They fall into the cabin together, drenched in sweat, Oliver's blood staining her clothes.

"Who lives here?" he questions as he glances around the darkened space filled with furniture and blankets and toys.

"It's Lena's cabin. We'll be safe here." Alicia pushes him to sit down by the cold hearth, Oliver letting out a breath as he slumps in the worn, leather sofa. She gets to work searching through the cupboards for the supplies she needs, nerves churning in her gut. She sets the supplies on the table beside him as he undoes the buttons on his shirt, holding his arm stiffly but the pain doesn't reveal itself on his face.

Getting a fire started, Alicia lets the silence settle between them. She has so much she needs to say, but no idea where she should start. With the duke's death? Her brother's? Or maybe with the fact they beat an army of undead monsters with an army of undead immortal monsters?

Alicia glances over her shoulder at him as he peels off his undershirt that's also stained with blood. Turning to the table of her supplies, she unbundles what she needs, her motions practiced as she puts water over the fire to boil.

"Can you please put some pressure on that?" she commands, waving a hand at his now bare arm before continuing with her work. She ties her hair back, washes her hands thoroughly, and tries not to let her nerves show.

Too many times she had to stitch up her pa after a drunken fight while her ma was away ignoring the crumbling of her family. Too many times she had to stitch up her own wounds when being alone seemed like the only option she could handle.

She cleans her tools with boiled water, fills up a bowl, dampens a cloth, then settles down on a chair in front of Oliver. Her gaze is quick to skim over the various scars that litter his bare torso before they settle on the wound on his bicep.

She takes a breath and brushes his hand away. She peels back the cloth he was using to stem the bleeding, more gushing from the wound to drip from his elbow, a gentle tapping on the floorboards.

Alicia inspects his arm then glances at him to find him watching her. "There's no exit wound," she states, trying to hide the tremor in her voice.

Oliver presses his lips together and nods, shifting slightly and grabbing a bottle of whiskey off the table to take a hearty swig and set it back down. "It wouldn't be the first time someone's had to dig a bullet out of me."

Alicia glances at the deep scar on his chest to the left of his heart. Reminded of his tale about taking a bullet for Samantha in the trenches. "This shouldn't be too bad for you then."

Oliver huffs out a breath at that and Alicia manages a small smile.

She cleans the wound as much as she can before taking a deep breath and grabbing her tweezers. "Try not to move too much." Then she digs into the wound. He jolts, his hand going to her thigh and digging in painfully. She doesn't mind, concentrating on finding the bullet. It hasn't hit bone, but it has gone deep, and Alicia begins fearing that she'll have to cut it out. He grunts as she twists, finally grabbing hold of the bullet and tugging. She grips his shoulder, slick with sweat, as she pulls the bullet out, astounded with herself as she drops it on the table.

She doesn't give herself time to be surprised, pressing gauze to the wound as Oliver takes a gulp of the whiskey before passing it to her. She dilutes it with water in a bowl before lifting the dressing and winces as she pours the solution over the wound.

"Fuck," he grits out. She passes him back the bottle and wipes her bloodied hands on a cloth.

"That wasn't so bad," she says, and he gives her the side-eye before drinking more. Alicia picks up her needle and thread and bends to get to work on stitching him up.

"Thank you," he murmurs, his hand going back to her thigh but now just a gentle weight. Alicia nods, closing his wound and stabbing the needle through his skin. She sees the muscles in his jaw tighten.

"This is going to leave a nasty scar." Her stitches would make anyone cringe, but as long as he isn't bleeding all over his nice white shirts, then she's not complaining.

He doesn't answer her, and his silence affects her more than she cares to admit. She glances at him, but his gaze is faraway, hardly even tensing as she threads the needle through his skin.

"My little sister fell in love with the wrong man once," he utters. Alicia's hands still for a moment, staring at the evident hurt in his eyes that has nothing to do with his wound. She continues working before he stops speaking. "Alexios Ronavic, the eldest of the Ronavics. Our family tried to get her out, but the harder our parents held on, the further they pushed her away." He lets out a harsh breath, slumping further in his seat. "One night, she came home with bruises and refused talk about what he'd done to her. I'd heard the stories of the things Alexios did to the women who wandered into his bar. The ones he took a fancy to."

Alicia feels her heart break, and her hands are unsteady with the next stitch.

"I killed him," he continues, his words shaking slightly. "Shot him right between the eyes in that fucking bar. And I made sure that the entire gang knew I'd done it too. It was the first time I'd picked up a gun."

Alicia finishes her stitches and sets down her equipment with trembling fingers.

"I was a foolish kid, but the Ronavics clearly saw something in me, and they offered me a deal. I work for them, or they kill my entire family and make me watch."

"Oliver," Alicia breathes,

"That's who I was when you met me," he tells her, "I was a mercenary for the Ronavics. I killed for them just as I killed for the duke. I've put my family in danger again by coming back."

"I'm sorry, Oliver."

"My sister's married now, to some property agent. She wanted nothing to do with me, not after I took revenge on a man she asked me not to. And then she thought I was dead before either of us could try to fix it."

Alicia can't breathe as she thinks on her own similar story, being unable to fix things with her family because they're all just fucking gone.

"I couldn't protect our youngest sister in the war," he continues, his suffering shining in his eyes. Alicia winces, thinking back on the pictures she found in his room, of him and the young girl beside him in their uniforms. "She was meant to be the one that returned, not me."

No words she could possibly speak will make this go away, will make it any easier to bear the burden. "It wasn't your fault, Oliver," she murmurs anyway, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and allowing him to seek comfort in her presence.

"I could have..." He sucks in a breath, pressing his forehead to her neck and clinging to her shirt. "I could have done more."

