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It was one of those days: a hard rain and dusk-dappled light between the trees that lined the street, downleaf and dim. To the east, the gold-hemmed city was all hush in the early hours of the day, shutters sealed. Beyond its spires and towers, the hazy heather of the mountains kissed the horizon. The afterglow of a wasted dawn clung to the soft peaks in the west and the breeze that was coming down into the valley of the training academy was moving gently, night-cooled. She found that she could not look at the mountains without thinking of the other Warriors, dead and gone: how many days and nights had they spent on survival routines out in the depth of snow there, children wandering in a forest that wanted to kill them, above a city that wanted them dead? Usual misery, Avrova would have said, seemed almost preferable.

Ina had woken early in the day and left the house immediately, without waking her mother, without waking her siblings. The streets felt so quiet, as though the world was all her own. Even the threads had paled and stilled, so that she could almost look past them if she so wished: she could pretend, for a moment, that they didn't exist.

Only for a moment, of course.

The fence around the training compound rose like a jagged horizon. Once, it had been so familiar to her, the edge of her universe. Now, she could not help but think that it made for an exceptionally paltry Wall. She traced the path towards the academy, following the path that had been carved into place by so many generations of Warriors and soldiers trekking to-and-fro, city to academy and back again. The roads were all empty at this hour, so Ina could walk in the middle of the road quite comfortably, her pace a little more harried than she might have liked, and make good time in her path towards the training compound. She was surprised to see the threads begin to coalesce as she drew closer to the garrison: a purple cord, metallic and unyielding, wrapped around her bicep; a red thread, gossamer-fine, linked her wrist to some stranger in the compound beyond.

Despite the early hour, she was surprised to find that she could not yet hear the unmistakeable bark of the Commandant. It was past dawn and thus quite past muster: it was unthinkable that training would not have begun. Perhaps the cadets had already been despatched on a death march; perhaps the Commandant was taking his few precious moments of peace to do whatever it was he did in his spare time, when he ceased to be the Commandant. Kinga had always been the only cadet to call him by his name. Ina had never asked her why that was. She regretted that now. There were so many questions she had never asked of those with whom she had been raised; there were so many answers she might never now get to hear.

She was a little closer to the garrison before she could hear the familiar sounds of a death march on the other side of the fence: the heavy footfall, loaded down by a soldier's full kit. Avrova had warned them that Sauer tended to secretly over-weight the packs; at this point, three years into the Programme, they were probably carrying just less than twenty kilograms apiece, which really wasn't very much at all. Inanna could remember sobbing after the first dozen of the exercises, when she had been young and newly taken and Pekka had been taken from her.

It had grown easier over time. Barely.

These cadets were young enough that they were quite silent in their march, where Inanna's generation would have usually shared some chatter. It was all limping footsteps and laboured breathing, and then it was fading into the distance, and Inanna was circling the edge of the thin wall demarcating training spaces and came down into the central square of the garrison.

She had expected to find the Commandant there, but no: there was a lean stranger sitting in his usual place, on the steps to the mess hall. It was a man of about Inanna's age, pale, with curly dark hair and narrow, clever eyes. Perhaps this was how Commandant had looked in his youth, though Inanna rather doubted it: although they shared the straight-backed statute that distinguished a man for whom the army was a lifeline, this stranger turned when he heard Inanna approach and offered a warm, sweet smile.

The thread between them wavered in the night-cool air, scarlet and lovely.

Ragnar Kaasik said, "hey, Ina."

"Ragnar," said Ina. She had not expected to find him here; she had not thought of him at all, truth be told, since she had returned to Irij and all the misery that awaited her here. Ragnar was wearing the same grey coat which had garbed Commandant in every memory she kept of the older man; as he saw her approach, he stood slowly, with some difficulty, and came to meet her.

"Commandant," said Ragnar. "To you."

