Cryo hovered over Kaladrel, the frozen winds of Skypillar swirling under his wings as he kept a lookout for Banshee.

The winds knew where she was. He had to push against them constantly to retain his vigil, scanning the rooftops, the streets, etching the district's cityscape into his mind. Kaladrel was far more elegant than Sylrael or Cevinari, but its elegant curves held no charm for him.

As Jason, he'd visited Kaladrel three times, each one for one of his father's business and other official 'getaways'. It was seen as proper for a Governor's family to attend to show solidarity, but for Jason, it'd meant hours of standing straight, chin raised to just the right level, hands folded in the correct place, all while men and women the same age as his father strutted about, making small talk like he cared about their names rather than what they could do for him.

The only positive thing about it was that it meant a week away from his mother. Unlike her, his father didn't favour Regan or Jason. Instead, he barely seemed to care that either of them existed. Jason was increasingly sure that his father saw their family as a business tool rather than anything to be emotionally attached to. It didn't particularly bother him.

Not anymore.

Cryo turned his head the way of the winds, once again looking for Banshee.

She'd seemed... off. From her reaction after his impromptu training exercise to the random show of acrobatics across the temple grounds, something had been wrong with her today, though he couldn't quite place what.

Perhaps the stress of the last few days and the lack of sleep had taken its toll and made her irritable, but it'd seemed more than that. She hadn't been annoyed at him pelting her with ice, she'd been annoyed that she'd failed it. It was an abnormal reaction for her. Usually, any sign of improvement on her end to what Cryo thought of as an impossible task was met with bragging and various comments amounting to 'I'll beat you one day!'. This time, with such a remarkable improvement in comparison to the past, she should have been ecstatic. Instead, she just seemed angry at herself for it.

But now, after what he'd overheard Golem say about her daggers...

Cryo was worried.

He resisted the urge to cover his tattoo with his palm, just to let her know he was thinking of her and turned his head back the way it should have been: the opposite direction that the winds were trying to take him, to give Banshee as much of an edge as she needed.

He flew lower, scanning the streets, making a show, making the crowds look at him. Watch him. He stopped in front of several buildings and gave them a careful, considerate frown. The kind of frown that made people in Jason's life nervous, because they were wondering whether they were the object of his evaluation. The kind of frown he knew how to wear far too well just for a few moments of peace.

No one approached him as they often did Banshee, when she got this close. To them, he was a Luminary. The Frost of Skypillar. The way the temple said it was supposed to be. The way that Banshee... wasn't. She was the Shadow of Skypillar, but she was still one of them--a human, one who had a smile for her worst enemy.

She was everything Jason's mother said a Luminary shouldn't be. Everything the temple tried to push her away from. The things that he'd tried to push her away from, before realising it'd take nothing short of Skypillar himself standing in front of her with a commandment written in blood before Banshee would change her ways--and even then, he wasn't sure.

Or so he'd thought.

With Andrew's death, something had changed in her. Something that a year of the High Shadowspeaker's nagging hadn't even got close to touching. Something to crucial and vitally part of her that the prospect of this new Banshee, one that would have delighted his mother, had Cryo absolutely terrified.

Cryo circled another street, desperately trying to get the thought out of his head.

She'd be okay. She'd bounce back, like she always did. She would.

And still, Cryo found himself flying down to Golem, practically grounded by the weight in his heart.

Golem noticed as Cryo landed and caught his eye, and with the slight incline of his head, quickly finished his conversation with several of the staff of a nearby resort and walked over.

"Have you found something, Cryo?" asked Golem.

Cryo went to hold his chin high. "I have--" The words were barely out when his chin dropped. "No, but I wish to ask you something. In private, if I may."

"Of course," said Golem. He gestured to the building in front of them, only five or six floors high. "I will meet you on the roof momentarily."

Cryo nodded and pushed off the ground, his talons feeling the smooth starstone of the roof barely a few seconds after.

Golem joined him perhaps twenty seconds after, the time it took for him to rearrange his body of stones into a long, narrow pillar that sort of... rolled its way up the side of the building. Cryo had never been able to find the words to perfectly describe it, but it reminded him of the cartoon straws--a long, narrow pipe that bulged with ridiculous exaggeration as the liquid made its way up--until all of Golem's stones were up on the roof with him.

It didn't take long for Golem to retake his usual shape and look at Cryo with a questioning eye.

"What was it you meant by Banshee's daggers and needing to remain balanced earlier?" asked Cryo.

"Ah," said Golem. "So her instincts were right. You were listening. How much did you hear?"

