It's the numbness in her heart that concerns Alicia the most. The numbness is too familiar, too easy to fall back into like the embrace of a lover. It's the numbness that makes her want to weep, not the death of the woman who shaped her into the person she is now.

Alicia stares out of the window of her bedroom within the palace with eyes that itch from unshed tears. She promised herself she wouldn't cry today, not before the thousands of Muovean gazes that had watched her every move. And she's succeeded in that promise, until she realised she only succeeded because she's fallen back into old habits she thought long dead.

Numb fingers trace the condensation that gathers on the edges of the window as she watches the sun dip below those monstrous walls that surround Muovea, filled with dark things that few know about. She shouldn't know about it either, but Alicia made many mistakes six years ago that the Reaper continues to find ways to make her pay for.

She strolled into those tunnels as a half-starved girl, following the dreams of another because she had none of her own, and she left with a weight like a ball and chain strapped to her ankle. She hasn't spoken to anyone about what she saw down there after she revealed all to Elena. Alicia had hope that she'd forget with time, but after six years the memory of vibrant blue eyes and bared teeth is as raw as ever.

Alicia lowers her hand to her lap and gazes around her room, the furniture lush, the gold thread in the covers of her bed seeming to glow under the light of the candles. She doesn't feel the usual bubbling of awe in her chest. She feels nothing.

The past week has been a blur. A blur of putting the queen to rest, of answering countless questions, choosing which ones to answer truthfully, and waiting for her moment to act.

It feels as though the weight of Muovea is on her shoulders now. Without the queen and with her contacts in hiding, Alicia is alone in this fight.

Just as she was in the slums when her brothers and pa were at war.

Alicia dons her comfortable clothing, omitting the dresses and stays and dainty slippers that act as her armour in this palace. Instead she wears a tight tunic and trousers with dark leather boots. All dyed with expensive black. She pulls her hair back and takes a breath.

Tonight she'll find the truths the grand duke has been so desperately burying. Tonight she'll discover why the queen was murdered. Tonight she'll discover what Samantha found, and why that got the princess exiled.

Turning, Alicia faces her mirror. She doesn't recognise herself, not anymore. She doesn't know what she's meant to look like. The child with bare feet and mud streaks, donned in rags but able to wear a smile? The woman destined to bear the weight of a crown with more shadows in her eyes than jewels around her throat? Or the girl whose calluses formed from the grip of a gun?

As she gazes into the mirror, she witnesses none of those people. Without her brothers, without her ma, without the queen guiding her, how can she possibly be any of those people?

All she sees is the woman who's been left alone to save this country with no real idea how to do that. But for her redemption, she's willing to do anything.

Once the palace has grown quiet and still, Alicia slips from her room and into the shadows of the halls. She approaches the archives as quickly and as quietly as she can.

With everyone in mourning, the palace is far more quiet than usual. No drunken nobles stumble through the halls, no servants are sent rushing for more wine and clean bedsheets, and no children try to destroy every expensive vase they can lay their hands on. Alicia is able to move undisturbed, the quiet reminding her of the grief she's buried beneath her numbness.

For now, she doesn't dig it up.

She reaches the archives that smell of dust and age and things forgotten. Shelves are cluttered with scrolls and leather-bound books. Finding the room devoid of another soul, Alicia begins her search by sifting through books and papers, trying to understand the words the queen spoke. If the historian who works here really is a doctor of some sort, then he must have left evidence of his work.

Alicia pauses as she eyes the stone floor. Kneeling, she trails her fingers along the scrapes in the stone before lifting her gaze to the bookshelf beside her. She stands and begins searching the bookshelf.

The only thing out of place on the cluttered shelf is the neatly placed statue of the Reaper with his cowl and the raven perched on his arm. Alicia's fingers stretch towards it, but she pauses, hesitant to touch the statue.

She spent two years in the shadows of the Reaper, listening to his whispers in her ear as she carved her family's name into the streets of the slums. She vowed four years ago never to listen to those whispers again, to never again answer to the name given to her.

Alicia grabs the statue and twists. Something groans and then the bookshelf moves. Alicia shuffles back as it opens, revealing a space behind it. She sucks in a breath before slipping through the gap and into complete darkness, the shelf closing with a thud behind her.

