Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Erend didn't want to make this journey.

The inventor, the tinkerer, the guy who had built this world for the Old Ones to study and add to before they too left — The Sun god of the Carja, the lady god of the Nora — he'd take any of them, kneel to any of them, if it meant he didn't have to go north to bury his sister.

Even thinks about it, for a second: asking Avad. The line is fuzzy to Erend sometimes, where Avad the-guy-he-knows, Avad his-sister's-best-friend, and Avad, King Of All Carja, all meet up. If any of those parts add up to make Avad his friend, if Avad can maybe come with him —

No, of course he can't. He goes through the short list of other friends he has in Meridian, but most of them are Vanguard, and he can't ask them. Not because they wouldn't, but because Erend knows that at some point on the trip he will absolutely break down like a baby. Lines between ranks, and all.

It's all coming to an excuse, a reason to invite Aloy — not quite a friend, yet, but something, and hell, he'd feel better with her at his back than any other single person besides his sister — who can never —

But Aloy leaves before nightfall, without more than a word in passing: "Gotta check something out to the south." A pause Erend would go so far as to call awkward, before she'd added: "Sorry about everything."

Avad had been there, and Marad. Avad had asked her to stay, and then promised her welcome in Meridian on her return. More than Erend managed. And then Avad had turned to him, and in a pause just as awkward or worse had finally said, his usual smooth, king of the sun and the Carjatone lacking, "I wish I could travel with you to lay Ersa to rest."

Which meant that Erend couldn't ever mention he'd been trying to plot the same thing, just for the company. Not when Avad actually looked sad about it.

(It was in his head, to think about later. Maybe after that total breakdown. Had Avad been Ersa's type? Later. He'd think about it later, ask Avad about it later. When he could think about Ersa without wanting to weep and drink and throw up: the shards of the woman's skull, her knuckles red and torn to the bone. How light Ersa had felt in his arms, in that underground room. Her gaze unfocused. The smell of that room, still in his throat. You weren't supposed to notice that, think about that. But it had been blood and pus and piss and sweat and mold. Whether Ersa smelled good or bad — he doesn't know, she's his damn sister, who cares — but the sickness and fester had dripped from her. He doesn't want that to be his last memory. The smell, the rotten smell. How when he'd laid her down his palm had come away with blood.

When he could think of her without —

Then, maybe, he can ask Avad. They can talk about her. Erend won't have to tell him those parts, those memories. They can talk about better things than that.)

But then: back in Meridian. The king is looking at him expectant like, and Erend laughs, which comes out painful. "Hey, I'd trade you if I could," he says.

"I would gladly take on that burden," Avad says, instead of the expected-and-wanted oh, no, what a clever funny thing to say, Erend, now off with you — no, now Avad looks sad again, and, hell. Erend doesn't want to feel sorry for the guy, not when it's his sister, his. Ersa belongs to him, not some king, even if they were really good friends, started a revolution together, even if Avad is oh-for-four in terms of family members he has at his side, one of whom he killed himself, none whom had funerals.

He'll be selfless about it later. Right now, Ersa is his, and he'll bring her back home.

With only that limited resolve, brotherly spite against Avad driving him from Meridian, Erend doesn't get far fast. He stretches out the journey to Pitchcliff, where he'd dispatched his men to bring her after — clinging on to her last words and Aloy's clues.

(Get to Meridian. Protect your king. Live up to Ersa, do her right — get out, get out, go, leave that underground room, the blood wiped on your leg, the sight of her, leave it for Meridian and duty. Leave it before it wedges deeper into you, replacing her memory, replacing:

The time he found her kissing Dorin behind the smokehouse.

The time his father had made him cry and Ersa had scooped him up and held him, barely larger than he was, glaring at their father over his shoulder.

The time they ate half a pot of honey together before being caught.

The time they went fishing in the river.

The first time he beat her at swords. the first time he beat her at strength. The first time he glanced over at her and found he'd grown taller.

The time she'd come walking up the mountain from Carja lands, six months after her funeral.

Leave, leave that stone room, that sick smell, that frail body. Keep the memories of the fish and that honey-thievery hiding, the way Ersa's eyes would narrow when she thought she was withholding her emotions: keep those. Flee the rest. Flee them before they trap you in a bottle of ale.)

So he lingers his way north. Here's a stream. Are there fish? He tells himself it's in honor of her memory. Here's a Longleg. Has it seen him? He'll slay it for Ersa. As long as he keeps going north he's fulfilling his duty. He tells himself he's honoring her.

It's not all selfless, not all pining. It's selfish, very selfish. Erend doesn't want to see her… like that. Broken. Rotting. Drying, mummifying on her way to bones. And his head aches and he feels physically ill the longer he travels. It's not grief. He hasn't had a drink in days. He dunks his head in those mountain streams, drinks his fill of clean water. Doesn't help.

At least he'll make it to Pitchcliff honestly and truly sober.

Eight days alone, a shamefully slow pace for a soldier, and the first cut trees and lookout posts. He's still a few hours from the village and now at last he hurries, now that there's smoke in the distance and the sun starting to fall. Closer to Pitchcliff: rocky farms, nets in the stream, mills with hand labor and mills in the currents. A group of men butchering a Sawtooth. Up the steps of the mountain: sullen men selling furs, women rummaging through unripe fruit. Geese underfoot. Not much of a market today. He should feel at home, no Carja in sight, but the thudding in Erend's head grows with each step. He knows exactly where the inns are. Exactly where the best ale can be found. Wouldn't it be better? To face Ersa with some courage, with some substance? To not reunite with her as this new, empty Erend? He feels transparent, hollow boned, angry at anyone in a hurry or at a task or alive, here, so close to Ersa's body.

Goose Shin inn. Inevitably redubbed goose shit. Good ale, honey mead from the north. And his family owns apiaries, don't they? Some old story, nothing to be proud of: no, we couldn't forge and we couldn't fight, but we had bees and land and it's that name you inherit from your useless father — Wouldn't it be good, be right, to go see her with mead in his belly?

Yes; of course. He's made up his mind but he doesn't move — and then Erend takes a great breath and turns the other way. He's not sure where they brought Ersa, except that there are always chambers in Oseram villages, chambers with stone tunnels piping in smoke from the forge so the dead can rest in the dry heat until brought to the family cairn in the stone and snow. Warmth and then coldness, life and death, and all that. But when he finds Pitchcliff's crypt, the guide, salt on her hands, greets him with puzzlement. "Ersa," he says. "You know her." She must; everyone knows Ersa. He wants everyone to know his sister. "I told my men to bring her here."

"Ye- es," the woman says. Her face is puffy, round, her skin covered in pocks from too much salt and nitrate. Erend hates her, irrationally. Can't she see how he's here? Sober? "But she wasn't brought here."

"Well, why the hell not?" he demands, hating the woman and her confusion and the way her eyes keep darting around like she's looking for someone else she can speak to instead.

"You don't know? I thought messengers —"

He's had it. Had it. He's going to Goose Shit Inn and having a drink, and then another, and then a third, until he's himself again and has the nerve to go further north, kick apart Dervahl's camp stone by stone, cracked the skulls of his men who lost her, and found his sister. Take her north. Take her home. Celebrate her life, that time he won a greased goose contest as she screamed with laughter, not this. Confusion. People talking around him. The smell from the crypts, half imagined under the salt and nitrate.

"Wait!" the attendant says; he's already backed down the top two steps. "Erend Vanguardsman! She's not here because she isn't dead!"

(Her memory —

The room, underground, dark, blood on his palm, a skull chipped and bloody —

What?)

It's good he's still facing up, hadn't turned to go down the stairs: Erend pitches forward, would have fallen. Cracks his knee. She grabs at him for balance and he grabs at her, this woman whose name he never bothered to ask. "Not funny," he says, although he's not sure how he finds the breath.

"They were shocked when she woke, four days ago," she says, rough hand on his chest, pushing at him as he regains his footing. "Everyone was talking about it. I thought word had been sent to Meridian."

Four days ago. Four days ago, his head was in a stream. He was wandering north. Had he hurried, had he kept a decent pace, he would have been there for it. Her eyes fluttering open like in a children's tale. She'd whisper for him and he'd tell her — don't worry, sis. I did my duty.

Upright, but now he leans heavy against the stone wall. "She's dead," he says. "She died in my arms. I saw it. I was there."

Weeks of mourning. A funeral for someone else's body. Aloy, in moments, casting her gaze at the story and tearing it to threads. And then as though the machine-maker did truly exist, as though he had seen a snag in his device: she was dead. Again. Here and then gone.

"I don't know," the woman says gently. "I know she was brought here a few weeks ago in a terrible state, brought here because no one thought she'd last the night."

But of course she did. His heart rises, swings back, the doubts falling, the simple mechanism that controls the great elevators of Meridian. Rise and fall. Ersa? Die? Just like that? Of course — of course not. Last a night? Ersa? Easy! Easy for her!

"I have to go see her," he says dizzily, trying to tear his fingers into the limestone, tear it like bread. "Where is she?"

The woman wipes her hands on her apron and brings him through Pitchcliff, to the Aldorman's hall. Of course. There are guards; she pushes them through, argues her way past a line. Erend follows in a daze. There's Ralert, eating dinner while arguing with two other men: he waves a gooseleg like a sword.

"Agat!" he shouts, "is my brother finally ready for burial?"

"That's not why I'm here," Agat says. Her name is Agat. Her parents named her for the stone. Common enough, maybe better than Erend's name, although at least he has it in common with Ersa —

"Where's my sister?" he demands, stepping past the embalmer.

"Erend Vanguardsman," Ralert says. "Thanks for your help with Dervahl's men and the Glinthawks." That was Aloy, before he'd even gotten up here: he doesn't care. Whatever. Let him have more credit, more credit he doesn't at all deserve. Dervahl? Not dead. Ersa? Alive and he hadn't known. Everything is backwards. Twisted.

"Where is she?" he says again, his voice rough with that promised breakdown.

"Here," a woman at the table — Ralert's young wife, he guesses — says, standing. "This way."

Agat tags along; Ralert's wife leads them into the house, up the stairs. Big house, entryroom and then main room and twisting stairs to sleeping quarters. This kind of manor, it's only one or two people per room; wealth flaunted by the privacy. Ersa is on the second floor, which is respectful: a small room, not enough space for all of them. Ralert's wife waits outside. Agat pushes her way in.

There's a cot against the wall, and on it lies Ersa.

Erend sits down heavy, almost falls, onto the one stool. Limbs and boots and his hammer, he loses track of all of them — Agat is holding his hammer, there, that's one thing, then. Machine core light casts a bluish glow. Ersa looks as he'd imagined.

Which was to say: she looks dead.

He's pictured her small and skeletal in his nightmares, flesh rotting from her face. That hadn't been true in the room, but it had been prophecy: in her weeks of convalescence, she's lost weight, enough to leave her round face all angles and bones. Her hair is gone, replaced by a soft fuzz that doesn't hide three new scars: crown, forehead, temple. Erend can recognize the star shape of a mace. One of her arms is in a cloth cast, a linen wrap tying it over her chest: he doesn't remember a broken arm. The bed is tidy, almost unrumpled, an occupant that doesn't often move. Her chest is moving. Her eyes fluttering under lid. She has wounds and scars, but nothing bleeding.

"Ersa," he says. He reaches out, pulls back. Reaches, touches her other hand, lying at her side. She's warm, limp and fragile. "Ersa," he says, maybe two or ten times more.

"What's with her arm?" Agat whispers. In the silence of the tiny sickchamber, it carries well.

"It had been broken and set badly. The healer had to break it again," whispers Ralert's wife.

This meant that Ersa would use it again. You don't fix arms that won't be needed. You just don't. It's pointless. It's her sword arm, after all, her fighting arm. Ersa will need it, when she recovers.

She's alive.

Now it hits him, this is what hits him, and now Erend starts to weep. Silently for a moment, the opening of a sluice: she's alive, and her arm is being set for her, and tears are rolling down his face, onto his lips and into his mouth.

"I thought she'd woken," says Agat.

"Yes, but she still sleeps most of the day. It's been slow."

"Ersa," he says again, having lost every single one of his other words. He squeezes her hand. It's so small and fragile, bird bones cracking; he doesn't want to hurt her but he does, if it wakes her up.

"Hey, sleeping princess," says Agat loudly. Until now the women have been ignoring his tears, his loud and unsteady breathing, but Agat lays her hand on his shoulder for a moment and it's nice. He squeezes Ersa's hand, and then her wrist because he's so frightened he'll crush it, even though she's been beating his ass in almost all tests of skill since she was twelve. Skill, but not strength: I'm glad I have you, she'd told him once; joking. I get much better practicing against a machine-strong idiot.

Strength and skill. See? See, Ersa? This is why you need to be alive, why you are alive. The flaw in the Tinkerer's machine he had to fix: your death. Your death was the flaw. What's strength without skill?

He says her name again, louder, and —

at last

— finally, Ersa stirs. Opens her gray eyes. He's leaning over her now, crying right onto her face, and she flinches her eyes shut at one tear. Opens slowly. Her gaze unfocused. It's just like before, same scene, same story — she'll die, right now, he's briefly sure of it.

Another tear drop lands on her face. Next to her nose. She flinches on reflex, turns her head away. A tired ghost of a frown: her impatient look, her okay, that's quite enough of that look. Erend thinks suddenly to Aloy, who gets almost the same look in her eyes. He'd never noticed it before. Can we be talking about something else?

He wants Ersa to scold him, like she always has. Grins, expecting it, his expression trembling. Wipes his face with his sleeve.

"Hey," she says gently. Doesn't scold him.

Her voice is hoarse, unused. Soft. Thin as the rest of her.

"I - I did my duty," he says. Needs to make this big, important. A grand moment. A burden from her shoulders. So if she does — so she won't worry. This fragile woman who is his sister. "Dervahl's been stopped for good. Avad's okay. Everyone -" the knot, the cough in his throat, back up again, his gaze swimming, "everyone's fine."

"I know, idiot," she says. He smiles, stronger. Her eyes drop closed. She knows. Someone told her; she hadn't worried. Good. Good. Fire and spit and sun, she's alive, and —

"What did you expect?" Ersa continues, her eyes still closed. She smiles faintly. "You're my little brother."

Chapter Text

She drifts for a long time. Moments of sharp pain, blurry vision. Sensations of pain, sharp, dull, hot, cold. Faces above her, lips moving. She can't hear.

Then she wakes and is awake, not just breathing and sometimes swallowing some liquid, blurred faces above her: a shutter flies open. Her name is Ersa. She is awake.

It doesn't last. Not long. But it happens more frequently. A room at night. Dark. Dull throbbing pain. A room in daylight. A draft. Dull throbbing pain. When she tries to think, it slips away with her. There are images:

Someone she loves turns to her smiling. His lips move. My little brother. She can't hear what he's saying. There is tall grass around them. They are walking, she swats at bugs. The bugs keep landing, biting. He doesn't see, he's talking. She can't hear. The pain is worse, is worse —

Someone she loves is showing her a metal device. Some useless fancy, a box with a mechanism; press here and it unfolds and opens. He's smiling, excited to show her. Presses the button and there's a shriek of sound, and endless wall, she can't move but needs to cover her ears, needs to escape, he's smiling, smiling —

Someone is hurting her hurting her hurting —

Even memories of pain are distant. When she tries to think about it, hear what's being said, think beyond two word sentences, her mind skips and repeats. She and Erend walk in the field. He points. She tries to see where he's pointing: it restarts. Walking. Field. Pointing. Mechanical boxes unfolding like flowers.

She sleeps.

It gets better.

Her thoughts travel farther, her memories gain audio and texture. She wants things now, beyond no pain and water and broth. She wants to move. To listen to people speak. She wants to sit up, she would give her mangled arm to sit up.

Ralert's wife Tanda tends to her. Soothes her when she gets antsy, impatience — normal — translating to quick and hot anger, rage. Not normal. No, she won't stay still. No. No. I won't die here. I won't die a captive. I will never die a captive.

"You're not, you're not, you're sick," the girl tells her, over and over, until Ersa remembers, usually from the pain of trying to move. Until she forgets again. Tanda is much too young to be a wife, but she's sweet. She wants a baby. She likes to carve little animals from wood, sits on the stool and talks to Ersa and carves rabbits. Ersa tries not to get angry at her. She does anyway.

She's sick.

There's a ringing noise in her ear, always. She's been hit by a Longleg blast: it's like that, softer, constant, ringing in her right ear day and night. Only her right ear. Her left no longer works.

Her vision seems fine, but she gets headaches when she looks at things too long: the ceiling, the blanket, the light from the window, Tanda's carvings. Dizzy when she tries to sit up. Tanda reminds her to eat, Ersa can see from her wrists she's gotten thin, but food goes down with difficulty and often comes back painfully soon after. Tires her out.

Other things are fixed more easily. Her arm had been broken badly when she was captured — she has a flash, a memory of lying in the dirt, a boot stamping, a sneer — and never set. She'd babied it as best she could. It didn't help. A healer comes in after she wakes up and snaps it for her again, twice. Same healer pulls the shards of three teeth from the back of her mouth, where they'd throbbed and bled and cut for months.

Her ribs are healing, don't bother her so long as she doesn't move them too much. A dislocated shoulder on her left arm? Nothing. Not even the first time. The blisters and raw flesh were healing. Infections no longer seeping. The bruises were gone.

He hadn't been in any hurry to kill her.

He. Dervahl.

She won't let him win. She won't. But even he, the pronoun, the flash in her mind — her body goes tight and she loses her air. The ringing in her ear gets louder. Of course she'd tried to escape. He hadn't even tied her up. Try it, he'd said, calmly. Go ahead. I want you to really understand that you're going to die here. Whore.

So of course she'd decided: I won't.

And: Try me.

"I should have gotten here sooner," Erend says.

Ersa keeps her eyes closed; her face is drawn, but not relaxed in sleep. She keeps her head tilted to the side, her left ear pressed to the pillow. He doesn't know yet she can only hear on the right. A small thing. Another tiny blow. How is it possible that his sister can be so fragile?

He thinks that now, too, looking at her exposed right ear. She wore earrings sometimes. Not now. Someone had torn the jewelry out, leaving a gash through her lobe. He can't remember what she'd been wearing there before, last time he'd seen her, before. Some kind of stud? Easier to think about than that raw skin, the thin red line turning the hole to channel.

"I'm sorry," Erend says.

"I - you know me. I screwed up," Erend says.

"I did everything okay in Meridian," Erend says, "mostly cuz of Aloy, and then I just wandered around like a drunk fool - wasn't even drunk, swear it, even worse."

"I just," Erend says.

Wipes his face again. He'd give his ear, both of his ears, any part of him anyone cared to name. He's happier than he's been in months, just look — look! — she breathes! — and yet there's something thin and desperate in him, she's so damn small. There must be the right words somewhere. He keeps trying them out, waiting eager for her to scold him, open her eyes and be back to herself. "I shouldn't have just left you. I thought you were dead and it was like everything went dark on me, all I could do was run back to Meridian like some damn coward, instead of stay with you."

"I told you to go to Meridian," Ersa says at last. She opens her eyes again; they're heavy, she keeps letting them close and blinking open again, as though all she wants is to sleep. As though she's fighting.

"Doesn't matter," Erend says firmly. "I shouldn't have left you, not when you were still…" he trails off, feeling himself grin again.

"And left the king to die?" The scolding he's been after. But in his head it's not been this scolding.

(In his head: Erend: I am a fool.

Ersa: Yes, little brother, you certainly are. Oh well. I'll take care of you.

Erend: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Ersa: You're welcome.)

Ersa steels herself, pushes herself upright. Slightly. Erend helps when he sees what she's doing, uses her pillow as a wedge so that instead of lying flat she's raised about a foot, her head resting carefully against the wall behind her. Her expression is pained. He hates that sitting up took so much out of her, her unbroken hand clenching at her blanket as she concentrates on remaining conscious. Maybe another pillow? He turns behind him, notices for the first time that Agat and Ralert's wife have left them. Well.

"Shit," Ersa murmurs to herself, eyes closed.

"Are you okay?"

"I get so dizzy." Another fortifying breath. She opens her eyes. "I want you to listen to me, because I can't say it twice." She pauses, giving Erend the critical look he knows well — the I have an idea, and are you going to be game for it? look. Ersa was always full of ideas, full of plans. From forming their own Freebooter unit when the established ones didn't want them, to patrolling the very southern border past where it was safe. To overthrowing the Mad King and putting Avad in his place.

To meeting Dervahl with only a few men, knowing it was a trap.

Erend, he's not really the ideas kind of guy. He's bright enough, pretty sure, but not the way the guys — and women — around him shine, like Watcher beams in the night, reforming society and seeing secret paths and clues. Give him a problem and he'll solve it best he can. Fine enough. Give him an order and he'll do it. Be game for it. For anything Ersa suggests.

He relies on it, needs it. Hadn't he just been months without? A lost, incoherent mess? Useless drunk and near as useless sober, while Aloy arrives out of nowhere and solves all his problems, performs all his duties, protects his damn king while he lies there, seconds too late? And now he has Ersa back, and she'll be Captain again and he'll be better too, now that she can keep him right.

Had Ersa told him, he would have walked right into that trap with her. No question.

He's game for it. "Of course, you bet," he says. "Anything."

And it's like she knows his mind, because what she says is: "You need to let go of me."

Erend immediately looks down, but he's no longer clutching at her hand. She sees it and her mouth curls in a smile. Then drops. "You guarded your king. You saved Meridian."

"I don't care about that," he says. He does, of course. Obviously. Likes Avad more than any other Carja he's met, easy enough. Likes the end of the Red Raids, the way the bad Carja are off rotting in the desert. But.

"You should," she says. "Because that was you. Not me."

He considers it. "You're not feeling guilty, are you?"

She exhales loudly, closes her eyes. "My Vanguard days are over," she says, softer. "You're not off the hook just because I'm not dead, little brother."

"Don't say that." Her thin face, sharp bones. Those red wounds on her head, the channel of her ear. Tries to tell himself: it's the blue machine light, washing her out. It's not that bad. "You'll be back to yourself in no time."

"I'm tired," Ersa says. "We can talk more tomorrow."

She's changing the subject, blowing him off. He's not stupid. He knows that. But: yes! Yes. We can talk more tomorrow! She's alive, his sister. Everything else will pass. He came to Pitchcliff to bring her home to burial; now he will speak to her tomorrow. Self doubt? Easy. Everything feels easy now. "Got it," he says. Doesn't stand yet; his fingers fisting on his legs. "I love you," he says. Not something they say much: something he knows in his bones, it's beyond saying.

"Love you too," Ersa says, slumping back in her sickbed. "Tomorrow."

Agat is now sitting at the Alderman's dinner table, chatting with Ralert and his wife.

"We sent word to Meridian," Ralert says, sounding edgy and defensive.

"I must have passed them on my way," Erend says gruffly, meaning: while I was wallowing around, pretending to avenge Ersa with Watcher kills. He sits at the table too; Ralert's young wife — Tanda, he asks — fetches him a cup of ale.

He eyes it. Now: now is the time. Drinking away his feelings? Bad. Terrible. Cowardly. But drinking to celebrate? Everyone does. Ersa does. He's even seen Avad take a second glass of wine — and who has more to celebrate? More than him? His fingers curl around the wooden cup.

"What now?" Agat asks, keeping herself part of the day's events. Not common for an embalmer to find herself at the mayor's table, with the Sun King's captain. Now much less inclined to hate her on principle, Erend admires her sheer nerve.

"Of course the Captain is welcome to rely on my hospitality as long as she needs," Ralert says. "Tanda, get him some food. But the costs of the healers — I don't mean to be crass, but your sister's care is costly."

He doesn't like Ralert. Ralert should bankrupt himself for Ersa if he must.

"We'll go back to Meridian, when she's well enough to travel," Erend says. "She'll want that anyway." Two directions: north and south. North is home, Deepvein, which doesn't feel much like home. There's a house, a crumbling clan home. Their father rattling about drunk and raving. He raises the cup to his lips and lowers it again. Dad always smells like sick and ale. South is Meridian. Carja and heat and noise, but friends and Vanguard. Avad too. If shards are really such an issue, the Sun King surely —

Avad. Shit.

