The black clouds rumble and spit above Thalassa City, grumbling their displeasure in the yellow-green flashes that illuminate darkened, slick paths and glow on the pale bodies, facedown and floating, bloating in seawater.

Allayria's hair is a black slop that clings to her forehead and cheeks as she pushes inside a shadowy hall—an atrium of a crumpling hotel.

Far nicer than where I stayed the last time, far finer than—

There's muck and mud on the tiles now; the walls are a ruin of neglect and abuse.

No fine things for a Jarles soldier.

But the people inside give no allegiance to Abadi Chaudri; even if one shares her blood. Some of it is tracking down the side of his face as he approaches, his narrow eyes scrutinizing.

"All well on your end?" she asks.

Lei nods.

"And yours?"

"Sufficiently," she answers, mouth pursing.

"The informant...?" But he stops when she looks at him.

Allayria opens her mouth, and then she glances around, gaze flitting to the soldiers gathered in pockets, the officers and General Jin conversing in the corners of the room.

"Later," she murmurs, a hand on his drenched shoulder, tensing at the electric thrill of his warmth. He's in plainclothes, which means the North side had finished breaching the city far sooner than Seaside had.

"You're alright?" he asks, his gaze flitting from her hand to her face, his voice dropping low, body shifting closer, shielding the sound from the surrounding party. He's watching her, and she looks back into his cool brown eyes.

She only nods this time.

Later, the first kiss is the slotting of mouths, seeking, in the dim light of a hidden stairwell. The noises of others has funneled down to a low murmur, buffered by these concrete walls and steel frames. There's the hard pressure of his forearm around her waist as she sinks into him, as they meld for a moment in this artificial twilight.

He asks it against her skin, words only meant for her, to be exchanged and then buried where no one else can see.

"He's dead then?"

The feeble bookkeeper, with his slow voice and gentle hands, his sharp, watching eyes. The bookkeeper with the spidery scrawl, living underneath the Jarles' noses, writing to the careful lieutenant who cracked his code, who wrote in the same language back, who knew what it felt like to hide under your own skin—

Her hand curls into a fist in his hair and she kisses him in answer, because Lei knows she would have brought the man to him, knows she would have tried if there had been hope.

Your sister skewered him like a pig.

She holds this back in the hard clutch on his shoulder, the rough way they tangle, all limbs and relief.

He holds her against the wall, face pressed to her neck, and then he says it:

"There's something else."

His gaze finds hers when he pulls back, wan and shadowed with the whispers of struggle, exhaustion.

"You have one?" she asks, already knowing.

He nods.

Something like a thrill shivers up her spine, but it is cold.

"Did it...?" she swallows, eyes flitting around to the empty stairwell. "Did any of them speak to you?"

He frowns.

"Never mind," she says quickly. "Where is it?"

He kept the masked shadow up in a room, arms and legs pinned so the body is spread out like a mockery of a star.

"It was the only way to keep it from hurting itself," he says, an uneasiness beneath the even tone, an uncertainty lurking there.

Allayria looks down at the grinning plaster face and watches as the head turns, like a dog pricking its ears; a predator sensing prey. She doesn't have any illusions about how long they can keep one of Isati's creatures—time has become slippery, and so she pulls off her gloves and armguards.

"Lock the door," she tells Lei.

It squirms when she approaches, shaking against its binds, but the Nature-caller was too diligent to leave room for escape.

"What do you need?" Lei asks from behind her.

"Time," she answers, and she points two fingers down at the center of the mask. Somewhere, almost out of earshot, mouthless words begin to murmur.

She presses down on the mask's brow.

"Yield."

The mind is a supple, delicate thing. This is what Allayria learned in the months after Fae and Caj left for the smoldering ruin of Keesark. The mind is delicate, and acquiescence is not without profit.

Another thing given up, she had thought after her first success, looking into the cracked mirror in a darkened room, silent but for the dark-haired figure slumbering in her bed. Another piece chipped away.

But it would be worth it, if it worked.

Her hands don't tremble any more when she makes the command. Her thoughts don't flit back to dusty, abandoned rooms and the man hanging in there, dangling not just in limbs but in shattered pieces of his mind. She had pushed too hard back then, thinking she would need to break through barriers.

There are better ways inside.

