aporia (n.) an expression of deliberation with oneself regarding uncertainty or doubt as to how to proceed.

Here was an old resentment creeping into her heart; here was a vendetta long allowed to rot. Had it rotted, or had it festered? Khalore felt it germinating now, that oldest bitterness, and only the ghost of Ghjuvan's hand, reassuring on her shoulder, seemed to keep it in check. Below that shoulder, a sleeve hung empty – she wasn't sure when she had started to think of it so abstractly, but somewhere in the intervening months it had begun. She did not think of it as an arm, missing or otherwise; it was just an absence, an empty sleeve, thin air, absence where there might have once, long ago, been a presence. Crippled, she thought, mutilated, ruined. Trained as a Warrior, forged as a fighter, and ruined in the first few days of her mission. Laid low. Wasted. The others moved about her, capable, bound to their tasks, useful.

What use was Khalore anymore?

Her heart seemed to twist behind her ribs. Her curse hadn't even manifested yet. She hadn't killed a single druj; she had got the Warriors no closer to Silas. She had done nothing.

And yet, beneath her hands, blood seeped away. Blood, and a bandage tightened around an arm, and bone visible beneath – Khalore had a creeping sense of deja vu about it all. Beside her, Kinga had her teeth gritted, but even she was forced to make some concession to the pain – her jaw tightened, her brows furrowed. And there was some part of Khalore, some small, awful part of her, which was fascinated by, and resentful of, that pain in equal measure. No, not quite of the pain – of the power which had wrought it.

Hyacinth Estlebourgh had returned from the dead and marred the Moon of Kur in the same fell swoop. Whatever solace Khalore had found in survival was hollow; making it into Illéa was clearly easier than she had thought, if Hyacinth had managed it. Controlling one's curse could not be so difficult – and yet Khalore had failed at both. Failed magnificently, Tofana might have said, failed spectacularly.

Or maybe Khalore was thinking too highly of herself again. Maybe it was a plain, uninteresting kind of failure. Mundane. Ordinary.

Mediocre, Commandant would have said.

Beside them, Ina had gathered her skirts and begun to ascend the narrow stone steps which led to Khalore's attic room, looking thoughtful. How do we make sure that they can be trusted? They didn't, Khalore thought, they couldn't. They couldn't make sure; they couldn't be trusted. That seemed elemental enough to her – or maybe that was just her cynicism, although a quick glance in Kinga's direction confirmed that the Hanged Man was not alone in her feelings. Kinga looked angry. Khalore could not remember such emotion marking the older girl's face in a very long time. When had been the last time? Perhaps when Hijikata had taken her eye.

God, they were just falling apart, weren't they? Being brutalised. How many limbs and eyes would Illéa take from them yet?

Kinga said, "Ina, wait."

She rose, that pantomime of pain playing out again in her eyes and fingers and the way she tensed her neck. Khalore rose with her, trying to make sure that if the Moon faltered that she would have someone to falter upon. Khalore could do that much – she could do that much until she died. Ina had paused upon the steps, and looked grateful for the company as Kinga stumbled up the stairs in the Lover's wake; Khalore trailed them both, feeling for the place of her knife in her belt. How do we make sure that they can be trusted? They didn't; they couldn't. And Khalore wouldn't. She knew whom she trusted; she did not number Nerezza Astaroth or Hyacinth Estlebourgh among them, and never had.

For the first time since Ghjuvan had arrived to her door with the news – had it only been a few minutes ago? – she allowed the bitter thought to slip through and occupy the whole of her skull: why couldn't it have been Myghal? She would have trusted him. She would have welcomed him. It would have felt like being whole again, all of them together again. She knew that Ilja and Ghjuvan missed him as well. He would have missed them too. She knew that much; she knew it. It was a strange thing for her to know. Khalore wasn't used to being liked very much, let alone missed.

