In the weeks to follow, Sylvanni's captivity started to fall into a kind of routine. Not a good routine, but at least predictable. Erxaris' deal held: so long as Silveks remained obedient, she was no longer subjected to the torturous experiments she'd initially endured. It wasn't much of a reprieve, but it was better than nothing.

As Uldren had predicted, the shining stay and her new station afforded her a strange kind of status within House Kings. Most of the days, she was requested to be at the Baroness' side as she held audience with other members of the House. Sylvanni was to be a silent but eye-catching trophy, the Guardian brought to heel. She was a quiet piece of furniture, staying near proceedings so that all present could be reminded that House Kings was powerful enough to accomplish such a feat. Or perhaps, seemingly powerful. The longer Sylvanni observed, the more she began to see just how much pageantry went into propping up a House of ailing numbers and the part she herself was made to play in that act.

On some occasions, when the Baroness truly wished to show off the command she wielded, Sylvanni would be commanded to make another bloody showing of loyalty. Just another death, she'd tell herself when handed a weapon for the deed. That it was by her own hand made no difference, other than that she learned how to do the deed quickly and cleanly. On the other side of the resurrection, she would kneel and hand back her Ghost silently to be contained once more, trying to empty herself of thoughts and emotions as she did so.

He was there in the audience room with her most of the time, locked away in the containment canister. The Baroness liked to keep the little prison under-claw, tapping it in a clicking wave every so often to draw attention to her prize. Sylvanni tried her best not to look, not to think about him. Sentiment was a distraction she could ill afford before an opportunity to escape came. At this point, keeping herself fully blank was an almost meditative process. There was a strange kind of comfort in it, in the nothingness of it all.

She watched days of the Baroness' proceedings without speaking, without reaction, keeping the loose attention pose Erxaris had taught her. The Fallen of the House seemed to find her empty stare intimidating, and she took comfort in that even in this humiliated state, she could still inspire fear. In fact, those who bore witness to her acts of forced self-sacrifice often seemed even more nervous around her than before. She took satisfaction in that as well.

Her silent observations gave her plenty of time to try to decipher the Eliksni conversations which took place around her. Between her appearances in the Baroness' chamber, when there was no need of her decorative function, she was returned to her cell. Whenever she wasn't sleeping, she worked with Uldren to study the language, committing the alien sounds and overly intricate grammar to memory with practice and repetition. The lessons gave both of them something to work on, something to focus on other than the circumstances of their captivity.

During one such lesson, Uldren paused to give her a long look. "May I ask where you were raised, Duv?"

She shifted her posture, trying to find a different position where the metal edges of the stay would dig in at least somewhere else from where they had been. There was never a comfortable position for the ill-fitting contraption, but she'd grown used to shifting it periodically to spread the discomfort out. "You know I have no childhood to remember, so when you say 'raised' you mean…?"

"Your first time, back from the dead."

She narrowed her eyes. "Is this somehow relevant to the usage of the neutral-tone interrogative?"

He gave her a stern smile at the cheeky response. "Indulge me, if you would."

She let out a long sigh, shaking her head. "It's not exactly a pleasant story, Uldren." She looked at him for a long pause, hoping he might let her out of the question, but he simply stared back, expectant of her answer.

"Do go on."

"Fine. My Ghost, M-Mandala–" It was still difficult to say his name down here, too present a reminder of his absence from her. "–he found me floating in ship wreckage, 83rd sector on the inner edge of the Reef. Most Guardians would tell you their first resurrection was a difficult, shocking experience. But I can say with certainty that the experience is even less enjoyable when done in the void of space with nothing to breathe."

Uldren sat up a little more, leaning forward. "What happens in a situation like that? Do you just immediately decompress and die again?"

"No, not exactly." Sylvanni rubbed a hand over her upper arm, finding the memories difficult to recount. "With the Light, we're… we're more resilient than you are. A Guardian doesn't technically need air to continue living. The Light alone can sustain us, can heal the damage to our bodies constantly enough that we don't pass away. There was no decompression because there was no air in my lungs to begin with. My corpse was as pressureless as it could be, and so too was I, once I was returned.

"But even if we can survive in the vacuum, it isn't pleasant. The… the body remembers its former need to breathe, your instincts scream that you're choking, suffocating, dying. But it doesn't actually end. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know what was happening to me. I didn't know how to make it stop. Just… trying to gasp for air that wasn't there, everything empty and silent and agonizing."

