Alicia is tired of swamps. Tired of trudging through mud up to her calves. Tired of finding leeches on her legs, even through her trousers and boots. But most importantly, she's tired of always looking over her shoulder and wondering if they're being hunted by exiles or are being trailed by Grey Bloods.

Their brief encounters with the Greys have been just that; brief. They're cut down, leaving a littered path of bodies in their wake.

Alicia can't stop thinking about the exiles that ambushed them. She sees them in her nightmares, hears their struggles, but most noticeably she looks at Oliver and can only think of the men he's cut down before her eyes. All in the name of protecting her.

She can't have more souls screaming for her in the beyond.

She doesn't notice the ruins until the mud beneath her boots is replaced with old stone and she stumbles at finally feeling sturdy. She glances around herself, regarding the stone amongst the trees, almost lost within the vines that crawl over them. But as she keeps walking and the trees fall away, arches begin to rise, hinting at the fortress this place used to be. All that's left is crumbling stone and whispers on the wind.

"What is this place?" she asks Oliver as his hand slides along her lower back, guiding her to the right, the warmth of his touch jarring against the cold she's used to. He's quick to drop his hand when her eyes meet his, as though he didn't mean to do it. She doesn't dwell on the brief yearning that passes through her to have his touch again, to feel safe and certain amongst everything.

"Some keep for a prince long dead," he replies, striding ahead of her. She quickens her footsteps to keep up with him, tugging her coat tighter around herself with the absence of his warmth at her side. "Search for the entrance." Alicia watches as those travelling with them get to work, weary from travel and the loss of one of their own from the attack of the other exiles, but eager to get this business done successfully.

Alicia stops following Oliver, feeling out of place as he gets to work like the soldier he is, loading weapons with bullets and directing his people. She decides that she'll look for this fabled entrance too and begins trekking through the ruins.

There have been many princes in Muovea's history, but none as notable as Prince Yorvik, alive during the time of the Faceless Queen and her immortal army, one of the few that had their name recorded in the history books during that time of myth and legend. He's the only one buried with facts and probably the only thing that proves that the Faceless Queen may have been a real person, or at least gives her story an inch of credit. People still don't believe though, because the history books also say he's the one who killed her, but her body was never found.

Alicia walks through ancient arches, spying spiralling staircases that break away and lead to nowhere. The ravens watch her from their perches on the rock, the breeze ruffling their inky feathers. She pretends that their bottomless eyes don't remind her of the Reaper's.

She continues walking, her boots crunching on dead leaves, the quiet of the ruins around her reminding her of the silence of the deceased.

Perhaps the Faceless Queen was real, perhaps she really did build the walls of Muovea to protect what she had slaughtered for. The weight of this place tells her that Muovea's past hasn't been shown in the Light yet.

Stopping at an arch half buried in the dirt, vines curling around the stone, embracing it like a lover would, Alicia wonders what this place once was. A crease forms between her brows when she notices something carved into the stone. She crouches and begins pulling away the weeds to reveal the inscription. Yorvik Keep.

Nearly rolling her eyes at the absolute absurdity of stumbling upon this place of all ruins, Alicia sighs. The gods love to have their little moments, it seems.

But something stops her from disregarding it, from going back to Oliver and wiping this place from her mind. Maybe it's all the old Traveller stories that she grew up with, that her ma tried to slap out of her head. Whatever it is, she reaches into the satchel at her side and pulls out the grand duke's notebook.

She's already gone through everything in it and she's already tried to forget it all, but still she flips through it, dirty fingers tailing over the grand duke's script, some of the writing belonging to the doctor.

Sergey Volkov focused most of his attention on remnants of the world that birthed Muovea and its high walls. He was a historian, after all.

Yorvik.

Her eyes glance right over it, but she quickly swings back to the passage.

More answers about the Faceless Queen may lie with Yorvik. The stories say he killed her, meaning he was the last to see her alive. I need to find him. But he too is lost among the Dead Lands.

