26th of Thira

Rushidi was watching me again. I could feel her beady stare on the back of my head as I followed the guard out of the canteen and into the waiting two-man engine idling in the courtyard.

I knew what that stare was for. It had been almost a month since I began working at the head office, and I had yet to do anything useful with it. I could practically see the wheels churning in her shifty brain, and I had the sneaking suspicion it wouldn't be much longer before she started demanding favors. Karalli couldn't hold her off indefinitely.

The guard, a young foot soldier named Ayago, pulled the two-man onto the road that led to the head office compound. "So... you're from the Continent, then?" He asked in stilted Low Altyran.

I glanced at him. He wasn't supposed to speak to me at all, much less in the lower tongue, but lately he had started initiating conversations. I nodded slightly. "Tetton."

"There are many... girls like you, there?" He asked, his face turning pink beneath his patrol-man tan.

Was he flirting? "There are girls in Tetton, yes," I said dryly. "Why?"

He turned even pinker, his blush flooding his ears. "I am... hoping? Hoping to meet some. You know. Quiet. Nice."

"There are no nice girls here?" I asked, watching the road.

He snorted. "Paradazh girls? No. Paradazh girls like the officers. They like the... birdboys. The flyers. But... when we return to take our homeland... we will all be top choice for the quiet, nice girls." He shrugged, as if this was simply common knowledge. "Maybe even for you."

I pasted a smile on my face. "Maybe even for me," my mouth said, while my brain whispered, and you have no idea how much I want to smack you in your conceited face. But, just like the Stadhepheravalden had no real idea what was going on outside his neat, tidy bubble of an office, this boy had no clue what waited for him beyond the walls of the Paradazh. He believed that everyone outside was inferior and uneducated. He had no idea how insulting he had just been, either, or that the woman next to him had left 'nice' behind in a burning Starre and Sons ocean liner. I turned toward him, giving him my best Pendar sparkler. "So, do you know when we will be returning to the homeland?"

That made him chuckle. "Only the High Councilor knows that," he said, grinning like I was just being silly.

Blast.

We reached the head office gate, then, and a moment later Ayago pulled up in front of the service entrance, his grin a little self-assured when he popped the pin into the flywheel. "I will see you later."

I just smiled and let myself out. I made a mental note to ask him what a 'bird boy' was on our return trip, and entered the scrub room, where I made quick work of using the lavatory stand to wash the stink of the hut off me. Then I traded my jumpsuit and canvas shoes for the prim staff uniform, made sure my hat was on straight, and snagged a quick breakfast of fruit and a biscuit from the tea trolley in the kitchen.

The crumbs were still on my lips when Sanjar leaned through the doorway, drumming his fingers on the jamb. "The reports need to go up to the Headquarters, but I'm still dealing with all the requisition forms from yesterday. Can you take them? I can get the S.P.V. his tea."

I nodded and brushed my hands off, careful not to seem too eager. "You'll have to forge me a vehicle request and a Headquarters pass."

He heaved a sigh of gratitude and handed me the dispatch bag. "Everything's all set. Thank you. You're a joy."

I rolled my eyes and waved him off. Sanjar wasn't Paradazh born, either, and spoke his Low Altyran with a slight Caraki burr. We had formed a sort of careful alliance over the last few weeks. I helped him, he helped me, neither of us asked any questions, and together we tried our best to hold onto our stations. Sanjar because he was desperate to escape the butchery floor, and me because I was too weak to survive Kreighvalden Ygraine. Or that's what I let him think. Truthfully, I helped him because he had access to the official stamps used to make inter-Sector passes and transport requests and could forge the Stadhepheravalden's signature better than I could.

Case in point.

