Roman kicked out hard against the door of his room in the tallest tower of the Osha castle. He'd been locked in the room at the top of the spiraling staircase after much debate between Helena and Aundreya.

"He can't be trusted," Aundreya snapped, pointing a finger in his face as he stood frozen, unable to move beneath her power.

"You're the one who lost control, Aundreya. I never had a problem with him," Helena said right back. She'd joined them in the stairwell after Aundreya sent Mygel to alert her to Noelle and Roman's capture.

"I can't keep hold of him all the time! I have to sleep. I have to eat. I'm not your slave."

"He should be kept in the dungeons," Mygel cut in. "So when he isn't of use to us, he's under watch."

"No." Helena's tone hit a firm, hard note and Mygel winced. "I'm not having him caged like some animal. He's the future king of this country and I'm not going to treat him like a prisoner."

"Lock him in his room, then." This time it was Noelle who spoke. She stood leaned against the wall, barely paying attention to their discussion or his plight. "It's a nice room. Hells, lock me in his room--I don't care. Anything is better than the dungeon."

Roman noticed that Helena avoided looking at Noelle's face when replying to her, and his anger sparked higher at how much damage Aundreya had caused her sister.

"Fine. Lock them up, but not together." She shot a glare somewhere in the vicinity of Noelle's shoulder. "I don't trust you."

"I don't care," Noelle replied with a shrug. "You killed Abigail, so what you think of me doesn't really matter."

"But you said you'd help us," Mygel snapped, fists clenched at her sides. Noelle lifted her gaze to meet Mygel's, and Roman saw the Guardian flinch away.

"I said I'd amplify Aundreya in exchange for whatever I wanted. I don't care if she uses it to help you, or force you all to kill yourselves. Not as long as I get what I'm after."

"Which is?" Helena asked, arching a brow.

"Between me and my sister," Noelle replied, not missing a beat. "But I'd be careful where you lock him in. He's slippery and can get out of most places."

"Not the tower," Helena said, and Roman could see the pain in her eyes as she looked at him. Pain for what she was doing to him. "He can't jump without dying, and there's no way to climb down. He can't even fashion his own rope - it's too high. There wouldn't be enough material. He'll be safe there."

So here he was, pacing the lavish tower room, wondering what in the hells happened to Noelle to make her agree to this. Was it a plan? Some devious plot to get everyone to trust her, just so she could fake them out in the end?

But to what end? As far as Roman knew, this was it. The Militia had won, and despite rumors that word had spread about Bainon's escape and survival, no one had come for them. There was no sign of Maverick or Gwen--no hint of Eric. For all he knew they were out there and knew what the Militia had become, but how could he be sure? There had to be a reason Maverick and Gwen were hiding out, and Eric--well, if he'd survived the battle, Roman would have assumed he'd have sought revenge by now.

The sound of footsteps outside his door caused him pause. He turned, muscles tensing as he prepped to run past whoever came near.

"Stand away from the door," the familiar voice of Pollemius said. "I'm coming in. There are several guards at the bottom of the steps who have been told to kill you if you try to escape."

Hesitating, Roman relaxed as Pollemius entered the room, locking the door behind him. Roman eyed him, looking for signs of Aundreya's influence.

"I told them you knocked me out to set Noelle free," Pollemius said, setting a tray of food down on the square table along the right side of the room. It stood on a blood red rug depicted with Tremaine's defeat of the beornach in the forest Fangralee.

"They believed that?"

"They found me seemingly unconscious in the dungeon, so yes. As for the Army, I told them you had only come for Noelle, and I assumed the Army had taken advantage of my knock-out to escape. I had, after all, just unlocked one of the cells to bring food in."

Roman shook his head, fighting a smile. "That's very clever of you."

Pollemius tapped the side of his head. "This is for more than just rugged good looks." His smile faltered. "How are you? What happened?"

Roman filled Pollemius in on the long and short of it, ending with Noelle's choosing Aundreya's side. "It's not real, is it? Have you seen her? She wouldn't really side with her sister. I've never known two people to hate each other more or be more different."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Pollemius glanced back at the door. "Noelle's been...different, lately. She told me about her amplification, and I helped her learn how to use it. But--"

"What? What aren't you saying?"

"It isn't good." Pollemius passed a hand over his face, sighing. "How long as it been since you last saw her?"

Roman blinked, realizing it was the day of the Militia's coup. "Six months?"

