There was a small mirror in Juda's bedchamber at Roth's house that had a nasty habit of reflecting far more than what the room actually contained.

He'd looked into it a lot when he'd been younger—an act of foolish vanity, Roth had believed—but most of the time, Juda had been looking for her. Aleina. She'd read a story to him once, many moons before, a fairy tale of sorts about how, when the dark moon was at its highest and most radiant, you could look into a mirror and find all that you had lost. If you were one of the fortunate ones, the moon's magic would make it so you could reach out and touch that which you had found again.

But beware what you look for, Juda, his mother had said, for the price of the moon's power is an eternity on the other side of the glass.

Juda had never understood what could be so wrong in that. A lifetime inside the looking glass with her had always seemed preferable to a lifetime without.

He looked into the same mirror now. A tiny hairline crack fractured the glass in one corner. Reaching out, he smoothed his palm over the fine layer of dust smudging his view, ignoring the raw skin and mottled bruising that patterned his knuckles.

He tilted his head to one side, noting one superficial graze to his temple, a tiny patch of blood crusting in his side braids and he rubbed absently at it with the pad of his thumb until it was gone, the skin pinkening from the friction.

Sleep had come easily this morntide when he'd finally crawled into his bed at the novice quarters. The unrest in Grimefell had stretched the hours through to moontide, when all that was left was pockets of conflict soon quashed by the Order. Turmoil had bred blood and death. More than Juda could remember since he'd become a novice. He'd watched those he'd tossed into the Setalah rot before his eyes, their bloated, putrid bodies twisting around the oars of the cargo ships or hitting the moss-slick stone walls of the port on the rolling current. His fists had broken bones. His boots had crushed faces. His scimitar had sliced through limbs and throats with an ease that hadn't sickened him.

Everything he'd done, every horror he'd partaken in, he'd done it in the exact manner of his training.

By the blade.

By the blood.

By Ban-Keren.

When the time had come for him to return to the barracks, his bones had been weary, his skin and uniform covered in the blood of others, but his heart had remained just as it had during battle. Numb. Inert. Unmoved.

So, yes, sleep had been easy and much-needed.

Glancing towards the bed, Juda caught glimpses of Elara, her eyes closed in slumber, the blanket resting lightly on her hips. She'd looked beautiful, the moonlight giving her skin an ethereal quality, almost as if she'd been a reflection in the mirror and not the reality he knew her to be. He caught the scent of her hair then—sea salt and sweet musk—and the ghost of her here made his heart thump.

He swallowed and forced himself to look away. Back to the mirror.

There was nothing there.

"Juda? Boy, get down here."

Roth's use of boy always grated, but then again, it had even when he had been a boy. With a sigh, Juda tightened the bind in his hair and left the room, following the sound of Roth's call and finding his guardian waiting for him, his face troubled.

Roth always looked troubled these tides. The silver that once only haunted his temples, now striped the braids either side of his head, touches of it dancing all along his hairline. The lines on his brow had deepened, his scowl now a permanent slash across his face.

Juda could try to convince himself it was the knife-edge anticipation of reaching close to their goal, but he knew better. He knew Roth better.

His loathing for the man that would become his guardian had gradually settled into an uneasy truce between them. Stop attempting to plunge daggers into the Master Librarian's hand—or any other limb for that matter—and he'd get a comfortable bed, food, water and an escape from a fated life in the slum gangs, or a watery grave at the bottom of the Setalah, whichever came first. Stop cursing at him at every opportunity and get access to the King's Library. Submit to chores and schooling, and in return, get knowledge, training, expertise and guidance from the man who had been Special Commander to Ban-Keren himself.

Of course, inevitably, there had come to be much more than that.

Which was why Juda knew only too well that what troubled Roth was Juda, or more to the point, what he felt for Juda—the boy who'd left a scar not only on his hand, but upon his heart too.

It irked him almost as much as being called boy.

Roth's gaze swept over Juda as it often did, with a searching eye that saw too much, or at least, tried to. Juda hated that too, the scrutiny. He always had done.

"Foul times in Grimefell," he said, finally, breaking the silence that filled this place too much upon these tides.

"Yes." Juda nodded. "Although it's under control now. Thankfully."

"Is it?" It was a question that wasn't really a question. Roth had a habit of doing that a lot. Pose a question to which there was already an answer.

"You can quell the violence, Juda, but not the dream. Dreams exist regardless of tyranny. They cannot be stamped out by any fist or boot; they cannot be cut down by blade alone. Attempt to silence them with force, and the whisper of them will live on and where this is a whisper, there is always a roar. Or did you forget the teachings of Gal-Gethrin already?"

Miara Gal-Gethrin, famed scholar, historian and revolutionary warrior of Dreynia. Juda had read her manifestos over and over, learned whole sections off by heart, recited her words before bed and at first morntide. Her teachings had once been that which roused his soul. The ones to help him mould his anger into something he could use, give him something he could strive for.

