Kell left the front door unlocked in the morning, but Alize was not prepared to respond to the invitation. She needed more time to think, and she could not hope to do it sitting down.

Alize climbed back up the stairs. “Davram, get up,” she yelled into his door.

The older Sargon fought Alize at every turn, when he refused to get out of bed, when he refused to clean his face, when he refused to get dressed.

“I heard the Hrumi were dogged,” he grumbled, shading his eyes from the sunlight. It was weak in the kitchen, but still too intense for the Sargon’s fragile condition. “But this is excessive.”

“Enough. Eat your breakfast,” Alize chided, “Kell’s indulged you too much for all your melodrama.”

“Imminent murder,” Davram corrected.

“Melodrama,” Alize reiterated. “No one is murdering you. Not today anyway. Today,” Alize rose and crossed into the main room. She grasped a sword from the wall, twisting it in her hands to extend the hilt to sitting the Sargon. “Today you will teach me to fight with a sword.”

Davram dragged his gaze to meet hers, but he could not hold it. “I’m no teacher,” he muttered.

“You taught Kell.”

“I’m no teacher anymore. You mock me, Alize. Leave me be.”

“My doubts aren’t the ones plaguing you, Davram. And I happen to know there’s only one way to cure feeling powerless.”

Something sparked in Davram’s eyes. He shifted, almost as if he was trying to sit up straighter. Blinking, he finished Alize’s thought. “You help someone.”

It was Hesna’s mantra. Alize remembered her repeating it after one of Celile’s particularly pointless barbs, not long before the trial Celile staged to kill her. Hesna had strode from Celile’s tent fuming. Alize found her later making salves in the healers’ tent. “You help someone,” she had told Alize, “to remember that we are never wholly powerless against the ills of the world.”

Alize could not guess whose words filled Davram’s mind with the same message, but they wrought the impact she intended.

He grasped the hilt of the outstretched sword, only to reverse it, presenting it back to Alize. “Let’s start with your stance,” he said.

He coached Alize for the morning, first on how to hold the sword and then very simple jabs. Alize wiped the sweat from her forehead. When Davram moved on to footwork, he and Alize were both relieved to discover that much of her previous training with a dagger worked for a sword.

“I can’t move nearly as quickly,” Alize grumbled while Davram guided her through the basic defense positions.

“You’re still moving way too fast. Slow down.”

“Delay invites death.”

“Speed sacrifices precision. Now, again.”

Over lunch Davram regaled Alize with tips and shortcuts. She could already feel the soreness of her musles when she stood up to continue.

Darvram showed her how to avoid disarmament, how to block an opponent in close quarters, and the clues to her opponent’s next strike. Once she began to understand the theory, her body was better able to obey, and most importantly, to react quickly, as she could with a dagger.

The color began returning to Davram cheeks. Through a mixture of conjoling and persuasion, Alize convinced him to try sparring with her. She could feel strength building in his strikes. It emboldened her to challenge him other ways as well.

“So you knew that woman last night? The Mage?” Alize inquired as she blocked Davram’s jabs. He kept his movements light, but he no longer treated her as a beginner. And, though she tried to not place too much hope in it, his eyes seemed clearer. They seemed bolder.

“Sadly. She’s been hounding me since the Temple battle. I should have told you.”

“You did tell us. We just didn’t understand what you meant.”

“That’s scant comfort.” A shadow passed over Davram’s face. “I never should have exposed you and Kell to that.”

“I’m fine. Kell’s fine.”

“Then you didn’t see his bruises,” Davram’s voice hardened. “Some prince I would be, letting my friends fight my battles.”

“Do you-” Alize faltered, lowering her sword. This was too important to give only half her attention. “Then do you really intend to ‘realign the silver throne’?”

“Oh please,” Davram scoffed, “Onder’s dead. How could I continue to pursue that?”

But Alize thought back to the Hrumi stories, to all the corpses that had rotted unburied since the Kogaloks had conquered the Ginmae province. “How can you not? There are more people suffering in that land than the rest of the provinces combined. If anyone could rally them, it would be the last Ginmae prince.”

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Davram grimaced. “Ha. For that, I would need power, and I do not seek it. I’ve seen nothing good come from it. A ruling prince is the highest station in the province, yet his children fight to the death over his throne so their children may one day do the same? That’s a sorry privilege.” Davram flashed his sword towards Alize.

She blocked the strike, but without the any of the finesse Davram had shown her. “But there is a difference from power to impose your will and power to dispense to others. Icar seeks the former, and the people demand the latter.”

“Well, I don’t see the difference.” Davram struck harder this time.

Alize took several steps backwards. She divided her attention between meeting Davram’s strikes and her onus to speak to him. “Then open your eyes. Think about Celillie, I know Kell told you about her. She had authority, gleaned through falsehoods and maintained with corruption. But she didn’t understand how easily that can topple - that authority carries no weight at all without leadership.”

“What of it? I’m no leader.” Davram’s next strike fell too fast for Alize to block. He smacked her waist with the flat end of his sword.

Alize only smiled. So he was trying. “Just think of what you can do with that stubborn determination!”

“I have already succeeded in all my ambitions to be unsuccessful.”

“Ah,” Alize lilted, “but that’s a contradiction.”