"Most of it," said Cryo. "Is she well? Is there something I should be worried about?"

Golem brought a hand up to cover the lower half of his face. In the deep onyx stones of his eyes, Cryo could have sworn he saw traces of Fae's magic flickering.

"The Banshee is one of the more... different Aspects of Skypillar," said Golem after a long, tense moment that Cryo could have sliced in half with a blunt piece of ice. "Every Aspect has a pattern, if you will. Every reincarnation of an Aspect will share similarities in both their lives and their personalities."Golem paused once again, thin slats of stone covering his eyes before he opened them again. "Do you know what the Aspect of Shadow's pattern is?"

"I wasn't aware there were patterns," said Cryo.

"We try to keep it that way for a reason," said Golem. "Things go wrong when a Luminary tries to break their pattern. When they knowingly pull away from what is supposed to be. For instance, when the Aspect of Flame attempted to break their pattern, the result was the great fires that ravaged the orchards for weeks. And when--"

"Golem," said Cryo. "What is Banshee's pattern?"

Golem exhaled.

"The Aspect of Shadow never survives," he said quietly, six words that were enough to fracture Cryo's carefully protected core. "Her scream is her primary ability, and like your living ice, it drains energy from your Ascended to use and will cause your transformation to drop soon after. But Banshee also has another ability, one that she will have no control over if it triggers, and instead of draining her Ascended's energy, it will drain hers until she dies."

Cryo could barely hear Golem's voice over the thundering in his ears.

"Banshees are always emotional, they feel far more than they should," said Golem. "They wield Grief and Joy as their greatest weapons but those same things always destroy them. When a Banshee inevitably falls to Grief, she will cast aside Joy and become a force that cannot be stopped--she becomes Vengeance. She will give her life to avenge the one stolen, and after Grief tastes the lifeblood of the thief, she will die."

Oh, Skypillar. The fight with Ella. The building's collapse. Cryo had to ask, had to know. "Was Andrew enough to--"

"No, he wasn't," said Golem, reaching out, his hand on Cryo's shoulder to ground them both. "But it was enough to unbalance the scale. It would take the violent death of someone she cares about deeply to trigger her vengeance." And then, in a softer voice, he said, "You can probably guess who the most common person for a Banshee to avenge is."

Some still rational part of Cryo's mind that wasn't repeating the words never survives over and over and over and over found the answer. All the times Harpy or Fae had cautioned him but glanced at Banshee instead. "Her partner."

"Exactly," said Golem. "Ever since Banshee Ascended, Fae has been looking through the records, both those of our people and the ancients, trying to find a Banshee who survived, but..."

"This Banshee will be different," said Cryo. "She--she's... she's just too happy all the time. She bounces back. She will bounce back from this."

Golem's hand squeezed Cryo's shoulder, his stony gaze unreadable, the flecks of DragonFae's violet magic dancing through the starlit air around them. "It's not just while she's a Luminary. When we are chosen by Skypillar, once a year passes, our spirits are marked forever. Even if she were to go Dark, a part of Banshee will remain with her. Do... do you understand what I'm saying?"

"That even if she goes Dark, after the festival passes and marks the beginning of our second year, she could still become Vengeance," said Cryo in a voice that didn't quite sound like his.

He couldn't quite make himself believe it. He'd seen how Banshee was, how she reacted. It didn't matter what a Manifested had done, how many people it'd hurt, if it'd hurt him--she treated them with the kind of respect you gave a lifelong friend. She gave them her devotion, her love, and Cryo couldn't imagine a world where his Banshee would let Grief drown her out.

Once a year has passed, our spirits are marked forever.

Cryo frowned, his eyes trained on the palm of his hand as he flexed his ice-clawed fingers. Could that mark change such a vital part of who she was?

... Could a mortal soul be stronger than the will of Skypillar?

"You might get lucky, if you can call it that," said Golem. "Sometimes, a Banshee will sacrifice herself and fulfill the pattern that way, but it's rare." He exhaled and took his hand off Cryo's shoulder, his onyx gaze off in the stars. "I've said more than I probably should. We discussed whether we should tell you with Harpy and Wyvern on several occasions, but we never really reached a conclusion. Fae argued that you should know. I wasn't sure whether it was fair to shoulder you with such a responsibility, but now, it hardly seems like fate cares much about 'fair'."

"I... appreciate that you've told me," said Cryo.

He needed to think. To evaluate. To do what he did best--but not now. Not in the middle of a mission.

