Alize sighed in the prison waiting room. Almost as soon as they had arrived, Kell had been called away. He left Alize to sit with the family members waiting for news of their children.

The red-haired woman Melis directed all the conversations amongst the assembled parents.

Evidently she predated all the other seekers, having arrived in Parousia only a week after the Temple battle. The Sargons had been finalizing where to lodge the Hrumi and how the government would source their food. In the chaos, Kell had relented to Melis’s demands and allowed her to see the Hrumi.

“My daughter is ill,” Melis railed, “Sargon Kelesh keeps her in the prison, saying he cannot release her to me in case because she will not consent. She is my child! How dare he take away my rights as a mother!”

“At least you know your daughter is alive,” Alize offered. For all her frustrations with Kell, she fully supported his obduracy on this point.

“That’s little comfort when the Hrumi taught her to despise me!”

“Prince Icar cannot continue to allow this,” Qaaru spoke. “If there anthing I want from Icar, it’s security. If I have to kowtow to his arrogant servants for it, fine. But they better produce results.”

Alize swallowed. Rejoinders flew through her mind, some bitter, others combative, but eventually she managed only, “Isn’t there value in what Kelesh is doing, to try to make peace with the Hrumi?”

“Peace?” Melis laughed. “How can you make peace with irrationality? You don’t understand, Alize, that the Hrumi are content to hate us. They will always find something to justify the choice they’ve already made. Those who commit atrocities can be forgiven Alize, but those who justify them cannot.”

“And meanwhile Sargon Kelesh is trying to make sure the prison is comfortable enough for these monsters,” Qaaru spat, “he wants to ingratiate himself with them. Trying to tame lightning.”

Another parent spoke in a louder pitch. “Worse than that, Sargon Kelesh thinks he should protect the lightening.”

“I bet he’s unlucky in love,” Melis added gleefully, “and looking for a Hrumi eidolon.”

The room erupted in laughter. Though she did not understand Melis’ meaning, Alize opened her mouth to feign complicity, but she could not join their bitter mirth. All their conceit and condescension served to keep them confindent in their convinctions, but she could feel it wrapping around her tongue, trying to silence her and her truth. That silence would serve no one.

“You would prefer he terrorize them instead?” she asked innocently.

“They should learn respect us,” Melis replied.

“I fail to see how that will help.”

“I’ve seen the Hrumi,” Melis retorted. “These are not women who respond to dignity! They are animals! I’m the one the Sargons should be fighting for!”

Alize stammered “Just because they hate us now does not mean we must resign ourselves to it.”

“They won’t give us so much faith,” Qaaru snapped.

Alize could not help but nod. She knew the Hrumi reluctance too well.

“The princes have been merciful enough.” Melis railed. “I’m sure they have no interest in trying to govern the Hrumi, but clearly the clans can’t govern themselves peaceably. So we must enforce a peace on our terms.”

“What does that mean?”

“We need to ensure our security and our interests. You have to understand, peace doesn’t protect us, security protects us. Even if they had a leader that made peace, the people never would. They’re too self-absorbed and self-righteous. And Sargon Kelesh does not have the stomach for the work that needs to be done.”

“What work?” Alize fought to keep her voice level.

“Whatever it takes,” Melis answered, “I don’t know if you can even understand, since you must have been so young, what it is to feel so powerless. There is no greater humiliation than being unable to protect your children.”

“Alize knows,” Qaaru responded. “We came to Parousia together. She is a defender of the powerless.”

Alize felt almost as grateful as she felt guilty. She rushed to change the subject. “Has anyone else visited the Hrumi?”

Few parents had been allowed to look for family members, and none but Melis believed they had found their lost daughters. Those remaining sought children too young to possibly be in the prison. Like Qaaru, they all insisted on the right to speak to the Hrumi with the hopes of discovering news of their children, and eventually their location.

This demand caused Alize to chew her cheek. Even she did not know the location of the children. The children’s camp was abandoned, and it was possible she was the only person who even knew that.

Except, of course, for whoever had attacked it.

When a Sargon arrived to summon Alize she scrambled to her feet, glad to leave the oppression of pendent hopes behind her.

“Learn anything interesting?” Kell glanced up as Alize entered a room lined with bookshelves. Kell stood over an open tome. His helmet sat discarded on the table and it watched Alize with empty eyes.

“Too much,” Alize sighed. “What’s a Hrumi eidolon?”

Frowning, Kell puffed out his cheeks. “It’s a legend, I’m sure very offensive to the Hrumi, about clan women who took men as lovers, and then disappeared into the steppes, never to be seen again.”

Alize considered this. “It’s probably true. There was a period when the Hrumi tried to bear children to populate the clans.”

When Kell next looked at her, Alize saw his eyes had softened. Since she had arrived in Parousia, he had guarded himself, but for the first time he looked a little relieved. A little calmer. There was something almost welcoming, something Alize could imagine herself wanting to lean into.

“It must have made the men very angry,” Alize offered. She wanted to demonstrate that she too was capable of empathy.

Kell cleared his throat. “Well, the legends mostly recount the encounters themselves, which are painted as…enjoyable,” Kell stammered, “for both parties involved.”