They ascended the stairs together, Ina leading them. Kinga usually looked like the shorter girl's bodyguard when they moved like this, but today there was the eerie impression that Ina might have been some angel of death, leading Szymanska somewhere that Khalore would find herself unable to follow. The thought galled like a wound; even Khalore, for whom bitterness was a favoured taste, could not countenance this thought for long. Kinga looked exhausted; the grey cloths Khalore had bound around her arm had been dyed a deep brown by the viscera which ran from them. How could she be expected to return to the excubitors looking like this? How could she be expected to fight?

And that was even assuming that she kept the arm...

Kinga seemed to sense Khalore watching her; she glanced over her shoulder, and offered a wry grimace. "We might match at the end of all this."

"They do say that imitation," Khalore said, "is the sincerest form of flattery."

"Consider it flattery, then."

Ina ducked into the attic room; after a last gulp of fresh air, Khalore followed. The small space was utterly, intimately, familiar to her; there was not a single square inch that she had not mapped and memorised in her time here. As they crossed the threshold, she noted that someone had ignited all of the lamps, so that the usual shroud of gloom which occupied every strait and corner had been chased away; the whole place looked vaguely cosy, bathed in warm amber light like this. The window seat was not occupied, as it usually was, by Ghjuvan; he usually sat there, or on the floor by the door, like he couldn't bear to stray too far from the sky – or like he was trying to tempt Khalore towards it. Instead, Belle Seo, her long hair lying silken on her shoulders, was perched on the edge of the seat, her whole body inclined forward, like she was considering a dash for the door. Khalore moved to stand against the wall beside her, a silent warning against any such foolish choice, relieving Ilja of his sentry.

The unconscious Hyacinth Estlebourgh had been deposited on Khalore's bed; blood marked her temple, just below where Ilja had broken the plate over her head. Khalore had almost laughed to hear the simplicity of the solution. Yes, she had thought, that was one way to defeat a Warrior, though none that Commandant had ever tutored them in.

Because, by the sounds of it, Hyacinth had surprised everyone by becoming a formidable Warrior indeed… feral, Ilja had remarked darkly, as Kinga had flung down her harness and stumbled for the bandages, and rather opposed to any kind of reasoning.

Which is why you hit her again? Ghjuvan had inquired, in that vaguely disapproving way of his.

Again, Ilja confirmed.

And again, Kinga had rasped out.

She was at least, it seemed, out cold – and by the looks of it, Ilja remained ready to ensure that she remained so. The damage that she had already done to Kinga had been nothing short of formidable – the Sun, Khalore thought, the Sun was always explosive. Impossible to contain. Like her predecessor, who had been Voski, who had been the cousin of Arsen, who had been the Hanged Man before Khalore – who had been more oblique, more acute. Like a chain stretching backwards unto eternity. Bound in long lines, from here to the first generation of xrafstars. Khalore had been so delighted to be a part of something but here she was: the weak link. What would her family have said?

Oh, they probably would have laughed.

Ghjuvan had pulled the chair from Khalore's table – she had been forced to put it on the left side of the wall, so that she could eat more easily with her only remaining hand – and set it in the centre of the room; he was kneeling behind it, binding the hands of the girl who was slumped there. Nerezza Astaroth was stirring slowly into consciousness; her little yellow eyes were flickering, without any semblance of awareness yet. Well, it wouldn't be long yet. Khalore cast an uneasy gaze upon Ina, who was smoothing her skirts and looking… well, Khalore wasn't quite sure what that expression was. Something between thoughtfulness and focus – a kind of melancholy. Behind her, Kinga was slumped against the wall, and sharing a look with Ilja that rather screamed weariness – was weariness a strong enough term?

Ghjuvan glanced up at Ina. "Are you up for this?"

"I'm not sure if it'll work."

"We can only ask for your best."

Zoran moved forward and set a hand reassuringly on Ina's arm, just above her elbow, skin separated by sleeve. "You don't have to..."

"I want to." Ina smiled, but it looked more like a baring of teeth. "What's the worst that can happen?"

Ghjuvan straightened. He was still in the brown garb of his civilian outfit, though Khalore could see that below his longer cloak he was still wearing his tagma harness, as though he had expected to execute a quick escape. He smiled at her, very briefly – it wasn't as reassuring as he probably had thought it would be. "Keep an eye on the knots for me, Lore?"