She doesn't deny that, she can't possibly. There's always more that could have been done. For his sisters, for her pa, for Kathryn, for Kieran, for the people of the Commons. If only they'd done something differently, if only they hadn't made this choice or said that comment, perhaps they would still be alive.

She can't tell him not to think like that, not when she still does herself.

"The grand duke is dead," she says, running her fingers through his hair, knowing he can find solace in at least that. "The Ghuls won against the herd of Grey Bloods. Muovea is free."

Oliver pulls back, sterling eyes shining in the light of the fire. "Then why do you sound like we lost?"

Blinking, tears wet Alicia's eyelashes. She can't possibly tell him she sold out the exiles to save him. He'll blame himself, hate himself, and Oliver already has enough hate in his heart for himself. So, she tells him her other truth, the one that hurts the most. "Kieran died trying to save me." Her face twists, more tears welling in her eyes, but she schools her features and forces those tears not to spill. "He died, but we won."

"Kieran—" He doesn't finish, instead he just grips the back of her neck and pulls her into him. Alicia presses her face to his hot skin as her lips part, a scream begging to be torn from her. Instead, a heaving sob shakes her shoulders and her tears wet Oliver's skin.

They won, but at what cost? How much did each of them have to bleed for this?

The door to the cabin slams open and Alicia lurches up and spins around as Lena enters, curses falling from her lips as she shuts the door. Black eyes land on them and she straightens. "Oh good, you're both alive."

Alicia wipes her eyes as she stands, reining her emotions back in. "Barely. We need to get out of the capital before the Ronavics come looking."

"We?" Oliver asks, but Lena waves her hand.

"There's have another problem. Sam's gone."

"Gone?" Alicia questions, watching Lena flit about the cabin, collecting supplies and stuffing them into a bag.

"She left the capital and took her Ghuls with her, something about searching for the cure. Considering the state of things out there, no one wants to go after them."

Alicia glances back, eyes locking with Oliver's. Both of them share a wide-eyed stare. Sam is gone with the Ghuls? What kind of madness... "The cure?" She turns back to Lena. "If she's going after the cure to the Reaper's Curse, then why not let her?"

Lena stops—a blanket half shoved into a bag—to look up at Alicia with narrowed eyes. "There's an army of immortal warriors out there that just cut down hundreds of Grey Bloods, and you just want to leave our princess alone with them?"

Alicia lifts her chin, knowing there's truth in those words, and also knowing she and Oliver are leaving the capital anyway. She just has no idea what they'll do if they find Sam. She's as stubborn as her mother was. "Oliver and I leave in the morning. He can't move yet with his wounds."

"You can't take the main tunnel, I can't promise the Ronavics won't be watching. Whatever Ivan did, he prevented most of his men being arrested."

Sighing, Alicia lifts a hand to rub it across her face but bumps into her wounds and winces. "Then we use the tomb," she says, staring at the blood crusted beneath her nails and wondering if it's Kieran's.

She needs to get out of this place, and not just for Oliver's sake. She has too many ghosts here.

"There are no Ghuls there anymore, it should be safe."

"Alicia," Oliver starts, wincing as he tries to stand. She settles a hand on his shoulder and refuses to let him, already knowing he's going to try to argue.

"My place isn't here," she tells him with absolute certainty. "I don't know where my place is, but it's not here."

Muovea is killing her, bleeding her out slowly. She won't last much longer within these cursed walls, reminded every moment of what she lost to save them.

"Then we go together," he says, resolve shining in his sterling gaze as he reaches forward and intertwines their fingers.

"Together," she promises before she looks back at Lena. "And you?"

Lena slings the strap of her bag over her chest. "I'm going to get my daughter back and give her the normal lie she deserves now that Sergey is dead." Black eyes settle on Oliver. "With Sebastian now succeeding the throne, things will be easier. The Ronavics are powerless without the duke and his money."

"Then this is where we part ways."

Lifting her chin, Lena nods. "I guess so."

Alicia moves first. She steps towards Lena and wraps her arms around the woman. Both of them were just lost girls, doing what they had to in order to make something of themselves. Perhaps in another life they would have chosen better paths to walk, made easier choices, but they played the hands they'd been dealt.

Lena has her daughter, the light of her life.

And Alicia... Alicia has Oliver and she wouldn't have found him if Elena Sandian hadn't sent her into the Reaper's den.

"Take care of yourself, Elena," Alicia murmurs in her ear and Elena hugs her tighter, pressing her scared face to Alicia's cheek. A scar they made together.

"Find whatever it is you're looking for, Licia. You've given enough of yourself to Muovea. It's okay to stop now."

Alicia blinks away the tears that burn her eyes. She wants to stop, she wants so badly to stop, but there are things she still needs to make up for. The path of blood she carved four years ago won't let her stop.

Standing outside the hole in the wall that Elena first showed her six years ago, Alicia feels a weight lift off her shoulders. Alicia stands bundled in furs, her hair pinned securely away from her face as the wind tries to tug it free. A morning mist rolls in the fields behind them, but she's thankful to have her back to the capital once again.

Alicia lifts her gaze and finds Oliver already watching her. He reaches for her gloved hand, his thumb trailing over her knuckles, warming the cold leather.

"Are you ready to be exiles again?" she asks him with a tilt of her chin.

Without hesitation, Oliver bends down and brushes his dry lips against hers. His breath caresses her skin and she presses her lips more firmly to his, sighing against his mouth. "Yes," he murmurs and she smiles.

Even though the task before them of finding Sam and the cure seems impossible, she still manages to smile. Even though they're both exiling themselves once again, she still manages to smile.

Alicia pulls away from him and tugs his hand. They walk towards the wall, towards the tunnels and the tomb that changed both of their lives.

This time Alicia isn't going into the dark afraid and alone, she's going into the dark with hope, knowing Oliver will be right beside her every step of the way.