monachopsis (n.) the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

Gehörtnicht. That was the name that they had given her: she-who-does-not-belong, that-which-is-not-included, something that lay out-with the threshold of what was and what should be. She was of neither New Asia nor of Irij – Kur enough to be cursed, not Kur enough to find strength in that fact. What was it that they had always called her? Scum-twice-over. Traitor-to-all. Gehörtnicht.

The Warrior's Programme had been the only place where none of that had seemed to matter. Perhaps not never – Myghal, whose New Asian heritage was not so recent as to draw the same degree of contempt, had always had a quiet jab to make when he was trying to fluster her. But it had always been enough that Azula had allowed herself, quite briefly, to believe the rest of her life would be so: preparing for a war that would never come.

The war was on their doorstep now. What a fool she had been to believe.

She woke slowly; god, where had she been? Where had her mind gone? It felt like every hair on her arm was attached by wire to some great invisible operating cross; sitting up straight was enough to give her the sensation of insects and spiders crawling all across her skin. She had only the faintest memory of what had been – of the shadows gathering around her bed, of the faces that had leered down out of the dark above her, of the half-human things that had reached for her where she lay and said, you've joined us; at last, you've joined us; we were wondering when you would. And she had only been able to stare; she could not have moved, could not have escaped, even if she had wanted to. She could still remember the man with the long dark hair, looking down, and opening his mouth as though to speak; from his mouth, blood had poured. Azula had woken, certain that she would be bathed in the stuff, but there was nothing – only her usual brown uniform, pressed damp to her skin, and Hyacinth Estlebourgh sitting on the bed beside her, waiting for her to wake.

Sleep paralysis; that was all that it had been. Merely her mind.

She had tried to rise; she had realised very quickly, given the sound Hyacinth had made, that this was not the wisest move. Even if Hyacinth had not tried to warn her, she suspected she would have realised the foolishness of this gesture herself: her bones seemed to shriek at her from within. She had relaxed reluctantly back onto the bed – it felt like nothing more than a thin cover over concrete – and said, softly, "what happened?"

A silly question to ask. She knew what happened. She should asked, who is still alive?

Hyacinth looked as though she had just walked through a bonfire: her twin Dutch braids were unmistakeably singed at their edges, her shirt sleeves ragged and scorched; there was charcoal ash staining her face and her throat; her skin was reddened along her arms and neck, anywhere that was bared to the light. Her little hyacinth tattoo, on the inside of her wrist, had been etched there in black ink; now, it looked unmistakeably like a brand. Her eyes, always a dark brown, had a certain frenzied light in them that was most unlike the typically gloomy girl – the tiny spot of silver within, reflecting the light of the narrow infirmary, seemed to glow brighter than Azula had ever seen it. Hyacinth said, softly, "I don't know."

"What do you mean? The others are…." Azula struggled upwards again, and was reminded by her body once more, quite harshly, why this was perhaps not her brightest idea. At least she still had her tongue, she thought; that may not be have been a silver lining, but it was not nothing. Her predecessor had not been so fortunate. She thought again of the phantom standing over her bed, bleeding from his mouth, and tried not to shudder. "Are the others…?"

Hyacinth said, softly, "I don't know."

Azula groaned and shoved herself up to a sitting position, ignoring the way that her lungs and her muscles screamed at her to stop. It felt as though her entire body had been minced – was there any part of her that did not hurt? She had the uncomfortable, clammy feeling of throwing off a flu; her mouth felt dry, her tongue had some uncomfortable bitter film over it, her head swam with the sensation of being stuffed with cloth. There was the unmistakeable scent of sulphur hanging in the room; Azula could not determine its source, but it set her on edge. "You haven't seen….?"

Hyacinth paused. She shook her head. Eleventh, Azula had thought – it was the place she had always thought that she would hold. Eleventh. What had Hyacinth's initiation been like? For her to look like this… was it harder, the lower your rank? Would Ina be okay? "I think… Khalore was okay, last I saw her, a bit shaken but okay. And Ilja was just waking up…."

Well, that was no guarantee of anything. Everyone knew that Oxana Korol had buckled under the weight of the Death Curse a few days after her initiation had been complete. Everyone knew that there was always one – sometimes more. Everyone knew the curses were intent on burrowing deep and killing quickly.

Everyone knew.

Azula set her feet on the floor; she could not shake the feeling that she was standing somewhat outside of her own body, observing someone else direct and manipulate her limbs. It was mechanical and impersonal; she could not quite feel her own fingers, the muscles under her flesh, the roots of her own hair. It was easing now: yes, her head was pounding; yes, she felt like she was about to vomit; yes, the world was spinning around her. But it was, slowly, easing. The memory of her nightmares were receding slowly, taking on that strange and wavering dream-like quality; faces, she thought, she had seen faces. Whose? If that had been initiation, she thought, then that had been gentle. Commandant had been fear-mongering. If this was the worst of it so far, then surely the worst of it all was yet to come.