Alicia snaps the book closed and shoves it into her satchel before she can get ideas. Her ideas killed her pa, drove her ma to betray her family, sent Alicia running into exile. Her ideas only bring Muovea more pain.

Some things should stay buried.

"We found it!" someone calls and Alicia stands, looking towards the rest of the group.

All she has to do is help get those supplies. Beyond that, this fight is no longer hers.

Elena told her that she's given enough of herself to Muovea, and perhaps she was right. Perhaps it's time to finally stop, throw her pa's gun into the trees, burn her crimson scarf, and stop referring to herself as a Zalana. She exiled herself, she should take advantage of the fresh start.

Alicia doesn't give Oliver a choice, and his jaw tightens at that. She was never going to stray from his side, but when they approached the dark staircase that led to suffocating darkness, he turned to her and said he won't let her go down there. She was vehement in her disagreement, the others pretended not to hear her as she reprimanded Oliver, but she got her way once again.

She's aware she's nothing but a burden to him, but she'd rather be by his side than fretting about the unknown.

This is her last deed for her family, for Muovea, she may as well make it count.

Alicia doesn't regret her decision to traverse deep into those tunnels with him, but her pulse does flair as he pulls his gun from his holster, prepared for the worst, as she should be too.

The lantern he holds only manages to pierce the darkness slightly, ahead is still gloomy with shifting shadows and echoing footsteps.

Alicia's hand is in her satchel, brushing against her gun as a quiet reassurance. A sickening reassurance. She sees the man that she shot in the leg clear in her mind, a wound that led to his death.

No one deserves to die, especially not in such a violent and angry way.

"Have you been down here before?" Alicia whispers, her lips close to Oliver's cheek, so she doesn't have to raise her voice. She wonders if he can feel the grip she has on the back of his blazer.

"Not since the war," he murmurs in reply, glancing at her, eyes roving over her face before moving back to the shadows ahead.

"Great," she replies, a sardonic note in her tone. "I look forward to finding whatever creatures now live down here." Alicia sees the slightest smile on his lips before his features return to neutrality, eyes narrowing.

They walk through the musty air and Alicia wrinkles her nose at the stench of rot that wafts towards them, knowing that can't be a good sign.

It's not long before the tunnel widens, the old stone splitting off into multiple paths. Alicia spares a thought about the souls that once travelled these tunnels when this place was alive and breathing, wonders what their lives must have been like. Now it's no different than those stifling tunnels she discovered beneath Muovea alongside Oliver six years ago.

"You three," Oliver says, turning to those walking with them through the dark, the men and woman with focused gazes and guns in their grips. "Down the left. Jackson, you're with Alicia and me. You know what you're looking for but stay vigilant, it's been a while since these tunnels were used by soldiers."

They split up, Alicia's wariness growing with each echoing step they take into the gloom, wondering what beasts lurk with sharp teeth. Her heart is a staccato beat in her chest, wild, erratic, refusing to calm even as she gulps air that reeks of decay.

Her hand reaches out, seeing the light of the lantern shining on her golden skin reassuring her slightly. But it's her fingers pressing against the tense muscles of Oliver's shoulder that eases her concerns.

He's here, by her side, the air isn't so suffocating.

Oliver glances at her, and she can only manage a shaky intake of breath, about to assure him that she's okay, when a damning click shatters their silence. Shadows dawn on Oliver's face and Alicia knows exactly why. She doesn't get a chance to react before he's diving for her, taking them both to the hard ground as fire roars through the tunnel, pouring over them.

Her scream is lodged in her throat as the explosion rattles her bones, splintering stone and rocking the earth around them. Rock crumbles and Alicia squeezes her eyes shut as clumps of dust fall upon her face, her body protected by the weight of Oliver and he manages to curl his arms around her head as stone rains down upon them.