Uldren made a small hum, considering. "I'm surprised a Ghost would do such a thing to his Guardian, especially upon her first resurrection. Would it not have been possible to bring you somewhere with atmosphere before waking you for the first time?"

Sylvanni looked away, her shoulders curling forward slightly. This was a difficult thing to talk about. As terrible as it had been, she couldn't blame her Ghost for it. She couldn't. "It… It wasn't his fault." She forces firmness into the words, trying to reinforce them for herself as well. "He's just a little machine; floating through the vacuum of space is no different from him than strolling the streets of the Last City. When he finally found me, after so long searching, he was just so excited to meet me, and Guardians can survive in such conditions. He just… He wasn't thinking about what it would feel like.

"When he realized what was happening, realized I couldn't even hear him to explain what was going on, he immediately put out an urgent distress call for ships in the sector. Another Guardian found us eventually, took us both into their ship and ferried me to the Last City. My first real breath in, well, I don't even know how long it was, it was the most wonderful thing I could imagine.

"Mandala felt terrible about the whole thing. My first few moments in that ship, catching my first new breaths, were such a mixed jumble of apologies and introductions and explanations about being a Guardian. I don't like to bring it up, at least not around him. He still feels guilty that my earliest experience as a Guardian was so distressing. Like I said, it wasn't his fault."

"That's quite forgiving of you, Duv. I didn't realize your resurrection was so… unpleasant."

"I did tell you so at the start." She bristled slightly, wondering if he was mocking her somehow. "Are you satisfied? Have I indulged you well enough, Your Highness?"

He ducked his head. "I'm sorry to have made you recount it then. Though it does offer me some insight. The reason I asked in the first place."

"And that reason was…?"

"I have a theory," Uldren said, a touch of his humor returning, "which I believe your experience may corroborate. I think you may have been Reef Awoken before your death."

Sylvanni stiffened. Given the location of her death, she'd thought along the same lines herself, but never for very long. Seeking out information about one's life before was forbidden. "Guardians aren't meant to know our pasts or question what our lives were before. Whatever we once were does not matter. It's not a topic to speculate upon."

"Oh, come on, Guardian. You can't tell me you aren't even mildly curious about who you once were. I'm certain I would be, if our positions were switched. It's certainly not impossible to figure some things out."

"What?" she asked, lifting her chin in a challenge. "Are you saying you think you knew me before I died? Is that it?"

He waves his hand dismissively. "Nothing so specific. I very well may have, but no, you aren't particularly familiar to me in that way. I simply have a theory that you may have been fluent in Eliksni in your former life. Many Reef Awoken are. I've been suspicious of how quickly you seem to be picking up what is, at its heart, a very complicated alien language. We can't have been down here much more than a month and I'd say you're at basic fluency, Duv."

"I, well… I had previously studied some of the written glyph structures. That's probably what it is." Sylvanni's brow furrowed, unnerved by the idea that she might have retained skills from her previous life to such a degree that they would be noticeable to someone else. "I'm sure you're mistaken."

"Studying glyphs wouldn't explain how you learn to pronounce things so well so quickly." He narrowed his eyes at her, smiling as though pleased to think he might have struck a nerve again. "You seem offended by the implication that you might be Reefborn. Would it really be so bad if it were true?"

Sylvanni took a moment to stand up, pacing a little bit to try to get her blood moving again. Constantly sitting in the cell was terribly stifling. "I simply prefer not to think about it at all. The past is the past, it doesn't concern me. We should continue the lesson."

He chuckled, much to her annoyance. "As you wish, Guardian. I believe you were asking about the neutral interrogative?"

The lessons were useful when surrounded constantly by Fallen and their chatter. Clearly, Sylvanni learned, those guarding their cells didn't care to pay attention to the fact that their prisoners were practicing their language and many in the House seemed to believe she couldn't understand anything they discussed in front of her. To their detriment, as steadily, more and more, that was becoming no longer the case. She wasn't by any means a highly proficient speaker, but as Uldren had noticed, her comprehension had come a long way in their short time taking lessons, and she listened in Eliksni better than she spoke. She could grasp the overall meanings of most conversations, and she often kept note of any wholly unfamiliar terms or phrases to later ask Uldren what they meant.

Between the time in her cell learning with Uldren and her time as an intimidating decoration for the Baroness, only one other assignment was routinely given to her: participation in the arena for the House's entertainment. These occurrences weren't frequent, but Sylvanni savored whenever they were given. Against the emotional blankness of most of her days, a chance to fight, to feel even her meager trickle of Light sing to her in the contest, it was the only time she ever felt like herself again.