Alize could feel her own cheeks grow hot. Melis had proclaimed Kell wanted an eidolon. Did he think of her that way? They had shared a kiss and Alize remembered the way his hands had trailed down her back. The memory made her heart shudder, like panic. But it was a panic that begged to be revisited; something about it was appealing.

“Who was talking about eidolons?” Kell’s voice sounded a little breathless too. Somehow, that only further stirred Alize’s nerves.

“Melis.”

“Of course.” Kell blinked and his eyes turned dull once more. “And what did you think of her?”

Alize paused to find her voice, to focus on her next words. “She’s a character.”

Melis’s desperation had struck her more than anything, so real, so bitter. The trauma of losing her daughter had wrought something nasty in Melis. “I don’t know who she expects to help her, with all that animosity. She hates the Hrumi for their crime against her and Prince Icar for failing to punish them enough.”

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“She’s not too fond of me either,” Kell added.

Alize winced. She had not intended to broach that subject. “Oh you noticed?” she murmured, trying to make her tone light.

Kell laughed softly. It sounded very precious.

Heartened, Alize continued, “She has twisted the whole world to conform to her anger. Eventually, she will have to choose between what she wants to believe, and what is real.”

“Tell that to the Hrumi too, would you?

Alize pretended she had not heard Kell. “And I confess I don’t understand how she has so much faith that she found her daughter. There can be anywhere between seven and fifteen Hrumi in for any year. If Melis decided based on age alone, chances are that girl is not her daughter.”

“I’m not so sure myself either,” Kell sighed, “Melis, however, is adamant.”

“She says you refuse to look for the scar on the girl’s thigh.”

Kell scoffed, “I doubt you’d be surprised that, upon request, the girl refused to show me. Although you might be surprised that I didn’t have the heart to force her.”

Alize pressed her lips together.

“Anyways, scars can fade. And, frankly, I’m more concerned about the girl – I don’t even know her name, she won’t tell me – because her health is deteriorating. Even after the Hrumi ended their hunger strike, she hasn’t gotten her strength back. So now I’m just making excuses to keep Melis away from her.”

“I don’t think that will work much longer.”

“You may be right,” Kell said dryly. “And that’s how you find me asking a Hrumi for help. If there’s anything you can do, Alize-”

“I don’t need more motivation,” Alize snapped, flustered. And certainly not from a Sargon. But again she regretted her words as Kell’s expression fell. Her rancor was not directed at him, but at the overwhelming weight of responsibility that now rested squarely on her shoulders.

But that did not shield Kell from her unintentional anger. This time he controlled his reaction better, faster, securing the mask over his features more smoothly. “Right.”

Alize exhaled uncomfortably. She watched Kell pull a great tome from his shelf. He thumped it open on the table in front of Alize.

“I thought these might help us understand each other,” he spoke coolly.

Alize flattened her hand over the open page. The parchment felt smooth under her fingertips. Columns of scrawled writing recorded with dates, names, locations, and then long notes in slanted black ink. “These are records?”

“Records of Hrumi kidnappings. When we first brought the clanmembers in from the battlefield, Icar sent to all the provinces requesting copies of their records. We’ve got all of them but Orestar province.”

“How many records are there?”

“Almost three thousand.”

Alize snorted. “There aren’t that many Hrumi.”

“There aren’t that many Hrumi alive,” Kell corrected. “Some of these records go back a fifty years. I thought you’d find them informative.”

“You thought I’d find them convincing,” Alize responded, her tone acrid. But still she flipped through the pages. One of them was bookmarked.

“That’s Melis’s family,” Kell nodded. He spread a set of parchments in front of him as he settled behind his desk.

Alize shifted around the table so her back faced him. She needed privacy to read the details. A five year old girl stolen while her mother washed clothing in the river. Something in the story rang incomplete.

“This is just Sarytash province,” she observed. “Where are the other records?”

Kell gestured to the bookshelf. Outside the sun swooped downwards as Alize poured through the tomes, eventually sifting through all ten volumes, granting each page at least a cursory glance.

The accounts not only accused the Hrumi of stealing daughters, but of poisoning wells, butchering horses and setting settlements alight in the nighttime to burn the occupants alive. The records made monsters of the clans, a thousand demon Nocturnes preying on the steppes.

It hurt Alize to see the allegations against the Hrumi recorded with such dispassionate condemnation. She could raise her voice in dispute, but only Kell would hear her. Her voice could not carry to the future readers. They could never choose to listen to her, even if they wanted to.

Alize read record after record, the lies meticulous in their descriptions and agonizing in their implications. The acts laid at the Hrumi’s feet were not only brutal, they were senseless. No Hrumi would have reason to hack down lemon trees or break irrigation canals. Especially since such crimes drew Sargon persecution without any chance for benefitting the clans.

“Look,” she spoke as Kell began lighting candles. He had made no mention of the encroaching darkness. “This one was me, two summers ago.”

Kell arrived beside her to read aloud. “Sahoor village, West Balanjar. Hrumi pursued by...” Kell whistled, “That’s a lot of Sargons for one person. And the hillside fires too? Let me see the rest of the record.”

