The sun is setting earlier. It's barely even evening, and the sky is dim. I feel like I somehow should have noticed sooner. It makes me wonder what else I'm not noticing.

My thoughts are slow with exhaustion. Reyan told me I wouldn't be any good for the country if I didn't take care of myself—that seems like good enough reason to take a nap before dinner. I barely have the presence of mind to ask a maid to come wake me at seven. Hopefully I won't sleep that long; it's only five now, and dinner is traditionally at six. But I don't have any engagements, and even walking down the hall I catch myself struggling to keep my eyes open.

I think I fall asleep before my head finishes falling to the pillow. Like last night, dreams of death haunt me, and around me, my bloody countrymen fall, screaming. The infirmary is crowded and gory. Men and women whimper, and the screams of the battlefield echo in my mind. Over and over, I walk into Sela's room, her old one, her new one, and find her dead. Sometimes beheaded, sometimes poisoned, but over and over, dead. Then someone's banging on the door but Sela's door is already knocked down, and somehow someone is banging. Everything is darkness and death but someone's still banging, banging—

I jolt awake. The banging comes again. Panicked, I fly to the suite door and throw it open.

A maid steps back, eyes wide.

I stare at her.

"It's seven, milord." She looks like a startled mouse.

I blink, uncomprehending, but then her words sink in, and the tension flees my body. "Right." I blow out a breath. "Right. Thanks."

She nods hesitantly. "Is there anything else?"

My stomach growls, and I blush. "Ahm, no. Thank you."

She slowly nods again. "Yes, milord."

The burning in my cheeks intensifies. I want to see Illesiarr, and Illesiarr will already have soup.

She leaves, and I grab my cloak and belt on my rapier, locking the door behind me. I hurry back to the infirmary, simultaneously feeling more energized and like my mind hasn't rested at all.

When I get there, the door is closed, but I push in. It's never locked, especially anymore, so that no one injured has to wait in the hall. Illesiarr looks over from where he stands, fingers in a cabinet.

"My boy," he says. "Is something the matter?"

I bite my lip. That's the second time today he's asked that. "Do I have to come only when something is wrong, Illesiarr?"

He closes the cabinet. "Of course not. I just..." He pauses, looking concerned. "Worry."

"Sorry."

He shakes his head. "Now, what is it?" He leads me over to the table.

"Do you have any soup left over?" I feel like a child again, coming to steal time and meals with him instead of dealing with whatever assignments I had from Agraund.

"A little bit. I was about to store it up for tomorrow, but you'll save me the extra work." He smiles.

I offer one back, and he pours the soup into a bowl for me. He works while I eat. His presence is comforting, like standing in front of the fire.

When I finish, I rise. I feel guilty for not paying more attention to Leavi when I met her in the Queen's Suite this morning. Part of me doesn't even feel like that was myself.

"Do you mind if I go upstairs for a minute, Illesiarr?"

He looks back at me. "You're always welcome to go wherever you like, my boy." His brow quirks. "As long as Maed Riveaux won't bother you."

My cheeks burn again, but I think with the fire behind me, he can't see. Somehow, that doesn't ease the feeling he knows I'm blushing anyway. I don't bother trying to respond and just slip upstairs, keeping to the edges of the case by habit.

Leavi's dark waves hide her face as she reads, knees drawn up on the couch. The moonlight from the small window shines white on the blanket draped over her lap. I come closer, hand finding the back of a seat.

"Hello," I say.

She jumps, head snapping up. "Aster." She relaxes some, tucking her hair behind her ear. "I didn't hear you come up."

A smile tugs at my lips. "You must be very bad at hearing me, then."

Her head tilts.

"I remember you not noticing me walk across a snowy roof, either."

She grins even though it's a terribly macabre joke. She almost died falling off that roof. We both almost died fighting the shaman shortly thereafter. Somehow that seems so long ago, like something that happened to different people.

I settle against the arm of the chair across from her. The air sobers with my stillness, and I readjust my hand just to disrupt the sensation.

"How are you?" I ask.

Her face falls. "Alright, I suppose. How are you?"

I suck on the sore inside my lip. Even that is starting to hurt. "A lot has happened," I settle on.

"The Queen?"

"Being cared for." This feels like the night before I left, when she came to my door and wished me good luck. Neither of us are saying... anything. Somehow that feels worse than if I had just stayed on my floor of the castle. Both of us know there's more being thought than is coming to words, but the silence still reigns. It feels unconquerable, like it's staring us down until we melt back to where we came from.

I refuse to run away like I did that night.

"I'm sorry you were in danger. For all the danger you've seen because of me."

"Aster, I—" She slides the blanket to the side, rising. "You don't have to apologize for that."

My head ducks, and I'm overwhelmed with images of all the loss in this castle. The moment stretches.

"What are you thinking?" Her words are feathers.

My head comes back up, lips twisting, my own voice scarcely above a whisper. "So many people have died."

Her lashes fall, and she nods. Her fingers twine in front of her, a picture of grief.

Death isn't a beast that taps only in my mind.

