tacenda: things better left unsaid; matters to be passed over in a silence.

There was an odd absence when she woke, not something she could lay a finger on initially, only the vague sense that something had been there and now was not. She was off-balance, asymmetrical. Her head hurt, and her ribs hurt, and her arm did not hurt anymore – and yet there was that strange, hollow feeling that she had lost something. It was paradoxical to feel an absence, wasn't it? You could not feel something that was not there.

And then she tried to move her arm, to clutch it to her chest as had become habitual, and thought, oh.

She opened her eyes, very blearily, and drew in a breath that scraped along her throat like something rusted. "Wh-where are we?"

Even to her own ears, her voice sounded strained and weak; she had never heard herself sound like this. She had heard animals sound so, when they slunk into the alley behind the seamshop to die during the bitter winters that plagued Opona; their voices had contained only a husky facsimile of true, vivid life. It hurt her throat to even speak; she thought her companion recognised as much, because he put a hand on her shoulder and, with only that much, prevented her from rising. Some small part of her, to which she would never admit, was grateful for the excuse to rest back down again. What was this she was lying on? A stone floor, she thought, with something bundled under her head approximating a pillow – a coat. She was wearing her own, she noted, so this one must have belonged to...

"Refugee centre," Ilja said. He kept his voice low. He had a bruise on his face, under his left eye. "Nav District."

He said it like those words should mean anything to her – they didn't. Should they have? Maybe this was something obvious. Maybe she was forgetting something she ought to know. Maybe that was the pain in her head, under her ribs, where her arm had once been. It was hard to concentrate when she felt like this – hard to concentrate on anything. It was a physical presence, this pain, like some phantom lying beside her with its barbed arms wrapped around her tightly. Such a thought made her more comfortable: one could always fight that which existed, that which was tenable. If it had arms, you could break them – so to speak.

Even when speaking of pain, Khalore knew only a vocabulary of violence.

"We're safe," he added. She could barely hear him; he was only breathing the words, clearly aware of the press of humanity around them. They were huddled in the corner of the space, which accorded them a tiny amount of privacy; as she turned her head, she could see that there were many other people lying on the ground, like her, and many others standing in small groups, speaking quietly. Though her vision blurred with even this much exertion, even Khalore could sense the atmosphere of total despair that permeated the entire space. There was sobbing, and whispers, and sharp words muttered under breath, and more sobbing. "Don't get up. We're safe."

Structurally, this space reminded her of one of the small village halls outside Opona, where she would sometimes travel with Annika to hawk their wares on slow Saturdays. The windows were long and narrow, with curved tops; the glass was bracketed by black iron as reinforcement against weather and vandalism and – she supposed – druj. The warp of the glass stained the light amber as it leaked into the room. The floor upon which she lay was broad paving slabs, worn and grimy from years of tread, and the roof upon which she gazed was an overlapping geometric ballet of aged wooden beams, warm brown like melted caramel.

Strange that it should seem so familiar, so civilised, so… real, after the cool unreality of the forest. For many long moments during their journey, Khalore had felt like maybe they would stay there forever – that this was all the world had become. Now there were people around them, real people, and there was a roof over her head, and they were in Illéa.

She thought she might have passed out just before they had reached the walls.

"The last thing… remember…. The wall….." She drew in a raspy breath. "Ghjuvan?"

She barely had time to panic; his hand was gently upon her hair, at the nape of her neck, and his wonderful, deep voice was soft beside her in the same moment. "Here," her old friend said. He gently helped her to raise her head, enough that he could set a bottle of water to her lips. She hadn't realised how parched she was until she was no longer; when everything about you hurt, it was hard to identify individual ailments. This water tasted different from that in Opona; there was a tang to it, a slightly bitter bite that made her wince slightly. Inwardly, she resented this moment of weakness, this frailty; she was a Warrior, same as them. It made no sense for them to be coddling her like this, treating her like such a burden. She was their equal; it wasn't fair that they should act like this.

Abruptly, there was a shadow cast across Khalore's face; a figure standing over them in ill-fitting clothes said, "they're registering placements. Have we decided?"

"Closer to the centre," Ghjuvan said softly, "right? It would be… better for us."

"Safer," Ilja agreed quietly, with a hint of wry humour that would have slipped by any errant eavesdropper totally undetected, "Aizsaule, I guess – maybe Vanth?"

