litost (n.) a state of torment created by the sudden sight of one's own misery.

The palace would have been overwhelming on the basis of opulence alone, but – worse again – it was so full of people, person upon person, and each was bound together, each was tethered to another, each was dripping with strings of every colour and type, until it felt like Inanna had wandered into some strange, enormous, awful spiderweb from which there was no hope – was never hope – of escape. She could not even glimpse the mosaic'd ceiling of the ballroom, so densely did the threads weave overhead, into a strange and lovely tapestry of Illéan community, society, civilisation. It was such a confusion of relationships and dynamics and bonds that she could barely focus on one thread long enough to see who it bound, what it meant, how it could help.

Amongst it all, that cobweb-thin golden string wavered in the air, flickering in and out of existence, like it was trying to gather enough strength to simply exist. The Radiance? Could it be? What else could it have been – what else could it mean? It's back, she had told Ilja, but he hadn't known what she meant and truth be told she hadn't quite known either.

So she had danced. Björn was a pleasantly dull-coloured fellow; all of his threads were strangely metallic and matte, pale greys and blues and greens, strong but remarkably uninteresting. She imagined Kaapo's strings might look like this, if she had glimpsed them; it was the array of relationships belonging to a man who was content with his lot in life, who had risen as high and gone as far as he wished to rise and go. That was enviable, in a way; it made Ina nostalgic for something she couldn't quite name or put her finger on, a life she had never lived in this walled kingdom as wife, or sister, or neighbour.

After Björn, there was Jurgen, who was all pastel in comparison with his companion, all pale oranges and yellows and pinks, and Sanav, from whom mossy green threads tied him most strongly to the other excubitors prowling warily about the ballroom; all others were mere afterthoughts.

Left alone on the edge of the dancefloor as the waltzers changed over, and Princess Asenath swept from the room, and the musicians exchanged exhausted instruments for a fresh set, newly rosined, Ina found herself staring at the strings around her with ever more frenzy and focus. The closest to her – the one that shone most brightly – was a pale rose pink, woven with a few tiny hints of sunset orange, binding together a female Scholar who lingered by the stairs with a tight clique of her brethren and a scarred male Watcher sitting near the doors, looking rather like he was considering allowing the light evening wind to carry him away.

She reached out, cautiously, and wound the string around her finger, gently, fearful that it would waver through her hand, so gossamer thin as to be totally intangible. It did not; it would not. She could tighten her grip around it, and tug it, very gently; a ripple of more intense colour shuddered across its surface, and, as she watched, the Scholar at its end turned to give a thoughtful look towards the Watcher to whom she was so bound.

Fascinated, Ina very gently ran a thumb across its surface and then, cautiously, plucked it like a string; it produced no note but she nonetheless felt the reverberation, deep in her chest, like an overwhelming bass. None could sing to this tune, she thought, but all knew it. Vihaan had played Siân a tune like this, on a starless night like this.

Was that their names?

Almost alarmed by how abruptly she had lost any sense of Inanna, she released the string; Siân and Vihaan looked away from one another again, shifting uncomfortably. Had they felt their hearts leap, as Ina's had? Hers was pounding now; she had always been content to stare at the strings, to discern them, to very gently run them through her fingers but not to interfere, never to interfere.

Abruptly, the mental image of tying together two strangers, just to see what would happen, rose to the top of her mind. Would it be a veritable lightning moment of love at first sight, as though struck by Majnan's arrow? Or would it be…

She shook her head. Hadn't Azula suffered for messing with the strings on which others hung their hearts?

Hadn't Hyacinth suffered?

Ilja had swept in then to rescue her, murmuring quietly under his breath that Belle had been found and the curse had been imparted. Would she survive initiation alone, in a palace, ensconced deeply among any number of enemies? It almost overwhelmed her to think of it. how lonely it might be to fall into a pit of the lives who had come before, all the children who had borne the Star and fallen to it in turn. "Ghjuvan will look after her," Ilja had said, softly, and Ina could only hope that he was right.