He still limped. Nez had left this much of a mark upon the world: one of his legs dragged, just a bit, enough to be noticeable. He met Ina in the centre of the square, and put his thumbs into the pockets of Commandant's grey coat, just as Commandant might have. Ina said, "I..."

"You're here to see the old man."

She had not realised what she was afraid of until that very moment: quite unbidden, burning white tears had collected in the corner of her vision, scalding her skin, raising a little breath from her that she had not wished to let go until it was out and ghosting across her lips. "Yes," she said, and brushed casually at her eyes. "If I – if he – "

Ragnar glanced at Commandant's office. "Haven't seen him today. Might still be asleep."

Ina laughed. "No."

"Retirement does strange things to a man." Ragnar looked back at Ina. She had never known him well, though she had known him long: he had always seemed too quiet, too watchful, to make for decent company. Three years had relaxed him, broadened his shoulders, sharpened his features. She could see now how Belle might have mistaken him for handsome in their youth. "How is it treating you?"

"Oh," Inanna said. "They don't intend to give us a moment's rest."

He grimaced. "I'm sorry."

"It's preferable to the alternative," Ina said, and found that she believed it. "Good to keep busy."

The cadets were beginning to trickle in through the gates, and Inanna tore her eyes from this strange spectre from life before. She found herself searching the first knot of students to come across the finish line, scanning each face in turn for any sign of Nanshe. When at last she spotted her sister, it was another physical blow, a feeling in her chest like she had been punched. They had shorn Nanshe's hair, right down to the skull; they had practically scalped her. What demerit could she have possibly earned? She had grown at least four inches since last Inanna had seen her, and though she was only thirteen, she seemed to have lost all of her baby fat. The Programme had made her lean before her years.

Nanshe turned her eyes upon her sister, and for a moment said nothing, and for a moment did not recognise her. Around her, the realisation rippled through the small group of cadets like a wildfire: Warrior.

Inanna stood, her black armband constrictor-tight around her bicep, her throat straining to hold back whatever lurked now in her chest.

Nanshe was wearing the same grey uniform that Inanna had worn for so many years in this place. Beside her, another cadet planted an elbow between her ribs and hissed something quietly; Nanshe seemed to jolt awake at his voice, and broke from the group, and made her way across the square towards her instructor and her sister. She still looked slightly dazed.

She was breathing hard from the exertion of the death march, and trying to pretend that she was not. "Ina?"

"Hi," Inanna said hoarsely. "Hi, Nanshe."

Nanshe did not offer a hug. Ina's arms hung by her side, her fingers curling and uncurling. Ragnar had, at least, given them this moment: he had moved over to the group that had come through the gates first and was distributing water, calling names and issuing sharp correctives. Nanshe said, "I was going to come see you. Just as soon as I got a day off."

Ina nodded. "I know, baby."

"Are you here for good?"

Ina blinked. She hadn't thought of that. There was much, it seemed, that she had not thought of, but here was another: sure enough, past generations had spent some time on the compound between missions, sleeping in the abandoned barracks, watching their replacements, drinking in the woods around the academy and whiling away warm days beside the lake. The lake.

"I'm just here to speak to Commandant."

Nanshe eyed Ragnar with trepidation. "Okay," she said. "I guess..."

"My Commandant," said Inanna. "Sauer."

Nanshe darted a confused look at her sister.

"I'm going to get you out of here, Nanshe," Inanna said. "What happened to your hair?"

"Ina," said Nanshe. "You can't."

The Lover stared at her sister.

"It's an honour," Nanshe said, "it's a national duty, and all my friends are here."

"Is that so?"

"I have to do this."

"No, you don't."

"You did it!"

"Exactly."

Nanshe set her mouth in a firm line. "I want to be a Warrior."

Inanna smiled. There was a manic edge to it that she could not control. "Like me?"

Her sister was abruptly uncertain, searching the Lover's face for some answer to a question she had not asked.

Ragnar called over: "the old man's up." He gestured towards the building in which Commandant had always kept his office. The blind had been raised, and the curtains thrown back. "Now's your chance."