"Oh, wonderful." Keeper Aubert Abreo had appeared at the doorway; in the gloom of the grey light, the lining of his shirt seemed all the redder. He had a narrow, clever face, Azula thought; despite his manner of speaking, she hadn't yet decided whether she could trust him. The other three Champions had been intermittent figures throughout their childhood: Commandant, their keeper; Instructor, their teacher; Halkias, their inspector. Abreo… they never saw Abreo. He remained here, in the sacellum deep below Opona, hoarding knowledge about the curses, called upon once every decade when the time came for each new generation to be initiated.

A sad life, Azula thought – or was it? Certainly, it was so far from war…

"I'm glad to see you are awake, Gehörtnicht." Ordinarily she might have flinched at the name, but her reactions did not seem to be her own; she had to concentrate and focus closely to move her limbs. There was no such thing as an instinctive action; she found herself paying close attention to her lungs, inhaling and exhaling with great effort. "Please, when you are ready, we will return to the sacellum."

Return? How long had it been since they had left the sacellum? Had they left? Where was she now? The slate grey room in which they were sitting had absolutely no cues about the time of day, or even what day it was. She felt that she could have been lying there, staring into hell, for a hundred days or more; maybe that would explain why her muscles had so seemed to waste away. As Lilja's had, when she had become ill.

That was the reason she was here, wasn't it? Lilja. Lilja and Mazin. Mazin and Lilja. Family, she thought, but that didn't seem quite right – home, she thought, but that didn't seem to entirely match either.

She eased herself up; now that she was standing, she could perceive more clearly that nothing around her seemed quite real. Yes, she was standing here; yes, her legs were holding her up; but until she touched something, it felt no more real than the visions beneath which she had writhed for…. however long. For all she knew, Hyacinth was not truly standing before her; for all she knew, if she touched the wall of the room, her hand would pass straight through it.

"I'm ready," she said, determinedly, and ignored the worried look that Hyacinth shot her. What had she said to Ilja last night? She was no one's burden. She wasn't going to hold the others back. If this was them – if they were Warriors now – if their path was to war – she wasn't going to be anything less than the best that she could be. She was the youngest in the group, yes, but she didn't see why that had to matter.

They were alone in this room: where was everyone else? Was everyone else okay?

Azula wasn't sure she wanted the answer, but she wasn't sure that she could live without the answer.

One foot in front of the other: that was all that she could do. That was all she was capable. It was no longer automatic; she had to focus on it. She felt quite certain that if someone tried speaking to her then she would find her legs buckling under her when she tried to answer, but for now, Hyacinth was silent and Abreo was wordless. He ushered them through the narrow doorway – it had a pointed arch, like some piece of architecture much older than the rest of the room. There was a narrow set of wooden stairs outside; they were not, as Azula had first guessed, underground. As they descended, she became aware of the sounds outside, of automobiles and horses moving in the streets, of stall-holders hawking their wares, of people calling and laughing in the street. She could not imagine what it was to exist in such a life; she had been in the orphanage until she was five, in the Warriors Programme from the age of seven. This was all that she had ever known. This was all that she would ever know.

And all this time, no one had ever given a reason for the war. A real reason. One that made all the bloodshed make sense. Why? Why were the Warriors a perennial fixture of Irij? Why was their nation always so mired in blood and suffering and death?

Why?

The staircase wound downwards in a tight spiral, opening back onto the stone chapel in which they had initially selected their cards. It was a smaller space than Azula remembered; being underground made her shake, and she knew not why. Opposite the doorway through which they emerged, one of the black doors hung open; within, something huge and black-fleshed and feathered lay in a great heap on the ground, unmoving. On the tiles in front of them, she saw that not all of the Warriors were present: there was Inanna, there was Ilja, there was Khalore and Myghal. Counting Azula and Hyacinth, that meant there was six of the eleven Warriors here represented; nearly half of them were still missing.

Seeing the two girls approach, Ina smiled. She embraced Azula tightly, and again the younger girl was struck by how far away her own skin seemed. So leaden and deadened her feeling, Ina may as well have been touching someone next to her – but the meaning behind the gesture alone was sufficient to have Azula shutting her eyes, wishing back tears, and hugging Ina tightly. Ilja reached out to ruffle her hair; again, Azula could think only of spiders crawling on and under her skin.

"Are you two okay?" Ina asked, looking from Azula to Hyacinth. Hyacinth nodded mutely; Azula could only shake her head. Unlike Hyacinth, Inanna looked much as she had that morning – her hands were a little cooler than before, perhaps; her face was stained with tears; but she was whole and alive and safe.