Juda's spine stiffened on instinct, his gaze fixed straight ahead as if The Grim himself stood at his back, whip in hand. He'd done this routine often enough as a young boy, schooled by the very man who'd himself schooled Commander Grim once upon a tide.

"No, segian. To roar is to rage, to rage is to fight, to fight is to resist." He blinked. Edges softening. "I have not forgotten."

Roth's broad shoulders dropped a little, but the intensity of his expression did not relent. "Then I am gladdened to hear it, boy." He sniffed, inhaling strong as he dragged his palm across his mouth. "The tide has changed, Juda. Far quicker than we thought it would. You need to finish what was started this moontide. You must go to the temple under the citadel and find what we have been searching for. There can be no more waiting now."

Juda looked sharply at his guardian, realising he'd been wrong about the expression on Roth's face. What he saw, what really lingered there, sharpening the man's flesh and bone, was fear. How had he missed it? Fear was something Juda recognised only too well. He'd seen it often enough. This past tide, he'd seen it more than perhaps he ever had. But to see it in Roth's eyes? In the way his jaw tightened?

"What's happened?" He thought about taking a step forward, of going to this man who helped raise him, who'd coaxed the anger raging through his soul and taught him how to control it. But that would have meant breaking the mirror Juda held between them, weakening the small hairline fracture that already existed—the one he wished didn't.

No. He wouldn't move. Couldn't. He would stare into the mirror on one side, and Roth could do likewise on the other, and they would see the exact same thing reflected back—nothing at all.

"On the counsel of Lord Dageor, the King has reinstated the Trial of Sin-Sabre for all new Highguards who have been chosen for the Elite Guard."

Roth's lip quivered as he said it. Actually fucking quivered. Juda was as stung by that as he was to hear the news.

The Trial of Sin-Sabre. He knew of it. Roth had told him tales once, tales he had not told him again—refused to—because he said a man only needed to hear them one time. Of course, Juda had the insight to understand that it was not because they were tales that only needed to be told once, but because Roth had not cared to utter those words ever again. With words, came memories. Images conjured in the mind that lingered too long, and by the dead gods, Juda knew Roth had memories that haunted his vision far more than he'd ever dare to admit.

There were ghosts in Roth Vi-Garran. Juda had seen them the moment he'd first looked into the man's wine-addled, bloodshot eyes. After all, a man who carried his own ghosts with him, was well equipped to see them in others.

"Juda, you understand what this means? You understand what I am saying to you?"

It was, of course, Roth who took that step closer. It always was.

Juda stared ahead and inhaled. "I understand, segian."

Roth's face soured. "Don't do that. You don't need to do that. No segian now, please. Now is not the time for master and novice." He took another step.

Juda's fists clenched at his sides, just the slightest of movements and yet he knew Roth saw it. He always saw too much. Part of that came from his training, part was just Roth.

"I understand," Juda said, again, his gaze finding Roth's. "We have come this far. I have come this far. There is no turning back, no matter what. We agreed this."

Roth nodded, but his eyes were less agreeable. "We did, but Sin-Sabre was never part of the plan, Juda."

"Then we make it part of the plan. We adapt, as we have always done." Juda shrugged.

A kick of anger erupted in Roth's face. "Adapt, boy? This is not a simple case of changing our plans to fit around your training schedule, or a sudden call to arms in the slums. This is a trial that could change everything. It's a test of such endurance that I've seen it break even the strongest of men. A test that transforms the sharpest of minds into sea mulch."

"Yours survived," Juda said, a small smile appearing. "And it wasn't much more than sea mulch to start with, by all accounts."

It was the wrong move. Juda knew it as soon as the words left his mouth, perhaps even before then, but Roth was being so damned intense about the whole thing and Juda couldn't let his guardian rattle him so. Roth's anxieties had a habit of swallowing you whole if you let them.

"Think this a time for jest?" Roth said, his voice thundering. "Let's see how humorous you think this to be when your brains are dripping out of your fucking ears and that infamous cock of yours can do no better than piss blood in your britches. This could destroy you, Juda. That is what you need to understand because it's quite clear you do not, despite your claim to the contrary."

He stared into Juda's eyes, his rage fading as quickly as it had come, replaced with a jaded look and a catch in his voice that Juda wished dearly he could not hear. He was used to Roth's fury as much as he was his bouts of silence that could chill the bones greater than any grave, but the desperation and melancholy came only with the drink and Juda thought himself fortunate not to bear witness to much of that these tides since his time had been occupied by the Order.