“It’s irrelevant,” Alize protested as Kell turned the page back.

He read, “Two-year old abducted from village home, windows shattered, calf found strangled in the yard.” Kell raised his gaze to Alize, his brown eyes wide, “Why would that have been necessary?”

“I didn’t steal a child!” Alize rebuffed, “I didn’t strangle any calves or vandalize their home either!”

“Then why would the record say that?”

“That’s what I’m asking you!”

Kell absorbed her ire wearily. “It must have been another Hrumi.”

“Not there. Not that time of year. It could have only have been me.”

“You’re sure you were near Sahoor two weeks before the autumn equinox?”

“I’m know I was in western Balanjar at the end of that summer.”

“Then,” Kell shook his head, “you’re not certain it was you.”

“You trust a book more than you trust my word?”

“You don’t have any proof!”

“I’m telling you!” Alize exclaimed.

“That doesn’t disprove this kidnapping!” Kell gestured to the book, “your presence in Balanjar doesn’t disprove this family’s account, and I don’t know how it could.”

Alize narrowed her eyes and drew her finger under one line. “Hrumi was described as young, black haired, rounded face.”

“Still doesn’t mean it was you.”

“She was pursued with the hopes of recovering the child,” Alize read, “but escaped after sustaining a wound above her left elbow.”

Alize raised her sleeve to reveal a thin white scar. “That chase was the first time I felt a sword.”

Kell’s mouth dropped slightly open as he glanced between the scar and Alize. “What?” he murmured. Turning to face her fully, he reached out to Alize and his fingers traced over the scar.

Heat shot through Alize where Kell touched her. How could a single glance, a single movement, so completely destabilize her? She remembered Kell slipping his hand behind her head before he kissed her in the tent. Standing this close to him, it would be so easy to press herself against his torso, to wrap her arms around him and breathe that strange and sweet scent of cedar. Alize nearly shook with the thought.

Kell still studied the scar. “A Sargon did that to you?

Alize forced herself to answer Kell’s question, though she could not raise her voice above Kell’s hushed tone. “Do you think I’m lying to you?”

“No.” The lines around Kell’s mouth betrayed his anger, but he did not direct it at Alize. As his fingers flitted over her skin, he raised his eyes to hers. For a moment Alize saw the gentler Kell she had met that autumn.

Abruptly he released her arm and shook his head. “I admit that is compelling, but why would the record keepers falsify a story? What purpose it would it serve? There must have been another Hrumi, the one who did take the little girl.”

Alize bristled. “Then think about it this way: Why would a Hrumi strangle a calf? What purpose does that serve?”

Kell furrowed his brows.

“And think about the Hrumi clans. If all these kidnappings are true, there would be twice as many Hrumi.”

“How many are there?” Kell faced her, his question so earnest Alize could almost sense his ignorance of his ignorance.

She scoffed with frustration. “With all your precious records, you mean to say you don’t know?”

“We’ve assumed there are around two thousand members.”

“Try half that.” Alize had more to say, but she faltered. “At least that’s how many there were before...” her words wilted on her tongue. She did not know how many Hrumi had survived the Temple battle, nor indeed if any had survived at all.

Kell slumped over the tome. “How can that be?” he murmured into the parchment. “I don’t understand.”

Parousia wallowed in the misty darkness that evening. If not for the stale smell of humanity in the streets, Alize could have almost imagined herself in the forest as she and Kell walked back to his residence. Overhead the clouds obscured the constellations and the new stars that still had not faded. Alize imagined them watching the darkness absorb all the light they cast into the world.

They walked alone on the same streets that had been crowded with pedestrians earlier in the day. “Where is everyone?”

“The Old City is under curfew orders.” Kell answered. “No one is permitted outside after sunset unless escorted by a Sargon.”

He wore his Sargon helmet and Alize shuddered each time she looked at him. But like the faceless Deku, she realized she could recognize him even with the mask. She knew him by his restrained gestures, his light steps, or the way he turned his head all the way to look at her whenever she spoke.

And now she understood that his mask allowed them passage in the darkness. “Well, then,” Alize cleared her throat, “thank you, Kelesh.”

Kell shook his head and bent to remove his helmet. “You really don’t have to thank me,” he sighed. Even in such low light, Alize could see the thin gash across his cheek, brutal as scorched earth. “Am I Kelesh now?”

“I don’t know,” Alize frowned, “that’s what everyone calls you. I’ve been saying it too.”

Kell hunched his shoulders and cast his gaze forward duly. “Ah. I see. It’s just as well, I guess.” He remained silent for the remainder of their walk. The world sat so heavy Alize wanted to say something, if only to disturb the night. But again and again her voice failed her.

Kell grasped for his keys as they arrived at his residence, but beside him, Alize shook. She caught his hand, holding it from the keyhole.

Kell regarded her hesitantly.

“Look,” she pointed to the door knob, “It’s already open.”

Alize pushed the door slightly and it swung on its hinges. She and Kell peered into the semi-darkness within. Davram’s voice drifted down the staircase, muffled agony and then a heavy thud. As Alize shifted her gaze to Kell, Davram began to shout.