"Say goodbye to your friends," said Inanna, not without some softness in her voice.

Nanshe set her jaw, eyes flashing with an unspoken resentment. As Ina stepped away, she saw that her sister's friend had come to speak to her, a hand on her elbow, coaxing her away. A third cadet had come to stand beside them as well, hands planted on her hips, watching Ina walk away as a coroner regards a corpse, even as Ragnar ordered the children into the mess hall, even as the crowd dispersed slowly.

How strange, Ina thought, that these children would forever know a different Commandant than she had. Would he be better to them? Kinder? She thought not; there was a new hardness to his face that hadn't existed before. He was a man who had mourned.

She was on the last rung of the step before the thought occurred to her; she had already knocked on the door; there was already movement within, the rustling of a newspaper and the clattering of crockery. Before the key could turn in the door, she turned, and saw that he was already departing. She spoke instead to his back, and to that familiar grey coat, made the more familiar by its strangeness. She should not have looked at him and thought of Illéa. She should not have looked at him and thought of home. Both rose to mind; both ached terribly in her chest, an ever-healing wound.

She said, "I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Ina was not certain. Three years that she had not lived seemed to stretch between them. Maybe he had already grieved. Maybe she should not say anything. And what could she say? This much she settled for: "she was my sister. I loved her too."

He said, "she has a terrible way of getting her hooks into you, doesn't she?"

Ina nodded.

"Tell her that when you see her again. It would mean a lot to her."

Inanna shook her head in a silent disagreement, fervently felt. Ragnar raised one shoulder in a simple shrug.

"She always did enjoy a dramatic entrance."

Ina laughed. Her laugh sounded perpetually strangled these days. She said, "I wonder where she got that from?"

And then the door swung open and Konrad Sauer filled the doorway, enormous and implaceable even as his old age had overtaken him. His hair was more salt than pepper; he had permitted his beard to grow long, though it was still kept meticulously. He was glowering, as usual, and dressed in a neat grey uniform, as usual, although he had foregone his usual large coat in favour of a shirt and braces.

He did not greet her. He only said, "come in. Let's have tea."

Inanna wasn't quite sure why this prospect sounded more terrifying than anything the Warriors had faced before, but she did her utmost to make sure her apprehension did not show on her face as she stepped across the threshold – "shoes, Nirari" – and followed him into the gloom of the kitchen.

She put her shoes neatly beside the back door. She had never been in Commandant's private quarters before: they were more dignified than she had expected, more prettily kept. The floorboards were well-worn and the wallpaper on the walls was peeling, but the place was clean and the shelves were crowded with the normal detritus of life: his army commission on yellowed parchment, framed; a stack of books, three on military history, two about fictional detectives; and a set of tintypes, silvered and shadowed, arranged as though chronologically, so that Inanna saw the Commandant age in reverse as she walked down the hallway, from Commandant to soldier to youth. He had never been one to smile: that much was clear.

The very first photo in the line, sitting on the chest of drawers beside the stove, showed two siblings in the grey uniforms of the Warrior Programme, one unsmiling, one beaming with a broad white grin. Allegra Sauer had always been less pretty than she had been handsome: she had her father's strong features, her brother's almond eyes, her mother's broad shoulders. She had been frozen here forever, smiling and staring. It was a kinder tribute to her than her place on the wall of heroes had been.

Commandant had set the kettle to boil, and gestured that she should take a seat at the small square table beside the window. There was a woven green tablecloth lying across it; there were biscuits on a chipped white plate. Commandant said, "Come to see your replacements? Morbid, even for you."

Inanna said, "has there ever been a generation that did not?"

"No," said Commandant, "not that I can recall."

He paused. From his window, he could see the central plaza of the training compound. The day had dawned warm enough that Ragnar had permitted the cadets out onto the grass to eat their breakfast. Nanshe was sitting with a small group of children similarly clad in grey, sprawled beneath the shade of the tree into which Pekka had carved their initials on the last day of the programme.

