Each of the subsequent four times Sargons stopped Qaaru and Alize for questioning, Alize took her first lesson to heart and acted to discourage attention. She had no difficulty justifying that humility if it were in service of her imprisoned sisters. The ploy worked, for with every interrogation, the Sargons waved the travelers onwards towards Parousia.

Unlike the other cities she had visited, Parousia sprawled far beyond it walled perimeter, with entire communities living under the fortification’s massive shadow. The derelict structures gave way to permanent stone buildings with courtiers swarming the maze of outer streets.

Alize fought to quell the claustrophobia growing inside her as she peered up at the ramparts. There were few things in the world that could make her trade the forests and starry sky for narrow streets and low ceilings, but her sisters rested within. Alize knew too much of stone walls, how they constricted around a person to render the whole world silent and dark. So too she too knew well that while her sisters languished imprisoned, she herself would not truly be free.

The crowd funneled them down the main thoroughfare of the outer city and Alize kept her head down until a small thud and Qaaru’s yelp drew her attention.

“Spies! We want no more outsiders!” A woman sneered, flinging another wet mass in their direction. It struck Alize in the torso and she belated recognized it as organic refuse which she fervently hoped was old food. Alize covered her head as the woman lobbed more in their direction while cursing about spies and strangers.

“Not my favorite city,” Alize muttered.

Qaaru wiped a brown streak from her face. “That famous Parousia hospitality,” she rolled her eyes.

They passed under the outer gates. Alize wrinkled her nose against the stench of rotting flesh on the breeze. Beside her, Qaaru gagged when they encountered the source. Above the street approaching the entrance to the city dangled a bloated corpse, impaled through the torso on a metal grate. The people passing underneath it rushed in either direction, their eyes looking everywhere else.

Qaaru gestured for Alize to hasten her steps but her gaze stayed locked on the body. The body decomposition had distorted its features beyond recognition but Alize felt fire flush through her to see the patch covering the woman’s right eye. The heat of her anger flared but she controlled it, controlled the nausea in her stomach. Her visit to Parousia had just become critical. She had to maintain her subterfuge.

Alize said a silent prayer as she passed under Essa’s swaying feet. This was the fate of the Hrumi in the provinces. Alize had been a fool to imagine otherwise.

Above her, a falcon soared over the city ramparts.

Banners filled area between the outer and inner walls with Prince Icar’s selected colors of gold and blood crimson. Vendors yelled, competing for their wares. Alize spun as someone stumbled into her and he wavered on his feet before trudging forward.

“Drunkards are the same everywhere,” Qaaru scoffed.

At the entry way to the inner city, Alize was still taking deep breaths, trying to calm herself, when Qaaru tugged at her sleeve. A Sargon had stopped them once more, his pupils swimming in the shadow of his helmet. This time a grim woman followed the faceless soldier. Alize watched in confusion as she padded down Qaaru’s dress before shaking her head. The Sargon grunted and then gestured for Alize to move forward.

The woman’s hands were gruff and thorough. When she finished Alize turned around and froze. The Sargon had emptied her bag and pawed at the Deku robe she carried. But as she watched, he pushed it aside, seeing only the fabric and not the making the connection to the assassin’s guild.

“Now,” the Sargon said, eyeing Alize and Qaaru, “what is your business in Parousia?”

“I’m here to see Prince Icar,” Qaaru announced. She had abandoned all her reverence and spoke with bubbling impatience.

“On what business?”

“My daughter was captured by the Hrumi. I’ve come to claim her.”

Alize’s stomach dropped.

“And you?” The Sargon gestured to her.

“I,” Alize stammered, “I wish to see the Sargon Davram,” Or Kell, she meant to say, but somehow the effort to speak his name was more than she could manage. Not while she still caught the stench of Essa’s rotting corpse.

“Davram?” The Sargon sneered, “Best be prepared to wait. You,” he gestured to Qaaru, “follow me.” Qaaru trailed him through the gate while Alize stood back, already tense. Chatter ebbed and surged in the open area with the crowd’s repeating prosody. Alize clasped her hands and focused her eyes forward, trying anything to not see Essa’s body in her mind, everywhere she looked.

Overhead the clouds converged. As the night blanketed the city, a steady drizzle developed. The townspeople tittered their farewells to each other and disappeared into doorways and shop stalls. One by the one the windows overlooking the street lit up with lambent firelight. The creaks of wet wood and relentless patters of raindrops filled an uneasy silence while the shadows lengthened.