He forced himself to freeze the thoughts that wanted to fling himself off the roof and into the skies and tear Kaladrel apart until he found her, safe and alive. He froze them until his mind was an antechamber of lethal, icy spines that would just as soon impale him if he slipped on their glittering tips as save him. "Knowledge has always been my friend."

"That was Fae's argument," said Golem with a small nod. "She often said that you were one of the greatest planners she'd seen. If anyone could find a way to break the pattern, well..."

Cryo looked to Golem. "The pattern will break, Golem."

Golem just smiled. "You two are something else entirely. Is there anything else you wish to ask?"

"I believe we can get back to the mission now," said Cryo, flaring his wings.

As he was about to take flight, he glanced down at the small crowd gathered below. Among the blues and the greens and the purples, a splash of red caught his attention. Frowning, Cryo brought a wing in front, placing one of the larger crystals between the red and his eyes, magnifying the image.

The same red-haired person with the grey shirt, the dark pants and the sunglasses that Banshee was supposed to have followed stood at the back of the crowd, staring up at the place where Cryo and Golem had been conversing with a wide, gleeful grin.

Cryo looked around.

Banshee was nowhere in sight. The winds around him blew his hair in every direction, lost and confused.

The redhead with the grin that sent a shiver down his spin lifted a hand into the air and waved.

"Golem," said Cryo, lowering his wing. "We have a--"

He didn't finish the sentence before the redhead turned and bolted through the crowd.

Cryo swore and flared his wings again. "Banshee's target evaded her and is taunting us. I can't sense her. Follow?"

Golem's body was already shifting as he rearranged the stones. "Pursue target. First mission, locate Banshee."

Cryo tapped his tattoo five times and launched himself off the roof.

*+*+*+*

Banshee climbed the ladder without so much as a whisper of her garments against the tight walls of the passage.

It was difficult, even with her shadow shift. The ladder was placed almost vertical and even with her shoulders pulled forward, they almost scraped against the walls. Golem might have been able to rearrange himself to fit, but there was no way Cryo would have made it. Even if, somehow, they'd both managed to squeeze into the narrow space, they'd both have been climbing blind.

The darkness was so pure that the shadows in the passage were one. No crack of light ventured in to split them. They wrapped around Banshee, calling her, telling her exactly where each rung of the ladder rested even though her eyelids were closed.

The ladder stretched on far longer than she'd originally assumed it might, but finally, she reached the top.

With her hands flat on the floor above the ladder's final rung, Banshee glanced around, listening to the shadows. They described a room to her that was thin, long and still perfectly dark, with three walls that were completely solid but one that held several slits, covered by the same dark, silky fabric that'd hung at the resort's entrance.

Banshee pushed up on her hands and brought her feet up flat, one at a time. She was silence as she stood and had stepped towards the imperfect wall when she heard the voices just beyond.

She froze, ears pricked and listening, but she couldn't make them out. With a curse inside her thoughts, five swift steps took her across the floor like a whisper and she pressed her pointed ear to one of the slits in the wall.

"--nestly wasn't sure if you were ever coming back. You were supposed to report in yesterday."

"What's the point in reporting if there's nothing to report? You knew I hadn't been captured or whatever. We have Liaisers for a reason. I sent you a message as soon as I saw the Luminaries in the district."

Banshee frowned. So, the second voice was her red-haired target. Who did that make the first voice? His boss? Some kind of co-ordinator for whatever they were up to?

"You know why we need to confirm any reports sent by Liaiser as soon as possible," said the first voice. "Regardless, confirm for me what you sent in the message."

Her target sighed. "Golem, Cryo, and Banshee sighted in outer Kaladrel at the new crossroads. Appeared to be searching for Harpy and Wyvern. Will report back soon. On Skypillar's peak, we shall reign."

The first speaker grunted. "Good enough, I suppose. Are you sure you weren't seen?"

"As sure as we ever are," said her target. "Golem noticed me, but I think he dismissed me as a bystander. He ordered Cryo and Banshee to start their search over in the opposite direction, and after that, I slipped away."

"Golem is far more intelligent than he often shows," said the first speaker. "I hope you didn't underestimate him... again. That disaster is still on your record."

"If Golem noticed me, he didn't realise what I was doing," said her target. "I'd have heard him trying to follow me, it's not like--"

"You said Banshee was with him," said the first speaker. "She's far more adept than most Luminaries of only a year. She'll become another Harpy-level problem if we don't deal with her soon, and that'll be if we're lucky."

Her target sniggered. "Adept? After what happened with Ella? And that's not even counting when they found Ella's nest with the Shimmer, she almost--"

As Banshee's fingers curled into a fist, the sound of someone being struck over the head silenced him.