"I don't know what's happening. Where are the others?"

"They'll be down in a moment." Ina smiled tightly. "It's all going to be fine."

"Is everyone okay?"

"Unfortunately," Ilja said, "it seems so. Myghal here seems to have survived unscathed..."

Myghal was shaking his head. "A blank card," he said, "Schovajsa, you don't think you should be a little more worried about a blank card?"

"Well," Ilja said, "I didn't get a blank card. So…."

"Hilarious."

"Where's Kinga?" Hyacinth asked abruptly. She was staring through that open black door, at the great dead thing on the ground. Azula found herself unable to tear her gaze away; this was a curse-wrought thing, up close, closer than she had ever seen one before. It was more real than she had thought it would be: there was no illusion or magic here. It was just an enormous beast, and it was dead. Was this what all monsters looked like, once slain?

Ilja shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. We've heard about the others but…. haven't heard anything about Kinga or Pekka yet."

"Maybe they're meeting with the chancellor," Myghal said. "Our brave leaders."

"Try and say it with a little more bitterness, Enys." Ilja shook his head. "What did you get, Zula?"

"The Devil," Azula said. Her mouth didn't feel like her own when she said it. She wielded language clumsily; it felt like she was trying to speak around her own tongue, despite her own teeth, keenly aware of her own lips as she had never been before. "What about you?"

Ilja grinned. "Chariot."

Azula chuckled. "Is nice appropriate?"

"It's not inappropriate," Ilja said, lightly. "Have you heard?"

"Be more specific."

"They're sending us to Illéa."

"Yes," she said, "that's the whole idea, right? Of the Warriors..."

"No," Ilja said, "they're sending us to Illéa tomorrow."

Azula blanched. "What?"

Ilja began to speak, but was interrupted as the door to the infirmaries re-opened, and Zoran stepped through gingerly, assisted by Halkias on his right side, like he couldn't fully support himself. His face was drawn and pale, his dark hair slick against his face. He looked ill, Azula thought, almost deathly so, and for a moment her heart sunk. No. They couldn't lose Zoran. But who could they lose? There was none among them that she could say she would not mourn; there was not a single Warrior she thought that they could lose.

And yet, without alternative, she found herself still thinking, not him, not Zoran.

"Zor!" Ina rushed forward to throw her arms around her best friend. Halkias released him; Zoran was strong enough to put his arms around Ina, though his face still looked frozen and still. "I knew you'd be okay!"

"Ina," he said. His voice was hoarse, as though he had been shouting. "Ina, I have to-"

"Have you seen Pekka? He was one of the first to be initiated, he should be awake by now..."

"Ina," Zoran said again. Those eyes – Azula knew he tended to be melancholy, but she had never before seen in him such a deep and unsettled grief. And she thought again, no, but she didn't even know what she was rejecting. It was just and merely and only a deep-seated revulsion for whatever was coming next. "Ina. I need to tell you something."

"What? Zor, what is…."

And then he told her. For a moment, she didn't understand: she smiled, reflexively, her eyes searching Zoran's face for the mirth that was never going to follow; she looked over at the others, those amber eyes of hers searching and searching; she turned back to Zoran, her smile slowly fading, saying, "no, he… he…. he promised, Zor. He promised. He can't be. He promised."

"Inanna. I'm so sorry. I wish it wasn't true-"

The scream that came from her then – it wasn't something Azula had known that humans could produce. It was raw and it was animalistic. It was something that had nestled very deep within her, for a very long time; it rushed out all at once. It was horrifying; Azula found herself hiding her face in Ilja's shirt, trying not to look at Ina's face, trying to avoid that awful contorted mask of grief, trying to block out that great and horrible cry that did not stop, even as her legs buckled beneath her and Zoran was the only thing holding her up, even as she clung to him and began to sob: chest-deep, whole-body, dry-eye sobs like she was about to gasp up her own heart. Zoran could only hold her, and speak softly into her hair, even as Khalore began to shudder and shake, as Myghal sank slowly onto the ground to hold his head in his hands, as Ilja's hand tightened on Azula's shoulder like he did not know how to react. He didn't. She didn't. How did you react to something like this?

Azula had believed that all of the former Warriors would be dead by now, at the close of the initiation, but over Ilja's shoulder, she could see Matthias Kloet, his head bowed. The blind man had stumbled into the antechamber, where the dead monster lay, and there he knelt, trying to gather it into his arms as one might a sleeping lover. He was saying, very softly, "you did so well, you did so well," and the dead thing was bleeding black across his arms and his knees. It stained deep into the wool of his sweater; he did not seem to notice.

"You did so well," he said again, and for a split second Azula allowed herself to believe he was speaking to all of them.