I shouldered the dispatch bag and trotted back through the scrub room and into the engine lot behind the office building. Ayago's eyes brightened when he saw me coming with another vehicle request, and in no time at all I was back in the two-man, rumbling down the road into the valley.

~~~

When I started out that day, I didn't have any idea what was in store. I couldn't have imagined it in a million years. Getting to go back up to the Headquarters was all I had been working toward. There was no way to know how vastly different my goals would wind up being.

Ayago tried telling me a few jokes on the way, and I made sure to laugh like the nice, quiet girl I was, while I went over my plan in my head. Go in, hand over the document pouch to the Receiving secretary, get my receipt, and then get 'lost' while looking for a map room or a communications hub.

That was the first part of a multi-step process.

Ayago drew the two-man to a stop outside the parade ground gate and promised to wait for me. Then, for the second time in a week, I was crossing that vastness of white marble.

The secretary's narthex was abuzz with quiet, tense conversation when I entered.

I looked around, the hair prickling at the back of my neck. Something was off.

Moving quickly, I headed for the hall that would take me to the Overseer's office. Only to come to a halt when a large group of guards and officers rounded the corner at the end of that same hallway, the tramping of their boots loud in the vaulted space as they filed into the narthex with decisive, precise footsteps.

My stomach cinched into a tight, icy ball and my hands grew clammy, my grip on the dispatch bag slipping. Every instinct, every fiber, every nerve screamed at me to RUN as I bent into a stiff bow. Running would only attract attention for the wrong reason. I knew that, but it still took every ounce of control I had to keep from bolting back through the entryway.

All around me the room went perfectly, absolutely still.

"Does anyone here speak Illyrian?" The High General's voice rang through the silence, echoing lightly from the walls.

The stillness became a nearly physical thing, full of pent-up breath and uncertainty, stretching out until it was obvious that no one else was willing to risk answering that question. It became equally obvious that the High General wasn't joking, either.

It was too big a chance to pass up. I would be closer to the top of the hierarchy than I had ever thought possible. I just had to put myself smack in the center of a spotlight to do it, while admitting to speaking the language of the enemy. But the High General did not strike me as someone who would lay his traps right out in the open. There was a reason he wanted someone who spoke Illyrian. It was a thin gamble, but the stakes were much too high to ignore. I swallowed hard, trying to force moisture down my parched throat. Then, slowly, I lifted my hand. It was so final, one simple gesture causing a massive shift in all my plans, but there wasn't time to hash out all the pros and cons. My voice was thin and wobbly, but perfectly audible, my coarse Low Altyran accent breaking the silence. "I speak Illyrian, your grace."

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, "Bring her," the High General announced.

There was a rustle, people shifting out of the way as booted footsteps crossed the room to where I stood. Two guards took hold of my arms and pulled me upright, their grip hard, their pace unrelenting as they brought me along between them, following the High General and the other officers down the hallway.

Shaking hard, I tried to keep up with them on clumsy feet. I was plummeting toward icy, churning water, every fiber of my body trying to brace for the impact, while my brain fought to control how I landed. The whole way down the hall and around the corner, I made a half-crazed attempt at rehearsing a backstory. I learned Illyrian from a sailor who frequented the bar I worked at. I'm Tettian and I speak Low Altyran. I'm a loyal, thankful Sectorite who will do anything in exchange for food...

I almost thought we were heading for the Overseer's office, at first. We were taking that route, but instead of going up the steps, we continued down another narrower hallway to the right.

This one wasn't anywhere near as fancy as the main halls of the building. Marble and polished brass had been replaced by drab brown walls and a concrete floor. The hallway ran along what was probably the length of the Overseer's office, then took an abrupt right that ended at the accordion gate of a lift.

The High General and the other officers boarded, then the two guards and I, all of us turning to face the lift door while one of the guards closed the panels, the other released the counterweight lever, and we started descending in a creak of cables and gears.

I kept my head low, excruciatingly aware of the High General's gaze on my back. But I wasn't dead yet, which told me he really did need me for something. I had to figure out how to keep it that way. Whatever this was, if I didn't stay useful, I would probably become a liability. An extremely disposable liability. I dragged in a shaky breath and stiffened my spine. I had to think.

None of the men spoke. Not even when the lift finally came to a lurching stop, and the guard opened the door again.

I was shoved forward into a long, damp, dingy room lit by gas sconces down the middle of the ceiling. The light flickered over heavy rubber-clad hoses running along the tops of the walls, and gleamed from a dark, oily looking puddle around the base of a rusty pipe rising from the floor.