There was no sign of Azula, and Kinga was dancing with the excubitors – Ina averted her eyes, more out of irritation than politeness – and Belle had been dealt with, so it was nearing time to depart, though she loathed to do so. It had been, in its own strange way, a positively idyllic oasis of normality, if you could call any of this extravagance normal. She could imagine she was back in Irij or – perhaps preferably – that she had never been in Irij in the first place, that she belonged here, that she had lost nothing, mourned for no one. If it weren't for the strings, she thought sadly, if it weren't for the strings.

Ilja must have marked this melancholy on her face; he said, softly, "we can always call it an early night, Nanna. I don't think there's anyone left to wow or woo."

Ina laughed. He was wearing gloves, but it still felt strange to have a hand around hers; it was strange to be able to lean on someone like this. She and Khal were sharing a bed at Eero's, which had only reminded her ever more painfully of her sisters and of home, but this was a closeness that was very different – that was more equal. "If you say so," she said. "You seem rather impervious.

"I'm stone cold, Nirari. None shall fell me."

She smiled. "I'll take your word for it."

He spun her; her skirts flared in a beautiful fiery arc, and then he caught her again. The Commandant had always said that footwork was vital for combat; it was on this basis that he had permitted Instructor her waltzing classes, and Ina rather thought he would approve of the way Ilja was guiding her around the dancefloor now, conveyed in a manner more akin to floating. Ina had always danced with someone too solid – too tall, too strong, too real – to move thus. Ilja said, "after this dance, then?"

She supposed so. Eero would wonder if they had discerned any hints about the identity of the Radiance, but the royals seemed to have done a remarkable job of staying away from their own party. She was about to agree with Ilja, when there was a quiet ringing of a bell and the dancers began to marshal themselves into two long, ragged lines, the Illéans clearly familiar with whatever particular dance was about to begin. Ilja cocked an eyebrow, and parted from her but reluctantly; Ina found herself shoulder-to-shoulder with a set of glowering court who could have been mistaken for mannequins, so strung up were they with their connections to others in the room. Ina almost missed the start of the dance, so fascinated was she with the beautiful jewel threads wound about these girls' fingers, their throats, their wrists and their waists.

Would Ina look like this on the docks in Opona, where everyone had known her name? Was this what it looked like to be – truly – at home, not in a place but among a set of people?

None of the Warriors looked so, not even with each other.

She stepped forward with the same light step as the court ladies to grasp the forearms of the partner to whom she seemed to have been assigned; she suspected the randomness of this dance must have been part of the appeal, the way in which there was no particular way to guarantee who you might end up dancing with once the music started up. She was spun – the Illéans adored spinning, she was learning – and caught by the next partner along the line, a smiling guard who looked rather as though he couldn't believe his luck. Ina was grateful when the next movement began and she was spun to the next partner in turn, rather getting the feeling that this was just an excuse to dance with as many people in as short a time as possible. However, as she glanced over her shoulder to cast about for Ilja, it seemed like this was something that could be averted if you knew the right steps: to her left, Hijikata's excubitors seemed to have escaped the ignominy of dancing with anyone but one another; to her right, there was a couple who appeared to have coincidentally landed I n one another's arms for every turn, and seemed quite pleased with their cunning, the red thread between them binding them together by limb-and-life.

It would have been cute, Ina thought, if not for – no, it was cute. She thought, stubbornly, it's cute.

She threw herself into the next spin, so passionately that she thought for a second that no one would catch her – but, ah, there was a soft, almost sweet, voice, and the fellow with whom she was dancing for this short time was saying, low and rueful, "I imagine I'll regret this."

Up close, she could see that he was a handsome boy: there was an undeniable hunger to the way his face was constructed, all hollow cheekbones and sunken eyes and prematurely grey hair. Unlike his sister, who had purposely deviated from the unspoken red-green-blue dress code of the ball, he was wearing a dark grey suit that rather made him look like a guard, with a small spot of each tagma colour – she imagined it was important not to show favouritism. There was blood on his collar: his own, or someone else's?

She thought, Azula. She thought, Belle. She thought, who else have we put at risk?