Commandant said, "usually they come later. Before the Chancellery. Before initiation."

Inanna felt that awful white burn at the corner of her vision. "Does it help?"

"It couldn't."

The kettle shrieked. Commandant turned his attention back to the tea. He only had a motley collection of mugs, maybe four in all, which made sense: Inanna could not imagine that he had company all that often.

Inanna took the seat he had proferred. She folded her hands in front of her, and tried not to stare openly at this strange, lonely space which had existed only a few feet away from the whole world she had known, the whole time she had known it.

Commandant said, "you're here about your sister."

"Of course I am."

He said, "tart?"

Ina blanched. She said, "no, thank you."

"For the best."

He sat. He sipped. Ina stared at the man who had raised her for the slaughterhouse, and wondered why she had never thought of him as a person who might sip.

"You're not really here for your sister."

She folded her arms. The cord between them flexed tight, a royal purple, a woven bruise. "Of course I am."

"There's nothing I can do."

"Bullshit," said Ina, and Commandant raised an eyebrow. Inanna realised, quite belatedly, that he had probably never heard her swear before. Well, she thought, they had learned everything they knew from him. Not a single day had gone by that he had not referred to them by their collective name: fuckers. "You could. You could release her now."

"I am here to train. Not to choose." He ran a calloused finger around the edge of the table like a nervous tic. "It was never my decision to make."

"Strange," Inanna said. "Given all the others that were."

Commandant said, "there. That didn't take too long, did it?"

There was a strange frisson creeping along Inanna's neck. It felt as though he had tricked her into admitting something; it felt as though she had betrayed Nanshe with this honest, awful reaction. She said, softly, dangerously, "don't."

It was some small consolation to see that the older man was, in some small way, afraid of her. He tensed when she said it; the tendons in his hands stood out as though readying for sudden movement. Inanna felt, for the first time since they had returned to Irij, a true Warrior.

"She'll probably fail out," said Commandant. "Does that make you feel better?"

They had said the same about Inanna. They had said the same about Avrova. They had said the same about Allegra. No one ever liked to bet on the Lovers. Inanna's heart constricted at that simple thought, as though it had posed her own Hierophantic insight: Nanshe, a Lover? It was too cruel to consider. "You have to understand," she said, "that isn't quite good enough."

"If you want your sister removed from the Programme," Commandant said, bored. His voice was the same as it had ever been: low and gruff and hoarse. "Speak to the chancellor."

"I have other things to ask of him," Inanna said, her voice tight. "Other wishes."

"You should learn to prioritise, then."

She could not help it: she had spent too many long months in the company of the Hanged Man. Her hand came down onto the table, hard, hard enough that the mugs and spoons all jumped with the force of it. Commandant did not so much as blink, only took another sip of his tea.

"You know," she said. "You know what they did to us. You know what is waiting for her."

"I do."

"Then why?"

She had been the second last ranked in her class – two places lower, and she would never have inherited the Lovers. She would never have lost all that she had. She would not be sitting here now feeling her heart slowly calcify in her chest. Sauer was Kur as well, as much Schreave as any of them were, but he had escaped the clawed grip of the curses. Was that what this was? Some paltry grasp at redemption for his good fortune?

He said, "duty, Nirari. I thought you would know a little of that at this point."

Her face twisted, quite without her permission. "I have lost everything to duty."

"Not yet," he said. He said it kindly. The Commandant had never been kind to her before.

"There is more," she said. It wasn't a question.

"Ever more," he said, "ever more and always."

"Why?"

He stood, and went from the kitchen into his office, which was the one part of this building of which Ina had previously caught a glimpse. He had always pinned the list of cadet rankings to the front of the office door and updated it regularly; when there had been more of them, each new iteration of the list had been treated like a rarefied ritual, with cadets crowding clandestinely around the porch to see if they had progressed even a single place with all of their fervent efforts. As more candidates had dropped out, the rankings had slowly calcified as the cadets made their true aptitudes known. Checking the list had slowly deteriorated into a weekly habit, with a small group dispatched from the mess hall to bring back the news to the others. Ina had not thought of this in many months; it ached to think of it now.