Pressing darkness surrounds Alicia in the tunnel and she closes her eyes for a moment, her breaths loud in her ears with how close the walls are on either side of her shoulders. Her dark hair clings to the sweat on her forehead. Numbness makes her fingertips tingle and in that moment she forgets everything. Forgets she's the future queen. Forgets Reyna's wishes. Forgets everything she's doing is for her family and her redemption. She just freezes.

The last time she was in a tunnel like this, she wasn't alone. The man with the sterling eyes was with her, gripping her hand, an anchor in the abyss.

Shaking her head, Alicia buries her fear beneath her numbness alongside her grief and continues onward, thinking only of the secrets and lies that have been swirling around her for six years, secrets that got the princess exiled and the queen murdered.

The deeper she goes, the more light filters into the tunnel, washing the stone in a muted grey that leaves her eyes straining. The halls are dank and dark, the opulent carved arches of the palace giving way to narrow corridors and ancient stone.

Whatever this place is, it was built long before the palace above. Just like the walls of Muovea are really hiding a tomb beneath the city. This place even has the faint stench of decay that haunts her from her brief time within those walls.

Alicia halts when a noise reaches her, trickling through the stone. The clink of chains and something else. Perhaps the low growl of an animal.

She inches forward, the need for answers a dangerous thing that feels like a rope around her waist, tugging her along.

Light flows into the tunnel and Alicia pokes her head around the corner to see that the stone widens, becoming a room with sconces on the walls and bookshelves stuffed full.

Her heart rages against her ribs as she approaches the room, once again feeling like she's standing on the precipice of something. But this time she's utterly alone in her daunting discoveries.

She nearly turns back. Nearly runs to her room to drown herself in her grief and pretenses that Muovea isn't splitting at the seams. But she can't.

She owes it to the man who saved her life in those tunnels six years ago to find answers. She owes it to the queen. She owes it to her betrothed to find out why his mother died and his sister was exiled.

She owes it to Muovea for all she took from it during the war when she was a desperate girl in the slums.

Alicia advances and nearly chokes at what she sees. She hears the jangle of shackles before her eyes register the creature on the metal table before her, eyes of bright blue glaring at her with menace. The creature is corded with muscle but it still has the sickly pallor of a corpse, stringy hair clumped together and scalp bare in some places. Its grey skin strains over sharp bones, looking malnourished.

Surrounding the creature are tables filled with surgical instruments. One of the shelves is clustered with jars, and as Alicia nears she's horrified to see the jars are brimming with blacked organs. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, Alicia tries to stifle the urge to be sick.

The creature huffs behind her and Alicia swings her gaze back to it, more questions surfacing than ever.

It's the same creature as those she discovered in the tomb six years ago. And this doctor is experimenting on it.

Footsteps in the hall behind her echo in the quiet room. Alicia's heart leaps into her throat and she dives to the ground to roll beneath the shelf of jars. It's a tight squeeze and her chest presses to the cold ground, her lungs struggling to expand.

Two sets of boots appear and she spies them from under the shelf.

"The faceless queen managed to control an entire army of these things, and you're telling me you can't find out how she did that," someone is saying and Alicia swallows as she recognises the grand duke's smooth voice.

"Sir, might I remind you that the faceless queen is just a story."

"Ghuls were just a story, and now we have an entire tomb of them," Sergey replies, his voice tight with anger. "The Reaper's Curse was just a story and now it's breathing down our necks as walking corpses. Find a way to control the Ghuls."

"I need more time—"

"We don't have time, especially not after Samantha stole the Sandian tome."

Alicia's eyes widen and she has to keep her teeth clenched together to stop herself from gasping. They can't possibly mean the tome that belonged to Elena? That the grand duke married her for?

"That's exactly my point. Progress was already slow trying to translate the tome, but now without it..." The other man that Alicia assumes is the doctor trails off and she can imagine Sergey cutting into him with that green stare of his that's always made Alicia's skin crawl.

He isn't a man to be argued with.

"You best be working through the night then."

"Yes, sir," the doctor mutters and Alicia watches as the grand duke turns on his heel and leaves.

The doctor stays.

Alicia closes her eyes for a brief moment, listening to the doctor flip through pages and the sounds of the Ghul's heavy breaths.

