The mountain rose before Alize by midmorning. The day was unseasonably warm and as she rode to higher elevations the mist from the melting snow clouded everything around her. In the valley below, the trees tops jutted towards the sky like the masts of lost ships. She dismounted Kell’s horse, letting him follow her. The brush crowded tightly the trail, the grasping branches catching her hair and pawing at her shoulders.

A profound sense of isolation absorbed even the wind, as if the whole world were only the ten paces Alize could see before and behind her. The mist curled into the forest, obscuring anything beyond the trail on either side of Alize and she listened again for the trees. Their silence hurt like a physical assault and Alize tried to dismiss her sorrow. But to feel alone in the city was so different from feeling alone in the forest, where she had always belonged.

Iedaja possessed her magic now, and no spells could ever return it. The sooner she accepted that, the sooner the pain would lessen.

If only I could believe that.

Above the tree line, thick lichen blanketed the smooth rocks interrupting the undergrowth. Alize had previously climbed this mountain on days of dazzling sunshine, and she remembered puzzling over the water-intensive fungus on the dry landscape. But with the clouds blanketing the mountain, Alize finally understood the vegetation.

A falcon screech shook her from her musing. On instinct she recoiled, gasping, fearing a Deku falcon hunting for lost prey. But as it disappeared into the mist once more, Alize sighed in relief to see its red tail. It was a Hrumi messenger falcon.

Alize cast her gaze up the trail. Someone was already waiting at the top of the mountain.

But as she took her next step, the dress she wore pulled her back. As Alize steadied herself in confusion, she felt the sharp kiss of cold metal pressed snug against her throat.

“What is a government lady doing so high in the mountains, alone?” a woman inquired in Alize’s ear. She drew out of her words with calm certitude, all the confidence Alize had once possessed with backhanded ease.

Alize gathered her breath. “Do not be deceived by my appearance. I am Hrumi, here seeking my sisters. I bring news of the others held in Parousia.”

The dagger dropped and Alize steadied herself before turning around. When she observed the woman before her, both of them cried out.

“Alize!”

“Sosje! You’re alive!”

Without thinking, Alize pulled her friend into an embrace.

It was not customary among the Hrumi, but Sosje returned her firm grip. “You’re none too soon.”

Alize’s mind reeled. “How long have you had the falcon out?”

“I come here every four days. It’s been a fortnight since we’ve found anyone though.”

“So there are survivors on the outside?”

“Yes. We’re about one hundred.”

“There’s almost one hundred and fifty in the Parousia prison.”

“That many?” Sosje blinked, “that’s more than we dared hope.”

“But, everyone else…”

“Dead, Alize. The Temple Battle was a massacre and we’ve suffered more since then. Come. I’ll take you to the others and you can tell me how you survived that explosion we saw. Have you been all this time in Parousia?”

Alize relaxed her shoulders, realizing only afterwards that she had dreaded Sosje’s assumptions and her accusations. But Sosje had, without any thought, had the decency to ask about her absence. And Alize felt no compunctions in giving her a straight answer.

“No. The Deku captured me after the battle. They held me prisoner in the citadel all this winter.”

Sosje blanched. “The Deku? A curse be upon them. They are assailing us from all sides in our greatest moment of weakness.”

Alize jerked her gaze to her sister. “What are you talking about?”

“They attacked the children’s camp, just after we’d sent our wounded there from the Temple battle. Hardly anyone escaped.”

“It was the Deku who attacked the camp?” Alize repeated in dismay, “I’ve been there – there’s not a soul left.”

“From what I hear, there aren’t many bodies either. Not enough to account for all the women we lost.”

No bodies meant the Deku had taken prisoners, but how many, and why? And where?

Sosje led Alize down the mountain and soon they deviated from the trodden path to forge through the thick alpine vegetation.

“But how could I have not known if the Deku had prisoners in the citadel?!” Alize charged.

“You were a prisoner yourself!”

Alize censored her next thoughts. Her suspicions of the Deku motives stung too deep to reveal before she had more information. “But what could they want from us?”

“We fear,” Sosje began, “they have allied with the princes to rid the land of us.”