"Lots of farmland opening up in Vanth," Ghjuvan agreed, "and that would take us past the second wall – but they're limiting places..."

As he spoke, Ghjuvan eased Khalore's head back onto the pillow, and set the water bottle beside her. She said, keenly aware that the hydration had done very little to ease the rasp in her voice, "we're staying together, aren't we?"

Ghjuvan clearly drew in a breath to answer, but it was Ilja who replied, almost instantly. "Of course we are, Khal."

And, in the same moment, Kinga said, "we can't make those kinds of promises."

It was a rare moment of Ilja being nice to her, but she thought she might value Kinga's honesty a little more. The Moon of Kur looked a little worse for the wear, but given the last time that Khalore had seen her – well, given that, she looked fairly immaculate. One side of her face had been bandaged up entirely, obscuring the worst of her injuries, and the choppy ugliness of her shorn hair was more apparent now that she was wearing clean, if clearly stolen, clothes. She and Ghjuvan had both shed their Warrior uniforms in favour of clothes mirroring the styles of those worn around them: Khalore had never seen Kinga in a skirt before, but that was what she was wearing now, a grey cotton shirt and a long navy skirt that made her look like one of the farmgirls from the more remote parts of Old Kur. Ghjuvan had found a similar shirt, and breeches and braces that made him look a little more put together than the rest of them – he usually did, so that was nothing new. None of them looked pristine, but they were here, they were here, and they were alive and they were together.

All things considered, things could have gone worse.

She eased herself into sitting – more awkward than one would expect, with only one arm, she hadn't realised she relied on two so much – and Ilja did not object this time, only watched her with those dark eyes of his in case she faltered. Khalore was determined not to do so. She was the same as them, wasn't she? Had earned the same accolade – had earned her place. She wouldn't let something as petty as injury hold her back.

She thought she was probably in shock. She could remember the desperation with which she had fought to keep her arm – she could remember it, but it was distant, like an account recounted by a stranger. And now it was gone, and she was numb. It was better this way, she thought. She could keep moving like this. Numbness was good.

She had always craved sacrifice, hadn't she? This was a small sacrifice to have made. For Irij.

She bit out the words through her teeth. "What's the plan?"

The older three exchanged looks, before Ghjuvan nodded firmly. "The druj destroyed the first wall – that's Wall Alliette. They've overrun everything inside."

"The devils evacuated about half of their population," Ilja added, somewhat bitterly. "Maybe less. Brought them within the next circle. But circumstances are such – entire villages have been wiped out, family lines destroyed – that..."

Khalore nodded. Even someone as stupid as her could follow this line of thinking. "Strangers among strangers."

They were as identifiable as any of the other refugees around them; they belonged here as much as anyone else in this hall.

"Kinga and I went to find water earlier," Ghjuvan added. "Did some talking. Near as I can tell, we should be fine using our own names – the names here seem similar to the Kur ones at home..."

He paused. Khalore didn't blame him. They were Kur – and this was the last remnants of the cursed Kur Empire. They were in imperial dredges now, among people of their own damned blood. This was their redemption; she could see that much in Ilja's eyes. They were here to make amends. These were the Kur people who had condemned Khalore to a life of such squalor and pain and bitterness. These were the Kur who had consigned the whole of their people to persecution – who had brought the curses into existence, and fated generation after generation of child to die in thrall to dark magic.

These thoughts seemed to bring new strength to Khalore's limbs – those that remained. She could, very slowly, move onto her knees, and test the strength of her legs. Yes, she thought. She could walk. That, at least, was optimistic.

"That's good," she said, softly. "Keeps things simple."

"About time," Ilja murmured darkly, "that something was simple."

He and Ghjuvan helped Khalore to her feet. Her legs shook slightly, but they did not falter; she touched, lightly, the stump which remained of her arm. It was bandaged so thoroughly that she could not actually feel anything but gauze – but the simple absence was enough to dent her numbness. Dent it – only that much – but it was still something, the tiny thrum of panic running along each individual rib. She moved her hand away from the stump, and pushed her hand through her hair. I'm okay, she thought, I'm alive.

She could tell that the others were unnerved at how well she was taking this, how little she had reacted. How could she react? Really, what did they expect from her? Here she was. She was alive. It would have been petty to ask for more, wouldn't it?