I can't imagine what horror this all must be to a girl who grew up so isolated. The shadows of her hair shift like ghosts against her pale cheek.

"Leavi?"

She glances up, and the faint light glistens on the sheen in her dark eyes.

My own grief mutes my words, lips staying motionless as we watch each other.

"What happens to their families, Aster? What happens when they don't come home?"

Her words are blades in my soul, and the air resonates with our mourning. "I don't know yet," I whisper.

A tear spills down her cheek, and the little knives twist in my chest.

"I'm sorry." My voice trembles.

She shakes her head. The thin moonlight beside us catches on the curve of her cheekbone, on the soft edge of her jaw, and glistens on the tear trails that forge their quiet path down her face. Her head tilts down, just a little to the side, just enough that her midnight waves excuse her need to meet my eye. The lowlight sets in her half-silhouette, as if she's a heroine returning from tragedy, woven in one of the grand castle tapestries. Her ethereal beauty lends me the fantastical idea that she's descended from old blood, strong magic.

To see her mourning a people that isn't even hers sends a pang through my chest, and in that moment, my own world-weariness is forgotten, if only I can stop the girl from crying. Three soft strides is all it takes to carry me to her and, brazen as it may be, the edge of my fingers brush beneath her eye, smearing away the tears. She looks up without moving her head. Afraid, perhaps? Ashamed? I let my fingers slide to her jaw, and the gentle pressure tilts her to face me.

She's frozen, fall forest eyes searching my face.

Somehow, an idea comes to me that, until this moment, I hadn't even managed to verbalize to myself. "One day," I whisper, "these troubles will be long gone."

Her soft breath puffs against my wrist. "And what happens in that world?"

The question both catches me off guard and seems the only possible response. Instinctively, my mouth knows what the answer should be, what this moment, this place I put myself in quietly asks me to say. Some promise, some expression that we'll forge together through whatever the future holds. That I care about her for a greater reason than her friendship, and that I want to watch her see the day these troubles pass.

I can't tell her that. I've always known I can't tell her that; I've told her I can't tell her that. Not because some deep part of me doesn't ache to say it, doesn't long to live in a world where I can lead my people without a mask on and where my decisions are mine to make. It is fruitless to fantasize about what the world would be like if it were different.

Regret for the situation will change nothing, and I cannot be so cruel as to make promises to this girl that I cannot keep.

Those brazen fingers tuck her hair behind her ear, and my foolish lips let fall a short, soft kiss to her forehead. Then I step back. "I suppose we'll each see then."

She blinks after me as if dazed. Then her gaze drops, fingers rubbing her charm. Softly, she asks, "Do you think we'll all survive till then?"

The question stalls my breaths. Buying time to think, I turn and wander to the window, shifting the way the curtains hit the sill. My arm burns.

In last night's battles, it was unavoidable I could die. By all rights, I should have; I came closer to it than ever before. And it could happen still. Yet, if my people need me to fight again, fight I will. If my country asks to die for it, then I will march to the pyre with resolve.

Oh, my Morineaux. I am yours before anything else's. The thought sends a pang through my chest, but for what, I'm not sure.

I force myself to present the positive. "Even if they take the castle, Stellries forbid, they will not massacre all its inhabitants. This is not a colonization force, not yet, but a conquering one. They don't have the people—or the knowledge of this land—to kill everyone. Unless you put yourself in their way, you'll survive. So will anyone else that stays silent."

"But you won't." Her disembodied tone is one of quiet realization.

My voice is soft. Not angry, not bitter, just... aware. "I might escape, for chance of taking back the castle later. But if they capture me alive—" I take a deep breath, dropping the corner of fabric I was blindly staring at. "No. Even if I could be useful to them as a prisoner, I wouldn't, and even if I would, they wouldn't keep me. The Kadranians hate magic. They would destroy my Corps, me foremost." I turn, a quiet, inappropriate laugh escaping. "They would keep Reyan before keeping me." I walk to the couch and sit, allowing my arm to cradle in my lap instead of the uncomfortable hanging it's been doing all day.

Leavi moves to sit beside me, something wild lighting her face, and I look away. "I want to help." Her words are as much a demand as a plea.

My gaze turns up to hers. "You've done well." I don't want her getting any more mixed up in this than she already is, and I'm desperate that she doesn't get in anyone else's way.

She shakes her head. "I can play message-carrier if it helps, but your Ladies aren't the ones trying to kill us. I want to help."

I stand up. "You're doing enough. Messages are enough."

"Are messages I'm not even carrying for you going to save your life?" Tears gloss her eyes, and she pushes to her feet.

With my right arm, I grab her shoulder. "They are good enough." My words are tense, harsher, perhaps, than I mean them to be, but she will not become entangled with death. "Alright?"

She nods, not meeting my eyes now.

I fight the urge to wrap my arms around her in my relief, and I sink back down on the cushion. "Thank you."

Eyes flitting up, she gives a little smile. It's tinged with sadness and something else, something I can't read. After a moment, she says, "Anything, Aster. Whatever you need."