It always seemed a tossup whether or not they would give her a weapon before sending her out, but she learned to be just as ruthlessly efficient with only her hands as when armed. Even small amounts of Light, it turned out, could be put to devastating use when employed with precision. Against these hapless foes they sent to die before her, she was wrath unbridled, destruction unchained, and she relished that. She didn't always win; sometimes the groups she faced managed to rally enough coordination to overwhelm her, but she usually emerged victorious. These days, there were no stealthed swordsmen waiting for her in the wings of the arena. If she made it through alive, she was expected to bow and then make another 'show of loyalty' for the audience's amusement. In those cases, she was always raised again in the preparation room, away from the eyes of all.

The one true constant of her new life's routine was that terrible, accursed servitor. Every few hours, she would be subjected to its influence again, draining her reserves of Light before they could get high enough to be dangerous to her captors. Always immediately after her times fighting in the arena, the servitor was ready to catch her in its grasp as soon as she was back to life. This was another detail she wouldn't have expected the Fallen to know about Guardians: how her Light flourished within her more quickly when she fought and killed enemies. Yet somehow this secret too was known to them, and they were always prepared to ensure she couldn't use that Light against them after a fight.

That moment, she realized, was likely her best chance at escape. She could gather Light in Erxaris' makeshift Prison of Elders, sparingly using her voidlight to pull as much life as she could from those she slayed. She would have her Ghost back after the resurrection, and assuming she fought wisely, she might have enough Light to fully unleash her abilities on her guards and make a break for it. All it would take was a bit of sloppiness in the transition from raising her to the servitor drain, enough of a pause for her to make her move. Their greed for the Light-derived ether they synthesized from her would be their undoing. It would just take one mistake.

She watched carefully for an opening, but despite her vigilance, time and again it failed to manifest. Over and over, with terrible efficiency, they bade her fight, resurrected her, and then drained her Light away immediately, before it could be useful.

As these weeks passed, Sylvanni learned of House Kings, all the important conversations she bore witness to, quietly putting these scraps of information together into a picture of what her captors were really like. The House of Kings, despite the Baroness' showy displays of power and spectacle, was struggling. Its most important members had almost completely retreated down into these warrens to try to escape the scrutiny and scavenging of the other Houses. The crowds Sylvanni saw in the broken arena were apparently almost the entirety of the House, its membership having dwindled to only a few hundred fighting soldiers and half that of untrained civilians.

The Baroness was the only Fallen of her size in the House—aside from their reclusive Kell, of course—and she hoarded their scant ether rations, raising none any higher than captaincy. One of the Kings priests had recently been named an Archon, but had not had his rations increased in measure with his new station. The Baroness herself was greedy, paranoid, and ambitious. She distrusted most of her advisors, aside from the unwavering Erxaris, who apparently was spared suspicion by virtue of technically not being a member of the Kings. House Judgment's claims to service through neutrality towards the other Houses was a powerful tool in politics, it turned out. The Baroness, meanwhile, saw Sylvanni's Light-ether as a final opportunity, perhaps, to get out of this mess. It was clear she hoped to glut herself and grow strong enough to supplant the Kell and take his place, whenever he deigned to return.

Sylvanni thought it clear that the House's problems almost certainly stemmed from such selfish, short-sighted leadership, but of course made no comment to anyone. She had no desire to see the Kings' fortunes reversed, after all. She didn't know whether or not to feel insulted to have been captured by such a weak House, or grateful that their crumbling hierarchy would hopefully lend her greater opportunity to get away. She suspected Uldren had guessed some of the internal political problems here as well, even though he didn't have nearly the same level of access she did. She never missed how his eyes tracked every exchange from their cells, every expression, every morsel of gossip passed between bored guards that he could witness. He often asked her if she'd heard any valuable information during her time in the audience room, and she shared what she'd learned with him as she could. He turned out to be right after all: down here, they were all each other had. House Kings thought the Prince as beaten down and broken of will as their pet Guardian, but Sylvanni knew he yet had some kind of scheme he hoped to undertake.

One of them would make it out of this hellish nightmare, of that she was certain. And after months of patience, waiting for something to change, some opportunity to make an attempt at freedom, a whispered rumor brought hope. The message spread quickly through the ranks of the once great House, from the official scout report to the Baroness, overheard by Sylvanni listening blankly at her side, to chatter among the lowest dregs as she was walked back to her cell. The same news was on every alien tongue she passed:

The House of Kings was to make its highest preparations. The Kell was coming home.