Still no one came to the gate.

Best be prepared to wait, the Sargon had told Alize. She did not know enough of the Sargons to venture a guess as to the reason. Her presence in the emptying street felt more foolish with each passing moment.

Alize leaned against a shop stall where the awning provided shelter from the rain. The wind threw it into her face nonetheless. Droplets coalesced on her cape, sinking in and spreading the cold to her skin underneath. She studied the city wall where white stones formed a pattern against the gray. Alize tilted her head and wondered if she imagined it: a large half crescent with two tails, half hidden for the poor condition of the stones. They formed a letter from the old Ginmae script, the letter “O,” right over the entryway to the city. Coincidence, Alize thought, that someone designed a symbol that looked like a Ginmae letter. No stories told of the Ginmae coming so far south.

As Alize peeled her soaked hair from her neck, the gate’s stone door swung open. A helmeted Sargon emerged. He bore a lantern and with its light Alize could see the raindrops slope sideways in the wind. The Sargon raised his hand against the rain while he scanned the environs. His movement ceased as he faced Alize. He lowered his hand, letting the rain assail his helmet.

Though Alize could see nothing but his metal face, she gave a hesitant nod.

The Sargon made no response. Alize drew a shallow breath, questioning the gatekeeper’s obvious irritation when she had named Davram as her contact. She tried to imagine her friend underneath the helmet confronting her. But the Sargon armor obscured the man underneath. He squared his shoulders as he observed Alize.

Alize fought the urge to recoil. The faceless entity that had framed all her childhood nightmares.

The Kogaloks and Deku mostly left the Hrumi alone because their soul protection was beyond the magic either faction cared to wield. But the Sargons hunted the Hrumi. According to the Hrumi stories, Sargons always sought their souls.

Kell had rejected this accusation. He insisted the Sargons had no desire for the Hrumi souls, nor did they possess the magic to dislodge them. The Sargons captured the Hrumi, Kell contended, when Hrumi kidnapped province children. And once captured, the Parousia government strove only to open communication. Before the Temple Battle, Alize had verified more parts of Kell’s story than she had believed possible.

But now the Essa’s body hung over their gate.

Seeing this Sargon drew all the tension in Alize’s muscles, as if she prepared to fight for her life, for her very soul. Alize forced herself to remain still. She would gain nothing from showing her fear.

Finally the Sargon gestured for Alize to follow him through the gate. Beyond it stretched a broad passageway with marble floors and a roof of sequential domes. The marble was covered in dusty footprints, and only the shopkeepers remained, still gathering their wares in their arms as they shuttered their doors for the night. Puffs of cinnamon hung in the air punctuated by the stink of newly tanned leather. Tiles ran up the sides of the walls in mosaics of stylized vines and blossoming red tulips. The last tendrils of daylight filtered in through glass panes interspersed between the ceiling domes. As night descended, the torches spaced evenly through the market provided more illumination.

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Alize wiped the rain from her brow as she fell behind her trudging guide. The Sargon strode with rigid movements and his helmet cut a sharp profile whenever he glanced towards her. The gap between it and his armor revealed the nape of his neck. Alize could him sweating.

She hastened to match his footsteps until she arrived beside him.

“Davram?”

The Sargon shook his head. Alize fell behind him again, waiting for any sort of cue, but none came as he strode through the twists and turns of the covered market. When he veered to the left, Alize blinked to find herself outside once more. This time she stood in a narrow street where slumped stone buildings jammed so tightly together they formed their own uneven walls on either side of her.

Even in the dreary rain, the Old City of Parousia took Alize’s breath away. Fractal stained glass patterns filled arched windows of pearly granite, story after story, crowding the sky. The flickering hearths behind the windows cast the colored light into the streets like an unexpected spring in the gloom. The Sargon halted at a narrow doorway etched in ornate turquoise and white tile. After he twisted the key, the door shuddered open and the darkness nearly spilled outward. The Sargon pressed into it and disappeared but for the bobbing of his lantern.

Alize hesitated in the doorway, enumerating all the dangers that could befall a Hrumi within a Sargon’s residence.

The Sargon returned holding a thin candle. “Don’t just stand there,” he growled.

