For the next three days, Leah could have been wandering the shadows for all the attention she paid to the world around her.

She couldn't bring herself to write down her thoughts, not even when Illiya made a point of opening one in front of her and physically putting the pencil in her hand. Leah made a few half-hearted lines before letting it roll out from her fingers.

"What's wrong with you?" said Illiya, glancing at Leah's untouched food. "I don't understand, Leah. Talk to me!" When Leah just shrugged, Illiya huffed. "Is this because they took you off the expedition team? Leah, because of you, they've found the cure for Lightless! Kieran's tests are coming back better than we ever could have expected, and in a few more days, they're going to announce to the rest of the world what we've accomplished! You're one of the prime members of the cure team--you get to work with Emrys himself! You have Kieran back--the real Kieran, not the parasite-ridden thing that was leading you along befo--wait, is that it?"

"Is what it?"

"Is it because Kieran's different?" said Illiya. "I mean, if you liked the Lightless Kieran and now he's cured, of course he's going to be different, but that doesn't mean--Hey, Leah! Wait!"

Leah left the notebook and her food where they were and walked out of the dining room in silence. Once, her she might have cared about the stares that followed her, but now it was hard to care about anything.

She was a coward. She'd realised that now. A shadow-ridden coward who was too scared and too damned weak to do what she needed to do. The orb still followed her, but these days, it felt more like it was mocking her than anything.

Mark of the Preserver, ha. That was a joke. It was stuck preserving one of the most useless Radiants that had ever lived. Kieran deserved this mark--not her. He would have been able to act. He had acted, before Emrys had caught him. Caught him because of her.

Leah reached her room, curled up on the rumpled covers of her bed, and closed her eyes.

She could just let the situation play out, that much she'd realised. She was on the cure team, where she'd always wanted to be. She could pretend that Kieran wasn't broken. That Emrys hadn't stolen his mind. To the rest of the world, she'd have cured the Lightless. Her theory about the non-existant parasite would die. The Radiants would prosper once again.

Whatever decision she made, the Mark of the Preserver was going to make sure that she lived with that decision.

For a very, very long time.

*+*+*+*

The next day, Illiya dragged Leah to the research lab where she spent six hours watching Kieran drown a little more.

No one else saw it. They saw a Radiant who had been cured. One who was gaining strength and stamina with every day that passed. They marvelled at his control of Light that only blinded her and made her skin sting.

Just like the previous days, Leah wasn't allowed near Kieran. Emrys kept her firmly on the other side of the room, but she wasn't safe from his gaze even there. It killed her each time she was forced to fake a smile, to return Kieran's little waves when he caught her looking at him, all for Emrys's benefit.

Even during her sessions of 'studying' the orb with Emrys, Leah was losing her patience. She spent most of her time with her head laying on her arms, folded on the table. Some part of her paid attention to the questions, vaguely trying to work out what his angle was, but at this point, she wasn't sure she cared. If he couldn't get the Preserver mark off her, he couldn't kill her. He'd Shatter her, bring her under his control as a Slayer.

Leah blinked.

If she was going to Shatter anyway, then what did it matter what Emrys did to her?

She pushed herself off her arms, sitting upright.

"Leah?" said Emrys at her sudden movement. "Did you figure something out?"

Leah watched him, silent. She was close enough to him. Close enough that neither he nor the Slayers at the edge of the room would be able to react if she hardened a shard of Light and struck. Not through the chest, but the eye? His throat? They were soft enough.

Emrys's eyebrow was raised, his expression careful. He knew what she was thinking--at the very least, he suspected. She knew it. "Leah?"

If she killed Emrys here and now, she'd save Kieran. It wouldn't matter if she Shattered--she was going to anyway. When she did, she'd be different. Slayers weren't Radiant. Asriel had said as much. Kieran had said that the Shattered's minds were fractured--there was no way the process that created those monsters would leave her stable.

Leah curled her fingers, feeling the Light in her heart ready, sensing her coming command. It would be so easy. One movement, and Emrys would be bleeding out on the floor.

One movement, and she could save Kieran.

Leah hardened a shard to her hand. It was cold. Smooth. Deadly.

And she couldn't do it.

She tossed the shard on the desk. Coward. "Nothing. Thought I felt something. Communing with the orb or whatever it was you were talking about before."

Emrys frowned. "Perhaps the orb grows stronger at certain times of the day." He glanced at the sun. "Though it's past its peak, which is strange. Perhaps..."

Emrys trailed on, but Leah's mind was racing. She'd been so stuck on Asriel's suggestion, but maybe there was another way. Even if she couldn't end it, maybe there was something she could do to sabotage the ritual. Emrys had mentioned the set-up being important, hadn't he? Maybe it would have been dangerous for anyone else, but she had the Preserver mark. Worst case scenario, she Shattered, turned into a Slayer and hoped her Teridian blood still counted until she finished.