"Okay," Ilja said. His eyes were dark and focused; this was entirely unlike the usual light-hearted, sarcastic figure to which Khalore had become accustomed over the past ten years. "If you're good to walk – we should go and get ourselves some papers."

Ghjuvan nodded. "We should separate out for processing."

"You reckon?"

"Just in case. Better if we don't get recorded as a group anywhere, don't you think?"

Ilja chuckled under his breath. "When you put it like that, it sounds obvious." He glanced at Ghjuvan. "Take it in turns or split up?"

"You said," Khalore began, with a note of bitter correction, and was rewarded with a shake of the head and another sly smile from Ilja.

"It's a good thing," he said, "I'm not usually nice to you. It seems to come back to bite me quite a bit." He paused. "Okay. I'll find out what the story is, see if I can rustle up papers for myself and Khal."

"Be safe," Ghjuvan murmured.

"Of course." That spark was back in Ilja's eye now. "The name schovajsa has never seemed so appropriate."

He retreated back across the hall, threading his way neatly through the groups of people, and Ghjuvan watched him go. Khalore, too, followed his progress, until there was a very light tug at her sleeve and she turned to see that Kinga had set her jaw, vein twitching, and was staring, rather fixedly, at Khalore's collar; it looked like the older girl was trying to rip the words from some pit deep inside her.

"About your arm," Kinga said, finally. "I should have moved sooner. Hämäläinen would have –"

Khalore said, the resentment clinging to her voice like a burr, "you need to fight for us, Kinga. Okay? Not for any of your ghosts."

The other girl set her jaw, and nodded firmly. That was something Khalore had always appreciated about Szymańska – she just got on with things. No apologies. No guilt. Just action.

And Khalore had seen what the Moon of Kur had done, for them. She had been torn apart by those Illéan soldiers – she had been butchered. She was still here, and she was still alive, but she had done it, without complaint. Khalore valued that. She valued that, so she made the real, visceral effort to bundle up her resentment and her bitterness and her anger and shove it down somewhere deeply, deeply inside of her in some faraway place. It didn't work – but she tried.

And finally, she nodded back at Kinga. "But thank you," she said. "For saying that." The words sounded foreign in her mouth when she said them; they jarred, like marbles hitting her teeth. But she said them anyway, and Kinga looked like she was on the verge of smiling to hear it.

She didn't smile, of course, but the traces were there.

And then, almost as soon as he was gone, Ilja had returned with a bundle of yellow paper screwed tightly in his hand. "They need to speak with you before they can issue them," he murmured softly to Khalore, and ravelled the pages so that she could see what was written upon them. This was old Kur writing – she could not read it as well as Ilja could, and relied mostly upon his whispered instructions as he touched each individual category. Tofana had drilled it into them as children, but Khalore… Khalore had never been so good at class, had she? "It's all simple stuff. Name, age, hometown – I've said Kolesnitsa, in Mønt District, you should say the same – marital status, employment, and so on."

Khal nodded. Her mouth felt very numb. She wasn't a good liar. "Okay."

"I can help you over," Ilja added, "I told the bonesetter that we were neighbours, so it's probably best not to contradict ourselves this early on..."

Ghjuvan nodded. "We'll do similarly, and meet you outside."

This time it was Ilja's turn to say it – "be safe."

Kinga shrugged. "I would promise," she said, but there was a lightness in her voice. "But that's not really up to us."

There was not such a long line for the issuing of new papers; Khal only had a moment to wonder about that before Ilja had answered the unasked question. "Many Illéans wear them sewn into the lining of their coats. Just in case. There's a caste system defining who can live behind which wall, so..."

"They seem to have the procedure for druj attack well-learned," she murmured, watching how smoothly the lines were moving. "Do you think it happens often?"

"Can't be, right? Those walls..." He paused. "Well. They fell."

"Yeah." He had his arm wound around her waist to help her walk; though it was her arm that she had lost – that numbness again, that sense that there was more to the story – she felt weak all over. Maybe it was a good thing that he was here. "But those soldiers were…"

"Not messing around." He nodded. "Kinga says they're called tagma."

Druj-killers. Would they be equally skilled at killing xrafstars?

The line was moving quickly. Khalore kept her voice soft as she added, "and after this…?"

"We should rest." Ilja smiled – it was a soft, warm, and perfectly rehearsed expression. "We need to regroup from a position of strength. We have time, Khal."