Now that Ersa isn't dead, Erend is generous: the Carja king can have share over her, can be eager to hear the good news, see her again. Avad can be his sister's best friend now that she's alive: hell, if Avad was here, Erend might hug him. Would hug him. Hell! Of course he would! These folks at this table aren't surprised, don't understand; they knew she was alive all along. He needs more than that. To tell someone else and have them understand!

He's grinning to himself.

"What?" Ralert asks. "My finances that funny?"

"No," he says. "How soon do you think Ersa can travel?"

"A week, perhaps," says Tanda. "If she has a cart."

He looks at Ralert. "We have carts," he admits. That just leaves the men to pull them. The roads to take. Guards, for the cart and the men: he's not taking any risks with Ersa. Ersa: if he knows her (he does), she will not want to be pulled lying still in a cart. Appeals to her good sense? Will that win over her pride? Maybe. Not always. He catches himself smiling again.

"I'll stay with you guys until she's ready to go," Erend says, careful not to ask.

To his credit: "Of course," Ralert says. "There's room in the men's quarters on the third floor." So he doesn't get a private room. Oh well, not like Erend isn't used to that.

"There's a trading caravan due from Freeheap in three days time," Agat says. "They make a triangle, Freeheap to Pitchcliff to Meridian."

Ralert scoffs. "Aye, and they come to us with just the scraps. These new caravans, they don't care about Oseram goods, just want Carja glass and Carja fruits. We buy good steel and good tools from up north, but if it doesn't have pretty little carvings, no one gives a shit. Oseram in the Sundom," he spits.

Erend is an Oseram in the Sundom. So is Ralert, for that matter. He doesn't care much about trade caravans, but that they're always guarded. What would one more cart be?

"I don't know that your sister will be well enough to travel in only three days," Tanda says. She is blushing: she loves Carja carvings, practices in the style. All those fine details, thin lines!

"She'll manage the journey better if a healer comes along," says Agat, smug.

"I can guess," Erend says with a surprised laugh.

"Who wants to be an embalmer forever? I've wanted to move to Meridian for months now."

The Nora girl talks to herself. It's… odd, to be sure. Perhaps it's just something Nora do. It isn't as though Kol knows: he's a Kestrel. He guards the palace and the king. Everything else is beyond him.

His Radiance had made a command: Aloy has saved my life, and more than that, the lives of all in Meridian, from the plot of the traitor Dervahl. She will be given free entry anywhere in the royal city she so pleases. So it was. But so too is the Nora girl, on the Royal Bridge.

Talking to herself.

"Leave me alone," she says. Her voice is lowered, not enough. Her hand at her ear, bruises on her cheekbone, nose, and lip. Looking as though she's come out the loser in a fight with a Snapmaw, although Kol was there when it was her and those Glinthawks. Who knows.

She huffs at the air, paces on the bridge. Lady and Lord Khal-Maized pass by, and she is oblivious. "I know it's important. But I fell off a cliff and it hurt, no thanks to you. I can't sneak into anywhere with a limp. I'll head there in a few days, not like I even need to explain myself to — ugh, sure. Just go away while I'm talking. What a surprise," the Nora mutters, quiet voice, as though now she isn't keen to be witnessed arguing with the air around her.

Kol hates to do it. He's a guard. Good guard. Would give his life for his King, serve him unquestioning. His Radiance says strange Nora girls can wander in and out of his Sacred Palace? It is not for Kol to question the Sun.

Still: he is not eager to clear his throat. Approach the Nora. Her hand no longer on her ear, now pulling her hair back, trying to rein it under some form of control. Good luck to her. "Aloy of the Nora," he says. "We were given orders by His Radiance the Sun King to be on the lookout for you. He wishes to speak with you."

"Oh. Good," the Nora says, just now noticing him, pulled from her conversation with the air. "I wanted to ask him about places to stay in the city."

Kol gapes. Stares. Bewildered. That the Sun King! His Radiance! Would be the one — who would even deign himself to know the names of inns! Inns! Of course, Kol knows many. Frequents them. But he's a guard. He could tell her himself, but — by the Sun, the Nora is crazy.

And walking past him.

She has free run of Meridian. He still stamps after her, noisy, more than he needs to. He wants her to know he's still present, following her into the palace. She doesn't even wait for an introduction, an announcement of her presence. His Radiance is on his terrace; she walks just past the guards.

Kol, however, cannot. He stamps his spear resentfully, falls into place among the other guard. The Sun's light is blinding, and not all can perceive His workings. His Radiance must have a reason for allowing such a — strange. Strange, strange woman. Into his presence. It is not for Kol to understand.

His Radiance stands politely. "Aloy! You've returned to Meridian much sooner than I had believed you would."

"Yeah," she says. Kol and the other guards hold themselves still. Do not listen, even if hearing is unavoidable. That is the privilege of being Kestrel for the Sun-King: to be invisible. But. He listens anyway. This time. "I bruised something pretty bad. I thought I could use a couple of days to recover."

"Of course," His Radiance says. "You're bruised. What happened?"

Would that the Sun King spoke to Kol with such concern! The Nora girl waves it off. "Long story. It's not a big deal. Did you want to talk to me about something?" And she's so rude! The Sun-King, showing concern, and she fails to show the proper gratitude!

"Yes," His Radiance says. "Ersa lives still!" Beat. Where the Nora continues to not treat the Sun-King with the proper respect. Kol sneaks a glance: she has taken one of the wet clothes provided for the Sun-King's refreshment, the cool ones soaked in rose water, and has it pressed against the cut on her cheek. Her expression bland.

"We received word from Pitchcliff two days ago," His Radiance continues. Smiling. Smiling! And the Nora girl still —! "She survived her attack and is recovering well. Erend must have just missed the messengers."

"That's great," Aloy says.

"Forgive me. In my excitement to share the news, I forget that you do not really know her." His Radiance sits back down, although the Nora girl remains rudely standing. "But now you will have that chance. You remind me much of her; I am certain she will like you, and you her." Silence. "Forgive me if I presume too much, but I thought you'd … be more relieved by this news."

"That's not it," the Nora says. "I am happy for the both of you. And for her. I know… what it's like, to lose someone."

"Of course."

"But is it really a huge surprise?"

"Yes!" His Radiance, in his grace, is amused by the contradiction, the challenge to his own feelings. They'd been touched, all the guards, to learn of the Sun-King's devotion to one of their own. Ersa was that, even though a woman: their fellow guard. Comrade in arms. Kol knows her a little; he'd been saddened by her death as much as any man. Of course. He flatters himself that were he to fall in battle, the Sun-King would mourn him too. Such a benevolent ruler!

"I have barely been able to sleep these past few days," his Radiance admits. Admits: he sleeps! Like a man! "The news strikes me again and again. I had thought Ersa lost twice. And you're unsurprised?"

"Well…" the Nora considers it. Laughs, under her breath. "Erend's told me that I remind him of Ersa, too. If it were me, I wouldn't have want to just die in there." She shrugs. "So of course she didn't."

The rudeness! The cheek!

Chapter Text

The bow pulls smooth as water. No hesitating, no catching on the last stretch — Aloy pulls and hardly feels the strain. Releases too soft. Her arrow nicks the outer edge of the target.

"And here I thought you never missed," Talanah says laughing.

"It's this bow," Aloy grumbles.

"What do you think?"

Aloy grunts noncommittally. Talanah draws her own bow, fires. Dead center. Even worse. Aloy notches a second shot. This time she's prepared for the release, and her arrow lands closer to the center. Still a little off. "It's too light," she complains.

"It's just different, Thrush o' mine," Talanah teases. "This is why I wanted you to try it. You're excellent with your bow, but you need more than mastery of one weapon."

Aloy can argue: I have a spear. I have my Tripcaster. She enjoys picking up all the various Carja toys, learning their intents, putting them to use; it keeps her mind occupied, finding the best ways, in the way it used to keep her mind occupied to set cleaner snares or learn the differences between the trees by her home. It isn't that she needs to. Rost would sit happily looking at the sunset in the evening, a cooling mug of tea in his hands. Not a thought in his mind: she'd asked. Never understood it. Being able to open your heart up to All-Mother's beauty brings peace.

She can hear his voice like it's just rung out. Sitting beside him, bored. Looking at him like it'll get her to understand. The sunset reflected in his eyes.

She unstrings the bow; takes her time. Fusses to have something to look at. "It's a good bow," she says, rough. "But I made my bow."

"You're attached, I know," Talanah says. She's hit the target twice more meanwhile.

"It's better," Aloy says, stubborn.

"Okay," Talanah laughs. "Do you want to hunt with me tomorrow? Or are you still recovering from your injuries?" With a teasing lilt: Aloy still has lingering scrapes, but just two days of rest have done wonders for her bruises and overall mood. Yes. Sure. It wasn't exactly Sylens's fault she'd been caught. That HADES had been there, at the Tallneck. The escape had been all adrenaline and instinct. She'd thought she'd made it out — and the rope had snapped.

Her heart, stopped.

It was like the Proving. Falling. Fire above. Water, not snow. She'd been closer to the ground; gasping and bruised but unbroken. And then Sylens again: Now to Sunfall! Get yourself killed for me!

She'll get herself killed for Elisabet, maybe. Not him.

When she's good and ready.

Aloy doesn't want to admit she's essentially in Meridian having a good sulk, licking her wounds. Tells herself: no sense in sneaking into the enemy capital without being prepared. Full strength. Who knows what will happen. Close isn't good enough. Must be perfect.

She thinks Talanah has figured it out, though. "Sure," she says. "It'll be good to get out and have some room to breathe away from all these people."

"You're still not used to it?"

Obviously not. Aloy picks her own bow back up, the one she made, labored over for weeks, Rost barely helping. Strings it. Sets three arrows into the dirt.

Bullseye. "It's so loud all the time. And smelly." Bullseye. "I've been staying in this inn Avad told me about, and the beds are way too soft. Too many pillows and blankets." Bullseye. "I don't mindsilk, but you Carja are ridiculous." She touches the silk she has around her neck. Remembers the excitement the first time Karst had had some to sell. Begging Rost. She'd never felt anything so soft, seen anything so blue.

"I'm sure the Sun-King probably recommended one of the most expensive inns in the city," Talanah points out. "There are definitely others, not that he'd know."

"He offered a room in his palace first," Aloy admits. It hadn't taken her long to reject that one.

Talanah laughs. "Did you know I know him a little? We're around the same age. All the noble kids would get together for parties, network, form alliances. I hated them."

"I'll bet," Aloy says. "You're not noble at all."

"Watch it, Thrush," Talanah says. "Anyhow, his brother would always be the center of attention, and Avad would always be sneaking off to read a book. He's a good king, but he's clueless. Don't hold it against him."

"I won't," Aloy says. Confused. Why does she need a lesson on Avad? What's with Talanah's knowing look? It's not like she knows the king all that well. She saved his life, but it wasn't … personal. And he does seem decent, but so what? Also: what does that have to do with reading books?

"I've heard Stalkers have been creeping up on the Maizelands," Talanah says. "I say plural, but you know how it is. It could be anything from ten Stalkers to a wild turkey. But if you're up for it, I'd love to take it down."

"Sounds like fun," Aloy says. They're leaving the training yard now, heading back into the Hunter's Lodge proper. Aloy's gotten less looks lately — the kind of judging stare she's been facing all her life. Does that mean she's being accepted? Talanah is downright ignored. "There aren't many of those in the Sacred Lands."

"Nor here until recently. They're easier if you knock that invisibility thingy off of them, but I have dreams," Talanah mimes notching an arrow, "where I shoot into nothingness and bam! Dead Stalker. They say the best hunters can fight blind."

"I'm not too sure about that," Aloy says, thinking of her Focus.

It's two Stalkers. Not a wild turkey. The moment Aloy takes down the first one — only for the telltale shriek and an oily black shape to appear just to her left, struck aside by Talanah — it's thrilling. Her heart pounding. All instinct, all movement. Aloy comes away with a large handful of high-grade wire; Talanah takes the valuable bits, dues for the Lodge. They head giddy back into Meridian.

Two days after, she needs to get moving to Sunfall. Wants to. Wants to see Elisabet, find her. There's nowhere else to look. She dreams of falling off mountains. Helis, his hand around her throat. She's not scared. She just… needs to be prepared. Properly.

Talanah asks her to look with her at some Glinthawk attacks in Lone Light. Easy. And she likes fighting with Talanah, the easy wordless communication. Her high expectations. Aloy's own drive to get better. Glinthawks turn into Snapmaws; it's three days before they return to Meridian. Now she really must go north, she's thinking on her way back to the city. Today? Tomorrow? If she buys food, restocks her stores, she can still make a few hour's progress. Yes: best to do that. No more novelty in keeping Sylens impatient and waiting. Just some food for the road, and then northward.

There is a crowd gathered outside the city.

The evening that Aloy arrives in Lone Light, Erend is lying on his back, looking at the stars.

Trade caravans move slow. It takes Erend eight days to meander his way from Meridian to Pitchcliff. It has been eight days, and the caravan leader says it will be another three. Carts slow men down. As do machines.

Erend is happy to lend his skills; the three hired guards are experienced. Carja without the flashy, pointless style. But the caravan avoids instead of engages: the scout reported Tramplers grazing ten, fifteen chains down the road, and so the caravan head announces a stop. They'd rest where they were for the night, and hope the herd has passed by dawn.

Really, it drives him crazy. The slow pace. Can't they just, you know, go around? Normally he would ask.

But. Ersa.

The fresh air is doing her good; that is clear. The sallow complexion of weeks abed is fading, there is color in her cheeks.

But Erend has noticed other changes. How she turns her head when she listens, still unused to her lost hearing. The sun, movement, machine glints in the distance: she gets headaches, blinding pain that leave her hunched and vomiting. Her temper is worse.

There had been a battle about the cart. Ersa, barely able to stand, all skin and bones, had insisted she would leave Pitchcliff on foot. She was no invalid. Appeals to reason made no difference, and she had walked out of Pitchcliff — pale and trembling, drenched in sweat. Nearly fainted into the cart — her! His sister! Ersa! — soon as the village was out of sight.

Feverish for the next two days, confined to the cart. Erend walks alongside it, tries to keep her spirit up with stories and gossip. She'd lay on her side, ignoring him. Sulking.

(He doesn't want to think that word. Attach it to her. But. Sulking. The relief, the joy of having his sister back, has begun to fade. Ersa is crabby, Ersa is not sensible, the stubbornness to survive is now stubbornness to do things her way.

Fire and Spit, she can be impossible.

But part of him: she's impossible!, he thinks. Smiling. Present tense.)

Ersa won't sleep in the cart — Ersa won't a lot of things, things that make her feel she's weak, an invalid — and she sets up her sleeping bag by directing Erend to set it up for her, near his own. That makes him feel a bit better. Not her new bossy streak: the closeness.

She sleeps through dinner; he wakes her after, makes her eat. Turnip mash with some maize crackers, honied ale with willow for her pain. Ersa nibbles, downs the ale. Goes back to sleep. Erend lies awake. He's usually out like a light, Ersa's quick transitions between wakefulness and sleep are not new or unique to her.

He looks at the stars. Carja and Oseram have different names for the constellations, he knows that much, but he doesn't know which or what. Only knows the stars everyone does: the blacksmith with his belt, the fisher and his net.

It's tiring, this journey. Better than the one north. By far. Ersa! Alive! No more wallowing in his memories, the sickroom smell, the woman with her brain bashed in. But this woman isn't Ersa.

That is, she is Ersa. But she's not. She's thin and brittle and weak. Ersa is — Ersa is like a mountain. No. You're not supposed to call women mountains. But she is. Always just there, steady. Reckless, but strong.

Not — weak and stubborn. Shivering, throwing up the one meal a day they force her to eat. The wounds on her shaved head, torn ear, still red.

He wants to take care of her. Protect her. Be steel for her, be a brother to her, guard her. Like he never has. Hell. He's been a shitty brother, hasn't he? First she was taken to the Sun Ring, and where was he? The other side of a mountain? Then a captive of the Mad King, and Avad the one to help her. Then Dervahl almost gets her, and he's prancing off in Nora lands…

He's gotta be different. Better. Forget the Vanguard. None of it matters. For once — now that he has this, hell, third shot — for once, Erend will be a good brother.

But he wants the sister he remembers. Not this brittle cast.

"You awake?" Agat whispers, close by.

He thinks she's talking to him, but he hears Ersa hum an ascent.

It's not exactly polite to eavesdrop, but…

Rustling in the grass. Erend closes his eyes, in case Agat checks on him. He's not convinced of her healing skills — she insists nitrate can fix everything from sores to yellow teeth — but she's good company for Ersa. He'd never thought of Ersa as much of a woman, but maybe she is: she talks to Agat, the only other woman in the party, much more than anyone besides Erend.

And even him, some days.

"Oof. I'm getting sick of walking," Agat says.

"Least you can."

"Hmm. I'll trade you tomorrow, how's that?" Silence. "How's the pain? One to ten?"

"Eight." Erend's heart clenches in his chest. Eight? Oh, it's obvious she's not doing great. The sullen anger. How quickly she tires. Those noon headaches. But. Eight?

"Thought so," says Agat. "I brought you more willow."

"Thanks," says Ersa. Silence. "I'm taking too much of it."

"You're not taking enough. No wonder you're in so much pain. You're allowed to complain."

He's decided to speak up, to call her out. Back up Agat: yes, Ersa. Come on. I'm your brother. You can lean on me —

But then Ersa says: "Not with Erend here."

His heart falls into his stomach.

His breath catches.

Not with —

So she knows? She knows? How useless, how shitty, what a pathetic specimen — he hasn't had a drink in almost two weeks, he'd felt so proud, but hell, it's not like she doesn't know he'd given up on her three times. Not like he's ever been there for her. Not like —

"I thought you two were close," Agat says.

"We are. That's the damn problem."

Inhales. Faking sleep. His whole body cold.

Silence. Ersa sighs. "He's always looked at me like I'm his personal hero. Not that I didn't like it. It pushed me. I knew — knew I had someone. Like that. But now, I'm not that. I can't hear, can't walk, can't look at a river without my head splitting apart."

"You're allowed to tell him that," Agat says. Yes! Yes. Erend is filled with a different swell, opposite: wants to sit up, reveal himself. Ersa. Ersa. How can she be feeling this way? Doesn't she see she'll recover? Be that person again? It's obvious. He'll donate an arm of silver or good steel in Agat's name, for her mentioning it.

(But:

Why had she never told him? What about him makes him…?)

"I can't," Ersa says. He's never heard that in her voice before. Then she laughs, bitter. "I can only tell you because I barely know you."

"I'm not that kind of healer," Agat says.

The two women are silent. Erend doesn't know what to do. Reveal he's listening in? Stay silent? He wants to listen, to witness this… this side of Ersa, these things he hadn't known.

It's stupid. He'd never imagined she could feel… insecure.

"I feel so weak," his sister says. "Not just the pain. Whenever I think about…"

"I'm not a warrior or anything, but that's normal. You're a woman; you're allowed to get emotional."

"Have you ever been in love?" Ersa asks, bizarrely.

"Not recently. Embalmers aren't high on the list for marriage contracts."

"Erend's always been the person I loved the most," Ersa says, ignoring the joke. Erend's heart swells. He makes up his mind to sit up, and just as quickly changes it. He wants to hear the rest. "I could be strong because I knew he was depending on me to be. But then I — there's someone," she says carefully, "I want to — see. More than anyone. More than Erend. It makes no sense. In a fight, he wouldn't be much at my back. He wouldn't have been able to find me. Be at my side. But all I want is to see him."

"Ah, so you are a woman," Agat says gently. Joking.

Ersa laughs, humorless, under her breath. "The willow is starting to help," she says. "Thanks."

"You should drink something, too."

The conversation shifts.

Erend's heart is thudding in his ears. Through his ribs. Not the rejection, if that's what it was. The rest.

Not much in a fight.

Not at her side.

Have you ever been in love?

I want to see him.

Shit.

Meridian is everything Agat has imagined. Which is to say, it is gigantic and tall and imposing and grand. Perfect. It had taken her three years to leave home, make her way to Pitchcliff: step one of her grand plan. But Tare could still find her there, if he bothered; it wasn't that far into the Sundom.

Meridian, then. She will make her real start in Meridian.

The group disperses after they circle the canyon's edge. One of the groups splits off, goes to Cutcliff (she'd thought about it, Cutcliff. Not Oseram; famous quarry; but no: Agat is going for the top. Let fate act as it may). The other wagons pull ahead, late to market.

Ersa insists they stop a chain from Meridian's main bridge. She will walk the rest of the way.

Agat sees Erend try not to roll his eyes. Ersa had been good all morning, all afternoon. Stayed in the cart, unsullen, at rest. Obeying her younger brother. Erend's been bossy these past few days, awkward about it: telling Ersa to take it easy, to take more willow, biting back the urge to apologize after.

Agat is pretty sure he was listening in, the other night.

Ah well. Not her place to push into family matters. Any more than she already has. And Ersa doesn't mention it, so she at least may not have noticed.

Erend doesn't argue, just pays the cartmen for the journey there on the highroad, thanks them, helps them rearrange their other goods once the main good, Ersa, is disembarked and leaning against a tree.

Agat checks on her. Her color really is coming back, and her eyes are steel with determination. "I wish I had my armor," she says wistfully.

"You couldn't carry it," Agat points out.

Ersa clenches her jaw, pushes herself away from the tree. Agat and Erend hurry after her.

The first stretch, Ersa does well. Fast, strong strides. Lots of gusto and determination. By the curve in the road, she's flagging. The day is warm, but there's a pleasant breeze: Agat looks over at Meridian as they stroll, every so often having to reorient herself back to the road when she drifts. Erend follows his sister like a gosling and its mother.

Meridian's Grand Bridge grows closer, the foot traffic heavier. Three Oseram, one pale, clenched fists, two red roses on her cheeks. One trailing behind her, hands half outstretched, ready to catch. And Agat. Wow! Those spires! Gorgeous!

They get some second glances, their party: as the crowds thicken into a market outside the gates, Agat realizes it's more than that. Lots of Carja guard. Some kind of bottleneck, no one crossing the bridge. Hmm.

"Erend!" a woman calls.

Erend turns from his role of spotter. A Carja woman in fancy Carja armor, and — is that a Nora? Agat is distracted, delighted. All those furs and wires. Must be. Wow!

"Aloy! Hey! What are you -" Erend grins, remembers his sister. Swears under his breath. "Ersa, slow down a sec! Aloy, this is - my sister -"

Ersa comes to a stop, her fists clenched white, sweat on her neck. "I'm not waiting for you," she says. If she stops, lets her strength flag, she will absolutely collapse.

Erend makes a frustrated noise.

"Hey!" the Carja woman says. "You really did make it. Welcome back, Ersa."

"Uh-huh," says Ersa, eyeing the remaining stretch to the bridge. Clealy thinking: can I make it?

"Sit down for a minute," Erend says. "That's not giving up, right? Sorry," he adds to the Carja and Nora. "She's not usually…"

"Half dead?" the Nora suggests, touching her ear.

"Some more willow will help," Agat says, taking Ersa by the shoulders. They sit, with the additions to the party, on a nearby boulder. Ersa sags and closes her eyes.

Introductions are made. Aloy has some dried salvebrush in a pouch she offers; Agat mixes it with the willow bark in Ersa's water pouch. "We were just hunting Glinthawks in Lone Light," Talanah says conversationally. "Turns out there were some hunters gathering Snapmaw nearby; lured them close to the town."

"Was everyone okay? Maybe I should send some men to clear up the area," says Erend, one hand protectively on Ersa's arm; her eyes are closed and she's breathing deep between sips.

"If you want, but Lone Light could probably use the scavenge."

"They didn't have much," Aloy offers. "They managed to kill a dozen Snapmaw without salvaging any usable hearts."