She didn't have anything to lose, but Kieran--the other Lightless--they did.

As the sun began to set, Emrys hustled the final few Radiants, Leah included, out of the research lab. It wasn't until Leah was back in her Teridian clothes that she let herself relax, a feeling that almost instantly dissolved as she felt Emrys approach from behind.

Even Illiya, who had assigned herself as Leah's personal escort, seemed to tense. "Did you need something else, Emrys?"

Emrys sighed. "A moment alone with Leah, if you please, Illiya."

Illiya glanced at Leah like she was looking for confirmation. Leah just kept pulling on her boots. "We were going to head to the dining hall. I think being, um, separate from Kieran has hit her a little hard. Making sure she's eating and all--"

"I understand that," said Emrys. "I won't be long."

"No thanks," said Leah, straightening and walking straight out the door, leaving Emrys behind. She didn't have the energy left to play those games.

Dinner passed by in a blur. Much to Illiya's delight, Leah cleaned her plate, even if she still wasn't paying much attention to the conversation. It wasn't long before she'd excused herself back to her rooms.

There, she pulled out her notebook and started writing, taking extra care to mask her usually messy handwriting with clean, straight letters.

'Shade told me of this place. If anyone is still here, there is a ritual in the lower levels of the League designed to 'cure' the Lightless, but it is far from a cure. I believe its true purpose is to control and influence the minds of those with Radiant blood. Its victims can be identified by their white hair. Do not trust them. Emrys may control them.

I am going to attempt to destroy this ritual, but I don't know how successful I'll be. In the event that I manage it and am not caught, I will attempt to break out the rest of the Lightless still held captive by the League. I make no promises, but I'm going to try.'

Leah read back over the note before shoving it down the side of her pants. She didn't have time to write out a full explanation, but hopefully that would be enough. It was frustrating not having enough facts, but maybe--

She pulled out the notebook hidden in her bed with all its scrawlings. They wouldn't make sense to most people, not with the way her arrows and diagrams were all over the place and scribbled on with her barely-legible writing, but if they were desperate enough, at least it was something.

Quickly, she added a page on Marks and Slayers and shoved it into a book-pouch designed to hang off her belt. After that, Leah clipped her Hilt beside it and grabbed another three notebooks to carry in her arms for distraction purposes, if anyone were to question her.

Then, she took a deep breath and opened her door.

Though more than one pair of curious eyes followed her as she roamed the corridors, pretending to stop and sketch several of the murals that had become little more than scenery to be ignored over her weeks at the League. She wasn't sure when they'd lost their wonder, but forcing herself to stare at them and pretend to be interested had her remembering the wide-eyed rapture she'd come here with.

Slowly, she made her way towards the stairs that plunged into the ground under the League. When she was sure no one was watching her, she slipped inside, taking the stairs two at a time as quietly as she could manage. Even though the sun was down, it wouldn't surprise her if Emrys still had people down here, working on the temple, but they'd be gone by the time she got back anyway.

Leah ducked into one of the side rooms, the same place she'd met Kieran as Shade what felt like an eternity ago. When the notebooks in her arms were hidden in the corner as well as she could manage, Leah made her way up the sun tunnel, strips of hardened Light keeping her feet from slipping. She stopped halfway to make sure no one was behind her, and when she was satisfied, she climbed the rest of the way.

As earlier predicted, without Kieran to catch her, Leah nearly broke several somethings in her body as she hit the ground in the courtyard. The wooden ladder was where it'd been before in the bushes, and this time, Leah swung the ladder up and over the wall to get her down the other side.

After laying the ladder down flat, Leah took a deep, deep breath and started off into the forest.

The orb kept her from complete darkness, but that wasn't what kept her nerve attached as she wandered through the undergrowth. It was the fact that she'd come to think of the orb as a second presence, a separate entity from herself. It'd once been a Slayer--did it retain any of its memories? She stopped to glance back at it. Did it remember what it had tried to do? Would it do the same again?

Leah found the entrance with little trouble. Maybe she was just losing it, but the orb felt far more alive than ever before. It seemed to dislike the forest, being away from Radiant structures, just as much as she did.

Leah climbed down the tunnel, finding the same line in the grime-covered wall she'd made with her finger that had got her caught the first time around. She followed it until the first turn, where, not letting herself hesitate, she turned the other way.

The corridor led to a wall that seemed to be shared with its adjacent storage room, but when Leah pressed her hand to it, it revealed a narrow corridor, barely shoulder width, that led off into the gloom.

Panic was closing in on her chest as Leah lit her crystal patterns and gave the orb a tentative smile. "Guess we're going in there, hey, bud?"