He edged closer to Roth, reaching out to grasp his shoulder. "If I jest, it is because I do understand. I do. But I cannot allow the thought of what might happen to devour me. When have we ever doubted that we are on the right path? That we tread ever closer to our goal? Don't you see? The fact that the King has reinstated the ancient trial can mean only one thing: his grip is weakening, Roth. It is weakening! The Order may have overpowered Grimefell on yestertide, but they did not kill the dream. It is just as Gal-Gethrin said. The tide turns in Druvaria, for if the King believes he cannot even rely on his most trusted warriors and needs Sin-Sabre to prove their loyalty, then his hold on the kingdom is precarious at best."

Roth's gaze dropped to where Juda's hand rested on his shoulder, and it was everything Juda could do, not to let it fall. Instead, he squeezed.

"We will prevail, sâe. This is our roar, our rage, our fight, our resistance and we will prevail. Believe it, now and always."

A beat passed, then another and then Roth mirrored Juda's stance, clapping his hand to Juda's shoulder.

"Then hold tight to Aleina in the darkness, Juda," he said. "Hold tight and she will guide you, now and always."

***

The light in the Naiad temple pulsed over the cavern roof, the dragon's gold reflecting bright cerulean on the surface of the underground pool and upon the skin of the woman laying at the water's edge, her legs submerged up to her shins as if she hadn't been able to find the energy to drag her body any farther.

Juda dropped down from the old shaft, sliding over the rocks and racing to her side, his heart juddering. Hooking his hands under her armpits, he pulled Elara free from the water and leant down to listen for her breathing, barely able to discern her short, shallow breaths over the noise that pounded at his temples.

"Elara, wake up!" he urged her, lightly tapping her cheek before noticing the blood staining his palm.

Turning her onto her side, he checked the back of her head first, believing that maybe the injury she'd sustained in the silk merchant's bath had worked its way open again, but soon finding the source just below her shoulder blade.

She groaned as he moved her onto her front, tugging on her sodden tunic so he could better see. The dagger wound was narrow, clearly made by a small blade, and fortunately not so deep, but the surface was still slick with blood. How long had she lain here? How much blood had been lost? Juda tried not to dwell on it and instead, working quickly, he unbuckled his leather vest, removing both it and his tunic. Using the long sleeves of the lightweight tunic to wrap around her as a tourniquet, he pulled the fabric tight and secured it in a knot.

Elara groaned again as he rolled her gently onto her back, her eyelids flickering.

"Come on," he said, smoothing back the wet hair plastered to her face. "Come on, wake up now. Please."

As her eyes opened, long drawn-out blinks in sync with her slowly-settling breaths, Elara's gaze soon focused upon him, her mouth twitching into a small, pained smile.

"I do so...enjoy hearing you beg, novice," she whispered, her delicate fingers weakly tracing his jawline.

Juda found himself smiling, despite the tightness in his chest that pulled agonisingly on his bones, and caught her fingers in his hand, bringing them to his mouth and brushing them over his lips.

"It seems you enjoy trouble more, witch. This is the second time I have tended to your wounds."

"But you do it so well." She laughed, soft, although the action wrenched a small gasp from her mouth. "Who'd have thought a Highguard such as yourself would possess a touch so tender?"

Juda nipped at her fingertips, chuckling with her, before drawing back to study her face. She looked different—pale and drawn from the loss of blood no doubt, but there was something else that laboured her expression, a deep aching weariness that he hadn't seen in her as yet. It made him think of Roth's melancholic gaze, something that had buried under her flesh and now leached the life from her skin.

"Why are you here? Who did this?"

Elara closed her eyes for a moment and breathed. "Me," she said, when she looked back up at him again. "I did this. And I am here because there is nowhere else for me now. I can't go back, Juda. I can't go back."

"I don't understand..." Juda said, frowning.

Juda saw it then. Saw that whatever physical pain she bore; it was nothing compared to the hurt that was drowning her.

"They know," she said. "My friends...they know. There is nothing for me in Grimefell anymore. It's over." With a grunt of effort, she reached for her neck, tugging free the small gold chain that rested against her throat and held the pendant up as if to show him, rubbing her thumb over the symbol etched there. "But it's no matter now. Not now I have this."

Juda stared at the pendant and the inscriptions inlaid into the gold. They were the same inscriptions he'd seen in the book from Roth's library, the collection his guardian kept secret. Kept hidden. He'd learned to identify the symbols much in the same way he'd learned the writings of Miara Gal-Gethrin, committing them to memory so he would know them when he found them again. Just as he and Roth had planned.

"What is that?" he dared to ask, even as his heart picked up a frantic beat he hoped Elara would not detect.

She smiled at him, dragon's gold glinting in her eyes.

"This, dear novice, is the key to the hidden treasure of the Naiad. You sought a fortune, yes? Well, then hold onto that very impressive cock of yours, because I'm about to show you riches that'll bring you to your knees."