Her ears ring, a shrill whine she struggles to differentiate between what's in her head and what's around her. The noise penetrates her nerves, a beat forming behind her eyes, pulsing red and painful.

She grits her teeth as she tries to breathe, dust grinding between her teeth, wriggling its way into her lungs. Her ribs ache as she tries to suck in a breath, a weight crushing her into the stone.

Panic surges within her, the fear tightening around her throat like a vice. She's too weak to stop it, her breaths shortening and fingers tingling.

It takes Alicia far too long to open her eyes, to gaze around at the shifting shadows around her, flickering orange light her only guide in the tunnel.

"Oliver," she cries out, her only thought for the man who protected her. It's then she notices the weight that's crushing her, cutting off her air. Oliver lays slumped atop her, his head against her shoulder.

Alicia lifts a hand to touch the side of his head. Her hand comes back glistening with blood, and now she really can't draw breath.

"Oliver," she whispers, voice rasping as tears choke her. The deep gnash is a visceral thing against the shaved underside of his head, leaking blood down the side of his brow until it begins dripping against Alicia's throat.

It's then that she hears the snarls of the damned, shuffling footsteps shifting towards her.

The terror around her throat tightens its grip.

"Get up," she says to the darkness, unsure whether she's talking to herself or to Oliver. Or perhaps she's speaking to the gods, the gods that had abandoned her, that she abandoned when she was a child. "Get up."

Alicia shifts Oliver, gentle at first, trying not to hurt him, her heart aching with even the thought of it. He's protected her more than anyone else in her life, protected her from the hard choices, from her own stupidity. He protected her from the darkness he's so desperate for her to face.

But as his dead-weight bears down on her, refusing to move, as the rocks crumble around her and the ear-splitting ring still bombards her skull, as the dead shamble towards them with a furious hunger, she knows that it's her turn to protect him.

Alicia shoves, crying out as his head shifts and more blood gushes from the wound.

"Please, wake up." She's begging now, her voice echoing around her, desperation shaking her tone. She holds his head as she slips her arm out from under him, lowering him as smoothly as she can to the ground as the Greys reach her, stumbling into the brief light of the shattered oil lamp.

She sees the whites of their eyes, glowing in the dark, pinned to her as she sucks in much-needed air. She sees the Reaper in those eyes, making his home in the dead, his hunger for more to join them in the snap of their teeth.

Light flickers and her heart jumps as it reflects on metal. She reaches for the gun—Oliver's gun—with a fickle hope dancing to life within her. Her legs are still trapped beneath Oliver's hips, his body slack and lifeless. But she can't focus on that, not with the gun so close she can almost feel its chilling grip on her palm.

The weapon shouldn't be her hope, not after everything, not after all she's been through. She forced herself to never look at such a thing again without wanting to vomit, without seeing the blood on her hands and the torment in her heart.

To protect Oliver, she reminds herself. To protect Oliver, she'd ruin herself all over again. Just as she did for her ma. Her brothers. Her pa. She broke her own heart for her family.

Alicia's fingers curl around the gun, and she whips around, just as a Grey staggers towards them. She pulls the trigger, head filled with noise and pain. The bullet hits the monster's shoulder, tearing through rotted flesh and bone. But it doesn't die, merely lurches back a step before continuing forward.

Alicia Zalana clenches her jaw and steadies her grip as she learned how to in the dark alleys of the slums when she thought she'd never get out, when she thought she'd end up as just another body in the canals.

She carved fear from her soul and had to learn how to be afraid again if she was ever going to have a normal life. Being an exile is not a normal life.

Alicia raises the gun and shoots. The bullet rips through the skull of the Grey and it tumbles to the ground. Her next shot is just as true, splitting through bone, turning the rotted brain to mush, splattering the smouldering stone with discoloured blood as the Reaper taught her.

The gun clicks, a hollow noise that threatens to make that fear rear its head.

She's a Zalana, raised in the malicious slums that tried to beat the fight out of her, that had her stepping on glass and beginning to relish the feeling.