"What were they after so many hearts for?" Erend frowns.

"Besides the shards?" Talanah rolls her eyes.

"They can be used to focus search lights," Agat offers. "They're talking about setting them on the walls up in Pitchcliff."

Aloy frowns. "Who exactly are you again?"

"It's nice to meet you," Ersa says, her eyes still closed. She wrenches them open, leans forward. "Erend's mentioned you. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

Aloy looks her over carefully. Eyes flicking to the cuts on her forehead and crown, ears, her protruding collar bone. "It was really Erend," she says.

"No, I definitely —" Erend looks from one woman to the other. "Aloy's incredible," he says. "She figured it all out. She led us straight to you."

"She's a natural," Talanah says.

"I just had a lot of time to learn," Aloy mutters, embarrassed.

"We'll have to talk more later," Ersa says. "When I'm not… half dead." A twist of her mouth. Aloy almost smiles at the echo. "Okay," she says. "I've rested. Let's go."

"Hey!" Erend fusses, "why don't we give it another hour or two? What's the rush?"

Ersa gives him a look that sends chills down Agat's spine.

"She'll be fine," Talanah says diplomatically, her expression unconvinced.

Aloy shrugs. "It's not that far to the palace."

Erend frowns, obviously not having expected her to take Ersa's side. He keeps his hold on Ersa's arm, although Agat's not sure he'd force her still if it came to it: the siblings are at a stalemate for a moment.

Then: Carja guards. Aloy and Talanah are immediately at their feet, Aloy's hand reaching behind her back, Talanah for her hip. Carja guards! In all the feathers and everything! You hardly ever see them in Pitchcliff. Agat beams.

"Captain!" the more manly of the two guards says. Then he looks confused. "Captain…s. Captain Erend and Captain Ersa."

"Captain Erend and just Ersa," Ersa says.

"Captain Ersa and… hey," Erend says.

"Whoever you two are," says the guard. He clears his throat. "Upon receiving word that his loyal captain and friend has returned to Meridian, His Radiance the Sun King has left his Home in order to personally greet —"

"Wait, Avad's here?" Erend asks.

"Oh, that's why they closed the bridge," Aloy mutters, annoyed.

The famous Sun-King? Agat bounds to her feet, peering through the crowd. Impatient Carja and Oseram traders, some. Eager lookers as well. She stands on her toes, pushes through the crowd, eager for a glimpse of the Sun-King who ended the Red Raids and stopped the war. Founded Oseram cities in the Sundom. Allows women lives without husbands.

A ring of guards keeps the crowd at bay, although the crowd is by no means unruly. Which serves Agat: she elbows through with ease, aiming for Carja who won't elbow back, until she's at the edge of the ring.

There! That must be him. The one man standing alone at the start of the bridge. Weird Carja ornaments. No shirt. Skinny. That's disappointing; she'd imagined a broad warrior. He doesn't look like the hero who gave women rights.

Especially not with his current expression, which is somewhere between annoyed and embarrassed. Huh. Well. After a week, Agat feels enough loyalty to her traveling companions to be annoyed on their behalf: if he didn't want to come out and greet them, why bother?

Hmph. There were rumors that it was actually Erend and Ersa who had done all that stuff the Sun-King gets credit for, anyway.

Then: a fuss. A murmur in the crowd. Erend's voice over the yelling: "Sorry, excuse us, you're okay, it's not bleeding — Ersa!"

Ersa emerges from the throngs a few yards from Agat's vantage, back at her reckless move-fast-so-I-don't-collapse pace, jaw clenched, determined steel; Erend a step or two behind. Guards move to block them from the Sun-king; stop, recognizing the siblings, and falter. Block them? Don't?

They elect don't. The Sun-King moves past them, no longer annoyed-and-embarrassed: he stops. Mouth moves. Aware of the crowds, he straightens his posture. Arms behind his back. "The Sundom," he intones gravely.

Then: Ersa stamping forward. Erend lunging after her, ineffectively. She stops, sways in place. Slightly. It's like an old tale: the loyal warrior, swearing fealty upon returning to the king.

Ersa looks like she's about to faint. Not surprising. Agat pushes forward, creeping towards the trio, just in case her healer's duties are called upon.

"The Sundom?" Ersa says, her voice strained.

"Aye," said the king. No. He's smiling. I, he'd said. I.

Oh, thinks Agat.

There is a minor uproar as Ersa steps, half staggers, at last fainting — not quite, no, but she steps forward, grasping, weakness at last, her brother at her heel as the Sun-King himself catches her in his arms.

Chapter Text

He has a few memories of his father's touch.

The Sun-King's touch.

Not quite the same thing, although even now Avad isn't clear on the line dividing the two, the moment separating day (dusk) from night (dawn). But he remembers each time vividly. Burnt into his heart.

It had been so rare.

First: He's small. Perhaps four at oldest. Struggling to peer up over the edge of a table. He doesn't remember why, remembers the strain of his toes, his fingers curling around the wood.

His father's hand on his head. "Be calm, Avad. It is not befitting a prince to show struggle." Words he had remembered if not understood at the time. Father ruffles his hair.

Second: He's small. Older, perhaps, but not much. He's reciting from the annals of the Sun, the third section about the founding of Meridian. (To this day, Avad can still recall the words. Each measure. Each line.) It's an advanced text for a boy his age; he remembers the pride. Kadaman's mischievous smile. His father, pleased by his ability. A hand on his head.

And so on.

He had once asked Ersa if she would do the same. It had been almost two years since the start of their relationship: the initial passion, made stronger by the need for secrecy, had faded. Well. Not faded. But changed, grown into something stronger and softer. Enough that he could face asking her, explain to her that he had once loved the man he'd killed, without fear of her scorn.

"Is this a sexual thing?" she'd asked. In his memory, they're in his bed. They may not have been, but they may have: much of their opportunities to be together, to talk and laugh as other men and women do, are in the depths of night. In his memory, they're sitting. He is reading a book — perhaps Annals of the Sun — and she is mending a sleeve of her shirt. Badly. The sort of calm domestically that he has never been closer to grasping than those nights, in secret, alone.

"Whenever my father would as a child," he'd said. Faltered somewhat, unable to grasp how to explain: how much it had meant to him. How it had assured him of his father's love, a love he had since seen destroyed. Killed. Locked far away, deep in his heart. "Well."

Her eyes soften; he is not the only one with a difficult father. Reaches over and pats his head, not teasing, not with a knowing smirk, an amused glint in her gray eyes: there, my spoiled prince. Are you pleased?

(In his memories: time shifts. His memories are unreliable. She is at once Ersa, captain of the Vanguard, the woman he loves, and Ersa, the captive of his father, the woman he'd befriended link by link of a chain. She had stopped mocking him with my prince years before this must have taken place.)

And there: a spark, a thrill at the touch. Not as in his memories, not this spark. Her hand caressing him, cupping his jaw. He moves closer. Kisses her deep; easy. How well they fit together!

The result of his test: uncertain.

It is not for the Sun-King to touch. To be touched in turn by mere men. Mere women.

Oseram.

It is not for mortals to touch, be touched, by the living god. For the Sun-King to have bestowed such favor upon Avad was a boon. An acknowledgment of blood, not a child's wish for affection.

The Sun does not embrace. Does not touch. Does not need.

Does not reach for Ersa as she stumbles, skin and shocking bone. Bandages, hollows, her skin damp and blazing hot. He is shaken to see her this way. Frightened of it. She is so light in his arms. And that is what he does: embrace her, reflex and a choking fear. There are crowds. Guards. Carja.

The Sun does not.

And yet Avad grasps for her, and she sags against him, her whole weight — smaller. Lighter. His fingers in the fuzz that remains of her hair.

The Sun does not. The part of him he cannot fight, cannot leave: image. Appearance. Impact. Statement. He cannot do this. Cannot cling to her, her cheek, now sharp, pressing into his collar. A formal return. A greeting. Yes, with the guards: he knows, is relatively used, to their constant shadows. Greet Ersa as a returning hero, all the pomp he can muster: there are still whispers. He handled her death badly. He did not go to war for her sake. Could not go to war, even for her. Dervahl's capture quieted some, not all, of it. Greet her as a hero, see her again. Welcome her home. Desperate for it. There would be time later, time alone later, time to plan later —

Oh, his heart.

Her loss, her death. He had mourned in silence, grown slowly used to the lack of her: eyeing reports, injecting opinions. Darning socks in the pre-dawn quiet. Then she had been alive again — and gone again. Put her aside. Move on. Give up. Begin to question: did you love her? What did you love about her? Is it already the past?

Begin to think of moving on.

And then the news from Pitchcliff.

He loves her. He's lost her. He's moved on, these past months. He's not moved on at all. She's changed and fragile and frightening and had a desperate, frightened look he'd never seen, and he must stop this. Must not cling to her.

The Sun does not.

But she's never clung to him in this way before.

Duty. Duty and reason and a fragile kingdom.

Painfully, carefully, he draws away. His hand on her head, her cheek, her jaw. Looking at her. Understand. Duty. She has that hollow look. Closes her eyes and straightens up. Erend, at her shoulder. Holding her steady.

The crowd in an uproar, the soldiers half-hearted keeping them back and silent. The Carja: he touched her! He held her! How and why would the Sun do such a thing? The Oseram: So, he really does favor an alliance. Or worse, a few whispers: Is that Ersa? A whore for the king?

Avad the man sees his friends. Avad the king steps back. "It is to Meridian's great relief you have returned," he says, the words rote. Automatic. Someone hoots lewd in the crowd: Meridian's, eh? More shouts. How can they disrespect the crown. How can Avad disrespect the crown.

"You may rest in the hospital at the Temple of the Sun so long as you require," he says. There's no taking it back. Already thinking: how can I take it back? Already thinking: I don't want to, and I must. "Captain Erend, please see your sister there at once. Report to me after."

Ersa's head tilted to the side. Her right ear raised. Listening to the jeers, her face stone, the glassy look she gets when absorbing her anger. Her good hand clenching Erend's arm until her knuckles whiten; Erend, his expression unschooled, looking around as though he doesn't know whom to first punch. Wincing at her grip.

"Calm yourselves," he says, at last facing the crowd. They do. Mostly. Unhappy, wary faces. The Oseram don't want him with one of their own; the Carja are betrayed. He has betrayed his people. He has betrayed them for years. He is at a loss, thinking fast as he is able. "Before I was Sun-King, was I not a man? Did Captain Ersa not join me in friendship? In stopping the Mad King?"

It was not the embrace of friends. But Avad is well used to lying.

"I vowed in those days that even once king I would always honor my friendship with Ersa, and with her people, the Oseram. I keep that vow to this day." He is apologizing. Explaining himself. No. The Sun does not apologize.

His father had not apologized, not explained. His father had murdered.

His grandfather Avad has dim memories of. He has no examples to follow. Be a new king. A different king.

"Once again has the friendship between the Sun and the Oseram, the Carja and our allies, prevented the rise of a great threat to Meridian. With Ersa's return to our home, we remember the triumph of this alliance over the Mad King and any who oppose us. There shall be a feast this Sun-day to welcome the Captain home."

He knows not to stop awaiting a reaction from the crowd: Kings do not require cheers, validation, admiration. He nods at Erend because he cannot trust himself to look at Ersa. Turns and sweeps back to the palace, his guard scrabbling to keep pace.

His expression schooled, his pace swift. His heart racing with fear and shame and the way Ersa's fingers had dug into his shoulder, the ache of holding her for the first time in sunlight.

"That was definitely a thing," says Aloy.

"Hoo!" Talanah says. Well! There had been rumors, Avad being so close to the captain of his guard and all that. It's one thing for there to be rumors. Talanah doesn't care about rumors.

But that was not how you hug your friends.

"Oh well," says Aloy.

And the people stuck waiting had not been thrilled. Ugh. Talanah can already hear the other Hawks at the lodge whining about it. Avad disgracing their names, blah blah. She doesn't know the Sun-King well: when introduced as children, he'd stuck to books and she'd stuck to bows and swords. Not much socialization. Not much growing feeling. She was probably meant to forge an alliance, arrange a marriage, by being included in that circle. Oh well. By the Sun is she grateful her father hadn't pushed any of that on her.

"I guess I'll head out first thing tomorrow," says Aloy.

And she doesn't really know Ersa, either. Likes her on principle: remembers the day Ersa stormed into the Hunter's Lodge with a royal decree in hand. Warms the heart. There aren't many women in their chosen lines; of course Talanah likes her for that alone.

"This is a pain," says Aloy.

"Hang on," Talanah says, pulling herself out of her thoughts about social dynamics and whiny nobles. "You're being pre- tty casual about all this."

"I kind of had a feeling they had a thing," Aloy says disinterested. Tapping her earring, the way she often does when a little bored. Weird habit, who is Talanah to judge?

"If you did, you're the only woman in Meridian." Hell, given Avad's obvious interest in Aloy, Talanah had assumed that was a budding thing. Thus her advice about the king a few days ago. At least she takes a bit of solstice in realizing she wasn't that wrong about Avad's tastes in women. Royalty.

Aloy looks confused. On her it translates to indignant. "Why would he talk so much about her if there wasn't a thing?"

"You really did grow up on a mountain," Talanah jokes. Although she isn't wrong. "Now, where did you say you were going?" It isn't Aloy's job to report her every move to her Hawk, although some Hawks do insist on that kind of thing. This is more personal curiosity.

"North," Aloy says vaguely. Drops her fingers from her earring with a frown. "Sunfall area. Do you know anything about it? I haven't been that way yet."

She's touched her Thrush asked. "I went once when I was a kid," she says. Long before the war. The King gone, the guards open the bridge into Meridian again; she spots Captain Erend escorting his sister into the city. Just a brief glimpse. Ersa doesn't look good. Not shock over the embrace, the king's backpedaling. More as though she's very, very sick. Poor girl. "It's drier there, worse than to the east. Machines tend to be wilder too, they don't cull them as well as we do."

Serves them right, for the massacre.

"I'm not worried about that," Aloy scoffs.

"Of course not," Talanah teases. "While you're up there, you might find some Ravager trophies; we haven't had many in the lodge this year."

"No problem," Aloy says. "Do you have a map of the area I can look at?"

"If you have some time, I can find you one to borrow," Talanah says. "It might be a little out of date, but I doubt things have changed too much." There's a slight bottleneck at the start of the bridge, people delayed, coming and going. They push through easily, heading automatically towards the Lodge. People talking all around them about The King Embracing Captain Ersa. Ugh. She feels sorry for Avad, having to deal with this for the foreseeable future.

"I only need to look at one for a second," Aloy says. Smirks. Touches her ear. Talanah's not sure if she's aware of this weird compulsion. "I can remember things pretty well."

"If you say so, little Thrush," Talanah says. "Aside from advancing your claim with the Lodge, any other reason you're heading that way?"

"Yes," Aloy says. Frowns, weighing her words in her head. "My mother… is in Sunfall."

"Is that so?" Talanah asks, sympathy heavy in her voice. Oh. Oh. That explains… quite a lot. Most captives were sacrificed, either here or the Sun Ring of Sunfall. But some were taken captive. Nora hardly ever left home of their own free will; for Aloy to have… it all makes perfect, painful sense. Aloy had found where her mother had been taken, left the Nora homelands in search of her. Perhaps the other way around. Either way: "I'm so sorry. I wish I could say I'd never seen the results of the Red Raids for myself."

The Hawks had pretended to be above it. But most of the noble class, the Lodge itself, still profited from the shards and slave labor. Even Talanah… no. No, not her. Not her father, he would not have used slaves even when slaves were acceptable. She tells herself. (Knowing: her family by blood lays claim to a glassworks, a large portion of land to the south-east, more land along the river leased to businesses and homes. The farmland leased to landlords who hire workers. The businesses who employ workers. The homes who are rented to workers.

Knowing: she does not know who those workers are, or were. Just lives in her family home with her mother, hunts and trains and brings her part of the profits from her kills to those who need it.

But. Surely her father — her father, who had leapt into the Sun Ring in defense of his men and the helpless, sparing her life with his lie — he would not have allowed any of these men to employ slaves. He was a good man.)

She's uncomfortable. She's a good person. "Look. Would you like me to go with you? Like I said, I don't really know the terrain, but two hunters are better than one."

"You don't have to do that," Aloy says quickly.

"I know I don't, but it's my duty to look out for you."

"I guess so," Aloy says with the air of someone who doesn't really lend much weight to the offer. "But I travel better alone. It'll be easier for me to slip into the city by myself."

"I could go with you part of the way," Talanah offers.

"No," Aloy says firmly, touching her ear. "I'll go alone."

At the Hunter's Lodge, they find a map of the western edge of the Sundom. Aloy traces a path north, one she's taken before; for this journey, she'll need to head west of the Tallneck of the Dunes. The land there is open, but wild: neither of them know how heavily patrolled by the Shadow followers.

"You don't have anything of Sunfall?" Aloy asks, once she's satisfied with the basic route she'll take.

"The Lodge is more about machines, not men. You could try asking at the palace," Talanah says after brief consideration. There are libraries, archives, associated with the temple and unlikely to be willing to serve Nora outcasts. "If anyone knows what's going on with Sunfall, it's Avad."

Marad does not need to lecture his king once Avad has returned from his disastrous reunion with the former captain: the Sun-King immediately asks for the written reports on Meridian's soil quality he'd earlier requested prepared, and for the minister of agriculture to meet with him in an hour's time. He shall review the materials in the Solar.

In other words: an hour alone for the king.

This does not apply to Marad; a unique privilege of his position. The king is not at his desk in the Solar when Marad enters, but at the window, fingers curled around the sill, looking less like a king and more as the young man he still is.

"You acted as any man would," Marad says.

This is, of course, the problem. Marad does not pretend that the king doesn't know.

"It was foolish of me," Avad says. Men are allowed foolishness. But not, of course, kings.

"I have arranged for Ersa's care at the temple hospital," Marad says. Avad nods curtly. He had known the king's wishes without being asked; another privilege of his position.

And of his relationship with the king.

Both of Jiran's elder sons had been bright, clever children. Kadaman had been brash, charismatic, and occasionally arrogant: he would have made a good Sun-King, drawing men to his side and inspiring them in his light. But it had been Avad that Marad had seen true potential in. Kadaman was as intelligent as his younger brother, but Avad had always been more observant, driven, and pragmatic.

At first Marad had thought to train Avad — not as a gatherer of intelligence, but to be a source of intelligence. Someone who would be able to influence his brother once Kadaman was on the throne. But the Sun, Oseram cannon, and Avad's blade had lain things differently.

Marad was as fond of Avad as he was of any man or woman. He and Vanasha were Marad's proudest achievements in life.

Avad moves from the window to his writing desk, imposing, elegant, and inherited from his father. Unlike Jiran, Avad will undoubtedly read and further study the report on soil quality; where Jiran had allowed his advisors and ministers to control matters he felt beneath him, Avad almost obsessively insisted on seeing all decisions through himself.

It was admirable, in the hands of a good king. And it was undoubtedly a strain on the young man's shoulders. Avad had few friends, fewer he could trust. While Marad hadn't approved of Avad's relationship with his captain initially, he had decided to accept it after a few months of observation. Captain Ersa could be trusted. And even the divine Sun needed a respite.

Without that respite, that release, Marad had these last months witnessed Avad grow more cautious, wary of making decisions that might affect others. Careless with his emotions, jumping to find others to trust. He was sympathetic. Avad could go through the motions, control himself, but was not so good at closing his emotions away as Vanasha.

Marad observes the king in silence as Avad reads the first few pages of the report.

"What will you do once Ersa has recovered?" he asks, at last, knowing she still weighs heavily on the king's mind.

"If she recovers sufficiently, she will be welcome to rejoin the Vanguard," the king says, his expression schooled.

"Perhaps a posting in Brightmarket? The air there is restorative."

"You believe I should maintain a distance?" Avad looks up at Marad. Marad knows what he says will be weighed heavily, more heavily than the words of others. It is another privilege of his position.

It hadn't taken him long to realize the king's — then prince's — affair with Ersa. Indeed, he had realized from the moment Avad had first mentioned her, then a servant girl, the potential of their friendship. He had encouraged Avad to seek her out. Befriend her, perhaps. He had said no more, unwilling to force events further, but he had been aware of the potential of an Oseram alliance. Even taken pains to cross paths with Ersa, twice, to see her for himself. By the second meeting, she had realized it was not an accident, although not his true purpose.

When he had next met her, meeting up with the Oseram and Carja forces as they marched to the capital, she and Avad had already become lovers. They tried to hide it. Badly. (Marad had almost been disappointed; surely Avad was smarter than that?

But he was young, and fresh in love. All men are foolish under those circumstances.)

They had gotten more discrete with the years and the right servants and guards, but the affair had not ended. Sending Ersa away, so soon after her return from death, would hurt Avad.

Marad allows himself to smile. "I believe that Ersa would be very unhappy with us, were we to decide her future for her."

Avad smiles too — quick, fond, yes, she is — and then grows somber. "I would like her to recover here, not the temple hospital," he admits.

"Your people would not," Marad reminds him. For the Sun-King to chose an Oseram woman over them… an Oseram, a warrior, a cast out from her own people for her refusal to marry and serve a husband or father — had Ersa been a noble (had Oseram had well born men and women), perhaps they could have arranged it. But the idea of the Sun-King wanting, let alone loving, such a woman is an insult to all his people.

Avad looks back at the report, and Marad waits for him to make a decision. "Send word that I would like to meet with Rada Jatnal-Luks, and Alera Khal-Maized."

Marad smiles wryly. "A juvenile solution will not end your concerns." Alera's parents, in particular, have been clammoring to arrange for the Sun King to meet their daughter.

"The state of my bed is a juvenile concern," Avad says, near wry, in response. "Oh, and Elida Khane Lahavis, if her father is willing to make the journey."

"The governor's daughter is too young for your tastes," Marad says.

"I have no intention of marrying any of them," Avad points out.

"If you treat this as a joke, no one will believe the farce."

"Then Talanah Khane-Padish instead of Lahavis's daughter," Avad says. His patience is thin: Marad does not challenge the king, knowing as well as Avad that a Hawk of the Lodge would never accept even a feigned proposal.

"Of course," Marad says. It is foolishness, but he trusts his king.

Chapter Text

My mother. She'd called Elisabet her mother! Out loud! Aloy almost skips her way out of Meridian.

It's not true — well, no. It might be true. It could be true. She's thought about it, a lot. At night, mostly: looking up at the stars. Are you my mother? Elisabet? Wanting it, more than anything. More than the Proving. She'd hesitated before saying it to Talanah. It wasn't really a lie. It wasn't like she could explain to Talanah the truth: the Old Ones, Zero Dawn, Elisabet Sobeck. Sylens.

Still. She'd called Elisabet her mother. And Talanah had believed it! Taken her at her word!

There are doubts, but Aloy pushes them away. Elisabet might still be in Sunfall. Somehow. She doesn't know how, but Elisabet was a genius — is — and so it must be possible. And now Aloy is on her way to meet her! At last!

She makes good progress the first day: heads due north along the main road. Avoiding machines when the road gets thinner; she's well-stocked and rested, no need to hunt. Spends a few hours walking atop a ridge, keeping pace with a Shellwalker convoy down below. They have good stuff on them. But no. It would take too long to set up the traps, lure the Watchers away. Aloy doesn't have that time.

She sets up camp on a hillside with a few boulders; good views in light, and she'll be able to see machine lights clearly one it gets dark. Aloy isn't the first person to have this idea: there are remains of a campfire in the lee of the boulders. A cut log someone had hauled for a bench. Fine with her: a camp safe enough for some random Carja is more than safe enough for her.

She watches the stars before sleeping, playing the game with her Focus where she turns on the star chart and reads the names the Old Ones had given the constellations: strange names like Cygnus and Cassiopeia that don't even match up with the ones Rost taught her as a child, like All Mother, The Child, The Bow, which is Cygnus. Aloy doesn't know what that word means. No matter how many times she plays this game, she can't guess. Maybe Elisabet will know. Elisabet must know. She can ask her.