"Are you an idiot, boy?" growled the first. "I swear, if it weren't for your sisters, we wouldn't bother with you."

"And yet, I'm still here and they're off doing... what, exactly?"

"That is none of your concern. Come, the other initiates who were much more timely are waiting for you. We have preparations to make and not as much time as we should have had, thanks to you."

As their conversation was replaced with footsteps, Banshee was tempted to kick the door open and show her target exactly how adept she could be, but she quelled the urge. She didn't have solid evidence that this group was particularly malicious yet, but something was definitely off about them.

Carefully, she pressed down on the handle of the door and pushed it open, just wide enough for her head to fit.

She squinted against the light and found herself looking at a neat, almost fancy looking hallway that stretched onwards for several metres. The floor was so well polished that she could almost see her reflection in it. Paintings hung on the starstone walls. Fake pot plants were scattered along the walls, the plastic kind, but something about them bugged her. They didn't look quite right, though she couldn't work out why.

The two she'd overheard were walking away from her, their backs to her. The one she'd followed now had his hoodie down, his brilliant red hair--a colour that was definitely too bright to be natural--splayed out over the fabric on his shoulders the way Olivia often did. He was shorter than the man beside him, a wide, girthy man with light blue hair. They'd started speaking again, but at this distance, she couldn't quite make out what they were saying.

Banshee stepped out from behind the door and closed it with a quiet click behind her.

She slipped as deep into her shadow shift as she could without becoming intangible, keeping close to the walls, ducking behind the plants as she listened.

"If they're looking for Harpy and Wyvern, it's possible they know already and have worked around it," said the taller one with the blue hair. "We'll attempt it regardless. We have fallback plans."

"I still don't see why we need to do this," said the redhead. "She's not going to--"

"Your sisters tell you too much and not enough," snapped the taller one. "We've got our orders. We follow them. Now, are you--" He cut off as the screen of his Liaiser flashed and swore instead. "Of course. And now you've screwed this up too."

Banshee couldn't stop glancing at that Liaiser screen and with no other doors, no reason for these two to turn around and see her... she felt daring enough to peek.

She got close enough that she would have been breathing down their necks if she wasn't holding it.

"Screwed what up?" said the redhead.

The blue haired guy said something about not having security cameras and tilted his Liaiser towards the red. He was too tall for her to peek over his shoulder, but maybe if she could--

The redhead's gaze flicked to the Liaiser, and a heartbeat later, they flicked up and landed straight on Banshee.

He froze in horror.

She fell back into default and grinned.

"Hate to intrude, but I don't suppose you could answer a few questions for me?"

The blue haired guy jumped with a yelp of surprise. The Liaiser flew from his hand, landing on the floor a few metres away. Banshee leapt forward and scooped it off the floor before either of them could react.

[Sensors triggered], the message read. [No sighting. Be aware].

The sender's name was 'Alerts'. A quick flick through the previous messaging history revealed no outgoing messages in this conversation, but there were hundreds in other conversations. None of the conversations had an actual name attached. They were all numbers, occasionally followed by a letter or a colour.

She didn't get more than a few seconds to investigate the Liaiser before the blue haired guy recovered from the shock.

"Squads!" he called. "Respond! Use necessary force to bring her down!" He shoved the redhead back behind him, towards a section of wall just to the right of a pot plant. "You, arm yourself! Now!"

Banshee pocketed the Liaiser and drew her daggers. Grief and Joy were balanced in her hands, ready to strike as she willed it, but Banshee still didn't know what she was dealing with. He'd mentioned squads. They'd come from either ends of the corridor which would block both her exits and they were to bring her down.

With no idea what she was dealing with, Banshee knew she needed to leave.

She took a step back towards the perfectly dark room with the ladder's mouth when some, small part of her attention still following the guy with the blazing red hair flared into focus. He was no longer beside the wall, but instead, he was inside of it, like it wasn't even there.

She finally realised what'd bugged her about the pot plants--they didn't have shadows.

An imperfect hallucination.

She'd been tricked.

The pristine starstone walls around her dissolved into a battle-marked grey hallway of stone and steel as a dozen people emerged from the previously concealed doorways and opened fire with their starstone guns.

*+*+*+*  

A/N - This chapter got longer than expected *_* 

CRYO NOW KNOWS THE TRUTH~ or at least, he knows part of it. AND BANSHEE WHAT HAVE YOU GOT YOURSELF INTO DAMMIT THIS WASNT IN THE OUTLINE. 

See if we can break rank #70 this week again? ;D 1 vote = 1 Admiral Ackbar.