Chewing her cheek, Alize stepped through the threshold. The doorframe was blissfully free of souls, but Alize did not delude herself for a moment about the precariousness of her position. She left the door open as her lifeline.

The Sargon stepped past her to slam it shut.

Alize snapped her head to his concealed face. Always placing your trust in the wrong people, she heard Viken taunt. The candlelight forced the shadows of the Sargon mask to stretch further, contorting even the small amount of humanity it revealed.

Alize watched everything to seek confirmation of her suspicions.

“The woman who entered with you,” the Sargon muttered lowly, “is she also a Hrumi?”

Alize listened for any familiarity in his voice, but his palpable fury disguised him more effectively than his helmet. “You mean Qaaru,” Alize responded. “No.”

In acknowledging her Hrumi identity, the Sargon revealed his own.

“It would be very clever if the Hrumi infiltrated Parousia as mothers seeking lost daughters. Of course, that would require a single clan member to have the humility to listen to Prince Icar’s accusations.”

To Alize, Kell’s exasperation betrayed him almost as much as his conceit.

“Humility to listen, but folly to believe.” Alize could feel her anger blossoming in her chest. Essa’s body rotted under the same rain that sang choruses on the windowsills and soaked through her dress. It made her want to wring the fabric, as if it would cleanse it of the filth she felt. “After what happened at the Temple-”

“Yes, what did happen at the Temple?” Kell shouted.

In his anger, Kell became a Sargon. He breathed life into all the stories of Alize’s childhood.

But Alize fought that fear. “Take off that helmet if you want to talk to me!”

“Why bother if you imagine me the same enemy anyways?”

“Kell.” Despite Alize’s tension, his name fell from her lips like a prayer. In the autumn, he had freed her from a prison and tended her wounds. He had held her upright while Omurtak’s earthquakes had seized her mind. He had slipped his hand behind her head before he kissed her.

Alize flushed and almost instantly shame washed over her. Kell had also promised her that he protected the Hrumi.

Like a fool, Alize had believed him. Now her voice turned sour. “If that helmet is all you’ll show me, I’ll leave now.”

Kell heaved his chest without answering. His candle’s flame flickered in the dim.

Alize turned towards the door.

And Kell drew a breath. “It’s really you?” he asked softly, almost as if it pained him.

Alize’s heel scraped the floor as she pivoted back to him. Her mouth formed the word “yes” but she could not find her voice. For she was not so certain herself that she was the same person he had met in the autumn.

Kell bent his head. His fingertips turned white as they pressed the weight of his helmet towards the ceiling.

When she saw his face, Alize caught her breath. The sensation of recognition struck her as profoundly as though she were in the forest once more, listening to the trees she knew so well. Kell’s cheeks flushed red, all the more so while she watched him.

Some things, however, had changed. A raised welt traced from Kell’s nose through his cheek almost to his chin. The light reflected sallow off his skin and deep purple shadows pooled under his eyes. His chest seemed to strain from the effort of breathing and his restless gaze matched the rhythmic clenching and unclenching of his jaw.

Instincts guided Alize’s hands towards his face. The wound marring it still healed, and to her trained eyes could benefit from herbs she knew.

But Kell caught her wrist, deflecting it downwards, away from him.

“Why come to me now?” he muttered.

Alize sought his eyes, earthen brown and always easy with patience. But his gaze was bereft of any kindness. Instead of muddled warmth, Alize found only the unfamiliar.

“I only just-”

“My mistake, you came for Davram.”

Alize needed everything to slow down. “Kell-”

“Do you understand, even a little bit, what I’ve dealt with this winter? Do you know what happened here?”

Alize narrowed her eyes, “I know some of it, I-”

“Do you?” Kell demanded, “You think you could understand-“

“I don’t see you impaled on the city gates!” Alize responded, both astounded and horrified. He knew his crime, and he did not deserve her pity, not for a moment.

“Then that’s why you’ve returned? Because Rehsan knows it’s not to see me. All this time, I thought-!” Kell jerked, shaking off some wild emotion that Alize could not trace. “Onder died at the Temple! That fight cost him his life!”

“I know that.”

“Well, thanks for being here, out of respect for him,” Kell spat, “a season afterwards. I’m surprised you came at all.”

Alize faltered, both chagrinned and insulted. “You probably should ask me where I was.”

“Does it matter? You made your choice.”