She said, dourly, "I don't know if we have the plates to spare if they fail."

"Well," Ghjuvan said, "a bowl might do as well..."

From the dark marks around Nez's neck, Khalore rather suspected that no plate had played a role in the older Warrior's defeat. Kinga always left her own marks, she thought, remembering the black eye Nez had worn before graduation – some revenge for Ragnar? That was more sentiment than she had ever expected to see from the Moon of Kur.

Ina was saying to Zoran, softly, "we need to talk later."

"Is everything okay?"

"In Illéa?" She smiled. "Who can ever say?"

Ilja said, "and Azula?"

"Dispatched to her interview."

Ilja nodded. "As long as she doesn't hold herself back..."

He didn't have to finish his sentence. Khalore, even Khalore, understood. Azula would get her way. That seemed to be how these things went of late.

"And Belle here," Ilja continued, smiling broadly – a caricature of the man he had been six months ago, a facsimile of his usual cheer. Khalore had overheard Zoran murmuring softly to Ina in the courtyard one evening that it wasn't as though Ilja was now putting on an act – it seemed almost as though his act was now simply worse than before. "Is a Selected. So we'll have three people in the palace..." If they could count Belle among their number, Khalore mused. "Two in the army, two in the community…."

Oh, and Khalore. He didn't mention her. Khalore didn't blame him. After all, what use was she now?

Ghjuvan caught her eye and frowned slightly, like he could read her mind. It wouldn't have surprised her if he could; wouldn't that have been a better curse? No, she thought, and it was a selfish thought – better that he was always there, always capable of being there. That Ghjuvan Mannazzu could be called to his friends' sides, join them in a single moment, appear with them when they needed him… was there anything more true to him?

Nez stirred slightly, eyes flickering. Kinga forced herself back to a kind of alertness, though her arm still hung by her side, though her breath still came in rasps. Zoran set a hand on her shoulder, looking concerned. A look passed silently between them; Kinga leaned back against the wall, looking mutinous at having been managed so adeptly. Her eyes stayed fixed on Nez, who was waking slowly.

"Are we ready?" Ina took a deep breath, and glanced around at her Warriors. Belle's head was still bowed – more out of self-preservation, Khalore reckoned, than any shyness or fear. She looked like she didn't want to be noticed, like she didn't want to be counted among the number of her fellow rogue cadets. Cadets? Civilian, Commandant would have said. Or were they? Khalore felt stupid for not thinking of it sooner. There were curses spare, weren't there? The Warriors had no Wheel – they had no Tower – they had no Star. Well, they had no Death, for the whole group had privately agreed that Ghjuvan's xrafstar ability didn't seem much like the burden of a Death at all. More a Star, their Ghju.

And, of course, there was the matter of the World.

Ina was watching Nez closely, like she was trying to read something in her very features. Or maybe she was just trying to latch on. She could control people, Khalore remembered, but that wasn't quite right – Azula could control people, and for two curses to manifest so similarly was already a matter of concern for the Kur. Ina just seemed to make people want to do what she said, to make her happy, to stay at her side. Khalore didn't like that. Khalore distrusted that. Khalore feared that, in a way – it stripped all authenticity out of whatever closeness had been developing between the Warriors. Were their bonds forged out of the shared camaraderie of their mission, of their Illéan experiences, of their mission?

Or had they been forged by a grieving girl with more power than she knew what to do with?

"Nerezza?" Ina knelt before the girl – Ghjuvan inclined forwards as well, as though he expected Nez to lunge for the Nirari girl, teeth snapping. Well, Khalore wouldn't have put it past her. "Can you hear me?"

Two yellow eyes, snake-yellow, glared at Ina from under ragged dark hair, but the oldest daughter of the Astaroths said nothing. Ilja said, coldly, "she can hear you."

Khalore would have been at a loss for a next question to ask, what approach to take to the interrogation, but Ina did not hesitate. "Do you know who we are?"