In Sunfall.

Luck on the second morning: Aloy wakes to a bright sun, dew in her hair, and a herd of Striders pinging her Focus. She eats a quick breakfast of dried goose and berries, strikes down the herd's pair of Watchers, and overrides one on the edge of the herd.

By now it's almost routine. She hops on its back and directs it to her camp, where she packs up her satchel as the Strider waits; then it's back on its back, using her Focus to direct it fast and north.

She's getting used to this kind of travel. It's fast, for sure, but after a few hours her legs and back ache. Practice has taught Aloy the trick of not quite sitting on the machine directly, sort of lifting herself when its back rises, but it's exhausting. Leaves her bottom aching. But the wind in her hair is thrilling, as is the way other Machines barely have time to notice their passing. Hah! Take that!

At noon, she slides off the Strider's back, tying her pack around it and interfacing with her Focus: [FOLLOW]. They walk for a while, the change doing Aloy's muscles good. She keeps an eye on the Strider: after a few hours, it's as though an overridden Machine can no longer hear her Focus's commands; they become hostile again. She doesn't want to have to chase down her food and water.

There must be a way to fix the machine's hearing. It's something for her to think about as she walks with the Strider: she pulls up her Focus and swipes through it, the images of the Strider, as they travel. Concentrating, but listening for warning alerts… and rocks to trip over on the road. That would just be embarrassing.

And if only it was more comfortable to ride a Strider's back. Metal isn't comfortable, that's the whole thing (how did Elisabet and the other people of the Metal World stand it?), but neither is bruised legs. A fur over its back? Tied in place?

The problems are diverting. After an hour or so, she re-interfaces with the Strider — [LISTEN. OBEY. FAST. NORTH.] — riding again until the sun begins to set and the soreness is getting a bit too much to ignore.

Still: in one day, she's gone four times as far as she could have on foot. If she can keep this up, Aloy will be in Sunfall tomorrow. She stops them by a stream, unties her pack and abandons the Strider (who has been sluggish to obey SLOW. OBEY. TURN. type commands for a quarter of an hour). A few lengths downstream, she finds some good hintergold. Since Aloy is alone, she makes a quick grass and herb poultice, wraps it in a cloth, and strips off her lower half's clothing to soak her sore legs in the muddy part of the stream.

This — this is the kind of life she knows best. Likes best. A goal, a problem to solve, safe and in the wilds. She never understood it, when Rost would get all sentimental and empty-headed about a sun set. But she does get it. In the wilds like this. Her legs cold from the stream, minnows flashing between her fingers, which she waves in the water to attract them. There's no reason. She just likes seeing the little fish dart about.

Aloy likes Meridian. More or less. It's so much. After a few days, it starts to hammer at her, pounding in her head, every noise and smell and person. People. There are just… so many. Every Nora in the Sacred Lands could fit in just a part of the city. How do Talanah and Erend and Avad stand it?

Talanah likes the wilds, likes the hunt. Aloy likes that about her. But after a hunt, Talanah likes to go back to Meridian, back to the lodge, talk to the Carja there and do Carja things. How long has she known Talanah now? She's never seen or heard of her camping outside the city. She probably has. Right? But Carja… Aloy doesn't know. They're not like what she'd heard before she'd left the Sacred Lands, mostly. But they're… fussy. Don't like being outside. Make the streets and outsides of their cities like the insides of their houses, all tiles and pretty things.

It's hard to make sense of. It's hard that it makes her feel "Nora," in some vague, unidentifiable way she doesn't at all enjoy. At least Varl and Teb and Sona understood. How things should be.

And Avad seems decent; honest. Definitely better than how she'd thought he'd be. But still. A society run by a man? Who was taking orders from the Sun? Ugh. Hard to take that seriously.

Oseram seem better. Easier to figure out, anyway, even if Aloy seriously doubts they'd be any use in a fight with all that armor. She's not sure yet, if Erend is a typical example or not. If they're all so…

So…

Ugh. Relationships are hard. She tries to puzzle it all out in her head like a Machine map on her Focus, but there never seem to be straight results. She never had this problem with Rost.

Erend. For example. He's friendly. That's good. It's hard not to warm to it. Aloy's spent so long hating being ignored that it stings when anyone does it; Erend doesn't. He's kind. He cares for his sister, the eldest woman in his family, even if that doesn't seem to mean anything to the Oseram. Still a good habit. But: he drinks a lot. She doesn't like that, the smell lingering around him. He kind of seems like maybe he's… interested? In her? Aloy has no idea what to think about that. And: he seems to give up easily. That's the worst sin of all.

So, there's the evidence. What's the conclusion? What "relationship" does that make? With Talanah, it's easy. Talanah is the Hawk, Aloy is the Thrush. Talanah is the teacher, Aloy is the learner. Different words for the same thing. With the men Aloy knows…

Ugh.

This is why she's so much happier, soaking in the stream. Alone in the wilds. There are no confusing questions here. Just a path and a goal and Elisabet at the end. Setting sun and minnows in cold water. Meridian is fine, but it feels good to clear her head.

She camps for the night nearby, the blueish light of the Strider still visible from the spot she chooses. It had been a good day, the soak had felt great, and so Aloy calls down a soft "good night!" to it before lying down in the grass.

Of course, the next day, the Strider is gone. Figures.

Aloy eats the rest of her goose jerky and dried berries, shoulders her pack, and heads out on foot. Only a couple more days until Sunfall. Elisabet.

Mother.

I'm on my way.

It takes Erend near a week before he makes it to the palace, but when he does, he's shown right to Avad. Avad's on his terrace, reading. This isn't new or unusual, but today it sends a thick anger through Erend's gut.

Avad closes his book. Smiles up at him from his seat. "Erend. How is your sister?"

"Her fever broke last night," Erend says. "No thanks to you." He'd been thinking she was hurt or upset after the whole thing on the bridge; how quiet she'd been after. It hadn't been hurt feelings but Ersa's health: she'd pushed herself far too hard and had suffered for it, spending the last few days abed with a delirious fever.

He hadn't wanted to leave her side as she sweat and tossed and muttered to herself in her delerium, and so Erend mostly hadn't. He was angry with her, for pushing past her health. With himself for letting her. With Avad, for reading a book in his palace.

"I couldn't go see her," Avad says.

It's — weird. Now. With them, with everything. In a flash, it had been made utterly clear that Ersa and the king were not just best friends, but Ersa hadn't been able to explain and now Avad wasn't denying it, but no one had yet turned to Erend and said hey, by the way…

"Like hell you couldn't," he says, choosing to be angry instead.

"You're not that naive," Avad says, sounding a little peevish himself. Erend grunts a sigh and sits on the other bench. "I've given you as much leave as I can afford," Avad continues, changing the subject, "but I need you at my side now, Captain."

"Are you kidding me?" Erend says. "Ersa's still out, and you want to just act like it's business as usual?" He doesn't like being called Captain, either. The title never sat well with him, with everything going on. And now that Ersa's back, she's obviously the Captain. He's just holding her spot until she comes back.

"I have the Sundom to think about. I will be leaving for Brightmarket in two day's time, and I'll need you and your men with me."

"For what?" He's not really supposed to talk back, but he's still annoyed. After that scene, you'd think Avad would show more concern for Ersa. As a friend.

"Visitors from the north, potentially."

"Aloy?" She'd just taken off; Erend had lost her in the crowd when everything had went on. Heard later she'd left the city for north — he's too busy, too busy with Ersa, but it still kind of stung.

"I don't have information on that," Avad says. He looks at Erend for a long moment. Makes a decision. "Ersa was aware as captain, and so you should too be informed. I have agents in Sunfall working to bring my brother to Meridian. If all goes well, Itamen will be returned by the week's end."

"What?" He completely forgets to be mad about Ersa. "Are you serious?"

Avad doesn't dignify that with a response. But: What?

What?

He hadn't bought all the hype, that Avad was totally useless, couldn't do shit: Erend had been part of the group in the Claim, before the invasion. Hauling around raising an army. The guy acts passive but he's not. But: what? This is big. Huge. With Itamen safe, they can crush the Eclipse cult. Hell: with Itamen safe, the Eclipse don't have a cause for rebellion at all. Can't claim to have the real Sun-King if they don't.

There's another, smaller sting under the surprise: Ersa knew? But no one told him?

"How long have you been working on this one?" Erend asks finally.

"Two years." Almost as long as his reign. Forgefire. "Is there anything else?" Avad seems kind of testy; pokey.

"What about Ersa?" Erend asks.

"There is nothing good that can come of our association at the moment," Avad says, that tetchy voice. "I only wish for her to swiftly recover."

There are rumors all over the place. Even at Ersa's bedside. The first couple days they'd been in the temple hospital, but the Sun Priests had been mad, rude. Even Irid, who was decent if a bore, had been nervous and reluctant. Had finally explained why; it had taken everything Erend had not to punch him in the face.

They'd moved Ersa to the house of a friend of hers, the wife of the captain of the palace guard. Even she hadn't known Ersa and the king were a… thing. Although, she admitted, she'd suspected.

Suspected was the nicest way anyone had put it so far. Other contenders: Avad's whore, she'd been his slave once, probably in bed, justice for Ersa, trapped by Carja kings, jail Ersa, the trash who laid hand on the Sun, seduced him with her filth. The wildest and worst had been: Dervahl rescued her. Saved her. The King tore her back.

Erend had knocked the guy's teeth in for that one. No regrets there. But in all the taverns in Meridian, it was hard to say who the people were more disgusted with. It made it easy for him to hate Avad: like even Erend had to pick a side here. He wouldn't ever not pick his sister's.

Shit. No wonder Avad's kind of cranky.

The men sit in silence for a while, Erend feeling all kinds of guilty. Not that he knows what to do with it. He's waiting for Avad to break the silence, maybe explain to him what's going on, still. Okay. He and Ersa are a thing. But why hadn't anyone told him? Why hadn't Erend known? How long? How much of a thing?

Erend had been standing right there. Close enough to see their expressions. Clinging hands. The things Avad had said in a whisper.

He'd been right there, next to them both. All along.

He's… mad. About it. Feels like he's been used by them, kept outside by them, and after everything he's tried to do. And now his sister is half dead from fever, half dead from months of captivity, and he can't be angry at her. And Avad is his king. Who is left to be mad with?

Aloy?

She's got nothing to do with this, but it's been echoing around his head. How had she noticed, when no one else had? What is it about himself that's so damn…

He wants to say all of this to Avad, demand answers like Avad is either his equal or his friend. He's not, so Erend doesn't. Just sits there for a while, in silence. Knowing he'll keep following orders, keep looking after Ersa as she gets better. He's still glad she isn't dead. But funny: he thinks he was gladder a week ago.

Ersa's friends lives on the third floor of a Carja terraced house, exterior stairs twisting the side of the brick building. One big room, with wooden panels dividing the fire and cooking area from a sitting room, a raised wooden platform in the back corner for the family's beds. Honeycombed shutters to let in the air but not the sunlight. It's fussy, all the silk and pillows and decoration, but it's nice for a Carja house; there are kids playing by the well in the courtyard, flowers hanging out of windows. Peaceful. A good place to recover.

Erend climbs the steps and lets himself in; the door is open and the pot on the fire smells of spiced fruit. Women laughing close by. "It's me," he calls out, feeling huge and clumsy in a Carja house like always; skirts his way around the room divider to the sitting area.

Three women clustered there. Three and a baby. Ersa is sitting up, stretched over the silken bench she's been sleeping. Color in her cheeks, her eyes bright, even with a whitish pallor lingering around her. She has the baby in her lap, her good arm keeping the baby upright: Ava has a wooden rabbit in her mouth by the tail end.

"You're awake!" Erend says. Still. "You look a lot better, shit."

"I feel better," Ersa says. She still looks half a skeleton, her right arm in a sling. But she's smiling, bouncing little Ava lightly. The little girl giggles.

"She even kept some food down," Agat says. Erend had kind of assumed the embalmer was gone forever when they'd all lost track of one another at the Great Bridge, but she had turned up again a couple days later and here she was now on a wooden stool, peeling potatoes into a bucket between her ankles. Been useful, with Ersa no longer in the temple's care. Been useful as a friend, too. Erend's always admired it, the way people are drawn to his sister; the way his sister is drawn to them.

"We'll see if that lasts," says Ghada dryly from her chair, lounging and regal even heavily pregnant. Case in point. Ghada is Carja. Erend doesn't see too much appeal in Carja women: they're all silk and bony, no strength or body, but even he took a second look the first time he'd seen her: she was the kind of good looking that doesn't happen often, dark hair and eyes, long soft nose and small mouth, and so of course the snobby kind of Carja to go with it. He'd never seen them, but under her dresses are scars and brands: she'd been a slave in Jiran's court, just like Ersa once. They'd become friends. Erend had needed convincing to trust Avad, any Carja, after all they'd done.

But it's Ghada's daughter Ersa is bouncing on her lap. He doesn't know how she does it. But he also knows to credit her recovery on some of it. Those friends.

"How was the king?" Ersa asks sharply. He scans her for any signs of romantic pining or whatever. Nothing.

"He says I have to go with him to Brightmarket," Erend remembers. Watches his sister frown slightly: I don't get it, her expression means. "I wish you'd hurry up and recover and could go instead," he adds blithely. "I wanna punch his face in a little." For all his I hope she recovers and not visiting. Ersa must be pining; Erend would be. It's not Avad's fault, but one punch would be fair.

"It's the Captain of the Vanguard's duty to go," Ersa says blandly, trying to fish the rabbit from Ava's mouth — Ava, named for the king — with limited success. Ghada clucks and stands to assist the retrieval; the baby cries frustrated.

"Which is you," Erend says loyally.

"Which is you," Ersa says sharply.

He knows she thinks she'll never recover; he wishes she'd believe in herself more. Okay, her arm is broken. She keeps getting fevers. The new habit she has, of twisting her head too far when listening, still unused to having just one ear; it gives him a pang every time. But she's alive, and she's Ersa. You don't need two ears. Bones mend. He comes and sits on the edge of her bench, Ghada taking the baby away. Ersa dries the rabbit on her blanket.

"So what's with the field trip to Brightmarket?" Agat asks, too keenly.

"Going to make your next move there?" Ersa jokes, giving Erend a quick glance meaning but I want to know, too.

"It is beautiful there," Ghada sighs. "It's where I married. I borrowed jewelry from all the women in the workhouse to have enough."

"I've heard Carja weddings are just awful," Agat says brightly.

"I've heard Oseram forge a pot together when they get married," Ghada says, causing all three Oseram in the room to turn on her incredulously.

"A pot?" Erend echoes. He really isn't at all into this turn in the conversation, but. Come on.

"Something like that." To her credit, possibly, Ghada holds her ground. It's also stupid. Kind of funny.

"I've heard of some clans to the north who have ceremonial chains," Ersa says neutrally, dubious. Erend's heard the same thing; you wrap the man and his bride in chains of shard metal and bright copper and other decorate metals; now they're stuck together forever. Get it? Chained together like livestock or trapped machines. It's always sounded more of a horror than a romance.

"I don't think anyone actually does that," Agat says thoughtfully, still slicing potatoes.

"In our village you have to make your case before the Aldermen before you can ask the clan head," Ersa says. "The groom does, I mean."

"Which is why I never did," Erend mutters.

Ersa actually laughs. "Like you knew a woman to argue for!"

Mixed feelings: he's surprised, almost shocked by the sound, the curt sharp hah! of Ersa's laughter; but also, she's making fun. He's known women. Just because none of them made him want to get chained…

"When I got married, we just had a feast. He paid my father at the start," Agat says, not pausing in her slicing.

"You're married?" Erend chokes.

"How long ago was this? You're much too young." Ersa.

"Where is he?" Ghada.

"Five years, and he's back in the Claim, I guess," Agat says. "I haven't spoken to him in years. Why did you think I was moving south?"

Well. That puts a damper on the chatter about marriages. Ghada asks Erend if he wouldn't mind passing on a letter to a friend she left in Brightmarket; a polite and pointed change of subject. Of course he would be happy to. How is the baby? Whenever Erend sees her husband at the palace, he's excited for their second child. Oh, Ava is fine, and so is this one. Ghada thinks another girl: she's carrying low, and that means girl. Had Ersa died, she'd have named the babe in her honor.

Ersa laughs again. "You still have time." Sinking, listing, back into her pillows. Her energy flagging. Erend wants desperately to check her forehead for fever.

"It would be tacky now," Ghada says, still holding Ava. "A babe named for the king and another for you?"

"Ho. I thought we were done with romance talk after Agat killed it so well," Ersa says tiredly.

"No problem," Agat says, grinning up from her potatoes. Two weeks away from her nitrate and embalming has done her complexion good, and her eyes are bright, leaving her almost pretty. Erend can't believe she's married. She must be younger than he is. Aloy's age.

"So shall we let it drop? I'm tired," Ersa announces. She's still recovering, her wounds still red enough that it's plausible. Erend still suspects her of using it as an excuse, just now.

Not that he wants to hear anything about it either. "Right, Ersa needs rest," he says loudly, using his authority as family and the man in a room of women to put a close to it.

"As does the little one," Ghada says. "I'll put her to bed and meet you outside in a moment." To Agat, who is done with her peeling anyway.

Erend's glancing at Ersa, hoping she'll communicate something in a glance: (Ersa: Stay and talk. I'll tell you all about it.

Erend: Thank you. I appreciate it. By the way, about you and Avad?

Ersa: Total rumors. Honestly, we've never even kissed.

Erend: I'm glad to hear it. Thanks.

Ersa: You're welcome.) —or at least a reassurance, a promise to recover and retake her position as captain. She avoids his probing instead. Maybe she really is tired. There's more color to her, her hair is growing fast, darkening her skull, but the purple bruising under her eyes looks permanent.

"Did you wanna know what the king's going to Brightmarket for?" Erend hazards, sure his nosy elder sister does, badly.

"Now that you're Captain, you need to get better at keeping secrets, fast," Ersa says with unexpected sharpness. "Your king needs you and your confidence."

That's uncalled for. "I keep secrets. You're — this is different."

Ersa looks at him pointed, her head twisted to the side, right ear slightly raised. A crafty look, if accidentally so. "What's Gorn's worst fear?" she asks, naming one of the Vanguard.

"Turkeys," Erend says promptly, frowning. Completely lost.

"And who was it that Darl got in trouble with?" Ersa asks. Light frown, confused. Just like him. What?

"Stona, he knocked her up. What's with the questions?" Erend asks, frustration creeping into his voice. This a weird captain thing? Ersa trying to prove how well he knows the men of the Vanguard?

"See!" Ersa says with vengeful triumph, drawing up her knees. "Darl's never told me who it was, and who'd talk about being scared of turkeys? You've never been able to keep a damn secret."

He hears a laugh from the beds; Ghada, listening in. His ears feel hot. "So? What does that matter? They're not important, and Gorn's is just stupid."

"And you wonder why I never told you about Avad," Ersa says. Almost smug. A direct hit. His mouth falls open, agape. An unladylike snort from the bedroom. "Do better," his sister says, serious. "Your king needs your best, little brother."

Aloy has a dream, the night Sunfall comes into view, close enough she could push and make it before dawn. Could, but won't: she'd rather scout the place a bit, figure out how to get into the ruin without getting attacked, spotted by HADES.

It's been couple of weeks, but she's sure their network is still down: Tallnecks aren't that easy to come by, and Sylens has been, well, silent in her ear. Nice change of pace. So: tomorrow dawn, she'll head towards the city, the blur of shacks? Cabins? she can see clustered outside the gates. Tomorrow evening, night maybe, she'll make her way into the home of the old ones. That means this time tomorrow, she'll be with Elisabet.

Maybe. Maybe. Aloy's trying to be realistic about it, but it's harder the closer she gets. Elisabet might be gone. Is probably gone. But — if anyone —

She sleeps restlessly, anxious and excited in turns.

Her dream: She's in a long hall. Metal, with metal doors. Sometimes the hall is a straight line she walks through. Sometimes the hall is a spire she climbs up by her fingers, sometimes the hall is a canyon she falls down and down and down, fire blooming above.

Sometimes there is a door. It won't open. She pounds on it, yells for it to respond. The Old One's voice says [LISTEN.] I am, Aloy says. I'm listening! I'm here!

[OBEY.] I will! I am! Open!

[DOCTOR SOBECK?] Yes, that's who I'm here to see, now let me in.

[DOCTOR SOBECK?] Yes, yes, she's here and that's why I came. What does that name mean, Doctor? Is it Elisabet's tribe? Can you tell me? Can she tell me? Where is the Doctor tribe?

[DOCTOR SOBECK?]

Sometimes she turns from the door and runs/walks/climbs/falls until she finds it again.

[HALT FOR IDENTISCAN.] Yes, okay, just let me see her.

[HALT FOR IDENTISCAN.] I am, I'm holding still. Is she here? Is Elisabet behind this door?

[HALT.] But the hall tilts and Aloy can't halt, slides back and down no matter how hard she searches for holds, cracks to dig her fingers in. Wait, she calls. Wait, I'm trying. I'm trying to halt. I'm trying.

[DOCTOR SOBECK?]

[HALT.]

Chapter Text

She'd only made the mistake of talking back to Dervahl a few times. He liked to taunt her, get under her skin; knew just what to pick at. She knew it was what he was doing, trying to wound her, give himself more excuses to turn on his machine. It had still taken her too long to learn not to respond. Never easy, because it was a way for her to get under his slimy skin, claw at him even locked in a damn cage.

It bothered Dervahl, the thing with Avad. And she had so few other tools at her disposal.

How long was it? He'd asked her once; door to the cell open. Her curled in pain, the steel of his boot just connected with her stomach. How long before you turned into the Sun-King's whore?

Things like that. All the time. It was personal. It offended him. Not just that she'd betray the Oseram, fuck the man whose father had murdered Dervahl family and her friends: it offended him that Ersa had chosen to. She knew this acutely. Instinctually. She'd had reason to fear rape, when she'd first realized her captivity, but Dervahl had never groped or forced himself upon her. Being with Avad had lessened her from woman to thing. More than that, Dervahl felt betrayed by it. By her choice.

It was the one power she had left over him.

It wasn't all beatings, tests of his new devices with her as subject. Dervahl enjoyed working with her forced to watch nearby, explaining his plans and taunting her for reactions. Sometimes ignoring her entirely, transfixed in his work. He was so good at building machines. He'd been such a hero to her. Even almost a crush. It infuriated her.

During one of those periods, him ignoring her, her lying in the straw, straw that smelled of piss and mold but was better than the stone floor, her broken arm cradled over her chest: You know, it's not true about what they say about Carja men. You know: they're so skinny and hairless, they're not truly men. Looking up at the ceiling, but she hears the tell-tale thunk of Dervahl dropping or slamming down a tool, clumsy with those famously careful hands. The king, though. I've never come harder.

The shriek of the cell door opening. A foot crushing into her chest, her shattered arm. Ersa had cried out; there was no helping that. A hand around her neck, Dervahl squatting to choke her. You won't provoke me into killing you easy, he'd said, his sour breath in her face. That's what you want, isn't it? But you'll die with your precious king's head on a stake before you, your sniveling brother's corpse by your side. I promise you that, whore.

Then the beating, to teach her not to provoke him. The disgust on Dervahl's face. The way he'd always grow still and listen, when she invented stories about the king. The king. She'd never given Dervahl the pleasure of saying Avad's name aloud.

In her darkest moments: she'd never given him the pleasure of knowing he was right, about her wish for a quick killing.

When she stretches her arms out before her, her right is almost a finger's length shorter than the left, and it's difficult to straighten it even that far. "See?" After weeks of being wrapped, her arm is clammy, shriveled and pale, and both her arms tremble slightly at the outstretching.

"Oh," Ghada says with a frown. "That's more than I expected."

"I said it was a finger's length." She's relieved to relax her arms, rubbing at the skin of her right with her left.

"It seemed like a lot." Ersa looks exasperatedly at her friend. "So?" Ghada continues, ignoring it, "will you have it broken again?"