“But then why take prisoners to the citadel?” Alize murmured.

“They could sell them to Sargons for the prince’s depravities.”

The accusation perplexed Alize, a tumbling sea of suspicions. “I may be able to find out about that. But wait, Sosje,” Alize reached out to catch her sister’s arm, turning her to face Alize. “You were there, at the Temple.”

“I was,” Sosje saw Alize’s panicked expression and grasped her sister’s hands. “What is it?”

“My dagger. I threw it at the Conjurer…” Alize twisted her hands, “I thought if I found you, you would have taken it, for safe keeping.”

“Your dagger?” Sosje choked. “You don’t have it?”

“No.” Then Sosje did not take it either. Alize closed her eyes, her voice reduced to a whisper. “What will happen to me if I can’t find it?”

“I don’t know Alize. I didn’t know anyone could live this long without her soul.”

“I’ve been experiencing episodes of torpor, for long periods of time.” Alize hated how her voice trembled, “But my dagger must be somewhere.”

Sosje’s forced smile failed to conceal her unease. “Well, at least by all appearances, you have some time to figure it out.” She pointed ahead to a clearing and Alize immediately recognized a Hrumi tent cluster. A little refuge of home still remaining in the world.

“It’s a small group left here,” Sosje was saying, “Benay sent everyone else to collect whatever information we can about Icar’s intention for our captive sisters. Benay!” Sosje called out, “Come see! We’ve found Alize, from the Western Clan. Yes, that one.”

Since leaving the children’s camp after her dagger binding ceremony, Alize had returned only twice to see the Eastern clan. In her avoidance of Celile’s attentive eyes, she had missed the last two dagger binding ceremonies. Celile had offered no objections, though she should have insisted Alize complete her training with the salt runes.

Alize remembered Benay as a rowdy woman, quick to laugh and fearsome with a blade. She had lost two front teeth to a Sargon attack, but her broad smiles were like giant shrugs of good humor to the gods.

But the woman that approached Alize carried her anxiety in her lips, dried and puckered like untended fruit left to shrivel on the vine. Though she greeted Alize with a smile, her gaze remained dim, pusillanimous.

Benay was clan leader to an endangered people. It was a burden that could not be put down.

By the time Alize finished recounting her encounter with the Parousia prisoners, nearly all the women present had gathered to listen. Their eyes blazed with dueling hope and devastation.

“Fergana is from the eastern clan,” Benay murmured. “But why would she be acting leader – I thought they took Essa alive.”

“Essa did not survive,” Alize replied, too conscious about her own censor of Essa’s treatment by the Sargons. “And Fergana doesn’t trust me.”

“If she heard of you at all, it would be from the Western clan members, but they-”

“-watched me kill Celile the day before our clan suffered massive defeat.”

“Even so,” Benay nodded, “you said some women granted you echoes when you visited the jail.”

“Yes, but there was discord. I don’t know enough to understand their reasons, or if it will happen again.”

“But you believe, Alize, that you can save them from the Sargons? Can we release our sisters?” Benay asked.

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Alize sighed. “The Sargons do not speak of releasing us, but neither do they want to kill us.”

“But we can’t rest on that assumption.”

Alize eyed Benay. “You sound like you have a plan?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Benay tried to smile, but it died on her cracked lips, despite the hope in her words. “We have an ally. Walk with me Alize.”

The other Hrumi watched knowingly as Benay led Alize to a tent in the center of the camp. Alize puzzled to see shame marring the clan leader’s faces as she held the flap open. It nearly gave Alize pause. But she sensed Benay’s determination and bowed her head to enter.

In the dim light, a woman hunched over, her long straw hair greasy, caked in dust and dirt. Alize observed the woman’s yellowed fingernails and the chains binding her wrists to rings in the ground.

The woman jolted and faced Alize.

Her eyes were empty as dry seas.

Alize jerked backwards, “A Soulless?! Benay, what have you done?!” Had the Hrumi fallen so far that they would commit such a crime? And for what? Every part of Alize rejected this picture, even as its heart beat in front of her.