So. The big, shiny Headquarters had dark, dirty, slimy secrets in the basement. For some reason, that chased some of the fog out of my head. Slimy, I understood. Dark and dirty I had seen before.

"Come along," the High General said, brushing past and leading the way toward the far end of that long, grimy room.

I fell into step with the guards easily enough and managed not to stumble as they trailed in the High General's wake, all the way down to a big metal door built into an alcove. The words "17th Ward" were painted on the door in blocky, peeling letters beneath a barred porthole window.

One of the officers knocked on the door, then lined his face up with a viewing lens, and a moment later the door opened inward.

The sounds coming from beyond that door made my stomach turn. I ground my teeth and clenched my fingers into my palms. I knew those sounds. Anguish. Agony. Begging. The animalistic screams of humans being broken. But they weren't anything I hadn't heard before. That old, familiar numbness crept in, and I welcomed it, letting it turn my heart to steel when the guards tugged me forward, guiding me into a large central room with a rabbit warren of concrete tunnels opening from it.

For several disorienting seconds, I saw other, far-away tunnels under the streets of Vreis, even smelled Rugga's famous cheese and leek soup as I was led down one dank, dripping tunnel and into another, much larger room. I had an impression of shadowy recesses along each wall, but the center of the room was brightly lit beneath a bank of mirrored lamps.

In the middle of that brightly lit patch were two chairs, set facing each other.

One chair was occupied. The other was empty.

A body lay facedown on a pallet nearby — the body of a man with long Illyrian braids falling around his shoulders. His bloodied arms were hanging limp over the edges of the pallet. I realized he was missing several fingers before I made myself look away, back at the occupied chair and the man I must have been brought in to talk to.

He wasn't the one they had cut up, which meant he was important enough to leave alive. Was this the Icewolf? Had they caught him? And now they wanted me to what... translate while they interrogated him? Normal Me would have been horrified, but I couldn't feel much more than a dull pang of regret. I couldn't exactly say no. Without a word, the guards dragged me straight to that empty chair and pushed me down into it.

The seat was still warm. There was fresh blood still sticky on the armrests, and I sat gingerly, wrapping my arms tight around my ribs as I blinked against the fierce glare of the lamps.

The High General's voice came from the hazy gloom somewhere behind me. "Please tell this man your name, Sectorite."

Hedwyn and Orrelian had put me through something very similar, and I clung to those sessions now. "I only speak high tongue a little, your grace," I stammered. Hold that character! Hold her or you're dead!

"Tell the traitor your name, please," the High General instructed, switching smoothly to Low Altyran.

I cleared my throat and croaked out a rough, ragged, "Oni-indo-i Larra Anderfield" in Illyrian.

There was a soft gasp from the man in front of me, and I dragged my attention back to him.

He didn't look much better than the body on the pallet. His hair was long and filthy, hanging in his face in stringy, matted ropes, his beard overgrown. His nose had been broken, also, but I would know those eyes anywhere. Fern green and gold, exotically beautiful even with that odd, maniacal light gleaming in their depths as he brought his head up to peer at me from beneath lowered brows.

Time slowed. Disbelief warred with my senses, my brain refusing to accept what I was seeing.

"Miss Anderfield." His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn't used it in a very long time. Then he started giggling. It was a harsh sound, devoid of any warmth. "Miss Aaaanderfield..."

I blinked, my heart stuttering into motion again. For a half-second, I had been sure he was going to accidentally give away the fact that we knew each other, but if there had been any recognition in NaVarre's face, there wasn't any now. He was staring at me as if I were an absolute stranger, either on purpose, or because the old NaVarre wasn't all there anymore.

Behind me, the High General sighed, then said, very calmly, "Tell him you want to know who the Icewolf is. Where is the Icewolf hiding."

I licked my lips. "He wants to know who the Icewolf is," I whispered in Illyrian. "Where the Icewolf is hiding."

NaVarre's mouth curled into a savage grin. "Fancy meeting you here. You look different..." He said, still in Illyrian. "Oh, don't worry, these putani don't know what we're saying. See? I call them putani all day, every day, and they all just stand there. Putani putani putani. So, when are they coming?"

I frowned slightly, caught off guard. "What do you mean, coming? When is who coming?"

"You've come for me," he said, his gaze shifting, his voice taking on a plaintive note when I began shaking my head. "You've come for me!"

"I'm sorry —"

"What did he say?" The High General asked quietly.

I shook my head again. "He's talking gibberish, your grace," I lied, switching to Low Altyran, covering my blush with a half-truth. "And he called you a name I don't know any words for."

"So if you didn't come for me, why are you here?" NaVarre suddenly demanded, leaning forward in the restraints binding him to the chair.

I glanced over my shoulder at the shadowy figure of the High General, my heartbeat galloping in my chest. I could only hope NaVarre would follow what I was doing. "Now he's asking why I'm here, your grace."

"Tell him you want to be his friend."