"I've never heard of anyone breaking an arm three times to set it right," Ersa says. She extends her right arm, bending it and lifting it, testing her range of motion the way she has been since Agat took the cast off yesterday morning. She can't lift it above her head all the way. Can only with great effort fully extend her elbow, and can't touch her right shoulder with her right hand at all, no matter how much she struggles. Even her hand feels stiff, slow to respond to commands.

There aren't many weapons one can use with only one hand.

"There's always something," Ghada says bracingly.

"Not always." Ersa curls her fingers into a loose fist; sinks against the pillows of the sleeping couch. She just wants to sleep. She's not tired, but it would be easy: just close her eyes and drift off. Like sinking into a warm pool.

"Of course always," her friend says briskly. Ava is asleep, and so Ghada is keeping Ersa company: keeping her company, as though Ersa hasn't been in her house for the past weeks, demanding her attention, food, and shards. Good practice for when the new baby arrives. "Maybe Agat has an idea."

Dragging people Ersa knows into her house, too. With Ghada's husband off with Avad and Erend in Brightmarket, she must be even more strained for time. And yet. Ersa keeps demanding more indulgence. "If it doesn't involve nitrate, Agat won't know," she says.

"Stop sulking." Ersa cracks open her eyes. Ghada has been braiding her hair: the new style in Meridian involves silver ribbon and machine shards. Even back when they were in Jiran's palace, Ghada had always known the trends. Now she sits straight-backed on her stool, her eyes cold. "A crooked arm shouldn't be enough to make you give up."

"It's not." But she's stung, because Ghada isn't wrong. "I'm not the captain of anything anymore, so it doesn't matter."

Ghada is looking at her carefully. "I thought that was what you wanted."

Ersa stares at the wall opposite her. White plaster. A crack near the ceiling. The breeze coming in the lattice windows smells of jasmine. "I always intended that Erend would take the position," she admits.

"Then your sulking is even more unbecoming." It's a mean hit, and a clean one. Her chest goes tight, stomach knots. Yes, true, and yet. It sounds so pathetic now. All her plans, all her ideas. Exposed for the uselessness, the arrogance: that she would keep her strength. Have her little brother following her like a gosling, praising her. He'd be a fine captain, better at rallying men than she ever was. She'd watch and advice and share in the credit he won. She was so arrogant. She'd never realized. Now? Now her fever comes back near nightly. A woman sneezes in the street and Ersa is sick for days. Her sword arm, her hearing, useless. Can only chew on one side of her mouth, her back teeth gone. When she can eat at all, without her stomach and guts twisting and heaving in protest. Lying weak in her friend's house day in and out, burdening Ghada with her needs. The one time she'd left, the stairs back up had exhausted her. She'd had plans? Plans?

It's lain bare and exposed for the stupidity it is.

Rely on yourself. Trust yourself. Need is for others. Weakness is for others. Love is…

She's crying now. The realization takes her by surprise; Ersa has never been much for tears, but now they come in the blink of an eye. Erend must think her half blind: she has to keep her eyes screwed tight around him. There's no control over her emotions, herself, anymore. It's different with Ghada: Ghada is a friend, but doesn't admire her. Doesn't look to her as a font of strength. Looks to her as a pathetic, sulking fool. There's nothing Ersa can do to ruin that. She lives in terror of Erend realizing she is not who he thinks her to be.

"Oh, hush," Ghada says gently, coming over and sitting beside her on the couch, placing her arm around her back, hands on her shoulders. "This will pass."

She is not who Erend thinks her to be.

She is not who… No. She cannot even allow herself to think about Avad, about how she's already screwed that one up. Broken it. She won't lose Erend to this new emotional wave, this weakness, her new uselessness. Not her brother too.

Even worrying about it isn't like her. Even knowing it's something she should fear.

Ersa isn't herself anymore. She isn't sure even who that used to be.

She wipes her eyes clumsy on her blanket, Ghada hushing her soothingly. They hadn't been so close before, in Jiran's palace. Both slaves: Ghada sold into it with her family when her father had been bankrupted, Ersa captured, thrown into the Sun-Ring. They had been friendly. It was their reunion years later, after the Liberation, that had drawn them closer. They alone could share the memories.

"I hate being useless," she admits, wiping her palm against her eyes.

"Who doesn't?" Ghada asks.

"Ho." Ersa sighs, the emotion draining her as quickly as it had welled up. Leaving the knot in her stomach. The empty feeling. The antsy anger at her arm, her ear, her self, taking advantage, lying abed, useless, struggling to fool her own baby brother. She's never been a good liar. It's only Erend's good heart, how much he wants to believe, that's gotten her this far.

(A memory: Her head pounding, stomach in her throat. She can no longer feel her feet as she walks, feel anything below her ears; she floats along, the world tossing like a boat. She hates boats. Been on boats twice, sick both times. Not as sick.

All that keeps her going is anger, stubbornness. Don't give in. Don't faint. Don't fail. Her vision blooming with black flowers. Don't break. Don't give them the satisfaction. Don't let them down.

He's before her. He catches her. She falls, lets herself fall, lets herself fade, she doesn't fall but presses herself. This need, this wave of need. She's not falling. She's okay. She's alive. She's —

(safe)

Holds on to him one-armed, fingernails digging into skin. I was gone. I'm back. I missed you. I needed — not protection, but this. Another kind of protection. Another kind of need. Safety. The weakness she can't show. She'll give it to him. She needs him to take it. Accept it. Let her be weak and pathetic and sulking. Accept it. Please. Please.

His stupid sharp clothing digging into her arm. Her neck. His arm around her. Forgive me, is what he'd said. I gave up on you.)

She won't think of it. She won't.

And now it's Ghada she needs, an old friend, to accept these new failings of hers. To accept her need when no one else can. Will.

"I always intended for Erend to take over the Vanguard one day," she admits a few minutes later. Restless, she's left her sleeping couch, is pacing the home from end to end. It wears her out after only a few laps: she pushes. Needs to rebuild her strength.

The pacing makes Ghada dizzy, she says: she's sitting at the table, preparing lunch for them both and not looking at Ersa too much. "Then the Sun has decreed that it is now time," Ghada says dryly.

"He'll be damn good at it, if he ever gets the confidence up. I thought killing Dervahl would do it if anything, avenging me and all, but he keeps looking at me with moony eyes and trying to encourage me to get better." Ersa's breathing heavily, from the walking and from saying so much. Ghada hmms, tuning her out. "I should leave Meridian." A sour admission.

"Where would you go?" Ersa turns, and Ghada is looking at her dubiously.

"The Claim. Freeheap." And do what? She can't work a forge with one good arm, even if she'd ever been good at it. Ersa isn't. It's why she became a soldier. She huffs.

From her cot, Ava begins to whine. "Would you mind?" Ghada asks, pushing back from the table. Ersa hasn't the strength to carry the babe — even that is beyond her — but once Ghada changes the girl's cloth and feeds her from her breast, Ersa can supervise while Ghada continues preparing food. Ava's a pretty little girl: bright eyes, curly black hair. A fondness for clapping games and hide-your-face.

"You're not going to the Claim," Ghada says a while later, resuming their earlier conversation.

"I haven't decided," Ersa says. Extends her left hand. Ava slaps it with a giggle. She claps her hands and extends her right: same result. She's never spent any real time around babies, small children. Certainly never had a desire to have one of her own. But she is very fond of Ava.

"You haven't decided, but you're not." Ersa glowers at her over her shoulder. "I'm right. You could have left Meridian and never returned when you escaped the palace. It was what everyone assumed." Pause. Slight and short. They don't often discuss those times. "But you came back, and you've stayed since."

"I had reasons for that," Ersa says. Overthrowing the mad king. Then she was captain of the Vanguard. More than that, she…

"And you still have them." Rather than encouraging, Ghada just sounds exasperated. It helps, oddly. Ersa's never liked feeling pitied; her friend's attitude is nowhere near that. "What were you going to do once you made your brother captain, before?"

Ersa lets Ava clap her hands against hers. She claps her hands. Ava imitates. She gently claps the babe's face between her hands, to riotous giggles at the trick. She laughs too, ignoring Ghada.

The truth: Erend would be a good captain. He wasn't one for the big picture, but he knew everyone, paid attention to everyone. He was ideal for the job. Ersa was good, she knew that. She had been. Before now, before becoming useless. Frail and pathetic and weak.

The plan she'd been nursing: Erend takes over the Vanguard. She — she and Avad —

The way he'd looked at her. Partners. They would work together, be co-planners of Meridian's change. End the civil war, end the Shadow Carja. Equals.

She'd believed this.

"Does it matter? He's captain now. What I need to do is make him accept it."

"Hard to do that when you won't even let him see you sad," Ghada says.

"So. I'll leave for elsewhere." Force his hand. And solve other problems. Her imposition on her friends. The looks she gets when she leaves the house. The whispers behind her back.

(Dervahl's memory. In the back of her head. His boot on her neck. She can't breathe, even enough to kick or fight: her punishment for mentioning the king. You're so proud of yourself? Acting as the Sun-King's slut?)

Ghada laughs. "Your brother will just follow you. And I like your company here. Don't give me that look. Self pity is unbecoming."

"Thank you," Ersa mumbles. Flattered. Appeased. She and Ava play together on the floor as Ghada moves to the hearth to cook the stew she's been preparing.

"Oh," Ghada says after a few more minutes. Ersa still sits on the floor, Ava in her lap, sucking on that wooden rabbit again. It's the size of Ersa's hand, so she won't choke, but she keeps an eye anyway. The poor thing is already covered in tooth marks. Poor Tanda. It had been a sweet parting gift.

"What?" Ersa asks.

"I just remembered. Something you said earlier. About your brother killing Dervahl?"

"What about it?"

"He's not dead," Ghada says. "He's in prison. Here in Meridian. Did Erend not tell you?"

Chapter Text

"Your father tells me you're a keen gardener," Avad says. Desperately polite. "Is that so?"

Elida glares down at her plate. Avad's smile strains.

"Dear," Lahavis says.

Erend snorts. Picks up his glass, swirls the wine, takes a gulp. Wine is fine. It's not ale. He doesn't like the taste so much, doesn't drink it too much. More than usual today, but only because he's been good. Hasn't been drinking lately. The fuzz around the edges is like coming home.

"I should love to see them," Avad says, still trying.

"Then see them yourself!" Elida snaps.

"Dear," Lahavis says.

Prince Itamen is late. Avad's intelligence wrong. Three or four days has stretched into over a week, but Avad won't return home without word from the north. They're all relying on Lahavis's hospitality, which is fancy Carja hospitality — banquet meals and silk beds. Most of Avad's party has dispersed through Brightmarket: to barracks, inns; a few tagalong nobles finding lodging elsewhere. Erend sticks to his king's side. Joins the table at increasingly awkward dinners.

For reasons beyond Erend and definitely beyond Avad, the governor's daughter hates the king.

It's actually kind of hilarious.

And good for Avad, Erend figures. Guy spends way too much of his time with everyone loving his every hand gesture, treating him with respect. He could use some teenage girl's random grudge. Keep him humble.

(Erend's still mad about Ersa. He doesn't know what it is still, making him mad, but Erend nurses it. Won't let it cloud his work, the King's life is safe in his hands. Will let it keep him from chatting when Avad tries, but Ersa a chorus in his head. You and my sister — at least once, hopefully only once, but you and my sister were together — and now you're just abandoning her? He's to blame too. For taking the Captain job when Ersa is alive and it's hers. But. Easier to blame the King.)

"I'll be happy to look at your flowers. Perhaps after dinner," Avad says, just as polite, obviously straining to smile.

Lahavis changes the subject to some kind of tax thing. Fishing in the lake. Elida glares at her plate. Erend sips at his wine, tries to make it last. When dinner ends, Avad and Lahavis retreat to a parlor to continue talking taxes; Erend is dismissed. He has Huld and Darl take over guarding the king, leaves the manor to stretch his legs.

Guarding Avad is his least favorite part of being in the Vanguard. Even before — before. Before things got strange, in his head, about the king. It's dull, and he doesn't like being so invisible — sure, he eats at the same table, alert for poison. But no one acts like he's there, and Avad doesn't do much that's interesting: goes to meeting after meeting, Erend as his shadow. Talks to nobles and petitioners. Reads in one of his many studies and libraries and gardens. Sometimes, rarely, practices with swords and bow. A dull life.

Erend himself drifts to one of Brightmarket's taverns, on the edge of the lake, brightly lit by round lanterns. A pair of musicians on the dock, playing a lively song. He vaguely recognizes the melody. He pays his shards and takes his ale to a likely looking table — men his age, playing Strike with cheap cards and Carja rules — soon enough they're all swapping life stories, tales of machine battles, over third ales. This! This! This is what he knows, what he likes, what he wants— Erend and his new friends, swapping wins at cards, music and ale and a pleasant fuzz to his thoughts! Why can't the damn king do this instead of have meetings about taxes? Eh?

"You're one'uv the Oseram that serve the King?" Hadid, one of Erend's new friends, is asking, because Erend's just said: Avad's way more boring than you guys! to his new pals.

"Yeah, yeah. Good guy," Erend says, counting his cards again. Eight. Still eight. He bets another shard and draws another. Drains his pint.

"Never knew why he picked Oseram insteada Carja to serve 'im," says Dhavid.

"'Cuz our steel's the top! No offense. Three pull," he adds, placing down his cards.

"Ho! Fours!" Dhavid takes the pot, deals them all new hands. "Is it true what they say?"

"About what?"

"About y'guys." They all draw cards, lay bets. A pretty serving girl comes by, replaces their ale. "You Oseram."

"That we're the best damn soldiers anyone's ever seen?" Erend sniggers.

"That the Mad King…"

"Don't be stupid," Hadid says harshly. "No Oseram coulda —"

"— I've seen the new king, and he ain't —"

"What're you guys talking about?" Erend interrupts, drawing cards and placing down three.

"Some folks say —" Hadid breaks off, drains his ale. "Some folks say you arranged it with him. Th' Oseram killed the Mad King, let Avad…"

Erend squints. "Why would we do that?"

"For a man to kill his own father?" The men sit in silence for a few seconds. Dhavid continues: "Ain't right, especially for a Carja."

"'s okay for an Oseram?" Erend asks.

Dhavid shrugs. "Not sayin' it makes Avad a bad king."

"Anyone'd be better than the Mad King," Hadid adds.

"I'll drink to that," Erend says, puzzled by the turn in their conversation. "But - he did, you know. Do in the Mad King."

"Y'were there?" Dhavid asks, eyes wide.

Erend shrugs. Not in the room, but. "My sister."

"Wait - you're the one, you're that Erend?" Hadid asks, waving his hand.

"It ain't that common a name," he points out.

"So! Forget all that shit about the Mad King," Hadid says eagerly. "Is it true your sister —"

"Don't end that sentence with 'is fucking Avad,'" Erend says testily.

Dhavid snorts. "You can't fuck the Sun."

"Don't be stupid, Kings get sons the way the rest of us do," Hadid tells him.

"Eh, my ma told me they don't."

"Your ma's an illiterate fishwife."

"Hey," says Erend.

"It's true," Dhavid says, drawing a card. "Anyhow, even if Sun Kings do fuck, they wouldn't fuck an Oseram woman. I was gonna ask —"

"Hang on," says Erend. Not that he wants his sister and Avad to have anything to do with fucking, of course: but he feels like some defense is in order. Of some kind. If Avad was to wantto fuck… fire and spit, he can't even finish the thought in his head, his stomach curdles and head grows foggy just half-imagining a world where…

Sees the flash of memory, the two of them at the Great Bridge, the pale, determined look on his sister's face —

Augh.

"Hang on," Hadid also says. "They are fucking, everyone from Meridian is saying. Aren't they?" to Erend.

"No," Erend says firmly, then has to hide the lie with the rest of his ale. "No way."

"Anyway," Dhavid says, "I wanted'ta ask, is it true your sister's the one who put down the Mad King?"

Erend groans.

When he finally makes it back to Lahavis's estate, it's late and he's halfway to drunk. Feels good: it's been a long time, too long, and he's only half drunk which means he didn't truly… truly what? Break his vow? Who did he vow to, exactly?

There's a light burning in the garden, and movement in its flicker. Erend veers towards it without thinking, sees Elida, the governor's daughter, kneeling on the tile before a bench, doing something with pots of flowers. "Kinda late to garden!" Erend calls.

The girl starts; drops a pot with a loud earthen shatter. He winces. "Sorry," he calls, tries to lower his voice. "I didn't mean to be so…"

"It's - it's fine," the girl says. As he ambles over, she sweeps up the chards of a ceramic pot, the dirt, a tropical kind of flower with reddish leaves. There's dirt all over her pretty silk dress.

"Shit, I'm sorry," Erend says again. He thuds down to his knees, reaches for the shards and soils clumsy, trying to help tidy.

Elida flinches away, then wipes her cheek, leaving a muddy streak. He blinks, foggy. "Are you crying?"

"Y - yes, no, not about…" Elida's face twitches and crumples and now he's just drowning in it, his whole body kind of sinks, was it a precious pot? Some precious flower? He feels oafish and stupid and clumsy, the foggy feeling in his head an anchor and chain and no longer peaceful — why do you screw things up, Erend? Why do you have to —

"Aw, shit, I'm sorry," he says again and again. "Look, the roots are still okay, we can fix it, I can buy you a new pot, I had a coupla drinks and I know better, I didn't mean to…"

"No, no, I'm not!" but whenever Elida tries to say she isn't upset, she gets wet eyed again, and they're back and forth like this for a while, Erend piling up dirt, Elida dirtying her face.

Then: the mood shifts, and they're laughing. A kind of humorless, anxious laugh: but now they're both sitting on the ground and dirty, and when she gives the first anxious giggle he laughs too, wants to encourage it and not the crying.

"It's okay," she sniffs at last. "It's just a pot. The flower is fine. It's okay."

"What are you doing out here?" Erend asks, feeling stuffy and very sober. "It's late."

"I couldn't sleep." Elida's fingers tremble as she gathers the pottery shards together, placing them in the intact basin of the broken pot. "My… my garden calms me, so when I feel troubled… even when it's late like this…"

"What does a girl like you have to be troubled about?" Erend asks. Means for it to be gentle, kind of teasing maybe, but Elida's hands shake and her eyes moisten. "Aw, shit," he starts.

"No… it's okay. I lost… someone close to me a little while ago," she says slowly, looking at her hands. "Someone I loved."

His mouth is dry.

"Sometimes… it's hard. To talk, or smile, or - or to even get out of bed. It feels like I'm dying. Like I'm at the bottom of the lake, and can't breathe."

"I know the feeling," he admits. Feels a pang. "I mean… hell, I don't, I guess. I thought I did — my sister," he explains.

"I… heard about her, from my father," Elida says.

"I know it's — it's not the same as you, since she's fine and all. Mostly fine. She's — lost some of her hearing, and her health is gone. But that's nothing, right?"

"You're lucky," she whispers.

"Yeah," Erend says. Means it. Doesn't know. He's lucky! Damn, he's lucky. How many times now? How many times has he thought his sister dead and buried? And each time — every time — "I don't know what I'd do without her bossing me around," he says. Chuckles. Winces. "Damn. I'm sorry, I don't mean to — to brag," if that's the word?

Elida shakes her head. "I'm happy for you," she says softly.

Silence, for a moment. "So you garden when you're feeling sad?"

She nods. "Sad, or… angry, or… tired. Not the kind of tired you can sleep away."

"The kind in your skull," Erend says. "I've had it before." He thinks it over. "Are you here cuz you're mad at the king? I'm not - not asking as a Vanguard, or anything."

Elida blushes, darkening the dirt on her face. Even as she scowls. "I wish he'd just end this war! Every day, more people are dying because he won't! If he just gives them peace…"

"He can't do that," Erend says. "He can't just let the Shadow bastards keep going on — they're the bad guys, remember?"

"Not all of them!" Two red flowers blooming on her cheeks. She looks down and away. "And — and why should he get to just do whatever he wants, when other people are suffering?"

Erend laughs; he's not even sure why. Because he's thought almost the same, about Avad, Avad and his sister. Because of how indignant Elida is. Because everyone is mad lately, about almost the same things. She glances up at him and then down, redder. And why does everyone he talks to make him feel like he has to defend Avad? Wasn't he mad at the guy first? Doesn't he, not these folks, have the best reason for it? After all — none of their sisters —

He helps Elida finish cleaning up. She's repotting some flowers, here in the midnight, moths circling the lanterns, firebugs sparking in the garden — he helps, clumsy, offering to move heavy items, anyway. She's tense, relaxes slowly. His mind is cottony, clears in the cool night air.

He goes to bed first, although he'd wanted to wait her out; doesn't feel right to leave a girl, a real girl like Elida — the kind of girl in flowers and silks — alone on a terrace in the dark. But his body gives before hers, his mind addled from drink while hers remains sharp from avoiding all her darker thoughts. She smiles as she wishes him a goodnight, and Erend barely undresses before stumbling into bed.

He awakes again far too soon to Avad's summons; he's grouchy and headachey in the morning sun, and Avad's implacable expression — clearly, pointedly waiting for Erend, unable to proceed without a guard — doesn't help. But somewhere between peeling off his boots and falling onto his pallet, Erend has come to a decision, and that is this: to clear his conscious. To stop being angry about a shadow and have it out with the king — no, with the man. With Avad. Call him out and demand real answers, about Ersa, about his intentions towards his sister, and then Erend will either be over it or able to join in Elida's grudge, Carja speculation and gossip. He doesn't need to like the guy to serve him, if he dislikes him honestly. He's pretty sure. He hopes. And it won't come to that, probably. If for some reason it does happen that his sister wants to marry the King — even though she'd never wanted to marry any Oseram — well, now he sounds like those Carja at the tavern last night. So.

He shakes his head and puts it all aside. Approaches Avad, waiting impatiently in the tiled grand hall of the governor's estate, arms folded behind his back, expression sour.

Very sour. Actually. It's not like Avad. Not that Erend's never seen him impatient, or annoyed: guy's good at a blank face (Erend suspects he'd be a sure winner at Strike), but this is… off. More. Definitely more than annoyance at his captain being a little (half a watch! If that!) late and missing breakfast.

"Morning, sir," Erend says, trying not to look or sound suspicious.

Avad's lips thin. "We must return to Meridian. Ready your men."

"Wha -? But, the north…" Erend trails off, not sure how to allude to Prince Itamen without saying the name.

"Other matters have demanded our attention," Avad says sourly. Erend catches the pronoun, the plural. Ours? His gut immediately flips. "I received word from Marad first thing this morning," Avad continues, looking somewhat past Erend. Reminds him of Elida, gazing fixedly at the ground, afraid of revealing her face.

"What happened?" he asks, not really wanting to know.

"Ersa," Avad says. Erend's heart in his throat: but Avad sounds angry, not frightened or upset — continues before Erend has too much chance to worry, to fear for her life a fourth time — "she broke into the holding cells and murdered Dervahl late yesterday morning."

Chapter Text

Ghada knows at once she's made a mistake. Ersa's goes immediately pale, immediately still — Ava whimpers and grabs for her rabbit, clenched tightly in Ersa's fist. "He's dead," she says. Dervahl.

She's made a mistake. She shakes her head mutely: no, he is not dead.

"My brother killed him when he attacked the palace," Ersa says, her assumption, the safe assumption, the logical one. Ghada doesn't know either, why Erend didn't kill Dervahl: she shakes her head.

"No. He's imprisoned in the old cells, my husband told me…" A week ago now, a week past, when Ersa had still been sleeping, dying, tight skin and visible bones, bruising and infection spreading over her like shadow, the sun's retreat. Now she is awake, and yet Ghada sees what her friend will not admit: the shadows under her eyes, the fragility of her body, the dreams that thrash her gasping awake, Ghada lying silently across the room, listening to her quick breaths, choked sounds, muffled frustrations.

