued, “I’ve handled enough Hrumi daggers to feel a power beyond the metal. But yours doesn’t fight me.”

“Well, neither do I, most of the time.” Alize muttured.

Kell pressed his lips together. “Anyway. I guess I’ll be going then. Do you need anything?”

Again Kell implied kindness, stated without any self-consciousness, so contrary to everything Alize anticipated. She grimaced and the exasperation crept into Kell’s expression. Witnessing it, Alize felt her own frustration swell. If Kell were his actions alone, she would not begrudge his kindness. But he was a Sargon. He had to understand that made them enemies, whatever truce they arranged.

But that contradicted Alize’s own emotions. She did not begrudge the kindness he had shown her already. She wrung her hands. Just say something so he’ll leave. “Could you bring me something to read?”

If Kell were surprised Alize could read, he knew better than to show it. “Of course.” he answered, his face relaxing again. As he turned to the door, he hesitated, glacing back.

“Alize, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

A lump rose in Alize’s throat. For what? She wanted to ask. For hunting my people? For accusing us of false crimes? But Kell’s regret held no smugness. It goaded Alize’s pride even as it stung her heart. He thinks I’m the one who’s deluded. He feels sorry for me.

Alize shook her head. “Just go, please.”

“But, so you know.”

Alize heaved her breath. She resented that he slandered the Hrumi while apologizing to her, as if he could separate her from her identity. But maybe that was the point. He was a Sargon and, despite her misgivings, he had earned her trust.

Alize realized Kell awaited a response. “Thanks, I guess.”

“See you later then.” Kell pulled the door shut behind him and Alize lay back on the bed, partly exhausted, partly infuriated, and entirely confused.