Commandant had returned with a small parcel of papers, neatly bound in twine. He set them down in front of her. She touched the edge of the pages lightly; they were made of the same dry, brittle paper that had grown so familiar to her in Illéa. They had used this stuff because it was cheap, and because the Hierophant had used it so copiously. These pages had not been typed, as Zoran's pages had been, but written in a sloping, elegant hand.

She turned over the pages. There was Pekka's name, scratched through and replaced with Ragnar's; there was Azula's name, written very narrowly along the margins. Ghjuvan's name beside Nez's – there was a diagram as well, a map of a city that the Warriors alone had known. Here was a version of the final rankings that Inanna knew well, carved into her mind; here was another, scribbled out hastily, which showed a very different version of the world: Pekka had been removed from the list, and Ilja lowered to final place; both Azula and Inanna occupied the ninth ranked position, as though he had not been able to decide between them.

There, tucked in between two versions of the list, was the card that had gone missing during initiation: the Wheel of Fortune. It stared back at Inanna like an accusation.

"You took it," she said. "You're the reason..."

"Kloet," said Commandant.

"This was his doing?"

"From the start. His idea."

She touched Pekka's name, very gently – oh, she thought dully, yes, oh, he would have made a good commandant in his time – and she said, "was there any version of this… where we…?"

Inanna had never imagined that Matthias might have beautiful handwriting. She could see now the difference between them: here, on this page, Matthias's beautiful calligraphy and there, over and around it, Commandant's chickenscratch handwriting. Commandant had written Inanna's name into the final version of the list, and underlined it. Ina felt like she was holding her own death warrant. She felt a laugh bubble up inside her: six months ago – three years ago – she would have considered it a compliment. Commandant had fought for her inclusion. Commandant had really, sincerely, wanted to condemn her.

"Ask your Hierophant."

She looked up at him, pleading. "I'm asking yours."

"You have to understand. That wasn't his priority. He wouldn't have looked for it."

She knew that. She shouldn't have asked. Nonetheless: "no?"

"Kloet doesn't have the best history of keeping his pawns after he's moved them."

Inanna usually thought of Zoran when people spoke about Matthias – she couldn't help it, bound as they were by their shared burden – but she did not think of him now, except to think of the kiss, and regret it.

Inanna said, "what was all of this for?"

She was leaning over the table as though yearning, her whole body bent towards him as though she thought that she could ferret out the truth if she only stared hard enough. Commandant glanced at the papers – and put out his hand, and pulled them from her. Had he shown her too much? Fuck, but what parts of their lives had been their own to live? Had this been mapped, merely, or planned out entirely?

"You were the smartest of them, Nirari. I thought you would have figured it out by now."

Inanna bit out a laugh. "I'm sorry. I'm tired."

He pushed the tea towards her. She accepted it. It was warm, which she appreciated, although she did not feel cold. It was scented like lavender; it steamed in the dawn air, catching tiny fragments of light like a spiderweb.

"You have done well," said Commandant. "I hope someone has told you that already."

"I suppose you say that to every generation," she said.

"Yes," he said, unabashedly. "And I mean it."

She nodded. Outside, Nanshe and her friends had finished their meal and started up a game of football in their rare moment of rest. Małgosia Szymańska was in goals, the posts marked with Nanshe's jacket and Gosia's jumper; Gracjan Sokołowski had relinquished the ball to Nanshe, who was bearing down on Gosia like a charging horse. There was laughter. There was sunshine. They were children. They would be dead in seventeen years – less, some of them. Less, most of them. Seventeen years, and Nanshe would never see the other side of thirty.

"Every time," said Konrad, and Ina closed her eyes against the tears that did not come. "Every generation."