Ersa is prideful. Perhaps an Oseram trait, perhaps just Ersa's own — she does not like to appear weak, does not like to accept help, even as Ghada remembers her days as a slave, asking Avad to favor her friends. She lies silent those nights, afraid that to offer comfort would be an insult. What should she do? When Ersa's emotions do overwhelm her — usually after her brother comes and goes — she is abashed, furtive after. Changing the subject, pretending tears did not stain her face.

Now: Ersa rocks unevenly to her feet, her mouth a thin line. Ava cries out in frustration; the rabbit is still clenched in her fist. Lunges and tears at Ersa's ankles, begging for it in her year old babble: Ersa strides away, towards the door, and Ghada leaps to her feet to catch her by the sleeve. It is only Ersa's sickness that lets her stop her. "You can't go after him!"

"Why the fuck not?" Ersa says. Rarely swears — not so much as the Oseram soldiers, for all her masculinity she has at least this feminine trait — Ghada digs her nails into her friend's arm.

"He is prisoner of the king."

"The king is Avad," Ersa says, as if that means something. It may. In her heart, Ghada had suspected: oh, after all, hadn't all the slaves? Back in the day? When word had gotten around Ersa was the prince's favorite, always away with him in his apartments? Traveling with him to Sunfall? Ghada hadn't wished to believe it. Unkindly, and yet: Ersa was no great beauty. And Oseram.

And yet — even so. When the stories from the bridge, her husband, had reached her… it made sense that Ersa was not just the king's favorite but his lover. It was still difficult to believe.

"The king is the king," Ghada insists.

"And he's mine," Ersa hisses. Ghada assumes she must mean Avad, the king — a startling enough admission, with such a snarl on her face — "Dervahl is mine to kill," she clarifies."

Ghada purses her lips and lets go of Ersa's arm. She scoops up Ava, removes the pot from the fire, and hurries out the door after her friend. Ersa moves with certainty, never stopping to orient herself, search for the place she must go — but she still walks slowly. After a few minutes, clutching a stitch in her side. Ghada is glad for the pace; Ava is fidgeting in her arms, unwilling to make this trip through the city — wanting to walk, not be held, she knows, she knows, but now is not the time to admire the flowers and colorful patterns that so excite the babe —

And. The other babe, the one she still carries inside her — slows her down, weighs her, so that she is puffing to keep up with Ersa, who is marching along pale. What a sight! To be seen following this Oseram like this — dressed in just a cotton shift, a home dress, if the other women saw… they already think she's just an upstart, her and her husband both, but mostly her for having been enslaved, having been of common birth, for now having a place even in the back shadows of court, by merit of her friendship with the king's favorite — oh, they'll mock and gossip for months if they see her. But Ghada cannot shift her daughter in her arms, even just to fix her own hair. Damn Ersa. Damn.

Ersa heads straight for the iron cells beneath Meridian's former Sun Ring, the place of sacrifice where — Ghada swallows. Doesn't want to bring her daughter, her unborn child, herself into this place, this place where — where people were held before they were killed, where Ghada's friendswere held once — now it is a holding cell for Meridian's minor prisoners, those not severe enough to send to Sunstone Rock; still. Still.

Ersa doesn't hesitate at the doorway as Ghada does. "Where is Dervahl?" she demands of the lone guard, sitting on a stool by the door.

He scrambles to his feet. "Dervahl is not to be visited, by order of the Sun King —"

"Don't you know who I am?" Ersa hisses. She is wearing a long purple skirt of Ghada's, the one with the border of white machine metal and gold stitching, the matching blouse with gold embroidery on the hem, cut fetchingly to reveal the upper midriff — Ghada cannot wear it pregnant — that on Ersa simply reveals the jut of her ribs. No weapons, no armor, no Oseram tooling or leather: she is not, Ghada realizes only now, even wearing sandals. Her feet visibly dirty from the sandy streets. "I am Captain of the Vanguard and I demand to see the prisoner."

It is a testament to Ersa, to her friend, that even frail and skinny and in borrowed Carja clothes, the shortest and smallest in the room, when she holds herself straight and meets the guard's eye, he shrinks from her authority. "I - I didn't recognize you," he says meekly.

"Where?"

"This way." The guard glances at Ghada, at Ava. Ghada is taller than Ersa and tries to feel it; she does not want to go further into the prison, does not want her daughter here or deeper. Does not want to leave Ersa alone. She bounces Ava in her arms, holds her close and takes a comforting breath, inhaling the scent of the babe's scalp — the comforting weight of her in her arms — and follows.

Down the steps but not far: Dervahl is sitting in one of the first cages, alone. His arms held behind him, shackled. He is sitting on the stone floor, his face turned towards the visitors, his eyes keen. Smirking. Looking at no one but Ersa.

It stretches. No one speaks. Ghada presses Ava's face to her, holding her head still over the babe's protests: she does not want this man to see her daughter. For her daughter to see him. Dervahl is unremarkable in appearance: he looks like any Oseram Ghada might spy on the streets. She doesn't like that he does; she would prefer him maimed and scarred and distinct.

"What is he charged with?" Ersa asks at last, as if Dervahl isn't sitting before them all. He smirks.

"Attempted murder of the Sun-King, and damage to his city and realm by blaze."

"That's it?" Ersa asks. She's quiet for a moment. "You didn't even manage to kill a single…" she trails off, watching Dervahl's face contort.

"Open the door," Ersa says at last, perfectly still, not looking away from the prisoner.

"I'm not allowed —"

"Don't you know," she repeats coldly, "who I am?"

The guard unlocks the cell door. Dervahl doesn't move, remains cross-legged on the floor, his arms bound behind him. Smirking. Calm, undisturbed.

"Leave," Ersa says.

The guard looks at Ghada; she sees his head out of the corner of her eye. She doesn't know if Ersa means she too should go — doesn't know if she wants to leave her, either, with the man who… with this man. But she has her daughter to think about, and so for a moment Ghada is frozen: unwilling to risk Ava, unwilling to abandon Ersa. She turns and pushes her daughter into the guard's arms. "Her father is captain of the king's personal guard," she says.

The man swallows and nods. Ava fusses, reaching and squirming out to return to Ghada; she smiles uneasily and turns away, back to Ersa, standing just behind and to the side as a shadow.

"Pretty girl you have," Dervahl says, looking at Ghada. She feels her face grow hot; presses both her hands to her belly. Sensing some sort of disturbance, the babe begins to toss inside her. "I used to have a daughter." There's a twisted threat in the statement, poison in his eyes and mouth.

Ersa steps between them. "She's better off dead than with you as a father."

He spits and jumps to his feet, fast, liquid and muscle — Ghada shrieks, not hearing herself, leaps backwards even as Ersa steps forward: his hands are bound. It's too quick for Ghada to see, track — fist flying out and Dervahl is reeling to the ground, his face bloodied.

"You fucking bitch," he snaps wetly, blood in his mouth.

Ersa drops the stone from her fist. It clatters to the floor. "Didn't even manage to kill me," she says coldly. "Didn't even manage to kill a single guard. Aren't you powerful?"

Dervahl laughs. "And now it's to that damn Carja prison for me, to be reformed and changed by the King's kindness. Doesn't that just kill you?" he says. "You want me dead as much as I want you gutted and begging for mercy." Ersa moves. Stops herself. "But your precious lover is too weak — so full of mercy, he wants me saved." He spits bloody on the floor. "I was going to give you his spineless corpse before I killed you. Now?" he chuckles. "I suppose I'll see you in a year or two. Reformed."

Ersa looks down at him. "He's kind," she says.

"The Mad King's bastard is gutless and womanly," Dervahl says, "and you — you just spread your legs for that cockless fool. How long did it take you to crawl back into his bed?" He looks her over with a leer, dark and hot. "Here to tell me about reform? How Sunstone will fix me, make me better?"

"Avad is kind," Ersa says again, very quietly. She turns to the brazier, glowing dim, lighting the cell. Reaches in and pulls a branch, half ash, flame quickly sputtering into ember, curling towards her fingers. "I am not."

Ersa is waiting at the palace when Avad returns, tired, aching from the road, angry and heavy with nerves in turn: Brightmarket is close, but not so close he hasn't had half a day to consider her, consider Dervahl — and also consider Brightmarket, the silence from Vanasha, Sunfall, his brother and Nasadi. (And: yes, Lahavis. Fishing rights. He doesn't care, he wants to say at times. Wants to believe at times. He doesn't care about these things. And yet. His father had not. His father had delegated all to advisors and ministers. He will not — )

He is sickened and angry, returning to Meridian. Hating the slow pace, the retinue, that he is unable to hurry, to move freely: must travel always with a deliberate pace, unhurried, unafraid, unworried by the burdens of men — let men see him in the streets, at ease (surrounded by his guard)… Erend is with him and has tried to speak, defend his sister, all morning — Avad doesn't trust himself to reply. Knows what he wishes to tell him, suspects it is wrong.

He will say to Ersa: you broke the law of the Sundom. He was punished for his crime as was appropriate, as any man would have been. This is no longer the Mad King's time, and death is no longer permissible for minor crimes.

She will reply: Is the attempted assassination of the king not worthy of the death penalty?

No. It cannot be, else Avad himself — who did not simply try but succeeded, his father heavy and bleeding in his arms —

No. More than that. Less than that. He has chosen to show mercy to assassination attempts in the past. Dervahl is no different. Dervahl cannot be different, for Avad cannot have bias. He will tell her.

But what about me? Ersa asks in his mind, and his throat goes tight and hot, his insides pinched and twisted. He imagines her — in a cold, damp cell — dying, dead, lost —

Her torture, her suffering at Dervahl's hands, is not, by law, a crime. Her torture and suffering — is not worthy of bending the law for, ignoring the law for, killing Dervahl for. He tells himself. He is not above the law. He cannot put it aside for himself. For her.

He will tell her, and he cannot tell Erend, even as they walk together, both equally — although Avad knows Erend doesn't believe them to be — afraid for Ersa, worried for her. He cannot tell Erend this, because he cannot argue with him, does not have the strength. The conviction.

They arrive at the palace at last, with word that Ersa is there for them: there, on the terrace. She is sitting with her friend Ghada, who is pale, holding her daughter, Avad's namesake — (she stands, wide eyed, seeing her husband at Avad's other side, rushing to him, he breaks protocol to comfort his wife and Avad does not begrudge him) Marad sits on one of the low couches, implacable, unhappy —

Ersa is standing, turns at their approach.

He has not seen her in weeks, has avoided her since he sullied her name on the Great Bridge, since he forgot himself, since he first saw her after thinking her dead and buried, pale and half broken and yet the most beautiful woman — the most beautiful —

He meets her eyes and forgets everything, everyone else. There is nothing else but her: the wary, frightened look in her eyes. The brown fuzz of her regrowing hair, the jut of her bones, the way he has to stop himself from going to her. He has surrendered what little right he had.

He is not a man. He is king. "You murdered a man in my care," he says.

"Hey!" Erend says, coming up and around him, moving to his sister. He grasps Ersa's shoulder, and Avad is irrationally angry at him. For the comforting touch. "She killed a fucker who probably had it coming."

"Erend," Ersa says impatiently.

"You think I'm not going to stand for you on this?" he says back, matching her tone.

"What makes you think I need defending?" she retorts. Half smiling.

"You broke the law," Avad interjects. Both siblings turn to him, Ersa wary and Erend surprised and angered. "That cannot be tolerated — even from you."

"He deserved it," Ersa says softly, meeting his eyes. Her jaw set. Thin from her recovery, scarred, hair gone, wearing a dress too large: she looks exactly the same, as well. As she had the first time she had defied him, told him he was a fool. Years ago. This very palace.

"He may have," Avad allows. Erend scoffs, loudly: may! "You cannot take the law into your own hands," he says, allowing some of his frustration to creep into his voice, hating this. All of it.

"So? What will you do? Will you send me to Sunstone?" Ersa lifts her chin.

Will he? He begins to consider, for just a moment — Ersa and Janeva more or less get along, she might do well, although convincing Janeva to take on a co-warden…

Ersa sees him consider and reels away, disgusted — "I see," she says poisonously.

His heart seems to —

"He hadn't committed a capital crime," Avad says. He turns away; he can't trust himself to look at her, see the hatred in her eyes. Thinking at once that it is undeserved, deeply deserved. Had he not loved her? Had he not wanted to marry none but her, be with none but her, until his last breath? And had he not believed her dead and begun to think of others, moved on, set her memory aside? Taken all those vows, things he'd sworn to her in the dead of night, and placed them into the past? Allowed himself to want others, think of others, imagining being in love with others, while in the other breath telling himself he loved Ersa? And then he had abandoned her twice, afraid of the rumors after he'd lost himself on the bridge — avoided her as she clung to life, as her true friends and brother had stayed at her side — Telling himself it was for the best, for her sake, for her protection from rumors and slander…

And now — accusing her of crimes, and yet he must. Meridian comes before himself, before her, and it's only been two years since his father's death. No one believes the killings are over; they cannot begin again. He speaks slowly, addressing the open air. "He did not kill anyone, his attempts were thwarted thanks to Aloy, and we had no claim on his life. And now you've taken that life."

"You're fucking with us," Erend says lowly.

"Captain," Avad says tersely. He will gladly tolerate a casual tone and manner. This is too far.

"No," Erend says. "No. Absolutely not. You know what? I quit. I'm not spending another damn second in the Vanguard, if it means serving a bastard who is trying to charge my sister with murder."

"I cannot change the facts of the situation," Avad says with heat, feeling a sinking in his gut again: he can manage without the Oseram. His power is firm enough now that he does not strictly need their strength. He does not want to lose them. Does not want to lose Erend too, the first to his side after his sister, always at his side — he would beg. He cannot. "Ersa," he says, looking back, forgetting himself, begging: absolution he does not deserve. Already thinking: who will replace them? Who can I promote? When can I return to Brightmarket; now it is more critical than ever —

Also thinking: Forgive me, forgive my weakness, I have never had your strength, I only do what I must. Aching at the sight of her: her gray eyes (beautiful), the shadows on her face (beautiful), the redness of her cheeks (beautiful), the new lines of scars —

"He was a murderer," Ersa says abruptly. Erend turns to look at her. Ersa looks only at Avad. "You believed I was dead because he dressed a woman as me. That woman was murdered." Avad has to struggle not to let his mouth gape open; a quick glance confirms Erend has lost the same battle. Ersa doesn't seem to react, even blink. "I carried out the king's justice in avenging her death."

He remembers her. He remembers Ersa — the woman he had believed was Ersa, the same height and build, in Ersa's clothing and armor, her face — he still thought of it as Ersa's face — a bloody ruin. He had taken one look, he hadn't believed the news, his heart in his throat, even at Erend's heartbroken expression at the door — he had taken one look. Hadn't accepted it, had told himself it could not be her, not when only a day before she had been — he'd had to look away, had to leave, before he lost his composure. He had told himself he hadn't accepted it, but he had. This woman was not Ersa.

"Wait —" Erend says. "Then who is she?"

"I don't know," Ersa says.

"Dervahl did," Avad can't help but say. Her eyes flash angrily. But he feels his mouth twitch. He turns away, composing himself. Thinking it through.

And thinking through: she could have fought more. Would have, if he knows her at all. Could have defied and resisted and claimed she was right until he'd given in and agreed or they'd parted ways forever. Instead: she had found a solution. Found another answer. Helped him, given him this. Reached out.

Perhaps…

"We will need to discover this woman's identity and alert her family as to her fate, and the justice granted to her after death," Avad says at last, sinking into one of the low chairs. It sounds somewhat hollow: legally tenable it may be, but no one had thought at all about this woman until it was convenient. "Donations will be made to the Temple in her honor, and to her family when she is named. Ersa, I would ask you to…"

"Gladly," Ersa says before he's even asked. He smiles at her, and she doesn't smile back, but her expression is less stony.

"And Erend…" Avad trails off delicately.

"I take back my resignation," Erend says, still a bit grumpy. "For now. Only while — you know." He nods at Ersa.

For a moment, the three of them sit and stand in silence. Avad's thoughts on the woman, lying in a grave with Ersa's name. And also: what to do with Dervahl's body. And also: Vanasha and Sunfall, still.

"Your hand is burned," he says, noticing the redness on Ersa's palm for the first time. He automatically extends his own as if to take it — and then remembers himself and draws away.

"Got a bit too close to a flame," she says darkly.

Avad doesn't smile: he's already heard about how exactly Dervahl met his end. Erend, who was there for the report, laughs humorlessly.

Ersa takes a few steps towards him, almost shy: holds out her palm for Avad's examination. "I've had worse," she says dryly. The skin is red and shining, but not blistered except for at the very edge by her thumb.

"You'll need it tended to," he says. She hums an assent. Carefully, very carefully — but she came to him — he reaches and takes her hand into his, thumb stroking the base of her fingers to avoid the burn. She flinches at his touch, her hand curling and yanked away: he draws away lightning quick too, throat tight. "I have missed you," he says quietly, looking at his hands in his lap. Imagines begging her forgiveness for the promises he'd made to her and not kept, how he'd promised to love her always and then looked instead at Aloy. Imagines telling her: I had not even thought about that woman in your grave. You remembered her and saved yourself in one stroke. I need your clear eyes. I need you.

Instead, he decides he will say: I must return to Brightmarket. If you would have a meal with Erend and myself before we go…

He looks up, and she's looking at him in a way he's never seen: she is tight and worried with fear, a look on her face — of fear. Nerves. Hope. He's never seen her this way. The way she leans away and then back, words on the tip of her tongue, trying to…

She looks exactly as he feels, and it's like gasping in your first breath after diving into cold river water. Don't turn me away. I need you so. He's always relied on her to make the first moves, afraid always of pushing, abusing his power, forcing her to do what she does not entirely desire — but he feels himself smiling now, near jumping out of his seat, near crashing into her, quick, eager, anxious to ease those fears, the belief he would ever, could ever, reject anything she offered.

He embraces her and she leans all her weight into his arms. He's pulling her to him, desperate: she's solid and hot and digging her fingers into his back, hard, the way he doesn't like, the way that right now — "I've been so —" she says, half says, whispers, can't finish the sentence: doesn't need to. She pushes herself away, out of his arms — doesn't even give him the time to question the loss before she has taken his face in her hands and is kissing him.

Chapter Text

Fourth Month of Sun Ascending, Eighth Day. Captain of the Vanguard Erend, Meridian

Captain Erend, I do hope my letter finds you well. Enclosed please find dried cuttings of the morning flowers I dropped the night we spoke. The flowers are doing well and I hope you are well too.

Most Sincerely, Elida Khane Lahavis

4 | A | 10 Elida Khane Lahavis in Brightmarket

To Elida, Thanks for the plants I stuck them on my shelf. in my room. Glad the plant is okay. Hope you're sleeping better. Weather's hot here. And it's busy. The captain is my sister.

From Erend.

Fourth Month of Sun Ascending, Eleventh Day. Captain of the Vanguard Erend, Meridian

Dear Erend, I'm sorry for my mistake calling you Captain. I have been sleeping enough, and slightly better. Thank you for your concern.

It is busy here as well. My father is very worried about the situation. I don't want to be part of it, so I rest during the day and garden at night, when the air is cool and it's quiet. That helps with the heat! Perhaps you could do the same?

From, Elida Khane Lahavis

4 | A | 15

To Elida, That's a dumb idea. I don't think that's smart. To sleep all day and stay away from people. It's stupid.

Anyway I can't. I have to serve the king.

From, Erend

4 | A | 16

Sorry. Some stuff's been happening here.

Erend.

Fourth Month of Sun Ascending, Seventeenth Day.

Captain Erend, I hope I'm not bothering you with my letters. I apologize for any trouble I have caused.

Yours sincerely, Elida Khane Lahavis

4 | A | 18

To Elida, I asked my sister + she asked Avad + this is a flower called a 'Lanced Sun-Flower,' because of the leaf shape. Maybe you know about it already. When it grows it will have round flowers that are red and orange. Although I'm not sure. But that's what Avad said and he asked.

I'm not good with words + I've never written letters much. But you're not bothering me any. So don't waste your time thinking it.

From Erend

Fourth Month of Sun Ascending, Twentieth Day.

Dear Erend, Thank you for the flowers. They have been repotted and given a place of honor in my garden. And please thank His Radiance the Sun King for his assistance in a matter so far beneath him. Tell him that exactly from me, if you would.

Don't tell him this part, but ——— it's hard to believe you'd really ask him about flowers. I hope he didn't spend more than a moment on the question.

Is your sister well?

From, Elida

4A23

Elida,

My sister

Ersa is ok. It's all weird to be honest. I don't know if I can explain in a letter. She's staying in the palace now. Also don't repeat this stuff. I don't know if it's a secret or not. Her and Avad kind of have a thing.

I guess they're together now. But it's not that easy. Because Ersa killed Dervahl. She wasn't "Captain" when she did it and he wasn't sentenced to death. So it was against the law. But she's not in trouble. Except that now people here are saying she broke the law. And Avad's been seduced but that's gross ————

Well there's a lot of shit going around. Avad for a while was pretending he didn't know her. Which was shit because they were best friends. But now he's all "yeah we're a thing" but people still don't believe it. I wouldn't either. But I saw them a week ago. Anyway he's ok guy. I didn't ask him about the flowers. Ersa did.

From, Erend

Fifth Month of Sun Ascending, First Day.

Dear Erend, I apologize that I haven't written in some time, but so much has happened!

Four days ago, a boat pulled into the harbor of Brightmarket and I suppose you'll know by now that it contained the Dowager Queen Nasadi and Sun King — or I suppose now Prince — Itamen! They were accompanied by a very small party who had helped them flee the north, and none other than the Nora Aloy, who I met a few months ago and saved me twice, and brought justice if not peace to my Atral —

It was a surprise to see Aloy with the Dowager Queen and King/Prince, of course, but I was delighted, and she remembered me and we spoke for a brief time; I showed her my garden and assured her I was doing better than when we last met. I was touched by her concern; I would not have expected her to put any thought to me once we first parted. But I shouldn't waste leaf writing of her!

The Dowager Queen, King/Prince Itamen, and her handmaiden all stayed at my father's estate for two days, to recover from the journey. I understand now that this was why my father has been in such a state lately; he knew they would be arriving and was forbidden to speak of it. I think that's also why the Sun King and yourself visited last month? They spoke of the delay — I guess there was a series of killings in the court in the north, and High Priest Bahvas is said to be dead! Can you imagine? It's as if even without Sun King Avad's action, the Sun itself is forcing an end to the war and favoring the Light over the Shadow. They didn't talk much about these things, at least not in front of me. But I spoke to the Dowager Queen, who said I was a "charming young maid," which was very flattering. The King/Prince is very quiet and would not speak to me, preferring to stay close to his mother and her handmaiden.

They left yesterday morning for Meridian, and will likely beat my letter there. All of Brightmarket is talking about it! The other members of the party that accompanied the Queen have remained here, and father says we are at risk of an attack in retaliation. If more guards are summoned to protect us, I hope you will be among them. I would like to show you my garden.

I hope you and your sister are well,

Elida.

5A2

What happened to Aloy? She didn't come to Meridian with the others.

Fifth Month of Sun Ascending, Fourth Day.

Dear Erend, Aloy of the Nora left after staying the night, before the others. She mentioned she was heading east. Do you know Aloy as well?

I hope you are well, Elida.

5A8

Elida, Sorry it took me a while to write back. You might have guessed it's crazy here.

Itamen and Nasadi arrived last week. Avad came out to meet them on the road but I guess it caused some drama. Nasadi feels like she put a lot at risk and she's mad since Avad wasn't even in Brightmarket to greet them. I guess that might still be fine but now she's mad because she found out that Avad wasn't there because of Ersa. I'm like. "Lady what do you think? He's going to pick Ersa his best friend over his evil dad's wife." Ersa told me not to even think that around her. There's also some drama because it turns out that Avad disinherited Itamen from the royal line after he became king. I guess to stop people from hoping to replace Avad with Itamen. Even though that's what the Shadow Carja did anyway. Avad says he knows it was "just a gesture" but legally he needed to. And that the Mad King did the same thing to Avad back in the day.