"Aundreya scarred Noelle within the first few weeks. Not long after that, Noelle started working on her power, but the better she got at it, the darker she became. At first, she only used it with me and my gift, but when she'd mastered amplifying my plant growth, I let her work with a few of the gifted Army soldiers."

"And?"

"She grew stronger, but the more she did it, the worse I felt. I'd supervise her, teaching her the best I could, but when she uses the power--I don't know how to describe it. It's like a darkness comes over her. Her features change. She nearly killed a man."

"What? Noelle? How?"

"One of the soldiers had the gift of insight. He can use it to see things that might happen--not certain things, but possibilities. Each choice we make is a new probability outcome. He can only see so many ahead--where two choices would lead. Noelle amplified it so he could see infinite possibilities, but it was too much.

"He started screaming, clawing at his skull. I told her to stop, shouted, begged, but she wouldn't. She just stood there, her face twisted in this eerie smile as this man writhed in agony. I had to knock her to the ground, breaking the connection between them, to free him. I wouldn't let her practice after that, but it was too late."

"When was this?" Roman asked, his stomach twisting. He didn't even look at the food Pollemius brought, afraid he might be sick.

"Two weeks ago."

"Two weeks?" Cold washed over Roman. If only he'd acted sooner.

"I don't know what it is," Pollemius admitted. "And I don't know how to bring her out of it, but she changed down there. At first, she was sweet Noelle, helping me feed and tend to the prisoners. But after she started working on her amplification, I noticed the care the soldiers were receiving was--different."

"Different." Roman shot him a glance askance, afraid to ask more.

"She didn't tend to their wounds. She would dress an area right above it or below it. She'd bandage the wrong arm. When I asked her about it, she just shrugged it off and said they were all going to die anyway, so what did an infection matter?"

Roman sat down hard on his canopy bed, the voluminous down comforter letting out a puff as it deflated beneath him. "Something happened to her, then. Her power did something to her. What do you know about amplifiers?"

"Only that they're rare. I've never heard of them having a tendency toward wickedness."

"That first day you worked with her--what happened?"

Pollemius's forehead wrinkled in thought. "She couldn't do it at first. I remember her struggling. Discouraged. Aundreya came down for a bit after that, and then Noelle called me in and had no trouble amplifying."

"What was her state of mind?" Roman asked, closing his eyes as he pressed his forehead to one of the bedposts. "Was she agitated? Happy?"

"Angry." Pollemius nodded, catching Roman's train of thought. "She was furious. Now that you mention it, she always seemed to work up an edgy angst before trying out on anyone new."

"She learned to amplify through anger--through her hate for her sister."

"Hate breeds darkness," Pollemius mused, nodding. "How'd I miss it?"

"I don't know, by being distracted by over one hundred other prisoners?" Roman offered a smile as he got up from the bed and approached Pollemius. "How could you have known? You would have had to spend--" Roman trailed off, thinking back to what Noelle had said when he first arrived in the dungeon. "She feels abandoned."

"What?"

"Maverick and Gwen have disappeared; Phoenix and Abigail died; I've been under Aundreya's control--everyone she cared about abandoned her. She's had six months to sit and dwell on the idea that she's alone."

"Your point?" Pollemius asked. "She had me. She and I talked and joked, early on."

"Before she started amplifying." Roman started pacing again. "Empaths feel what others feel. But they also have stronger feelings than others because they always are dealing with emotions."

"Right..." Pollemius watched Roman dart back and forth.

"Amplifiers make other people's gifts stronger. But what does it do to them? How does it affect who they are? Noelle has sat thinking on her abandonment, using her gift through hate, and amplifying what in herself?"

"Bitterness." Pollemius smacked a hand to his smooth forehead. "She's amplifying her own feelings."

"So regardless of how she feels about her sister or Helena," Roman began.

"She'd be willing to take their side if it met her own mental state."

"And Aundreya offered Noelle whatever she wanted in exchange for her cooperation."

"What does Noelle want?" Pollemius asked, and Roman heard the tinge of fear in his voice.

"I have no idea."

OOOOOKAY hopefully this helps you all fill in a bit of what's going on with Noelle these last six months. No, this isn't a master plan for the good of all she's working on to save the day and rejoin Maverick.

Noelle's in a dark place. I'm not saying she's totally chill with Aundreya or wanting the Militia to succeed...but she's not really in the mood to bring them crashing down, either.

You'll see more of Noelle (not through Noelle's eyes, probably) in coming chapters with Roman.