Over his shoulder, Kinga was staring fixedly at the back of his head, seemingly unheeding to whatever her dance partner was murmuring to her with a dry smile. She wasn't looking at the Lover, Ina thought ruefully, just at the enemy. She scanned the crowd briefly to try and find Ilja, but the crowd was roiling too unpredictably, surging too powerfully, for her to discern where, exactly, the grey man had got to.

"Regret it?" Ina said.

Silas Schreave said nothing more; the music had moved on, and they had already been separated by the crowd.

And if she had, even for a moment, thought that this moment would occupy her for long –

Blue eyes. That was all it took: just the blue eyes. Not like Eero's, not that strange electric colour that still didn't look right with the rest of his features, not when she knew they should be brown. Just – blue. The colour of the ocean, she might have thought, if she could think, the colour of the sky, but those – those were pale comparisons. Those were inadequate cliches; they had existed before him, and so they could not do justice in describing him. She hadn't thought it would be the blue that would catch her – she thought it would be the gold.

It was certainly the gold he left behind him as he wrenched free of her desperate, grasping hands, that almost-invisible golden thread wavering in his wake, so translucent that – her heart almost stopped – it wavered from all view for a split second, so that she feared she had imagined it or – worse – she had not imagined it at all, but lost it, lost it again, lost it at last.

She staggered back from the dance. Where had he gone? Where? Which direction? She felt, abruptly, punch-drunk, or concussed. A ghost, she thought, she'd seen a ghost. It could not have been anyone else – she would not have ever mistaken anyone else for him (him).

She reached almost desperately for the threads, but no sooner had she drawn her fingers across the nearest red string than a girl with ice-white hair spun past her, faster than anyone could move in life, and all the less real for it, more ghostly than present; she said, softly, "it's not a good look for you, Nirari."

Her partner was a tall, wild-looking man with dishevelled red hair. Kreiner Gehörtnicht said, "tch – let her be, Avrova, she'll suffer yet."

So that was it, Ina thought dully, she must have just been imagining him – picturing him, as she was picturing the imaginary vestiges of the Lovers who had gone before her. Why had they chosen to come to her now – to whisper that which she already knew, that which she only denied to acknowledge aloud? That was all that these spectres could do – they were, in fact, only spectres. Weren't they? Could they have told her something new, whispered some story she had not heard before, or was it merely the voice of her own dissatisfactions, her curse taking the physical form of those it hoped she might trust more than she trusted herself? Imaging what she thought they might say to her? Not hoped – she hoped for none of this – and still that gold thread snaked through the air…

Was this what it felt to go insane? She had felt the edge of it, when Zoran had told her what had happened, and she remembered thinking that Zoran was physically holding her together with the embrace that had followed, that if his arms had not been around her then she would have just fallen apart, mind and all. Was this insanity, its strange papery edges, the bitter taste in her mouth?

Allegra said, "we Lovers trade in insanity. It is the closest sister to love, you know. That's why they call it the day of raving, here; that is why it is the day of Majnun, at home, he-who-was-obsessed. If love does not drive you to insanity, can you call it true?"

Her skirts were bloody; her hands were, as well, even that slight gold ring which marked Dimitar's devotion. Ina said, softly, not sure if she was truly speaking or if she was merely communing with some inner part of herself, "I cannot."

Was she answering Allegra's question, or just confessing some darker, hidden part of herself? I cannot. She could have been speaking about absolutely anything; she could have been confessing to absolutely anything.

What could she do?

What was she good for?

Allegra said, "the curses are wrought from death, and death begets death, Inanna, it can do nothing but."

Her hand fell from her bloodied stomach; the whole world hung around them, suspended on strings, hung on thin threads. The whole world ran on this, Ina thought dully, on these bonds, on these ties, on love. Why, then, would it hurt so? Why, then, would it taunt her so?

Why, then, wasn't he here?

Allegra said, softly, kindly, "you're not crazy, Nanna. Not yet."

And then, before her eyes, the golden thread she had been following – slavishly, following; desperately, following – wavered, and twisted, and disappeared, like so much sunlight filtering through the air.

Avrova said again, "not a good look, Nirari."