(So I don't know how that works, since Avad's king now and all. Avad tried to explain. If the Mad King had died on his own while Avad was away, Avad would have been king and the Mad King wouldn't have liked it. So the Mad King said he wasn't royal anymore so that if the Mad King died on his own Avad would be at the forge without a hammer. And with Itamen it's the same. If Avad had died everyone would have made Itamen king automatically. So Avad had to make Itamen not royal even though the Shadow Carja didn't listen.)

The problem is that Nasadi wants Itamen to stay king because the Mad King never made him not royal. And she's mad he's not even a prince anymore. But Avad won't make him a prince again.

I'd seriously rather go to Brightmarket than deal with this shit. I didn't become a Vanguard to deal with politics all day.

Anyway yeah I know Aloy. But I haven't seen her in a couple months. She could have stopped by and said hello on her way east.

From, Erend

Fifth Month of Sun Ascending, Fourteenth Day.

Dear Erend, There is more news from Brightmarket! I've heard a rumor the Sun Ring of Sunfall has been destroyed! Not only that, but we have had nearly two score refugees from Sunfall and Blazon Arch over the past weeks. With the High Priest dead — the rumors have been verified by all whom come south — and the King Itamen in Meridian, the Shadow Carja are in chaos and many seem to be taking the chance to leave. They speak of terrible conditions in the north: starvation, sickness, and even murder.

I feel a strange excitement at all the news. Many who have arrived here seem too tired to travel on to Meridian, and Father has offered them all home in Brightmarket. Many are sick and weak, and I have been helping to tend to them as best I can; although I love flowers, I do know other herbs and can be of use. At the same time, I'm scared. Everyone speaks of a growing —— darkness, or shadow, in a way beyond what the temple teaches. As though this is just the beginning of a flood.

We've heard some of what you mentioned in your last letter here as well, as rumors. I'm afraid many of the rumors are unkind. I heard the other day one woman in the market saying that the Sun King was too busy "being with" Khane Ersa that he had forgotten his duty to the Carja and his mother and that your sister was corrupting him like those Machine demons. I told her she was wrong! That your sister would not do that and is near Carja in her honor! But I don't know if I can stop the rumors.

My father has mentioned the succession issue as well. I wonder if the Sun King doesn't want to name Itamen his heir because he is planning on having sons with Khane Ersa? Surely you must be excited to be an uncle to a prince or princess!

It is hard to imagine an Oseram heir to the throne, but I suppose the Sun King is unconventional. I don't honestly like it, but in the spirit of our friendship, I'll try to be happy at least for your sister.

From, Elida

5A15

I told Ersa you called her a Khane and she looked like she was going to hurl. It was too funny. Even Avad laughed at her. I don't know if she and Avad are going to get married + I don't want to know. But she says thanks for sticking up for her.

I'm glad you're helping those refugees. I didn't know you were a healer. There's a bunch in Meridian. Even Oseram ones. I bet you could come visit and learn from them sometime.

Erend

5A15

Writing this this evening. Before sending it. Aloy came back to Meridian on her way north. She said some other Nora are coming. And that the Shadow Carja are gonna invade soon.

Chapter Text

Nasadi wakes to find her son huddled in her arms, warm and stinking of piss. She stirs and rises, Itamen unreacting: he could sleep through a Thunderjaw stampede. Dear child.

She crosses the room and enters the solar, where Itamen's bed is mussed, unmade, and damp. Nasadi regards the scene for a long moment: the rising Sun, shining light upon the child king's soiled linens… Itamen had long since outgrown bedwetting, but since their arrival in Meridian, a fortnight ago, Nasadi has woken nearly every morning to find her son in her bed and his own ruined.

It is not his fault. He is a boy. He is afraid.

She pulls on a robe and gathers the sleeping boy into her arms; he murmurs and stirs. They are not in their former chambers of the palace — her beautiful rooms, her sanctuary, her freedom, is now used as Avad's personal chambers; he has forgone the Sun King's quarters out of some strange humility. Or fear of his father's shade. It has left Nasadi, the Dowager Queen, the mother of Jiran's true heir — it has left them in Prince Kadaman's former apartments. Of all places.

At least there is an antechamber, at least she can keep her new maids close by. Vanasha had left her service — Vanasha had never been in her service. It makes Nasadi's stomach churn. She doesn't trust the two new women Avad found for her and Itamen, but they can clean a soiled bed well enough. They are sleeping in twin cots where guards and guests would have once waited. Nasadi rouses them, sets them to clean. Takes her waking son, the true king, her dear boy, to the baths.

"I'm sorry I wet the bed," Itamen whispers to her as she walks down the halls, when they are alone. An old habit. He hates to speak to anyone but her. She must address it, his timidity and fear — now that they are safe. Safe, if dishonored. He must grow braver in Meridian. But Nasadi finds comfort in it, too. Her son loves her. Trusts her. Will speak and confide to her. The Sun knows that there are none other in this city… no true allies… There had been no allies in Sunfall, of course. And a growing madness, a growing poison. Vanasha had spoken of peace and happiness and no need to witness killings in the Sun's name; trying to cause Nasadi to leave, yes. Itamen is safer in Meridian, yes. But — she had not quite realized. She had been willing to accept Avad's claims to kingship. It made no difference to her — the widow of Avad's father. She had not been prepared for her son, the boy king, to lose his own royal blood in the transition.

Nasadi's morning only grows darker when they arrive at the bath. She'd chosen to bathe with Itamen here for the privacy, the escape from the unadorned apartments of her dead step-son — and when she arrives, before she even puts Itamen down, the Oseram woman is already in the water.

The Oseram woman. If she can even be called — Nasadi's nostrils flare. It isn't her concern who Avad choses to — her husband had had other women, she had been glad for the relief, the Sun King cannot be expected to — and yet.

There is just a moment where Nasadi sees the woman before the woman notices her — the bath is sunken into the tiled floor, as large as Nasadi's new bedchamber, with a stone bench cut into the edge, a blaze mechanism to heat the water when required — the Oseram is sitting on that bench, her leg drawn up, arms around, forehead pressed into her knee. Not a position of repose. She looks up with a start, recognizing Nasadi and Itamen — wipes her cheeks with a wet palm. "I was just going —" Beginning to rise.

There are times Nasadi fears her voice will break from disuse. "You may stay," she says. The first she's spoken to the woman. Erda, that is her name, she remembers now. No, Ersa. She places Itamen down, and the boy tries to hide behind her. She kneels down and takes him by the shoulders; shakes her head no. He must not be afraid. Not of his half-brother's whore.

"But I…" Itamen whispers.

Nasadi shakes her head again. She removes his clothing and helps him to wash using the trough of cold water along the wall; steals glances at Ersa, who is watching, her knees drawn up as though she's shy of her nakedness. If so, why visit a public bath? Oseram. Who can understand? Perhaps she believed even a bath this large was private.

Itamen crouches at the edge of the bath, the opposite side of the woman, afraid to share the water with her, as Nasadi undresses and washes herself. She is not so thin, so young as she once was — but she's still confident in her beauty. Wasn't she chosen by her husband for that alone? Let Ersa be shy of her lack of breasts; Nasadi has nothing to be ashamed over.

"Come," she says, stepping into the bath, taking Itamen by the forearms. He sits on the first step, the water up to his ribs; Nasadi rests on the bench below. Sighs at the feel of the warm water, steaming and perfumed with flowers. She closes her eyes, tilts her head back. The walls and ceiling are tiled in mosaic; the Sundom's skies, filled with birds from tiny thrushes to fierce Glinthawks. In the steam, through slitted eyes, they almost seem to move on the winds. Sunfall's palace lacked Meridian's beauty. She has missed this.

Itamen taps her shoulder from behind. "I don't want to soak," he whispers. He usually enjoys splashing about, paddling in the depths of the pool — only waist high on an adult, but deep enough for a child — but with the Oseram still quietly here, across the bath…

"I'm done here," Ersa says quietly. She stands — Nasadi can't help but look, look over this woman, who her handmaids, all of Meridian, gossip about. The one who seduced the Sun King. (Not the true king, the true heir — she will recognize Avad's claim, but she will not forget her son.)

She still bears the wounds of her recent captivity: her right arm has a crooked shape, and scars litter her body, both sharp white lines from battle and reddish shapes from burns… or brands, all too vivid against her pale skin. Her ribs are prominent, as are the bones of her narrow hips; her form is skinny rather than womanly, and has the pinched look of unhealthy loss of weight. Her looks — are unexceptional. She is not, Nasadi decides, ugly, but she is unremarkable: oval face, hollow from illness: full lips and a smallish nose. Unremarkable brown hair and muddy gray eyes. Nasadi would not give her a second glance on the street. She doubts anyone would. So then - how? How did this woman, this unexceptional woman… Nasadi had been the most beautiful in the Sundom when she married the Sun King.

Avad has always been peculiar.

"Stay," Nasadi says. Confident now. This woman is… what, exactly? Ersa hesitates, and sits back down, drawing one knee to her. "What are you doing here?" Nasadi asks.

"I live here," Ersa says. Nasadi doesn't blink, and Ersa elaborates, looking almost shy — "the… hot water. My bones hurt. My muscles hurt. It feels good."

This Nasadi can understand. She nods. "Are you trying to marry Avad?"

Ersa's eyes widen. "No," she says. Her expression grows pained, and she looks up at the ceiling, the mosaic clouds and Sun. "I … when I said I live here… I've been staying in the chief steward's apartments."

"Are you pregnant?"

"No!" Her face flushes, but Ersa's expression is angry.

"Are you certain?"

"Very." Ersa's mouth thins, and she glances behind Nasadi at Itamen. Nasadi doesn't need to look to know her son is watching shyly, pretending — badly — that he isn't. The way he always does. "Do I get to ask why you're asking?" the Oseram says acidly.

Nasadi licks her lips, her throat feeling dry. Leans forward slightly, although they are the only three in the room. "If Avad must lie with you, I would that you provide him a son sooner rather than later, so that my son can regain his place in the Radiant Line."

Ersa seems troubled rather than surprised. Her expressions are shockingly easy to read, in fact: Nasadi is used to the carefully managed emotions of the Sun Court, the unrelenting anger of Helis — the woman's every emotion is visible and open on her face. It's nearly endearing. Perhaps that drew Avad to her. Ersa looks at Itamen seriously, and the boy clutches at Nasadi's shoulder. "I'm not some Carja wife," Ersa says, after a long moment. "If Avad wants an heir, he won't get one by me."

Nasadi finds that difficult to believe. "I know you, you know," she says quietly. Ersa's eyes flicker over her, unimpressed by the announcement. "I remember when you were a slave in this palace."

Ersa grows very still, now. Nasadi does. More than she'll admit, more than she'll say — to Ersa, to anyone. She remembers the Sun Ring, the heat of the day. The two slain Kestrels, the woman in the sand below. How she'd yanked the sword from the second and pivoted, deadly quick, to where Nasadi sat with her husband. Her step-sons. The girl had seemed in the moment — a threat. Marking her next kills. And she had, hadn't she? The Sun King had first found her amusing. Forgotten about her entirely — it was not for him to remember his servants — until Avad had taken her as his pet. Mocked his second son, scorned him, laughed at him for his Oseram playmate… grown tired of her quickly and ordered her killed. Not before she escaped Meridian on her own. With Avad's help, Nasadi knows now, although he had sworn on his father, the Sun, that he had no awareness of her plots. Sworn his own betrayal by her, lied and then joined her in the north…

And Nasadi had been right, hadn't she? That day in the Sun Ring? The girl had marked her next kill and made it. Seduced the weak-willed second prince and convinced him to kill his own father… disown his own brother… make her his right hand. Nasadi knew all about Ersa. She's only surprised the girl isn't pretty.

"You don't like Avad much, do you?" Ersa says at last. This does surprise Nasadi.

"I recognize his claim," she says.

"Not what I asked."

"I recognize Meridian as the safest place for my son and myself," Nasadi says, firmly, knowing Itamen is listening and not wishing him any doubts. The water no longer smells so sweet. "I will take my leave," she says. Itamen sighs in relief, loudly. Ersa's mouth twitches. "I hope your bones," Nasadi adds, "recover well."

Once dressed, Nasadi and Itamen meet the Sun King for breakfast. This is a new ritual, and an awkward one. A table is set on the terrace, and Nasadi ensures they are a few minutes late on purpose, to avoid the usual formal exchange of greetings: a dutiful touch between brothers that leaves Itamen terrified after a lifetime of stories of his father's murderer, and dutiful kiss on the cheek for Nasadi, a charade of mother and son. Avad is two years Nasadi's junior. She suspects he hates the role as much as she.

They have company on the terrace this morning: Talanah Khane Padish, and not for the first time. Itamen lights up when he sees her, and hurries to take the seat at her opposite. "Good morning," she says to him brightly.

He smiles and ducks his head. Avad stands politely as Nasadi seats herself, and then sits back in his own chair. "Good morning," he says.

"Good morning," she replies. At her look, Itamen echoes the greeting.

Avad frowns at his younger brother, then glances at Talanah. "Talanah was just telling me about the first time she hunted a Snapmaw," he says, not looking away from Itamen, who immediately glances up at Talanah.

"It wasn't a Snapmaw, it was three of them," she says mysteriously, launching into the story. Even Nasadi has to smile. She doesn't approve of women in the Hunter's Lodge, but Itamen has been taken by Talanah and her stories since their first meeting. Shy he may be, but like all small boys, he loves fierce machines.

Almost all small boys. Nasadi looks over at Avad as she picks at her breakfast. He's smiling, faintly relieved, at Talanah and Itamen. This is the third time this week the woman has joined them for breakfast… is it only for Itamen's sake? She wonders.

After the Snapmaw story, Talanah tells one about a Ravager, Itamen firmly in her clutches. Avad excuses himself, which is the end of breakfast — but when he leaves, Nasadi does not rise, and neither does Talanah. Or Itamen, who tugs on his mother's sleeve. He starts to whisper —

"Say it loudly," she reminds him.

He kicks his legs under the table. "Can I go on a hunt sometime?" he asks his empty plate.

"Sure!" Talanah says in cheerful reply. "I was your age when I went on my first hunt. Broadheads," she says, looking up at Nasadi. "With my father and brother."

"We'll see," Nasadi says. Hunting machines is better than learning to kill men, as Helis had pressed for. But she does not want her son out of her sight, in some other woman's hands.

"Practice with your bow," Talanah says. Itamen blushes and nods.

"I must thank you," Nasadi says, when they have stood from the breakfast table. She walks slowly and Talanah matches her pace, Itamen like a gosling behind. "Meridian is a difficult adjustment for my son."

"Not just for him," Talanah says shrewdly. She smiles and tugs at her tail of hair. "It's no problem. When Avad asked me to dine with him I thought — but this is fun."

"You would be a good match for him," Nasadi says. Much better than some Oseram. And Itamen is fond of her already. It is important for him to endear himself to his brother, for his own safety — if he can endear himself first to his brother's wife…

"Don't get the wrong idea," Talanah laughs. "My ambitions do not involve being some queen consort. Oooh. No offense," she winces.

Nasadi's smile is strained. "Of course." Still, Talanah may yet… "I hope your friendship with my son, at least, is sincere."

"Sure it is!" Talanah says more brightly. "You guys should come down to the Hunter's Lodge some time. We have a Thunderjaw," she adds enticingly, glancing down at Itamen. His eyes light up, and Nasadi's smile grows more sincere.

Ersa sits in the bath until her skin is wrinkled and red, her head spinning. Telling herself how stupid she's being. To let the Mad King's widow — no. No, it's good she and Itamen are in Meridian, it's good, it means one step closer to peace, but she still ducks her whole body and head under the hot water and screams, bubbles emerging silently from her mouth, her eyes burning, and digs her fingers into her shoulders —

She remembers Nasadi too, oh yes. Oh yes. Wasn't her fault, wasn't Nasadi's fault, but —

Are you pregnant? Are you certain? Faint from the heat of the bath and anger, coughing from inhaled water, Ersa hoists herself out of the bath — still aching, she'd thought — she'd thought. She usually would just bathe in one of Meridian's bathhouses, sometimes spending a few more shards with Ghada to try one of the fancy ones, with the scented oils and poultices her friend loves — but she's so skinny, all bones and scars, and she can't stand it. Can't stand to be seen this way. Early morning, palace bathhouse — the water never gets cold, Avad had said. Avad.

She wants to find Erend, use him to learn to fight left-handed — regain her strength; even a few minutes of basic swings wears her out, exhausts her for the day — but he's probably writing to his damn pen pal, it's fine for him to chat with a Carja girl, but her?

Avad is in her head, and she knows what she needs to do. He'd mentioned yesterday evening he had no morning meetings, needed time to review reports, which for him was code — even Avad got tired of dealing with petitioners sometimes — she redresses, still damp, and heads straight up to his apartments. Lets herself in. As she's done hundreds of times. This time, she's shaking.

He's reading in his library, which had once been Nasadi's wardrobe. She watches him from the doorway before he's noticed her approach — sitting at his writing desk, head uncovered, wearing a linen shirt — funny, how covering his skin made him look somehow underdressed. He still bore the marks of makeup around his eyes — so. He had acted as king for a while and retreated to dress as a man. He's reading a book, not a prepared report. She leans against the doorway. Catches herself smiling.

Things were easier when she didn't know she loved him.

No. Well. She'd known for years, hadn't she? But it had been easy — easier — she had not often said the words aloud. Not relied on him, refused to allow herself to. That their relationship was a secret almost made it into a game. Pretending not to love him. Pretending it was a secret as a game. Not allowing herself to need him. Using endearments copied from him — sarcastically, sincerely, somewhere in the middle, to make up for refusing to say the feelings, discuss their future. We'll marry someday had become part of the game. Not an engagement.

And now? Now she knows. And now all of Meridian think she's a whore. You just spread your legs for him? She shudders, and he spots the movement. Blinks when he looks up, then smiles. Rises and hesitates, not coming closer. "Ersa," Avad says warmly.

She'd kissed him a few weeks ago. Before half the court. (Before Erend, practically retching behind them.) Not since. "Busy with those reports?" she asks, smiling.

He looks guilty. And amused. "Not so busy. What brings you for a visit?"

She has to force the words out. "I want you to fuck me."

They are words she has said before. Words she has said before to him. Not like this. Her tone is strained, brashness pushed too brittle. No enticement, no teasing. Her hair is still damp. He does not exactly rush to take her.

"What?" she asks, trying to smile. "You don't want -?" To? Me?

"I don't know how to answer that," Avad says slowly.

"'Of course.'" she offers, brittle.

"Of course," he echoes, desert dry.

She half marches to his side. Voices ringing in her memory. Stares at him until he meets her eyes — he is troubled and she ignores it; she is troubled too. She reaches up to his face and kisses him.

He hesitates. Then he kisses back. She is aware of him — aware, too aware, too aware of him and of herself. Move your head like this. Put your hand like that. Step closer. Touch him. She is aware of her breathing, his, her eyes, her nose, her fingers clenched at her side — unaroused, too aware, too conscious, but she doesn't care, it doesn't matter, it's just actions, it's just movements. She's been with him enough that she knows what to do. Her body will start to respond —

But it doesn't.

He knows her, too, knows what to do and what she likes — what she used to like. But she's too aware, too focused, too — she has him convinced, has him fooled, has him pushing her against the desk, for he is a man, after all, and it's been months, and so — move like this. Touch like that. Breath. Move your head. Her heart is pounding, not with arousal, not with lust, but with a thick paste of fear —

He touches her.

How long was it? Dervahl asks her. Before you became his whore?

She flinches away from Avad's touch, pushes away from him and then is pressing herself against the far wall, palms flat against the cool stone, her heart pounding, and Avad doesn't even look hurt. Doesn't even look surprised. She meets his eyes, hearing only Dervahl's voice, her own taunts back — her digging at him, picking at him, telling him stories about all the fucking she'd done, the fucking of the man he hated most, twisting him in poisonous hatred, jealousy, her weapon, her damn weapon, and it's all she can hear, all she can think about.

Don't fret, Nasadi. She can't even let the king touch her without hearing Dervahl's voice.

Damn him. Damn him. He's dead and she killed him and —

The memory of burning flesh, his and hers, fills her nostrils, and Ersa abruptly turns to the side and retches, doubling over, clutching at herself. Nothing comes up — but she retches a second time, tasting bile. Oh. Oh. And now — and now she's bunged it, hasn't she? Can't even force herself to fuck him through will, and now he'll see her running away and vomiting —

But instead Avad comes over to her in worry, his hand resting on her shoulder. She doesn't flinch. "Ersa," he says, fearful, "are you -" He leans over, his other hand brushing at her face, thumb over her cheek. Careless and remembered and dear.

She surprises them both by falling into his arms, weeping like a maiden, as she'd done when Dervahl's corpse had been before her, weeping in Ghada's arms, her baby kicking in her belly, against Ersa's ribs. She'd sobbed like a child then, Ghada petting the fuzz of her hair, all her anger and fear and hate oozing away like pus — and she cries now, grasping at Avad, the ways she still will not allow her brother to see. Just as Ghada did, he holds her steady and strokes her growing hair.

The storm passes, and yet they remain half frozen, her eyes screwed shut against the hollow of his collarbone, his thumb stroking the same patch of hair. She breathes deeply, shakily, wanting this weakness, wanting this — this pathetic, this shameful, wanting to be comforted and held. She'd never wanted it before. Never needed it before. Never needed to entrust herself… been willing to entrust herself…

At long last, Avad cleans his throat. "You do not need to force yourself to be with me."

Her heart sinks a little, but no more. It's like everything has been drained out of her. Yet Ersa doesn't move, and he doesn't push her away. "I hear his voice," she says in a voice so quiet she can barely hear it. She feels him inhale and not exhale. "I'd… say things to taunt him. I didn't think it would…" She'd assumed she was going to die. She'd known she was going to die. Poisoning her memories of her lover by wrapping them with her killer had never occurred to her as a result.

He exhales slowly. "You shouldn't force yourself," he says again. She doesn't reply. "I believed you dead," he says after a moment. "And I put you aside. I am prepared to spend the rest of my life repairing that mistake."

He's said that before. He said that on the Great Bridge, and not known how deeply it had cut — how deeply it cuts at her still, to the bone. Who knew being in love with someone felt this terrible? She doesn't want to be his obligation. She doesn't want to be anyone's.

But she's weak, too weak, to tell him so.

"Remember when you broke your arm?" he asks, after another long moment of silence.

She sighs a laugh. "Which time?"

"You dislocated your shoulder and fractured your clavicle. You were ordered not to use or strain either. And then you proceeded to climb cliff faces, fight guards, rescue slaves…"

"You remember the past very differently than I do," Ersa says, smiling for real now. She pushes away, and he's regarding her seriously, his eyes bright with amusement.

"And you told me later a healer bound your arm to your front for a month to prevent you from so much as twitching it, because your forcing had deepened the wound so much."

"Very differently," she repeats, smiling weakly, wiping her face with her good arm. Understanding his example. Although none of that was her fault.

Words echo in her memory — Avad's words, Dervahl's — and her smile fades. Obligation or whore. Which is better?

Slowly, cautiously, Avad leaves her side and returns to his desk, sitting at his chair. She follows and sits herself on the padded bench opposite the desk, rubbing her arm. It aches. It always aches. Sometimes more, sometimes less, often ignorable. She's aware she's developing a new habit, massaging her inner elbow so constantly. "Did … anything happen to bring this on?" he asks, after pretending to look at his book.

"I met your step-mother in the baths," Ersa says sourly.

Avad almost laughs, and quickly sombers himself. She frowns quizzically. "I shouldn't laugh," he says regretfully. "You sounded like my brother. He called her that."

Avad rarely speaks about Kadaman, anymore. "They were close?" Ersa asks.

"The opposite. He was a year her senior and… never took to the situation. It wasn't a kind name." Avad looks thoughtfully at the embossed cover of his book. "I never attempted to get to know her either. I regret it now."