“It wasn’t a choice!” Alize stared at Kell. This was the man she had confided in, the man she had risked her life to save from Celillie. She had believed in his compassion and his intention to repair relations with the Hrumi. Hearing him now, Alize wondered at her misjudgment. “The Deku captured me after the battle at the Temple.”

Kell jerked backwards. “What?”

“I’ve been prisoner in their citadel all winter.”

Alize watched Kell heave his breaths, each one a little more controlled. But something else had blossomed on his features. Not anger. Fear.

Then he was understanding the situation. “Why?” he asked finally.

“I never knew why. But I have learned that my sisters have also spent the winter imprisoned. And they are not yet released.”

Kell’s face hardened once more. “Of course. You’ve come for your sisters.”

Alize balked. She heard Kell’s unspoken question. Did he mean to imply she should have come seeking him? That she owed him something?

He dared asked that, even after what happened to Essa. Even though he had said himself that he was in charge of the captured Hrumi.

“I came to secure their freedom.”

“Then I trust you don’t know why they’re here.” Kell retorted.

“The Hrumi did not kill Prince Jorin.

“It’s not in question Alize! But leave it to the Hrumi to be surprised there could be consequences for your actions.”

“I promise we didn’t do it! You had Jorin’s ear, don’t you have his?”

“I must misunderstand you,” Kell took a single step closer to Alize, his ire distorting his face, “you show up, back from the dead, and now expect to direct my work?”

“And you are murdering my sisters!” Alize barked. “Why else would I come here?” But her stomach flipped. She remembered his lips on hers in the tent, the warmth of his palms, how his heartbeat had matched hers. Kell. The burn in her belly was still the same.

But this Sargon scowling before her was not the man she met in the forest. He resembled him, a little, but his actions defined him.

Kell closed the distance separating them until his breath caressed Alize’s cheek “I suppose I should have expected exactly that from a Hrumi,” he muttered.

Alize prayed her glower hid all the confusion prying at her heart. She focused on the gash in his cheek instead of the coldness in his eyes. She would not let him see that his words meant anything to her.

Not now. Not ever again.

Mistakes were hard ways to learn lessons, but always brutally effective.

Kell took a step closer to Alize, bringing the smell of cedar. “You’ll do well to think very closely about your plan in Parousia. Icar cannot release the Hrumi, but he scarcely has incentive to put them all to death. This monarchy doesn’t need more blood on its hands.”

“This monarchy can drown in it,” Alize spat.

Kell glared at her. “Always ready to start a fight.”

“This is the only thing worth fighting about!” Her horror seemed to be rising off her skin, prickling the hairs on her arms.

“Feeling vindicated won’t free your sisters. What’s your plan?”

Talking to you was my plan. “I want to talk to Davram.”

“I promise he can’t help you.”

“Then I’m leaving,” But when Alize strode to the door, she found the bolt held firm. She examined the mechanism, feeling her frustration swell with each passing instant. When she turned back to Kell, his finger tapped the iron key on his belt.

“I can’t let you do that either. I took responsibility for you so you could enter Parousia. I don’t intend to let you go anywhere until you repay the favor.”

Alize shook. So Kell forced her into another prison. After everything they’d been through together, he did not even pretend to trust her. Clearly he needed no lessons about misplaced trust from Viken.

I am such a fool.

But to Kell, Alize only scowled. “What favor?”

Kell’s gaze left her as he spoke. “Same thing you want. Talk to Davram.”

Kell directed Alize to a chilly room upstairs. She went straight to the window and clutched the frigid iron latticework. Like the lock below and the gate in the Deku citadel, it held firm. Alize slumped her head against it.

But unlike the citadel, this prison seemed to reflect her own personal failures. She could not forgive herself for complying so easily with the Deku after the Temple battle. She should never have let herself be taken prisoner. For the thousandth time she wondered why the Deku had held her captive, what Viken had thought to accomplish. In her absence, it seemed war had intensified between everyone she cared about. Essa might have survived if she had come sooner.

Alize froze as she heard Kell’s footsteps in the next room. Apparently his window was open too. The bedsprings creaked, followed by the soft thumping of leather boots on the floor. His exhale became a groan of anguish. It echoed Alize’s own tangled emotions. Soon the weak light escaping through his window extinguished.

Alize faced the darkness’s embrace, her chilled fingers still ensnared in the iron that confined her from the cloudy and starless sky.