“Ah,” Davram echoed, “but it doesn’t trouble me.”

Alize jabbed, but the Sargon blocked her, “Davram, the Deku will seek you. By relegating yourself to the defensive position, you’re surrendering your power to them. And that’s what powerlessness is – surviving instead of living.”

“You expect me to fight them alone?” He struck with less strength this time, giving Alize a chance to regain herself.

She countered his strike.

Davram defended her next thrust, knocking Alize’s sword from her hands. He waited while she retrieved it.

Alize assumed the attack stance again, making full use of his lesson. “That whole province has grown wild since your family fell, and the people are waiting for a leader.”

Davram knocked the sword from her hands again. “And you want me to become Celillie?”

“No,” Alize frowned as she bent to grab the hilt a second time. “Leadership is not a hierarchy, but a trust. That’s what Celillie never understood.”

Davram heaved a sigh, beginning his attacks once more. “I could do it for my sister.”

Alize withstood his jabs. “Do it for her, do it for the people who still live in your parents’ province, who cower in their houses and hand their daughters to the Hrumi.”

Davram flashed his gaze to Alize.

She nodded in confirmation. “Of course we recruit there. How could we not? It’s a land of hazards, the Kogaloks much more so than the Deku.”

Davram’s strike smacked her in the arm but did not break the skin. “And you would have me gift them yet another Ginmae soul?”

Alize gripped her impacted arm, hissing out the pain. She glared at the Sargon Prince. “One of these days, Davram, you’ll stop making excuses for the things you believe in.”

“What I believe in? I would be fighting for the right to die,” Davram growled, “is that not its own defeat?” He swiped his sword at Alize.

Though she tried to block him, his strike caught her in the side, knocking the air from her lungs. But she had more to say, even if she had to gasp the words out. “Defeat? That’s your excuse not to fight?” Alize stepped backwards under Davram’s mounting assault.

“The futility! Yes!” he answered.

“Surrendering now will mean Onder died for nothing.”

“How dare you?” Davram resumed his attack. “To wave his death in my face like I didn’t even try? Alize, you-you saved everything at the Temple that night, and I did nothing, nothing, whatever my birthright.”

Alize despised the way he spat the word birthright. While she could understand his frustration, she knew of worse birthrights to carry.

Partly to console herself, Alize recited the old mantra, “Never surrender before you’ve lost.”

She missed the sharp look Davram gave her, as if he were trying to place those words in his memory.

Though Alize was short of breath, her insistence stayed steady. “The people who slink from battles shall surely never win any! How long do you think Kell will support you if you can’t show the courage to help yourself?”

“Is that a threat?!” And there was fire in Davram’s eyes, smoldering.

Alize relished it, because she had not seen him so alive since the Temple Battle. “Only a coward would feel threatened by the faith of his friends!” Alize jabbed with her words.

Davram, however, jabbed with his sword. “Of course a Hrumi has no respect for prudence!” He was angry now, lashing out towards Alize. She blocked his blows but her response time was too clumsy, her defenses unsustainable.

Still she provoked him further, “A Ginmae prince should have no pride in cowardice!”

And finally one of Davram’s blows felled Alize. For an instant he stood above her, enraged, his blade flashing silver.

And though Alize’s pulse raced, it was from exertion, never fear.

Davram dropped his sword to the floor. “You see? I’m a terrible teacher.”

“Don’t talk that way about my friend.” Alize chided, grinning as she pushed herself up to her elbows. “Besides, I learned something. Even in anger, you maintain your control.”

“Oh,” Davram’s lips danced upwards in amusement, “is that all?”

“Well, also I could use some more practice,” Alize said a little ruefully.

Davram chuckled in appreciation, but Alize watched his thoughts turn inward. His eyes grew dark once more.

“There’s no shame in fear,” Alize ventured, not wanting to lose the life she had coaxed from him. “Just, be smart about how you live with it. And you have support.”

“If I had three of Kell, I wouldn’t even need an army,” Davram conceded. “But what of you, mistress Hrumi?”

Alize jolted, unprepared for his question. Her fingers itched to touch her heart, to confirm the hard scar that embodied all the sadness in her response. But she could never speak that truth to Davram.

Indeed, she could say very little of anything. “My future is uncertain. I cannot commit my aid to you.”

Even so mildly stated, Alize could see the effect her sudden withdrawal wrought on her friend.

He exhaled, nodding tersely. His shoulders collapsed inward once more.

Alize longed to retract her words, but the truth was so much worse. At the very least, she had a responsibility to protect him from false expectations. Perhaps, if her true position were ever exposed, he might remember this conversation and understand it. Perhaps he might forgive her.

Then, at the worst of times, she felt the darkness advancing, blossoming from her core where her soul had once lived. The void expanded, inundating her entire body in a dark wave. It had happened before, and she recognized all the signs. She only wanted the time to finish her thought, to say what she could to banish the sorrow from her friend’s face.

“But I promise, Davram,” Alize stammered, “that you have my support, wherever I am.”

“That means more than you could know.” Davram’s voice carried a long distance. “Alize?”

“I believe in you,” Alize could not tell if she spoke the words aloud or imagined them. I should have warned him, she lamented.

Then the void swallowed her.