Belle looked confused at this line of questioning, but there was a slight rustle as Nez pulled at her ropes, almost sleepily, like she hadn't realised until this point how tightly she was bound. "How could I forget."

"Do you mean us any harm?"

More silence. Those yellow eyes – piss-yellow, Uriasz had called them once, though Khalore had always thought of them as closer to amber – still staring. Yellow-orange-gold. Paler than Ina's, but more solid, less textured, in colour.

"Why are you here?" Ina's voice was soft; it was liquid silk. It was strange to think, after so many years sharing space, but Khalore had never really noticed her harbour accent before. Wasn't that odd? It had always been so slight, a nuance to what otherwise seemed like a standard Opona dialect, unlike the stronger strain that Pekka had retained throughout training despite his separation from the ports. It was lilting, but with a subtle coarseness; it didn't suit the rest of Ina's refinement, the sweetness of her voice. "Who sent you?"

Nez took in a deep breath, filling her lungs, steadying her hands. "We're Warriors. This is our mission." She began to straighten up in her chair, with some difficulty; her eyes were darting about the room, taking in everything, assessing all of them, looking for frailties. "The Champions sent us here. This is our mission."

Ina didn't seem ready to let any of these answers rattle her; there would be time to assess everything later, time to turn over all the information, time to pick apart the details. "How," she said, slowly, deliberately, "did the three of you get beyond the walls?"

Nez squinted at them in a typically exaggerated display of suspicion – it always seemed like she was trying to perform her emotions, like they were all just rehearsing a play together. Her voice was languid as she spoke. "Oh," she said airily, with enough bloody confidence that it was almost easy to forget that her clothes were practically set into place by several weeks' worth of grime and dust. She had a lean, slightly hungry look to her – or maybe that was just how Nez always looked. The way her hair hung over her face made her look ever so slightly demented; Khalore was not ignorant of the hand that Ghjuvan rested on the heel of his blade, or the way that Ina seemed to bounce on the ball of her foot, prepared for rapid movement. "I guess we got lucky."

Even Khalore could figure out what that meant. Zoran inclined his head, looking thoughtful; beside him, Ilja folded his arms, looking apprehensive. On the other side of their Hierophant, Kinga was flicking that silver coin between the fingers of her good hand, flipping them back and forth along her knuckles. Ghjuvan was watching Khalore, and Khalore was watching Ina, and Ina was looking at the floorboards, clearly reassessing her approach. They seemed a united front, Khalore realised with a start; she wasn't sure when they had started to coalesce into this whole. She supposed they had all had six months to start getting along – six months that she had largely spent up here in this room, trying to avoid Arsen Grigoryan's gaze in the mirror.

"Is that so?" Ina tilted her head. Her finger twitched, very slightly, creasing her skirt. "Lucky?"

"Luckier than most." Nez's voice was languid and lazy; her eyes were hooded now, a performative kind of devil-may-care. "Luckier than him."

Khalore sensed it –

"You know," Nez said, her voice like venom, "they didn't even bury him in the urnyard with the others, they just dropped him in the furnace with the rest of the day's trash..."

Kinga straightened abruptly, her eyes razor sharp, in the same moment that Ghjuvan jerked one hand back as though to hold himself back from drawing his blade. Zoran flinched, like he had been hit, and Belle paled, like she knew a crossed line when she heard one, and Ilja put a hand on Ina's shoulder, as though to physically hold her back from action – but Ina wasn't moving, wasn't reacting. She was just watching Nez with that same careful, thoughtful look on her face. Khalore couldn't believe that the ersatz widow didn't know the meaning behind Nez's words, so that meant that she was ignoring it on purpose – controlling her emotions, keeping her in check. She didn't react until Ilja jerked his head and tightened his grip on her, very slightly, almost minutely; even then, she didn't seem to fully snap to until Ghjuvan spoke. "Nanna. Let's talk."

Ina glanced up, and seemed to understand. She eased back to her feet, and retreated; her fellow Warriors parted to accord her some shield from Nez's staring, watchful eyes as they gathered on the threshold of Khalore's attic room, Kinga lingering on the threshold with one eye cast back onto their… hostages? Was that the term? Khalore couldn't quite believe how antagonistic it all felt, but a girl so bitter couldn't deny how good it felt to stand on the righteous side. Khalore was a Warrior; she was worthy. She had been chosen.