And then –

something hit her, hard.

She remembered falling into darkness during initiation, with only Avrova Vovk's voice to ease her down into the curse. Now she fell again, and the oblivion which drew her down wrapped her tighter than any thread, so that it felt almost a relief to simply, if even for a moment, cease.

When she woke, it was to a pounding head and the taste of blood in her mouth. She was conscious before she opened her eyes; she could hear people moving around her, the tell-tale rustle of cloth somewhere very nearby, and, closer still, Ilja's voice, cashmere soft – "you with us, Nirari?"

"Ilja?"

Someone had thrown arms around her; that would not have been Ilja, she thought dazedly, and managed to painfully peel back her eyelids to catch a glimpse of the ink-dark head pressed tightly against her in an embrace so desperate she wondered, for a moment, if she had thought dead. Surely there could be no other reason Azula would be so overwhelmed to see her simply awake.

"Zu…?"

Ina began to pull herself, painfully, into a sitting position; Ilja put an arm through hers, and helped, as Azula fell back onto her heels and feverishly wiped shining eyes, as though afraid one of the older Warriors would notice and chastise her for this display of emotion. She looked good, Ina thought dazedly, not so grey or colourless as she had expected – not yet, at least. Azula said, softly, shyly, "Lady Chou said I should watch over you until you awoke. She was most concerned about your health."

"Lady..."

Ina was tiring of these unfinished sentences, but on this occasion it was not exhaustion or confusion which bested her; Azula had leapt in to explain. "My… she's the lady I'm working for here.

Ina said, "what happened?"

Ilja was worrying at his lip; she almost hadn't seen him, skulking against the wall with his arms folded, and glancing worriedly at something behind Ina. They were in a grey stone room, lined with wooden benches like the one upon which Ina was lying now; there were metal brackets attached in rows on the wall, carrying any number of shining silver swords or hooked black harnesses. A weapon room, Ina realised, some reliquary of the tagma or the royal guardhouse. She tried again to sit, and found that she could barely do so without wanting to throw up, without black spots overwhelming her vision. She slowly raised a hand to her head, and gingerly touched her hair; her hand came away bloody. Like Allegra's. Her hair was matted with blood.

She said again, "what happened?"

Ilja said, "a complication."

She stared at him, feeling rather as though all the colour must have rushed out of her as it had vanished from him. Blue, she thought, gold. It couldn't be a coincidence. She said, "I saw –"

And she saw the look on Ilja's face.

She couldn't breathe.

Azula said, worriedly, "it's not."

Ilja said, "Zu – "

"It's not." Azula's eyes shone with that same feverish shininess – not tears, Ina saw, but a kind of mania. "That thing tried to kill us. And he would never."

She couldn't breathe.

Ilja said, lamely, "some trickery of the Radiance."

Azula said, "a druj. That's all. Some awful druj."

Oh, she couldn't even feel her heart beat at this point.

There was a dull crash of metal somewhere behind her, where Ilja had been glancing – was that fear, or uncertainty, in his eyes? Neither emotion suited the grey man; neither seemed natural when he wore them.

Ina said, slowly, feeling rather like she was piecing together a puzzle the rest of them had finished long ago: "the golem. The stone druj. Here?"

"Here," Ilja agreed.

She stared at him.

She put her head in her hands.

She stared at the flagstones.

Willing her heart to keep beating, willing her lungs to work, willing the thorny knot in her throat to subside.

"Kinga hit you pretty hard," Azula said, "but it would have killed you if she didn't get you out of the way."

It.

"Lots dead," Ilja said. His voice had a peculiar, faraway quality, like he wasn't sure where he was or who he was meant to be. "More dying."

"I'm going," Kinga said drolly. Ina turned, realising for the first time that the other girl was present - present, and bloodied. She had been beaten, brutally beaten; her face was almost too bruised to recognise, and there was an angular gash on her forehead weeping black blood. "As fast as I can."

She was pulling a harness tight around her thigh, her green dress shed in favour of an ill-fitting set of borrowed garments – greys and reds, like a bonfire made manifest. She was wearing a set of borrowed swords as well. Ina found herself staring at them dully; their edges were sharply honed. They looked like they could cut through stone, if that was required. They looked as though they could cut through marble.