“She came to us like this,” Benay responded, taking her seat on the tent floor. She lifted a water skin to the woman’s lips. Most of the water spilled down her tattered dress, but Alize could see the corpse gulping. Benay smoothed down her wild hair, flinching when the woman jerked involuntarily. “He sent her to us so he may speak through her.”

“Who sent her?” Alize demanded. She could not look away from this woman, this perversion of life. It horrified her. At least in the forest, when the Hrumi encountered Soulless, they knew to kill them. A Soulless body was already dead.

Benay met Alize’s eyes. Without her mirth, Alize scarcely recognized the clan leader. “The only Conjurer who stands against the Deku. He is known as the Whisperer.”

“The whisperer?” It took a moment for Alize to remember Onder speaking of such a man. He had called him by his Mirigian name, and had avoided speaking it aloud. “You mean Arouah.” Alize swallowed. Arouah, who, two decades prior, had moved like wind through the east and had left his mark in scrawls of death in every village that hosted him. “Benay, you speak of an evil man-”

“He is cursed Alize, not evil,” Benay said sharply. “And while the Deku destroyed our sanctuary and the princes imprisons our sisters, only he offers us aid.”

“You can’t ally the Hrumi with him! He has committed terrible crimes – and now,” Alize gestured to the Soulless woman, “he is a Soul Eater too? This woman lived once - she a name and the capacity for laughter! He destroyed her soul! This is a husk, this is a profanity! Just like the Kogalok’s brutality!”

“Arouah is a Kogalok, Alize. He is the first Kogalok.” Benay bowed her head to Alize’s accusations.

Alize gaped before finding her voice once more. “Then how can you deny he is evil!?” she asked in disbelief.

“You don’t have to be evil to do evil,” Benay answered, looking up. For the first time, fervor tinged in her voice.

But Alize could not understand how Benay could both defend the Conjurer and condemn his actions.

“The Deku cursed Arouah,” Benay uttered, ”that he could not live unless he took the souls of others, and neither could he control his power or his appetite.”

“A Soul Eater?” Alize frowned, “then why do they call him the Whisperer?”

“Though he could not control his hunger, he did not want an army. He had the bodies execute themselves. Their lives were already forfeit, and to him it was better penance than keeping the bodies.”

Alize shivered. Omurtak’s words from the Temple returned to her, rusty in her memory. Alize had mistaken him for Arouah, for the monster from the Sargons’ stories. Omurtak had laughed at her. Our magics are entangled because we share a curse.

“The governments claim a man defeated him – Omurtak, the Conjurer at the Temple Battle. They still believe him a hero, but how could a non-Hrumi defeat a Soul Eater?” she asked. “And why have I never heard this story from the Hrumi?”

Benay grimaced. “To answer your first question, Hesna. To answer your second, Celile.”

Alize blinked. “What did Hesna have to do with any of this?”

“Hesna and Thrasa, her mentor, they sent themselves on their own missions. Nominally they were part of the Western Clan, but the previous clan leader gave them free reign, provided they go through the orator about anything they wanted to present to the clan.”

“Celile.”

“Yes. And Celile did not approve of the arrangement. She thought Hrumi responsibility lay to the clan alone, not to the prince in the Silver City.”

Alize jerked. “Hesna was in the Silver City?” She should have realized this, from Hesna’s vivid descriptions, but she had never imagined her mentor treading through civilization like she had in the autumn. She had not thought that any Hrumi had that type of choice.

“Yes, with Thrasa, years before you were rescued. That story might interest you. A Deku came to us, came to the children’s camp, to beg for our aid. He needed to reverse a soul trussing. Thrasa and Hesna went with him to the Silver City and came back telling a terrible story. That was when we first learned that the Deku soultrussed the Ginmae. Thrasa claimed this brought everything into question, for we had an alliance with the Deku, to have our camp in their protected mountains. She said we were condoning their actions.”

“There was quite a furor. Thrasa and Hesna demanded we help the Ginmae. But Celillie, after hearing everything, decided that if they wanted to continue their work, they would not involve the rest of the Hrumi. We could not afford to jeopardize our relationship with the Deku, and the security it provided us.”