That was a lie, she thought bitterly – or maybe it was true, for a given definition of true. They had time. They had ten years.

Plenty of time.

There were three Illéans working to distribute new papers; they did not even have desks, only little shelves jutting out from the stone walls upon which they had stacked sheaves of that same yellowed parchment upon which Ilja's details had been written. There was nowhere for her to sit, so Khalore leaned awkwardly against Ilja's arm as the Illéan with the grey hair and neat moustache peered at her over cheap copper frames and enquired, tremulously, "name, age, hometown?"

"Khalore Angelo." She paused. "Eighteen years old." The lie slipped out smoother than she had imagined it could. "Ko – ko – kol..." Her mind spiralled. What was it? She coughed into her hand, her breath rasping, in a desperate attempt to cover her slip.

"Kolesnitsa, I presume," the administrator stated, austerely, "Mønt."

His pen flew across the paper, etching those strange letters into place.

It felt strange, Khalore thought – still her name, still her, but still a different person entirely. What sort of childhood had this Khalore endured? What would she become – not a Warrior, not a xrafstar, not a killer. How had she lost her arm? Maybe her family was kinder. Maybe she had a job that she loved, safe and serene within the walls. Maybe she had a Ghjuvan and a Myghal of her own, and maybe she had different friends, kinder friends, softer friends, friends who didn't attempt field amputations with heated knifes.

Khalore hoped not.

Did this devil-Illéan wonder any of this as he looked back up at her? Did he wonder at the life that had been cut so very short by the druj – not in its ending, but in its total upheaval?

Instead, he said, "never married, I presume."

"Yes."

"Family?"

"Dead," she said. "As far as I know, dead. After the druj..."

He nodded. There was a touch of sympathy to his brusqueness now. Maybe he could relate. "And employment?"

"Seamstress."

He did not note this information, but instead spoke as he wrote, neatly, "tier five, then… I've assigned you to Aizsaule district, north of Wall Szymański. Transport will leave at dawn tomorrow." He lifted up the black stamp. "Do you have any questions or corrections at this time?"

"No," Khalore said, very softly. "That's everything."

He brought the stamp down, very hard, upon the page. "Thank you for your time."

The paper was cool to the touch; Khalore clutched it to her like some sort of amulet against detection. She did not even rasp out a thank you, only accepted Ilja's arm again as it was offered and allowed him to guide her outside. Into the sun, she thought, though the sun was very low indeed, spreading across the threshold of the building in pale tones of amber and scarlet. How long had she been unconscious?

They emerged out of the building onto a little wooden bridge; it seemed like Ilja might have guided her out of a back entrance, for the whole space was deserted but for Ghjuvan, leaning against the post of the bridge, and Kinga, perched upon the railing. Some blood had started to seep through the bandages covering her face; she didn't seem to have noticed.

It was growing gradually dark, gloomy enough that Khalore could not distinguish much of their environment. That which she could see was generic enough – they could have been standing by any canal in any Kur neighbourhood in Opona. There were pretty timbered buildings overlooking the river, and shadows of people moving within.

As they drew closer to their comrades, Khalore realised with a jolt that what she had mistaken for stars in the sky were actually fires – fires lit along the wall of the city, high, so high that she could have mistaken them for infernos set into the heavens themselves.

"All okay?" Ilja said, as soon as they drew close enough to speak quietly.

"Flawlessly Took the opportunity to change my middle name," Ghjuvan said, with a slight smile. "Always thought it was too ugly and old-fashioned..."

Khalore returned the smile. "Yeah? Well, I'm two years older than I was."

"It'll be even harder to keep you out of trouble now, then."

"And you," Ilja said, "Szymańska?"

Kinga flashed her papers at him. "You'll need to start calling me Kinga now, Schovajsa. For the sake of the mission, you know?"

"Where did you guys get assigned?" Ghjuvan's voice was still light, but there was that hint of genuine concern.

"Aizsaule," Khalore said, "which is north, I think." She turned her eyes upon her old friend, unable to stem her hopefulness that they might have been given the same new temporary home.

Ghjuvan nodded. There was a sadness in his eyes. "I've been sent to Vanth."

Khalore clenched her jaw, but nodded. Well, she wouldn't let that get to her. They were still within the walls - in fact, this would only put Ghjuvan further within the walls, if her narrow understanding of the districts meant anything. Vanth was within the second wall, they had said. That was a good thing. She couldn't let her personal resentments get in the way of the mission. "Is there any chance of one of us getting transferred?"