"No," Ina said. Her voice didn't sound like her own. It sounded awful, and small, and hollow.

Kinga ignored her, which didn't surprise her, but which still hurt a little, what little it could hurt when she felt so cold, so numb; instead, the other Warrior turned away to finish wrapping her knuckles, holding out her right hand for Ilja to pin the loose edges back for her so that they didn't come unravelled with movement. Her chains rattled with her, those hideous bronze shackles, manacled tightly around her wrist. She said, "get out of the palace as soon as she can walk."

Ilja looked at her.

"I'll come back," Kinga said, "when the job's done."

When the…

"Don't leave," Ina said. Desperation had gripped her by the throat; as though thus inspired, she lunged forward to seize Kinga's sleeve in a strangle-grip. Her blood was lead in her veins; her lungs burned in her chest, and made every breath painful. She knew what she had seen. She knew what had happened. She knew who she had seen. "Please, don't do this, you don't have to do this…"

She would not have mistaken him in any world. Not ever. It was as elemental as recognising her own shadow.

Kinga wrenched her arm from Ina's hand, as though she was little more than a gnat, like she was a mere irritation. "I made a promise," she said, dully. "It's my duty."

"Kinga, please!"

Amongst those chains, a single charcoal-coloured thread twisted, all the more mocking for its loneliness amongst the bronze shackles. Kinga said, "it must be."

"You don't have to do this. You don't owe us anything," Ina said, her voice low, desperate to beseech and convince and persuade. "Not anymore, not if you don't want to. You don't have to be afraid of… Whatever oath you made..."

The corner of Kinga's mouth curled in a smile that was more derisive than comforting. It did not reach her eyes. "What strings do you see on me, Nirari?"

"Chains," Ina whispered, brokenly. "Chains."

Kinga turned away. Ilja held out a hand, as though to comfort Ina, or perhaps as though to stop her from doing something she might regret.

But she couldn't stop herself.

It was too important.

The words burst from her like wild animals, uncaged.

"It's Pekka."

It was Pekka.

It hadn't seemed true until she said it. She said it now.

It's Pekka.

Kinga jerked back as though Ina had physically hit her.

"It's Pekka," Ina whispered again, brokenly. "Are you really going to –"

Oh. Clearly she had forgotten who she was speaking to.

"Kunegunda." A dishevelled Hijikata was silhouetted in the shadow of the doorframe, those blasted dark eyes roving over the tableau: Ina, beseeching; Ilja, flint-faced and dazed; and the Moon herself, somehow more beastly now than she had ever been in her curse-wrought druj form. "Are you ready?"

Kinga said, "let's kill this fucking thing."

She turned; she left, that fucking green coat snapping in her wake. Hijikata followed her, wasting not a single glance back towards the Warriors who remained, frozen, in the weapons room, not looking at one another, not speaking.

Ina watched her go, stifling sobs. For a split second, her every artery and vein boiled in her chest, urging her to give chase but – but what hope had she of deterring a butcher from her work?

She would never be able to stop Kinga.

Wouldn't Pekka have tried?

For her?

Ilja's hand closed tightly over her shoulder in the same moment that she tried to stand. "You've had stupider ideas," he said, in that dazed coldness that had still not left his voice. "But not many."

"Don't," she said, "try to stop me."

And, oh, she sounded dangerous even to herself.

Ina should have held back; she didn't. She always thought of Kinga as dripping chains, but Ina had a chain as well – the one with which the Moon had bound her, forcibly – so it was a simple matter to slip her hand down to it, and wrap her fingers around it, and pull.

Desperately, feverishly, she pulled.

The chain slipped between her fingers; if it had heft, it would have torn her skin, she knew, ripped flesh and drawn blood. But it had no heft; it had no weight; it was utterly curse-wrought, a prelude to insanity, a vestige of dark magic.

And it did nothing. It slipped between her fingers, unspooling endlessly in her hand, like so much wasted hope.