“But we knew?” Alize asked, “I thought no one knew about Deku soultrussing before the massacre.”

“We knew maybe five years before. And mind you, we felt there was little we could do about it. And perhaps, because we knew that Thrasa and Hesna went to the Silver City often, perhaps we felt that the Hrumi were already doing their part. Celillie certainly ensured that we remained contented in this assumption. So we heard nothing until Arouah was defeated. Even Celile could not entirely stifle the story of the Omurtak’s degeneration.”

Alize’s heart pounded. She had thought all of Hesna’s secrets had died with her. “What did Hesna have to do with that?”

Benay gestured for Alize to settle on the ground next to her. “The Hrumi knew of Arouah, the man who shadowed the daylight and left death in his wake. We thought his executions marked some foul magic – we had never heard of Soul Eating, or indeed anything except soultrussing. So the Hrumi kept their distance, except for Hesna and Thrasa. Surely, they reckoned, even the most thorough of Conjurers would leave some survivors.

“No one but Celile knew how they discovered his Soul Eating magic. It meant our clans were immune, of course. Celile permitted that good news to reach all Hrumi ears. But Hesna and Thrasa remained uneasy. They worried that every soul he took would only make him stronger. And the princes were mounting armies.

“Celile forbid them recount how they found Omurtak. He was a Sargon from Dsarte, a Sargon. I cannot even imagine the risks they faced to ally with him. But together they confronted Arouah, so that the provinces’ armies would be spared.”

Alize could scarcely comprehend this. The Hrumi did not concern themselves with the provinces’ armies, certainly not to defend their well-being. And underlying everything, that brutal question: How could Hesna have kept this from me?

“But still, a man defeated a Kogalok? How?” Alize demanded. A Kogalok had only to make physical connection to a person, and that was enough to eat their soul.

“We have a thousand ideas. The most provocative was that they soultrussed him-“

Alize gaped. “It’s not possible! Rehsan’s soul was meant to strengthen the Hrumi women,” Alize exclaimed, “Hesna could never have soultrussed a man!”

“Oh, Celile would be proud to hear you say that,” Benay answered. “She hated when anyone mentioned this idea, this deviation of Hrumi behavior.”

Alize studied Benay. Does she agree with Celille?

Benay continued. “Celillie acted respectful enough before Thrasa, her elder, but she and Hesna fought bitterly over what had happened. It all culminated with Hesna’s silence, but enough of us could guess that she thought we should have done more.”

“The Ginmae,” Alize whispered, clamping her hand over her mouth, “we could have saved the Ginmae.”

“Yes, and I imagine that motivated much of Hesna’s time in the Silver City. But I don’t think she or Thrasa soultrussed anyone there. They would not have been able to hide that.”

Alize had so many questions, she stumbled over them. “What happened between Omurtak and Arouah? Benay, Omurtak nearly killed me in the Temple!”

“Celile should have warned you,” Benay growled. “The Hrumi have long known that he led the Kogaloks. Whatever happened in that fight twenty years ago, Arouah halted his excursions into the provinces, and together he and Omurtak sought sanctuary instead in the Silver City. The Ginmae Prince invited them. But after the Ginmae massacre, more Soul Eaters appeared in the Ginmae province, albeit on a much smaller scale than Arouah’s assaults. The Hrumi encountered Omurtak himself on many occasions. Whatever power he tried to render from Arouah, it appears he too could not wholly control it, nor could his Soul Eater disciples. He was corrupted.”

“We should have killed them!”

Benay nodded with a thin smile. “Why do you think, Alize, that the Kogaloks never ventured beyond the Ginmae province? The Hrumi could not prevent their brutal harvest there, not without raiding the Silver City itself, but the Eastern Clan contained them, all this time. Perhaps we should have done more, but we still do not clearly understand the nature of this magic. I tried to tell you, in the valley before the Temple, that you would face Omurtak. I had the echoes, I could see him coming. You saved us all, sister, from a Soul Eater ascending to great power.”