This masked shadow of a human being bends easily because there is so little left in there, large caverns carved by malice and time, always time, leaving gaping holes where there should be a being. Every so often she catches a whiff of him; the person who once lived here, but he is gone, fallen back into the low mutterings she now hears every time she Skills with Spirit.

Even the echoes of whispers, the memory of Ruben says, can be lonely.

She's looking, not for a memory, but a path: a thin thread that pulls to another side. A connection.

Skilling is not a one-way street, another man once told her with a voice woven of melodic danger. But, as Allayria has learned, neither are minds.

She finds a thread, a taut, live thing shimmering back in all the dusty catacombs, and her fingers press farther down into the mask as she Skills at it.

"Isi,"

Her hand almost jerks back, the word a close whisper in her ear.

"Isi, there's something outside."

A memory comes in a flash; but the boy who just spoke isn't here, just an upturned view of a wide room, the fine threads of a crimson rug close and detailed. A phantom shiver trills up Allayria's spine, an echo, as small, pale hands quake and tuck tightly underneath this person's face, cradling their head from the hard bite of the ground.

The air is ice, but that is not what the shaking is from. Allayria can feel it across the thread: pain.

It only hurts if Mama is upset. I can't upset her.

It's like the boy's voice, but internal. A thought. The person pushes themselves up, teetering on bruised, unsteady legs across a room that is ornate, rich in reds and golds and browns, with tinkling trinkets like little silver music boxes which chime slowly in the orange glow of sunset.

There's a limp to her step and a stinging sensation that echoes it. But pain of a different sort has mixed its way into this girl's throat which constricts and seizes in a cocktail of fear and anguish.

I don't know what I did wrong.

It's an unwanted thought; stifled with the clutching of fists, the determined swallow against the lump. She's breathing tight puffs of air through her nose. Controlled, even.

There's a hazy memory inside this one, a recollection of a sparring mat, the smell of sweat, ragged breath, a keen of smugness. She was winning, she was doing right. The partner fell, feet swept out from beneath them. They thought she was going to use her metal, so she used her feet instead.

But when she looked over, Mother was not smiling.

"You are a Jarles, not Skill-less street scum," she hisses through the starlight fracture of pain. "I expect more. I expect better."

But it was about winning, the girl thinks, moving toward the vanity, toward the tinkling ballerina spinning, rotely, on her stand. She wanted me to win and I won, I won and I don't know what...

She heaves a long, ragged breath, and her hands press down onto the smooth wood surface in front of her.

There's no way out.

It feels like despair, like the closing in of bigger things upon her, the shutting of doors that should have stayed open, crunching down into this tomb that hovers over her. She's six feet under and when the girl looks up, into the ornate mirror, Allayria looks through her eyes at the person blinking back. Though she's young, though there's a long tumble of thick, black hair cascading down her back, Allayria knows this face.

It's just a game, an adolescent Isati tells herself, hot tears tracking down her face, breaking it as her hands shake against the vanity. It's just a game you have to learn to play.

A/N:

Helloooo everyone. Long time, no write. How are you? How am I? Well, ^ this is me. Except the bowler hat is a party hat and there are a lot of boxes inside the burning house. After I returning from that trip I had previously mentioned I immediately moved apartments, because timing is something I clearly excel at. (That was sarcasm... lots of sarcasm.) One terrifying U-Haul trip, 8+ hours of painting with a bonus round of cleaning, a total forfeiture of internet for whole 5 days (the true struggle), and the looming prospect of unpacking everything later, here I am....

Did I mention it was my birthday too? I had no internet on my birthday.

It's been a long week.

Anyway, I'm a week late and I owe you an additional chapter, which I hope to be sending out soon. Also, Paragon just hit 150K reads and Partisan is almost to 100K reads!!! I'm delightedly flabbergasted.

I've also just realized we need a ship name for Allayria and Lei. Well, whatever this trash bucket of unresolved feelings is called, it's bobbling along, resolutely ignoring any indication that ~feelings~ might be involved. *insert side-eye here*

Chapter notes: Allayria first returned to Thalassa City (her hometown) in Paragon's "Thalassa City" chapters and she first uses Spirit Skilling on another person (to disastrous effect) in "The Interview." Ruben talks about lonely whispers in Partisan's "Clear Air" chapter and Ben reminds her that Skilling goes both ways in "Did You Love Me in the Firelight."