With these thoughts buoying her, Khalore slipped in to her usual space between Ghjuvan and Ilja; across from them, Zoran was already disagreeing with an idea to which none of them had given voice. "No," he said emphatically, his eyes darting from face to face. "Absolutely not."

Even Ilja looked uncomfortable with the idea that seemed to have struck them all simultaneously; he was a pragmatic sort, but clearly even he had his limits. "It should be a last resort."

"Why let things get that far?" Kinga's voice was not as cold as Khalore had expected; there was no mirth there. It was deceptively soft. Not a persuasive tone, but resigned – as though she had reached some uneasy accordance with the germinating plan already. Well, Kinga's family probably talked about these matters around the dinner table. She had been raised into the role of the Warrior; the others had been moulded, or mutilated, into that form over time. Even with this in mind, Khalore couldn't quite believe how simple the Moon of Kur was making it sound. "We don't owe her that. We don't have to put ourselves in danger just so she can prove us right..."

"Think of the practicalities." Ghjuvan, nodding along with his excubitor comrade. "If we can't trust them..."

"Even Belle?"

"Belle isn't a xrafstar," Ilja cut in. No one questioned how he knew this. Sometimes Ilja just seemed to know things. It was as though where other people picked up an atmosphere, Ilja picked up concrete elements of information. He seemed to draw data from the air – a Curse, Khalore wondered, or just something he had learned over time?

"Hyacinth, then."

Kinga shrugged; Zoran frowned at her. "Another vendetta, Szymanska?"

That was almost worth a smile. "I'm not as petty as you seem to think, Czarnecki." She touched her eyepatch gingerly; was it Khalore's imagination, or was there some movement behind the cloth? "But you didn't see… that curse."

"The Sun," Ilja said, rather unhelpfully. "If I'm not mistaken."

Kinga glanced at Zoran. "You think Estlebourgh can be trusted to contain that?"

"Oh," Zoran said, for the first time sounding as though his anger had slipped whatever chains usually bound it. Khalore rarely heard him raise his voice, but he seemed on the verge of it now. "And you think you could?"

Kinga just stared at him. After a moment, Zoran seemed to have realised what he had said; contrition flickered across his face, but Kinga seemed unwilling to acknowledge it, especially given that Ghjuvan was saying, still keeping his voice low, "Voski Grigoryan nearly took her entire unit with her when she went..."

Ina was worrying at her lip; her golden eyes were full of an emotion that Khalore couldn't name. Instinctively, the younger Warrior reached to touch her sleeve lightly, helpless to comfort her. What use had Khalore ever had for words? Now she had none, and she was useless to her fellow Warrior, her comrade, her friend, except to touch her sleeve lightly and smile slightly when the other girl looked at her. Just a smile – it was all Khalore could offer. She might have offered her other arm, if she needed to, if she thought that it would help, but in this moment a smile would have to suffice. For her part, Ina looked gratified, and shook her head slightly as though to say don't worry about me.

"She was trying to get under my skin," Ina said, softly. "It's what she does."

She smiled back. Khalore wished she could have believed her.

A stirring inside the room; Kinga glanced within, and cast an eye about, and apparently saw nothing of concern.

"They aren't our enemies," Zoran was saying. That was right. They were surrounded on all sides by enemies – the devils of Illéa – but this was different, and stranger, and less comfortable. But it made sense, didn't it? They were Kur. They were Illéan by blood, devils in their bones. It was why the curses found it so easy to nestle in them, to find a purchase in their hearts and their livers and their throat. They were part-devil; they had a duty to purge their blood of its sins. That meant… that meant fighting for Irij with everything they had. That meant letting nothing get in their way. That meant protecting each other, and finding the Radiance, and considering any obstacle which fell before these objectives as enemies and threats and…

Khalore could feel herself beginning to agree with Kinga's calm detachment about it all. It was like she had talked herself into it.