Benay reached out to grasp Alize’s hand. “But the land still tilts off-kilter, and Arouah is the only one who even sees it. He has not taken any souls for nearly twenty years. It was his vow, all these years. This woman,” Benay gestured to the Soulless before them, “would have been a child then, so it’s possible it’s true. Arouah is dying of self-inflicted starvation. But now that Omurtak is dead, and Arouah grows in power once more, he seeks to make amends for his crimes. For all the Soul Eater crimes. He pledges to restore the land to balance.”

“And what of her?” Alize gestured to the woman. “Will he return her soul and reverse that crime?”

“No,” Benay said sadly, “You know how a soul eating works. So many years later, it is irreversibly consumed.”

“What a hero,” Alize scoffed.

Benay shook her head. “The Deku must be stopped. This fixates Arouah as it fixated Omurtak. It was their curse that began all of this, and Omurtak sought the echoes to use against them.”

“Retribution,” Alize murmured, remembering Omurtak’s words in the Temple. And we might have been on the same side. Alize shuddered. Omurtak would never have truly defeated the Deku if he had done it using their own weapons, only to brandish them on the rest of the world.

“Listen to me.” Benay took Alize by the shoulders. “Arouah has pledged to send his army to Parousia to free the Hrumi if we will join him against the Deku. Because we protect our souls, we are the only force that can face them.”

“An army,” Alize startled, horrified. “His only army is the Kogaloks! If Arouah sends Soul Eaters, the people of the city would have no weapons to defend themselves. This will be a massacre!

“In exchange for your sisters’ freedom!”

“From a prince who has not killed them! Benay,” Alize could feel her head throbbing. This was not what she wanted to stand for, she wasn’t willing to fight for the chance to massacre civilians. “There are innocent people in that city! If we support the Kogaloks, we would give all the princes’ lies about us true form!”

Benay locked her eyes on Alize. “They do not trouble themselves over our opinions of them, why should we trouble ourselves? If they knew our strength still, surely they would expect our attack as recompense for their actions. This is war. War is not fair.”

Alize thought of Kell, working in the prisons to bring about something better. “But how will we make peace afterwards? In their eyes, Hrumi crimes justify their treatment of our sisters, and Kogalok attack will only reinforce that conviction. Can’t we do something to make them question it instead?”

“You ask me to sacrifice our innocents for theirs?”

“Those aren’t our only choices!”

“They are the only ones I know.” Benay shook her head, her face twisting in pain.

So Benay did not like this plan either. Perhaps then she could be convinced otherwise. If only Alize had something else to offer.

But Benay had moved forward in her thinking. “Alize, talk to Arouah. He will certainly be keen to learn that you have survived.”

Alize faltered. What does Arouah know of me? “Promise me, Benay, that you will not tell him about me.”

Benay rose to her feet. “Tell him about you – of course he knows about you!”

“Excuse me?”

“Alize,” Benay forced another lifeless smile, “Sosje told us how you called the echoes at the Temple. We told him you died and he mourned you. You must talk to him.”

“No!” Alize could not bear to look at the Soulless woman and her gaze of mute surrender. The air in the tent became stifling, and Alize backed out of the doorway, gasping.

Benay followed her with furrowed brows.

“Don’t force me to be his reflection!” Alize yelled. “He doesn’t know me!”

“He can help you!”

“I don’t want his help! He’s a Kogalok!” Alize clamped her jaw shut suddenly, remembering Qaaru’s words against help from the Hrumi. She kicked her foot to the ground and yelled, exhaling her frustration. It did little to improve her mood.

Finally she turned back to Benay. “Give me some time, in Parousia, to seek another way to free our sisters. I have contacts on the inside.”

Benay studied Alize. “There is some time,” she conceded. “The Kogaloks are still mobilizing. And besides, after the attack on the children’s camp, the Hrumi are committed to the fight against the Deku, regardless.”

And then again, the darkness closed in. Alize unleashed her hatred, her sense of impotence, hoping now at least it could help her keep her grip on life.

Benay’s voice echoed across the gaping chasm of her soulless body. “Alize?”

Alize last thought was her own curse offered up to the gods. Nocturne.

It plunged lost into the swarming darkness.