"Now this... wasn't my best idea.", she mumbled, sighing heavily in frustration. "It was an exquisitely stupid one to be precise." Given - the small room was luxurious for a prison cell, with a clean bed, a chair and a separate section, lacking a door, but in all other accounts almost like an own room for the privy and a washbasin of soulcast granite. There even was a curtain to make up for that missing door. Some days in the past years she had slept in paid shelters that didn't offer that much comfort.

Yet if she could have traded those run down, wooden shacks, which offered nothing but a stack of hay for this cell, she would have done it in an instant. At least in those, she could feel the wind on her skin, whispering through the cracks in the cheap, wooden walls. Here, there wasn't even a window.

That was bothering her more than she would have anticipated.

"Wasn't worse than the incident in Dunadari I think.", Aris annotated dryly. "Now that was typical human foolishness if you ask me."

Even the slight mention of that made her cheeks blush furiously. She shook her head decidedly to drive out all thoughts of that silliness. Dunadari - the place where she had saved two lighteyed girls traveling in a caravan they thought save from a robbery. She had then ended up traveling with them far longer than anticipated and when one of the young women started approaching her in a manner that made quite clear she had not realized the true nature of their saviour, it had seemed like a good idea to encourage her hopes. She tried her best to pass for a man while wearing the armor, so it had been... convenient.

Until the Brightlady had publicly announced her intention to progress forward with a betrothal. That had been an escape that night... Sneaking over rooftops and walls to get out of that city, all the while listening to Aris' mockery...

None of that now. For now the only thing she could afford to waste focus on was getting out of this cell unseen!

"I need to get out of here." She eyed the sturdy, soulcast walls. They weren't of the original material, that framed the halls and walls of this place, that much was obvious from their clean, grey surface that lacked the typical strata. When she had put her ears on them to listen for noise coming from the other side, she had heard nothing. But there had to be something behind them, right? Otherwise the Highprince wouldn't have bothered having them put up in the first place. Restless she paced from one end of the room to the other, nervously opening and closing her right hand. She didn't summon Aris yet. She wasn't yet sure, what she should do. What she could do.

"They will be waiting for you once night breaks.", he whispered in her mind. As always, she could barely make out the words his hoarse, strained voice formed. Since the day he had first talked to her this had been, how her mind interpreted his words.

Still far better than the screaming before.

Her hands turned to fists. "I know.", she acknowledged. "I need to get to them. At once. They'll need me tonight. Frani's deptors are sure to make an appearance, now that she has refused them for more than a week. Word might even have reached them about what happened at the training grounds. But...!" Her whole body tightened to a breaking point as she raised her freehand to her face. With a stiffled scream she crashed it into the wall before her.

There was only one way. She had given her word. Those people Frani, the boy with the scarred eye, Livana...

She needed to protect them.

But there was only one way to get to them soon enough.

And it required risking everything.

Remember your oaths., Aris whispered in her head. A faint blueish mist appeared in her freehand, even though she still hadn't summoned him consciously. He wanted to go too. She clenched her teeth, her lips becoming a tight line devout of any colour.

Highprince Kholin was no fool. Already finding a lighteyed woman masquerading as a common soldier drew more attention than she could allow. But once she escaped this place, there was no way that her identity could remain hidden. She would have to start anew. Already leaving this place would mean abandoning her armor. Gladly she had left her weapons and belongings with Frani but it would still cost a fortune to replace the things the prison guard held. Until now she had always been able to draw from her reputation to quickly get back on her feet again when she had lost something of that magnitude. If she really broke out of prison now...

"I should never have gone to that storming training.", she cursed through her teeth. "Storm me for a fool, if I had just stayed away, minded my own business-"

"You could not. You know that it was not a matter of mere curiosity that drew you towards these men, Zeraina. You have been on your own for too long. Such as you are not meant to walk their path alone. It is as it is to be."

"What does that mean?", she asked even though she already knew Aris wouldn't reply. It was not the first time he had said things like this but he could never recall what exactly he meant by them. She didn't press him. There were still many parts of him that were hurt - badly wounded and fractured into pieces. Somehow this knowledge connected to these wounds.

She let it go.

A decision had formed in her mind. She closed her eyes.

Yes, she hated the uproar this would bring. She most definitely had no desire whatsoever to start from the beginning again, build up a new name, a new reputation and live lean for the next months, barely being able to make enough marks to feed and house herself. The last years she had had the luxury of being able to choose her employers. That would be gone. The reason she came here - letting someone employ her for their quest to retake their homeland - gone.

But she had sworn an oath.

Time was running out.

She had to get to them.

Mist became a knife in her hand. Not a sword - she needed something smaller if she wanted to get to work on this wall. It was easier having Aris take his usual shape, deviations like this would drain a certain measure of the Stormlight she carried with her. Luckily as of yet, she didn't lack the spheres for that. Almighty send, that no one watched the other side of it at the moment!

Aris made short work of the stone wall. She refused to look back, to see the too-smooth edges herself and instead concentrated fully on the people she had to get to.

She couldn't let herself think of the consequences of Kholin realizing that the woman he had held was a Shardbearer.