"They could be," she said. "They are. Our enemies."

"They're Kur. They're Irij. We're fighting for them. Them too."

"We're fighting for all of Irij," Khalore said. "If they get in the way of that –"

"One for many," Ghjuvan said. Khalore knew without asking what he was thinking – that they had, all of them, been prepared to give their lives in return for their curses, in return for the tarot, in return for their positions. That this was what Warriors were for. And if they couldn't trust one of their own number… "The ends, the means."

"The means? Murder," Zoran said. "We should call it what it is. What it would be."

"We're soldiers," Kinga said, still with that same determined resignation. "Nothing we do here is murder."

"It's..." Khalore searched for the words. Justified seemed too weak a term.

"Righteous," Ilja said, softly, almost rapturously. "Redemption."

Yes, Khalore thought, yes.

Even when it came to those with whom they had shared bread and bedrooms for ten years? She didn't see why not. Wasn't that the position that Ghjuvan and Kinga were in now – training as excubitors alongside those enemies who would slaughter them if they detected their presence?

"Think of the practicalities," Ghjuvan said again. "The fatality rate..."

"If Estlebourgh survived it," Khalore said, "if Astaroth survived it..."

"The curses never manifest in the same way twice," Ghjuvan said, sounding like he was trying to wade through a mental quagmire even as he said it.

At the exact same time, Ilja said, sounding like he was trying to dissuade himself, "you would collapse under the burden of two curses at once."

Ina said, "are we really discussing this? We haven't even got answers from her..."

"It's Nez," Ilja said tiredly. "We never will."

"Then let me try Hyacinth," Ina said, "or Belle. Let me try to get answers. Let's not immediately start talking about..." She searched for the words. When she couldn't find them, she fell silent – and with her, the rest of the group as well. It was an uneasy quiet; Khalore could practically feel her conscience lying heavy on her shoulders.

Kinga said, "I'm not asking for anyone else to do it. I'll take responsibility for it."

One self-martyr recognises another. Khalore looked at her sharply, and saw how the Moon was holding herself – her shoulders set. She wasn't taking any joy in this, even with the bad blood which lay between her and Astaroth. It was an awful inevitability; it was a terrible duty; it was a burden, as much as any curse. She was simply doing as she had been told, as Khalore had told her all those months ago: you need to fight for us, Kinga. Not for any of your ghosts.

What else had Khalore said that day? We're staying together, aren't we?

And they had. She was suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude for it, all the stranger for the awful circumstances in which they found themselves. They were still together, strangers among strangers. They were still shoulder-to-shoulder, still fighting. If Azula was here, everything would have felt strangely complete. They needed each other – each one of them was necessary.

Except for Khalore.

They couldn't risk Kinga, Kinga's monstrous form, Kinga's fighting skill. But Khalore's curse hadn't manifested. Khalore had never transcended the others. Khalore was… useless.

Ina was speaking, bargaining. "Give me a few hours to talk, at the least."

"We're not jumping to action," Ghjuvan agreed.

"But we needed to talk about it," Ilja added. "We needed to know that..."

He was silent for a moment. Khalore said, "that it was a possibility."

"That we were willing to do," Kinga said, "what we have to do."

Khalore nodded, setting her jaw. She would, if she had to. Wouldn't she?

Would she?

Kill one of their own? Take their Curse? Consume them – their burden – their duty?

God, no.

God, she wasn't sure, now that she thought of it, now that the thought rose to the forefront of her mind – a knife or garrotte in hand, blood and bone beneath her fingers, the light fading from eyes, amber or brown.

God, was this why Kinga had that empty look in her eyes?

Ghjuvan nudged her gently and then, reading her expression, took her hand and squeezed lightly. "Deep breaths," he murmured. "We'll be okay. It won't come to that."

But if it did…

She smiled shakily, and tightened her grip on his, as though she could physically, tenably, draw strength from him. "You're a bad liar, Ghju, did I ever tell you?"

"Oh," Ghjuvan said. Despite the subject matter, his smile was big and bright. "Only a few thousand times."