"Slight," Ghjuvan said, "very slight…"

"Mag Mell District," Kinga said, rather dourly, waving her papers with a slightly irritated expression. "East."

Khalore turned accusing eyes on Ilja. "And?"

"Here," he said, "in Nav – but I can try for a transfer as well..."

She shoved him with her good arm. "You could have said something. Maybe I could have asked…."

"Their city just lost more than half of its land and a sixth of its population, Khal. I don't think it was really a time to haggle – and I don't think you would have had much luck."

"Maybe," she said softly, "but I could have tried."

They were silent for a moment. Khalore stared down at her new papers as though they had offended her personally.

How long had it been, she thought bitterly, twenty minutes or half an hour, since Ilja had looked her in the eye and said of course we are, Khal? If this was how he was going to treat her, then she would have to revoke any right to the nickname, and that was new, because he had always called her Khalore before, never…

Khal.

Khal. It was always the name her family had called her, and she had resented it, slightly, when they had started to use it during training. Was that wrong? She had hated the reminder of her past. Maybe that was why she had gravitated towards Ghjuvan and Myghal so, they who called her Lore. That was a sweeter name – it felt stronger, stronger and stranger. It felt like her.

Not like Khal.

"Khal?"

She started.

It wasn't Ilja who said it. It wasn't Ghjuvan or Kinga either. It was a soft, familiar voice from behind her. Even before she had turned around, she could see the expression of shock on Ghjuvan's face, the smile slowly spreading across Ilja's mouth, the way Kinga's eyes narrowed like she expected a nasty twist – and that was an expression she only wore when confronted with good news.

So she turned.

She barely had time to turn; Azula had already flung her arms around her, and pulled her in, tightly, to an embrace that felt like the grip of a drowning man. And it was Azula – her dark hair, and her slight figure, and her dark eyes. Khalore had shared a room with this girl for ten years. She would not mistake her for any other.

She would not have mistaken her in any world.

And behind her, wreathed in shadow at first and then bathed in light as they stepped forward, their expressions mirroring Ghjuvan's and Ilja's – Ina and Zoran. Alive.

Alive?

Alive.

Khalore knew she wasn't imagining them; Ilja had moved past her to clasp Zoran's hand and clap him on the back and say, "should have known we couldn't lose you that easily," but it was obvious that Zoran knew this display of bravado was intended only quasi-ironically and Zoran had yanked the other boy into a hug before he could protest. Ghjuvan had pulled Ina into an embrace, and pull was really the word – when he spun, her feet lifted off the ground. She was laughing, but there was a tinge of mania to that laugh, as though if she stopped she might start to cry and cry and cry.

Cry, as Azula was doing now. "Your arm," she was saying, "your arm… your arm..."

"Was slowing me down," Khalore murmured softly. Of all the sacrifices she could have made – of all the sacrifices she would yet make – this was a small one indeed. The smallest.

There was chatter everywhere – soft, still soft. They could not dare to speak too loudly.

"How did you find us?"

"These guys, the tagma..."

"Are you hurt?"

"I can't believe you're here!"

"Ask Ina, she was talking about strings..."

"How did you get here?"

"You'll need to ask Kinga about that, their leader took her eye out..."

"Seriously?"

Khalore still couldn't believe they were here. They had been separated only a few days, but so much had happened in that time – some part of her had honestly believed them lost to the forest. To see them here now, solid and cursed and real… and in Illéa. All of them, together, in Illéa, as they ought to be.

She saw Mielikki's absence, and she knew that Ghjuvan saw it too, and they said nothing.

She saw Hyacinth's absence, and she knew that Ilja saw it too, and they said nothing.

They were not complete. There was an odd absence when she took the time to think about it, not something she could lay a finger on initially, only the vague sense that something had been there and now was not. They were off-balance, asymmetrical. Her heart hurt to think about it – and yet there was that strange, hollow feeling that they had lost something. It was paradoxical to feel an absence, wasn't it? You could not feel something that was not there.

And yet it hurt. They were not complete, but but they were seven where they had, moments ago, been four. They were together, and they were alive, and they were in Illéa – and they had a job to do.

Now, here, in this moment – for Khalore, at least, this was enough.