She drops the gun, stumbles out from under Oliver, her feet unsteady for a moment as that throbbing in her brain grips her head and threatens to split her skull.

The Greys are upon her, gnarled hands stretching for her, eager to peel back her flesh and see the monster beneath.

There's a stone in her grip, jagged and digging into the soft skin of her palm. It's heavy as she swings it, a cry upon her lips as she cracks open the skull of a Grey, black blood spraying against her face, bitter upon her lips.

Alicia twists, smashing the stone into another Grey as the other falls. The jaw of the monster is unhinged, hanging loosely, teeth falling to the ground. The Grey tries to bite into her with its crushed jaw, but she's swinging again, crunching bone.

She stalks forward, eyeing the shadowy figures that lurch towards her, more than she can possibly take on by herself. She knows her fight is doomed, she's been in enough damning situations to know when her odds are slim.

Alicia glances back and sees Oliver's slumped figure, his chest a flutter of movement. That reminder is enough to harden her resolve and raise the stone again, knowing what she fights for. It's not for her survival this time, it's not for greed or selfish self-preservation, but for the life of a man who threw her a rope when she'd been drowning for years.

Alicia doesn't care for herself at that moment. She doesn't care for her past, the blood on her hands, the guilt in her heart. She's bent on protecting one man, and that is what she focuses on. Everything else is not her concern.

Skulls split beneath her stone, blood gushes, gore cakes her hands. She's slipping in it, slipping in blood and trying to keep her feet under her as she grapples with a Grey before shoving its head into the unforgiving rock wall.

It's then she notices what she's truly sliding in, and her stomach heaves. The remains of Jackson, the young man who had triggered the tripwire. There's hardly anything left of him, his remains strewn across the space.

Alicia forces herself not to retch as she thick stench of blood and charred flesh clogs her airways. She's standing in the body of a man.

A Grey grabs her, baring its teeth, putrid breath washing over her face and her gut clenches. She can't seem to move at that moment, staring into the sightless eyes of a monster that should only exist in the darkest of nightmares. She feels like one of them, bloodied and reeking of the dead, chunks of gore knotted in her hair and clinging to her hands.

She screams as teeth tear into the flesh of her shoulder, sinking deep into the muscle, the taste of the Curse on her lips as she cries.

There's a shot, breaking through the continued shriek in her ears, and the Grey's head bursts before her, tearing its teeth from her shoulder. She squeezes her eyes shut as bits splatter her face, the Grey tumbling to her feet.

The others that were travelling with them rush to her side, taking out the rest of the Greys swiftly, their voices echoing in the tunnel. She doesn't hear them as she stands with her eyes closed, feeling the blood drip from her chin, slide down her fingers, the throb in her shoulder, burning deep in her muscles. She doesn't dare open her eyes as light shines behind her eyelids, enticing her to see the havoc around her.

She doesn't want to see, she just wants to go home. She wants to curl beneath her blankets, she wants to feel her brothers' presence as they jest one another. She just wants her simplicity back in this moment.

She knows it's not possible. After this, she's no longer a Zalana.

Alicia turns, prying her eyes open to look at Oliver. The only one who seems to understand her shadows, this feeling of longing and hopelessness. She sees herself within him, and it terrifies her but reassures her. She's not alone, she doesn't have to fight alone.

She goes to him, kneeling by his side and inspecting his head wound. His breathing is even, calm, and he shifts, the beginnings of consciousness tugging at him.

Alicia peels her ruined coat from her shoulders, turning it inside out and gently places it beneath his head. Then she waits, waits for the others to clear the dead and deem it fit to move on, waits for Oliver to come back to her, waits to see his sterling gaze seeking her out, waits for the Reaper's Curse to claim her and turn her into one of the damned.

She brushes Oliver's hair from his forehead and sits with him, knowing she just willingly died for a man she hardly knows and wondering why that doesn't scare her more.