I looked at NaVarre again. Offered a hesitant smile. "I can get word to the rebels," I said. Earnestly. Like I was trying to calm a wild animal by telling it I would, in fact, be its friend. The falsehood had my pulse rocketing into my throat, but nothing happened. The reason I was there was the very reason we could have this conversation: none of them spoke Illyrian at all.

NaVarre was staring at me, reading my lips, then lowered his head.

"They will want to know you're alive," I went on, keeping my voice low. "We had given up hope."

"The Icewolf," he said, nodding. "They have someone new to hope in." He stilled. Then started chuckling. Softly, at first, his shoulders shaking slightly, then louder, until it was more of a barking cough than a laugh. "Tell his grace I've been replaced! I'm worthless! They can kill me now. Tell him he can just kill me now, and I'll finally have some flaighan peace and quiet!" NaVarre was snarling when he finished, his gaze finding the High General, burning with rabid fury. "You tell him that!"

"What is he saying now?" the High General asked.

There was no way to make this turn out better. I had to tell them something, but I couldn't lie and tell them NaVarre knew something, or they might start torturing him to get answers. The truth might only convince them they really didn't need NaVarre anymore, though. No matter what I did, NaVarre might well get his wish for peace and quiet. Feeling sick, I switched back to Low Altyran. "He says... He says he doesn't know who the Icewolf is," I got out, then couldn't resist adding, "And that you can all go do something obscene to each other." I tilted my head to look over my shoulder, not bothering to disguise the quaver in my voice. "Pardon, your grace... But I don't think he's going to tell me anything more, and I need to deliver the Agriculture Sector dispatch bag."

For several endless seconds there was no response. Then the High General spoke again, in High Altyran this time, addressing someone else beyond the lights. "Dr. Karronido, are you finished for today?"

"Yes, yes. There isn't much point in continuing." The doctor's reply was in High Altyran also.

I knew that voice. Dr. Karronido was the High Minister, the same man who came to collect the sick, dying, and newly dead from Karalli's med hut. I whipped back around to face NaVarre, trying to meet his eyes while two of the guards began undoing the restrains holding his wrists to the chair.

NaVarre glared back at me, his gaze hard, but glittering with grim approval. He let the guards haul him to his feet, that fierce smile flashing through his beard again when they shoved him toward the door. He sagged between them, making them drag him out into the hallway. Before the door slammed shut behind them, he began belting out the Illyrian national anthem at the top of his lungs.

Then it was only the guards, the high general, the high minister, and me. I made a shaky attempt to rise.

Dr. Karronido moved into the circle of light then, his white coat visible before the rest of him. "Miss Anderfield, stay please," he said in Low Altyran, his lips lifting at the corners in a grandfatherly smile.

NaVarre had been right there. Now he was gone. I had spoken to him, and now I probably wouldn't see him alive again. Dazed, I blinked up at the doctor for a beat too long, my breath snagged on something in my throat. Then I lowered my gaze and dipped my head, outwardly submitting.

"How did you come to speak Illyrian?"

Backstory! Think! "An Illyrian sailor taught me... I worked as a barmaid at an inn in Lodes. He lived there. At the inn." I cleared my throat.

"You are Lodesian?"

I shook my head. "Tettian born, but I also lived in Lodes and Altyr. Your grace."

High General Erkaldt came around to stand next to the high minister, and I could feel his attention on me, trickling down my spine like icewater. "And... you work in the Agriculture Sector?" The pause held doubt.

"Yes, your grace."

One of them grunted under his breath. Then High Minister Karronido muttered in High Altyran, "Says she had Red Fever," and the high general hummed, as if a silent question had been asked and answered.

"She will be an invaluable asset if she can translate Illyrian," Karronido continued, now almost musing aloud. "She is an intriguing specimen. She seems to be caught in the second nothumbril stage, uneducated and of a lower system, but exhibiting an above-average mental acuity... I would love to see what her mind is capable of. Perhaps she has a touch of an Ascended in her genetic material."

"At present, I think her mind would be more useful in the Communications Room than on your medical slab," the High General said dryly before switching to Low Altyran. "Miss Anderfield, you may go about your duties. Please greet Stadhepheravalden Offkelder for me."

I had been dismissed.

"Y-yes your grace." I got to my feet, bent into a haphazard bow, then walked out of the pool of light and into the shadows. I had to turn around twice to find the door, and then I couldn't keep my steps straight. My hands and legs were freezing, and my pulse was rushing in my ears. I was almost glad when a guard took hold of my elbow and began escorting me back the way we had come.

NaVarre was alive.

I may have just killed him.

I would have a lot of things to report to Karalli's Illyrian contact. 

A.N. 

A bit longer today... Hope you don't mind! I'm all proud of myself for getting this one out in only a week, but I've been out with a cold, so I've had oodles of time on my hands. 

Any questions? Anything seem strange or out of place? Do you need more of an oomph entrance for NaVarre? Did you see this coming? o.O Anything you got, lay it on me. 

Thanks so much for reading! 

Anna