The orb continued to hover, making no other reply.

It took her sixteen--no, seventeen--steps to get through the narrow corridor. There, it opened out into a larger room. So large it was that, surprisingly, there were several other, smaller wooden structures within it, seemingly dividing it up its more useable spaces with privacy from the others.

Feeling like an intruder, Leah went deeper into the room. She passed by makeshift beds packed so tight there was no space between them. Clothes too small to fit an adult were scattered across one one particular row. Next were food storages and several of what looked like Light-charged crystals, but none hit her quite as hard as the small space assigned to weaponry.

It was nearly bare. Only a few swords and daggers still laid on the floor, a single, sad looking bow not unlike the kind she'd once been given by some Teridian kids on a mock 'hunting trip'.

Leah picked up one of the smaller daggers. The Lightless were truly at war for their survival. She'd realised it before, but seeing it now, seeing this vulnerable side to them, it was hard. How... how had she ever considered them the same monsters as the Shattered?

She put the dagger down and stood back up, intending to look for a desk or something where her note would be seen if someone were to come inside when a voice interrupted her.

"Who are you?"

Leah turned around, finding herself faced with a Lightless--a Radiant--who looked much like her father, albeit several years older. The teal colour of his hair was faded from age, the wrinkles across his brow deeper than most. His face was uncovered, but he wore the same coverings from the neck down that Kieran had worn as Shade, and there was a sword at his side that looked far too big.

Leah held up her hands. "I'm not here to hurt you, I promise. I'm here to help. My name is Leah."

The man sniffed, his hand falling from the hilt of the sword. "You're Shade's Radiant girl, aren't you? I don't suppose you know what happened to him after he disappeared back inside the League."

"They caught him," said Leah, curling her fingers as she breathed through her nose and swallowed. "There was a trial. Emrys knew."

The man swore. "I told him it was too dangerous, but he's never been one for listening. Not that it matters anymore, I suppose. Is he dead yet?"

Leah found her note and placed it on top of her notebook, handing them to the man together. "That's why I came. The Radiants have discovered a ritual. They claim it can cure Lightless, but I think Emrys is using it to control people."

She gave him a brief explanation, after which the man nodded his head. "I have no reason not to believe you, girl. I'll keep it in mind."

Leah wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but that hadn't been it. "You don't seem to care much."

The man eyed her. "Five of our twelve main bases have been raided. The rest are currently being evacuated, but I fear it is too late for at least three of them. I do what I can, but I can't waste my time worrying about those that I can't help or I'd go insane all over again. If this rescue plan succeeds, which I doubt it will, tell them Dusk said to head to Teridia. It's all I have for them now. These lands are no longer safe."

"You're Dusk?" said Leah. "Kieran said you were the leader of the Lightless, but..."

She trailed off.

Dusk just laughed. "What, expecting more? Girl, when you have as much responsibility on your shoulders as I do, you'll eventually learn how much it crushes you." He sighed. "I had high hopes for Kieran, but I always knew he'd never make it in the long run. I saw a successor in him, but I knew he'd never be content to wait and do nothing."

"Why did you?" asked Leah. "Because he could use Light?"

"Yes and no," said Dusk. "Before I lost my Light, I was a historian of a kind for the League. I read many tomes, translated from the Ancient's text. Some mentioned the time before the Radiants became divine, blessed by the Sun, whatever you call it these days. They described the Radiants as a fragile race, one easily beaten into submission because of their dependance on sunlight. According to the tomes I found, most Radiants couldn't use their Light, not the way they do today. Only the strongest were able to harden Light without Shattering. Those with the will to stay whole."

Leah tilted her head. "And... that's why you trusted Kieran? Because a couple of mis-translated books had a few fairytales in them?"

Dusk shook his head. "When you read as many books as I did in those days, you learn which ones to trust. Whatever the League would have you believe these days, there was a time before the Radiant's age of Light, and it was a dark time. I fear we may be slipping back into it soon."

"Assuming the parasite is real at all," said Leah.

"It doesn't matter if it is," said Dusk, taking her notebook. "There's other things that will blot out the sun. Are you done here?"

Leah licked her lips. "I think so."

"Good," said Dusk. "Then get out, and I don't suggest you come back unless you want to look for memories." He turned, hesitating. "And... if you see Kieran again--tell him that I was proud of him."

After that, Dusk said no more, and Leah slipped out of the ruins and back into the night.

*+*+*+*

A/N - I lied about updating twice a week. HL is finished (with exception of possible epilogue if you guys don't feel like it's tied up well enough), and I've never been good at holding onto chapters, so inc one update a day. Next few days are gonna be pretty crap irl for me, so here's hoping I can make that a little less true for you guys ^_^

Please don't forget to vote and/or comment ^_^ 3 chapters left, but they're long.