"She's a little…" Ersa trails off. Haughty is her first thought, but it isn't quite right.

"She's been through many ordeals, and thinks of only Itamen. It's admirable," Avad says diplomatically. Then he sighs, looking more honest. "I don't know him well, either. I was already over twenty-five when he was born, I wasn't exactly… interested in getting to know my new brother. By then, Kadaman and I believed it was us against virtually all of my father's court."

"And for good reason," Ersa murmurs. She sighs. "Nasadi wanted to know… if you'd make Itamen part of the royal line again, if you had a son of your own."

Avad looks surprised, but barely. "She wants to secure his place in the court," he says. "The people don't have much love for the Mad King's widow, or my brother's reign in Sunfall."

"Credit to you," Ersa says. He barely smiles. But it's true. Three years ago, no one thought Avad the legitimate king, let alone legitimate heir. Even before everything went bad, Avad had been Jiran's least favorite. So why doesn't he make Itamen his heir? Ersa can't imagine Avad believes he's a threat. Even if Itamen were, Avad still wouldn't. It's why she loves him… and why she's made sure to stand at his side. To take care of problems like that.

She swallows, her throat suddenly thick. "Do you… want a son?" she asks. Aware that he knows, and she knows, that she can't provide one. Not yet. Not now. And even — Even assuming —

Avad is silent for a long moment. "Do you… wish to have children?" She's keenly aware that they are both avoiding looking at one another, both intent upon the table between them.

They've never discussed this.

Marriage — here and there. In passing. Not seriously. Somehow, over the years, it had become: In Ten years, when we wed. In twelve years. A way of agreeing to eventually without needing to think of it seriously, address their tribes, tell their secret. And in ten years Ersa would be near forty. She's heard of women giving birth at that age, but never their first child so old. Having children had never…

She shakes her head. "When I… became Bladewife," she says, touching her hair, "I renounced all my rights to marriage and family, by Oseram law."

"And now you're Vanguard," Avad says. "That law doesn't matter, if you wish it changed."

"I'm no longer Vanguard. I can't even swing a sword." It comes out brittle. "I never thought about what I was giving up back then. I was only fourteen, you know." Too young to even imagine having a child. Too young or too old. She's of the right age now, but…

"And now?" Avad asks seriously.

She shakes her head. At some point, they'd stopped staring at the table; she meets his eyes easily. "I've never thought about it. I guess that means something by itself. Ghada's crazy about having babies." She loves Ghada's daughter and is sure she'll love the new babe. She'd like Erend to settle down, to be an aunt. She can't imagine giving birth. Holding a babe of her own. And yet…

If Avad … wants a child… needs a child, she corrects herself. The King, not the man. But she can't imagine holding her babe, that babe being a Sun King. If it were Avad the man, if they lived together in the Claim, if none of the past years had ever happened…

"I don't really. But if you … want to have one…" she says at last, awkward again, rubbing at her deaf ear. "I'd could have one for your sake."

Avad looks, if anything, relieved, and she feels a strange sort of pinch — ah. He does want a heir. I have to —

He closes his eyes, dragging his hand over his mouth and chin. "I'm relieved to hear it. I wouldn't want to deprive you of anything you wanted." She frowns, now confused. He meets her gaze again. "But I've already decided I'm never having children," he says seriously. "Nor will Itamen ever be my heir. I wish to be the last of the Sun Kings. The Radiant Line will die with me."

Chapter Text

It has rained every day since Aloy left Mother's Watch, even as she'd trekked through the desert, now muddy and sodden, back to Meridian.

She is bone weary and sore and dizzy, a cloth wrapped around a Corruption burn on her arm, pulsing with each heartbeat — but she hardly feels the pain. There's too much. In her head, in her heart. There's just too much. She feels as though she'll never dry, that the rain has gone past her clothes and furs and skin into her very bones — part of her, for the first time, wants to give up. To just stop. When Meridian comes into view, when she's crossing the bridge, not elbowing her way through crowds for once — other travelers keeping to the edges, the canopies, the dry places, as she marches up the middle —

Just go to an inn. One of those expensive, soft ones. Just go there and sleep. She's done enough, hasn't she? She's travelled enough, fought enough, lost enough —

A girl who might've been her very first friend.

Rost.

Her mother.

Not Elisabet, not just her mother, because Aloy doesn't have a mother, she's lost even that, lost even that word, been chasing ghosts and pictures on her Focus, fighting her way through door after door. She's a tool, she's like her bow, she dreams fitfully of the Nora, wide eyed, bowing. Anointed One. GAIA created her. Elisabet isn't — doesn't even know she exists.

And yet she knows she will not stop. Can't stop. At GAIA Prime — maybe — and more than that, there are other people. Other places. She can't stop. Not without going to GAIA Prime. Not without warning Meridian.

She tells Avad the short version, the curt version: The Shadow Carja are after the Spire. They'll come here. I don't know when. Allows him to offer her a room in the palace to recover — sees him looking at her cuts and burns — and knows he means for a few weeks or maybe even, worse, forever. Instead she rests a night. Washes in a tub someone brings into the room, sleeps naked, unabashed, glad to be out of her soggy furs. Redresses with disgust early the next morning — not raining, yet, the sky heavy and dark — her clothes damp and smelly. Doesn't matter. She doesn't have time for it to matter.

Anointed, she thinks. The word echoing around her brain. Anointed. As she angrily laces up wet boots.

GAIA Prime. North. Maybe there — maybe then — somehow —

Leaves the palace, still quiet so soon after dawn. She'll get a couple day's worth of food in the market outside the city, on the other side of the Great Bridge — stops to refill her skins in one of the public wells in the city. Halfway across the Bridge, a woman calls out.

"Aloy!" It's not a voice Aloy recognizes: not Talanah or, well, that's the only woman Aloy really knows in Meridian. She turns. No. She knows two women. Erend's sister is waving at her.

The last two times — the first two times — Aloy has met Ersa, Ersa has been half dead. To put it politely. It takes Aloy a second to recognize her now — not because she looks so different, but because she is different. No longer sickly pale. Her eyes unfocused, face bloody or bloodless. Aloy has no frame of what Ersa normally would look like. She doesn't look like Sona. Obviously. It's only in the surprise that Aloy realizes she'd somehow half-assumed Ersa must look similar to Sona; isn't Ersa sort of the Carja's War Chief? After all?

But Ersa is pale and still bony-frail from recovery, still short haired even after months, dressed not in Nora furs (of course) or in Oseram armor, but in a simple blouse and wide-legged trousers. She's unarmed: no bow, spear, nothing.

Aloy's underwhelmed. She stops walking, doesn't approach. Ersa closes the distance herself. No longer swaying or sickly pale, but — pink cheeked and unarmored. No taller than Aloy, another small surprise — never having seen her standing, Aloy had assumed her a tall stature, equal to Erend — looking… just…

Ordinary.

Aloy is relieved, almost, to see a scar at Ersa's hairline. The notches in her earlobes.

"Leaving so soon?" Ersa asks.

"I have to head north," Aloy says. Doesn't feel like explaining, doesn't know how to begin.

"I wanted to catch you last night, but I got back to the city late," Ersa says with a smile. Crossing her arm under her ribs. Both her arms, but her right only bends part of the way — only reaches as high as her hip. She sees Aloy notice. Smiles thinly.

"Did you want something?"

"Your second sight," Ersa says promptly, uncrossing her arms. Arm. "Erend told me about it. It's really you I owe my life."

"I don't think so," Aloy says awkwardly. She touches her Focus. "I'd be glad to help, but I don't have time now. I have to go north."

"It won't take long," Ersa says.

Aloy can't help but almost smile. "Funny, Erend said the same thing. Next thing I knew I was on my way to Pitchcliff."

"I can't exactly say I'm sorry for that," Ersa points out wryly. Aloy does smile. "It won't take long," Ersa says, pressing her opportunity. "We'll be done by mid morning."

The Sun isn't even up yet, behind the storm clouds. "Fine," Aloy grumbles. "Lead the way."

Ersa lets out a short laugh. "You're just like my brother says." She gestures and begins to walk towards one of the elevators that lead down to the village and farmland below.

"And what is it that Erend says?" Aloy asks warily.

"That you're good as iron." Before Aloy can even start to frown, Ersa continues: "Iron's easy to work. You can make weapons, armor, pots for cooking, hinges for doors…"

"So, I'm helpful," Aloy finishes.

"And eager to help."

Aloy scowls, and more when she catches Ersa smiling at her, looking her over. Aloy straightens her back, raising her chin. She won't be taken for less than she is. This early in the morning, the elevator is near empty, carrying only them and a pair of tired guards.

Eager to help, is she? Maybe. Kind of. But that's not it. That's not all it is. She's not — not — well, to belong, to fit in, you need to be… And. Rost had always said. To live life in All Mother's service, even as an outcast…

All Mother. All Mother. A Cradle built by the Old Ones. She was built…

Ersa mistakes Aloy's frown for something else. "I don't mean to offend you." In the shimmering blue light of the Machine lanterns, she looks wan. Pale. Leaning against the cage wall of the elevator, her back to the jungle. "I owe you my life and more. I'll repay you, I swear it."

Aloy can't begin to explain what's really on her mind, so she doesn't. "You don't owe me anything."

"That's easy for you to say." Ersa's eyes are dark. They're not blue, like her brother's — easily the thing Aloy notices most about Erend, might even like best: she'd never seen such a clear color in someone's eyes before. She would have expected the same from his sister, but apparently it varies sometimes. (Vala and Varl had had the same coloring. Itamen and Avad didn't have the same coloring, but did both have dark eyes. None of it means anything. But she files it, remembers it. Learns.)

"I killed Dervahl," Ersa says. Accidentally or on purpose, the statement is punctuated by the creaking halt of the elevator, the folding open of the metal gates. Aloy is surprised, frowns — then follows Ersa out of the elevator, down the path and through the village.

"He was incapacitated," Aloy says. "He wasn't going to hurt anyone else."

"That doesn't matter to me," Ersa says shortly. "Scum like that doesn't deserve mercy, deserve a second chance."

"I don't think he deserved a second chance," Aloy says slowly, trying to talk as quickly as she's thinking: not easy. She's used to time alone, arguments and debates in her head, at the trees: Carja talk quick, Oseram talk a lot, and arguments about right and wrong? She's never put it into words. "Why did you kill him?"

"Because of what he did to me," Ersa says, clutching at her right arm with her left.

"No - no, I mean," Aloy struggles, to think of the words. "Not why, but why kill him? What's the point?" She bites her lip. "He wasn't like a bandit, or trying to kill anyone else."

"You think he wouldn't have killed anyone else?" Ersa says darkly. "He damn well wanted to kill me, Avad, and my brother."

"He was incapacitated," Aloy repeats.

Ersa stops walking, turns to face her. She's no taller than Aloy, must weigh at least a stone less, is unarmed. There is no reason at all to fear her, be threatened by her. And yet, the look in her face — War Chief. "He was bad," Ersa says simply. "There's no fixing that, no changing that. Incapacitated, maimed, locked in a cell — he could have been thrown in Sunstone Rock for a hundred years and come out trying to kill people."

"Sounds a little like you," Aloy says.

Something flashes in Ersa's face, but she doesn't snap, grow visibly angry. "I'm not going to apologize for it," she says after a long moment. "I'm not going to feel guilty for it. You have no idea what he — even now —"

She breaks off. "Come," Ersa says shortly, something new in her tone. She turns away and walks. Aloy hesitates, then follows, thinking not of Dervahl but of Nil, who she's seen thrice now, fought with thrice now, and still doesn't understand. He's spoken similarly, of almost the same thing — killing bandits because bandits are bad. But. If a bandit was tied up, in a cell, not a threat…

But. If Helis…

"I didn't mention it to debate philosophy with you," Ersa says presently. She leads them across the village, not through but towards the outskirts, the edge of the mesa Meridian is built upon. "In capturing me, Dervahl killed a woman to disguise as me."

"I remember," Aloy says with surprise.

"Erend told me how you figured all that out," Ersa says with a nod. "I've been trying to figure out who she was." She pushes what little hair she has off her forehead. "It's not easy. The woman was found in the Red Ridge pass. I have to assume she was Carja; else Dervahl would have had to take an Oseram woman pretty far south or west, alive, else the body would have shown signs of decay. He must have taken a Carja woman either just before or just after…" Ersa trails off, shakes her head.

"In the past six months, three women about my age and coloring have gone missing in Meridian. One of them turns out to have eloped to Lone Light. Another isn't missing at all — her family reported her so, but didn't tell the guards when she turned up a few days later. The third…" Ersa's expression darkens. "Her name was Dahlia."

"And she was the one Dervahl staged to look like you?" Aloy asks. All thoughts of the road, GAIA Prime, the right and wrong of murder — she's forgotten, fascinated. The women come to a stop outside of a archway, a door leading into the mesa itself, lit by lanterns and unguarded.

Ersa turns to face her again. "She was an amateur hunter but never came back from a hunt. Aha, I said."

"So you need to figure out if she was killed on a hunt, or if Dervahl took her," Aloy says. She touches her Focus. Trails, tracks, she can do. But after how many months? Her Focus is good, but not that good. Still. She doesn't want to admit her 'second sight' will fail this task. People leave signs. Even small clues —

"I did figure it out," Ersa says. "She was headed south-west, towards the Dusk Mesa. Wrong direction to run into Dervahl, but I kept asking around. Another hunting party was in that area that same week. They didn't see Dahlia, but they did see a man with a distinctive scar —" she traces a shape on her forehead, "that he'd said was from a Longleg talon. I sent out word I was looking for him, and got word from Janeva at Sunstone — Farav was the partner of a prisoner there. A prisoner in for rape. Oho, I said."

"So Dahlia wasn't killed in a hunt."

"She ran into Farav, who saw his chance," Ersa says grimly. "We caught him in Brightmarket a few days ago, trying to blend in with the Sunfall refugees. I'm glad Dahlia's been avenged, but it's been a Grazer chase with no arrows for me."

Aloy stares at Ersa unabashed, somewhat impressed. She doesn't even have a Focus. Then she frowns. "So what do you need me for?"

"I just got back from Cut Cliffs. No missing women there. I was on my way back into the city when I spotted you; I've been hoping to ask you for help. The woman — I've been calling her Aya, since we don't know her name — is still buried here, in the city crypts. I was hoping your second sight might reveal some new clue."

At that, Ersa leads Aloy into the crypts. She isn't sure what she expected, but it's not dark or creepy, tomblike the way the Grave Hoard or Sunfall had been, full of dark corners and rust: the crypts are orderly sandstone tunnels, lit by torches and lanterns, with a tiled floor and many rooms leading off the main tunnel. Aloy peeks inside as they pass: Walls covered floor to ceiling in niches for bodies, with flowers and candles littering the floors. It's very quiet and almost empty.

Ersa leads them for a few minutes before turning into a chamber. If Aloy knows anything about Carja, it's a burial room for the rich: instead of lots of niches, there's a single raised bed in the center of the room. She sees the Carja glyphs for E R S A carved prettily along the foot. A sprig of yellow flowers, still fresh, lying on the lid.

"Flattering, isn't it?" Ersa says dryly, catching Aloy's glance. "Not everyone gets to see their own gravesite. I'll need you to help me with the lid, I don't have the strength."

The lid is a single stone slab, and heavy: Aloy would struggle to pull it aside alone, and Ersa only seems able to push weakly with her left arm. Once on the sandstone floor, the grave reveals a clean skeleton, arms at its sides, lying on a bed of still fresh yellow and red silks.

"It's very clean," Aloy frowns.

"Carja custom," Ersa says. "You burn the flesh off in the Sun, blah blah."

The bones don't look male or female: just like bones. Aloy is fascinated despite herself. She's seen the dead before, the strange bodies of the Old Ones in their buildings, bones covered in a strange chalky covering. She's seen the bones of animals, understand that the bones of humans are similar — and yet, she's never seen a human like this. Clean bones. The legs, the knees — their own bones! Ribs. So many tiny bones in the hands and feet, far more than Aloy would have guessed —

As she looks, another picture forms. The skull is only barely recognizable, a hollow bowl: there is simply no face. No teeth. The lower jaw shattered, placed neatly to the side, the bones of the forehead crumpled away. There are cuts on the ribs, the arm, one of the hands. She can't even imagine what the flesh would have looked like, what it would have been like to see her covered in blood.

"I don't know how much I can help," Aloy admits, her fascination ebbing into horror. "I do best with fresh trails, not…"

Ersa nods. She's stepped back, is leaning tiredly against the back wall, her arms crossed again, in that odd, unbalanced way. "I've come here dozens of times. Never figured anything out."

Aloy taps on her Focus. The device interfaces, searches for machines to connect to: marks nearby lifeforms. Someone moving about two levels down. Ersa. Aloy quickly swipes through, marks Ersa — [ADD TO CONTACTS: E R S A] (the glyphs the Old Ones use are so different from the Nora or Carja or Oseram; she hopes she has the sounds right) — then turns her and her Focus's attention to the body.

[REMAINS: HUMAN. SKELETAL.] Yes, Aloy taps. The Focus scans, overlaying each bone with a copy image, replacing the ruined skull with an image of an intact one, until the body appears complete. Is there a way to change it? Show flesh instead of bone? But how would anyone know what that flesh looked like? Aloy swipes through the options, to make the projection larger or smaller or a different color. Pulls up the linked information files: SKELETON (a diagram of a human skeleton), BONE ("a hard whitish tissue"… whatever that means)… swipes again, and now the diagram floats in the air before her, life sized and upright. Aloy taps, frowning: now the scan of the woman who is not Ersa stands beside it, injuries unhidden.

She's at a loss. Rost, how do you track game without a trail? She looks up, through the images at Ersa: for a moment, Ersa and the diagram's image overlap, line up, although Ersa is slumped against the wall: Aloy can't help but raise her head, try to align them, so that the skull and Ersa's head…

She taps her Focus off. "I don't know," she admits. "Maybe if there was still flesh, or even clothing…"

Ersa shakes her head. "I had men check, but there were no clothes at the battle site, and she was brought to Meridian in mine. I knew this was a long shot," she says bracingly. "I'm off to Lone Light next; there are only so many Carja settlements."

Aloy doesn't want to just give up. She taps her Focus, and the two skeletons reappear in the air before her. She looks from one to the other and back. There has to be… Something. Elisabet, what would you do? She tells the Focus to hold the images still, and walks around them slowly.

"What are you looking at?" Ersa asks sharply. Aloy ignores the question.

"Are you sure the woman was your age? Looked like you?"

"I know she had brown hair and pale skin. I know she resembled me passingly enough that Erend and Avad both thought it was me."

"Erend said he knew it wasn't really you because she didn't have a scar."

"This was before the Carja cleaned her up in the Sun for proper burial," Ersa says bitterly. "Good thing proper burial rights were upheld and her honor preserved. I've asked him, but he doesn't remember any marks in particular — not that he probably looked for anything but that scar. He told me he never looked too closely at her; Avad said the same thing."

"It was probably painful for him," Aloy says softly. "For both of them."

Ersa doesn't say anything. Aloy wants to see her face, but she's distracted. There's something about these pictures. She doesn't know what.

"It's fine if you can't find anything," Ersa says after a while.

"No," Aloy says, "there's something. I just haven't figured it out yet."

"You're walking in circles looking at nothing."

"I'm thinking." Suddenly something moves in her mind, a string drawing taut. Walking. Something… "This woman," Aloy says. "This woman, she has injuries. Her face is gone. She has wounds on her chest and arms."

"Makes sense," Ersa says. "You raise your arms to defend yourself, if you can."

"Right. But she doesn't have marks further down," Aloy says, pointing at the projection — at thin air. "She was struck in the face, she was cut on her arms and chest so hard it marked the bones."

"Right," Ersa says. "She may have been cut in the stomach or gut, but there aren't bones there to show us."

"Right…" Aloy is so close she can almost taste it. Feet. Cuts. "Maybe she broke her ankle…" she murmurs. Something.

"Could be how she was overpowered, but I doubt one Carja could have stood up to Dervahl's men for long."

"I'm not sure about that," Aloy mutters. Ersa laughs shortly, and Aloy grins through the Focus projection at her, for just a second.

She's so… there! "Feet! Her feet!" Aloy taps off the display and goes to, clutches the edge of the woman's grave. The neatly ordered skeleton. All the bones put carefully in place, even the smashed jaw, the crushed fingers, as best the grave keepers were able — "She's missing two of her toes."

Ersa comes over in a flash. The woman's right foot is made up of many small bones, lain out neatly: three bones per toe, two for the largest. Her left foot has the first three toes, but is missing the bones for the outer two. Entirely. "If they had been broken, you'd see signs, but it's clean. Either she was born like that, or she lost them."

"She would have walked with a limp," Ersa says. "Does she have any crushed bones?" Ersa looks, and so does Aloy: at the actual body this time, not the Focus's scan.

"The same foot - it looks…" Aloy points from the one missing toes to the other, unsure how to describe it. Ersa nods. One foot's bones look a bit… uneven, compared to the other. "I bet she was in an accident, and that's how she lost those toes."

Ersa moves over to the doorway and calls loudly down the hall: "Agat! Where are you?"

Bemused, Aloy waits. A minute or so later, an Oseram woman jogs into the crypt: rosy cheeked, with light brown skin and mussed hair a slightly darker shade of red brown: she looked like an unwrinkled fig, and had a streak of white dust on her cheek. "Back at your hobby?" she asks Ersa, wiping the dust and making it worse.

"This is Aloy, of the Nora," Ersa says, gesturing at Aloy.

"We met," Agat says brightly.

"We did?" Aloy frowns.

"Aloy realized that Aya's foot was crushed," Ersa says, gesturing at the open grave. "Can you look for other injuries? Agat's an Oseram embalmer," Ersa says to Aloy.

Aloy's not sure she's heard the word 'embalmer' before, but she nods. Agat works with the dead, that's obvious.

"Her face, for one," Agat says in reply to Ersa's question, making her way to the open casket.

"Hah. Injuries that might have come from anything besides a battle."

"Well, her hands, too," Agat says. "Look. See how the blade that killed her cut the bone? Her arm and hands show wounds made from force, not steel."

"You've never mentioned it before."

"It was obvious she'd been hurt, I didn't know we were looking for different causes," the girl grumbles.

Aloy watches, bemused. Agat has no focus, but her work with the dead has clearly left her an expertise with bones that Aloy simply lacks. "There's something else," Agat says. "See how her bones are kind of thick around the shoulders?"

"They just look like bones," Ersa says.

"They're thicker than normal for a Carja," Agat says. "Trust me."

"You don't think she's Carja?" Ersa says, very fast.

"No — I mean, I've seen bones like that in Forgemen and Smiths. Not in wives and Carja. Your bones get big, just like muscles do."

"Really?" Aloy interrupts, fascinated by this new information.

Agat shrugs. "But you guessed that, right?" she asks Ersa.

Ersa nods thoughtfully, looking at the woman's bones. "I'm starting to think she was Oseram," she says slowly. "Crushing damage — you get that working metal or stone, not from battle."

It all snaps together in Aloy's mind. "She was a laborer. You've been looking for Carja women people - pay attention to."

"I've been looking in all the wrong places," Ersa says with a nod. She swears. "I should knowbetter. This woman was a laborer. Oseram, maybe even Nora or Banuk, maybe even a former slave. I thought Dervahl would have killed a Carja because he hated the Carja, but he didn't even care enough to spare someone completely —" She breaks off, furious. Runs her hand over her face. "I'm going back to Lone Light. Agat, can you tell my brother?"

"Sure, if I can go to the palace," Agat says, her expression sober despite her words.

"Aloy -" Ersa breaks off. "That's another debt I owe you. I'll find a way to repay you, I swear it."

Aloy nods. It all makes sense. This woman's injuries, a good lead, a trail lit up in marks before her… now she can go to GAIA Prime. To Sylens. To Elisabet. She's passed on her warning, helped Ersa with a mystery, and now —

"Wait," Aloy says, before she can think too hard about it, "if you're leaving right now, I'll come to Lone Light with you."