She needs to get out of here. She needs to find the rebels, tell them that the grand duke is searching for a way to control these creatures and that if he succeeds...

Alicia remembers the tomb like it's burned into the backs of her eyelids. There had been hundreds of them down there. Hundreds of seemingly immortal monsters, lying in wait for someone to seize control of them. That person can never be Sergey Volkov.

With her breath feeling like shards of glass in her throat, Alicia slips out from under the shelf, the doctor's back to her. His grey hair is a frizzy mess from having fingers yanked through it too much and the droop in his shoulders shows his life bent over books and tables. The man is small, dwarfed in a white coat.

Incapacitating him should be easy. It should be, except it's been four years since Alicia wore her crimson scarf and adopted the name of the Reaper's beloved creature.

As she approaches the doctor, her fingers tingling, her mouth becoming so dry it hurts to swallow, the clank of chains sounds beside her. She starts as the creature on the table growls and lurches towards her, barely moving an inch, but it's enough to draw the attention of the doctor.

The doctor turns as Alicia freezes. His eyes latch on her, widening in shock and... recognition. Before he can even utter a word, Alicia's hand blindly reaches for one of those grotesque jars on the shelf and she sends it arcing through the air. The jar shatters against his head in a spray of glass and discoloured liquid. He crashes against the table before thumping to the ground.

Alicia heaves in a breath but chokes on it when the foul stench of whatever was in that jar clogs her airways. She buries her nose and mouth in her elbow, eyes watering as she tries not to wretch.

The creature beside her yanks against its chains again, startling Alicia into motion. She steps over the unconscious doctor and goes straight to his desk.

Whatever he's working on with the grand duke, Alicia needs to know about it. The queen knew it would be something dangerous and if they're searching for a way to control an army of undead monsters... Alicia shudders to think what Sergey plans to do once he has control.

He already plunged Muovea into war once, bringing the Reaper's Curse knocking on their walls while destroying two other countries. What more could he do with such an army?

Alicia inspects a thick, leather bound book that lays open on the table, the pages cluttered with slips of paper and grainy photographs. She flips through it, recognising some of the writing from what Elena showed her. The writing appears to be copied from the ancient tome her grandfather had, the tome that Elena gave to the grand duke in exchange for a better life.

The tome that Samantha stole.

Beneath the copied sections are translations as well as scientific squabble that she barely understands. It claims the Ghuls have regenerative abilities, that even after the harvesting of organs, the creature still lives.

After witnessing what she did in the tomb, Alicia already knows such a thing to be true.

But there's more, writings about the creation of Ghuls but they've only been half translated. The blood is the key... ancient ritual... the gods are screaming.

"The Faceless queen and her army of immortal warriors," Alicia murmurs, recalling the old traveller stories. The woman founded Muovea, spent her entire life creating her army then building their tomb. Her path was of blood and war so those that came after her wouldn't have to endure what she had.

Yet look where they are now.

Alicia tucks the notebook into the waistband of her trousers before she turns to the Ghul chained to the table. Alicia doesn't know if it feels pain, if it's aware of the horrific things that have been done to it, but she can only hope it isn't aware when she glances at that shelf filled with its blackened organs.

Even wild animals deserve mercy.

With fingers that tremble, Alicia picks up a knife from the doctor's table of instruments and approaches the Ghul who stares at her with those vibrant blue eyes.

She remembers pulling the blade from the Ghul's head in the tomb and how such a thing awoke it. Their slumber is only temporary, but maybe Alicia can give this creature a moment of peace.

Before Alicia can even lift the blade, the Ghul's cracked lips curl back from its blackened teeth, like a demented smile.

She freezes, her heart seeming to stutter to a halt in her chest as the Ghul stares into her eyes.

"The queen will rise," it rasps with a voice so papery thin it's hardly a whisper.

A cry welling in her throat to hear such a creature talk to her, Alicia plunges the knife into its skull before it can utter another damning word. Alicia watches with her breath frozen in her lungs as the Ghul gnashes its teeth before stilling and its icy eyes close.

With that book burning a hole into her skin and the Ghul a slumped mass of greying flesh, Alicia makes her escape, not wanting to push her luck too far.

She needs to contact the rebels. She needs to warn them the duke is trying to find a way to control an army of immortal warriors.

She needs to go back home.