The snap-snap of fingers brought Estera back from the abyss of unconsciousness. Her eyes shrunk at the bright light bulb dangling above her head like a call to heaven, and Magnus bent at the waist, searching her face. In the dark corner stood the outline of someone she couldn't recognize, and when she tried to move, her limbs wouldn't budge. Glancing down, she found them bound to the rigid, wooden seat she was in.

"What do you have to say for yourself, Estera?"

"I... I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do." Rafi stepped forward, revealing himself and the rod in his hands.

"We know you lied about being from the west, and if you come clean, and tell us what happened to Samson, then this will all remain between us," Magnus explained.

"I don't know what you're talking about. Now release me!" She fought against the restraints causing the veins in her neck to bulge.

"Not until you confess." Rafi twisted the end of the rod, creating a spark of electricity at the tip.

"What's that?" She drew back.

"Confess, and you won't have to find out." Rafi intensified the voltage. Her eyes darted to Magnus. "No, don't look at him. He won't help you."

"I don't know what you want me to say?"

Magnus turned away, and asked softly, "Why are you doing this, Estera? How can you look me in the eyes and lie?"

"I..."

"Samson saw you at the trading post talking to a southerner." He spun back around. "From the beginning, he knew something was off about you, but I didn't listen because I wanted to believe that you wouldn't lie to me. Yet here we are. My brother is dead, and you're lying to me."

"I don't know what you want-"

"Sounds like you could use a little motivation." Rafi paced forward and prodded her side, causing her spine to collapse as she seized in the chair. When the sharp ripple dissipated, her bladder emptied with a warmth coating her inner thighs. Glancing down, she heard the drip-drip of her urine leaking through the wooden chair and onto the cement floor.

"Zemora won't be happy about you soiling her dress," Rafi tisked.

"Raf..." Magnus cut his eyes at him

"What? She won't." He shrugged and turned to Estera. "Just a fair warning, the second time I shock you, it won't be urine that comes out."

"You think poking me with that thing will scare me?" she snorted. "You have no idea what I can endure."

"Because you're a warrior, right?" Magnus began pacing. "A warrior from the south. You know, I remember hearing stories about how kids are taught at a young age to fight - how by the time they turn eighteen, they're killing machines. So, my brother didn't stand a chance against you, did he? I bet he confronted you, and you killed him so he couldn't reveal the truth to everyone."

"No."

"No?" he repeated.

"I didn't kill him."

"Then what happened, Estera." Magnus crouched in front of her, his hands clasped in prayer. "Please. Please, just tell me."

Looking into his glossy eyes, her heart ached as if he'd reached inside her chest to squeeze every last beat from it.

"Please," he said again.

Next to him, Rafi tapped the rod against his palm with the lamplight casting sharp angles across his face. Swallowing down the mass in her throat, she blinked away tears - her thoughts racing about what would happen if she told the truth? She knew what the south would do. They would slaughter her as soon as they got the information they needed and leave her carcass for the vultures to feast on. She knew this because she had seen what became of those defeated in the fighting pit. It would've been her fate, had her grandmother, Agatha, not intervened.

However, the people of the north weren't that way. At least she hoped.

Exhaling slowly, she finally confessed.

"I... I am from the south," her voice rattled like a beetle's wings. "But I got expelled from my community after failing to defend it against someone who accosted my mother at a town meeting."

"Who's your mother?"

"Catalina Montenegro," she replied, and Magnus' expression melted into his neck. He staggered upright with hands going to his mouth before dragging them down as a moan bellowed out.

"You're the daughter of-"

Pain spread across his face like an ink drop in water, and it buried so deep inside Estera's ribs that she could feel them splintering with the anxiety of her betrayal. How many times had she fought in the pit? How many times had she watched her opponents crumble before her as she inflicted laceration, after laceration? Yet, their pain didn't amount to the kind she saw in Magnus.

Even Rafi stepped back to lean against the wall and rubbed his temples. His face was pale from the truth she'd revealed.

"So you're the daughter of the woman who had my mother murdered," Magnus croaked and tugged on his collar before clearing his throat. "As much as I don't want to, I need to hear the rest."

She took a deep breath. "When they exiled me, I had nowhere to go, so I headed north because I'd heard tales of your people being cannibals who practice witchcraft. I figured if I'd be safe anywhere, it would be with ones my people feared."

"So you're not a spy?"

"No, I'd never do someone's dirty work."

"But you do," Magnus replied. "They raised you in a fighting pit doing the dirty work that your leaders couldn't do themselves."

"They raised me like a warrior!"

"Warrior. Murderer. Assassin for hire. It's all the same, and it's why you killed my brother without a second thought."

"No!"

"Then what?"

"It was an accident."

"Lies," Rafi chimed in, but Magnus held up his finger.

"I know you were there. You smelled like the woods the night he died, and you only get that smell from going outside of the walls. You smelled like that last night too. What did you do, go back to the scene of the crime? Stand around reveling in your latest kill?"

"No."

"Then what!" he barked.

"Yes, I followed him out there, and I saw him with his friends, but I did not kill him. He saw me. He attacked me. I ran, but I couldn't see through all the trees or the dirt he threw in my face. Next thing I know he's snatching me by the shirt, but I spun out of the way and shoved him. And that's when..."

"You pushed him over the cliff."

"No," her voice cracked, and tears began filling her eyes as she relived the memory of his scream. Except she couldn't slap her hands over her ears to make the invisible sound stop. "It all happened so fast. I didn't even see the cliff, and I think he was trying to stop me from going over when he grabbed my shirt. I think he was trying to save me."

"Why were you even following him?"

"Because I needed to figure out how to get his fangs out of my neck - prevent him from outing me."

Magnus approached and crouched. "Well, maybe you shouldn't have lied about where you're from? Perhaps if you were honest from the start, we would've accepted you."

"No, you wouldn't have. You said so yourself, I'm the daughter of the woman who murdered your mother. There's no way you would've accepted me if I told you who I am."

"And that's all you wanted, acceptance? I'm not buying it." Rafi cut in. "What did you talk about with your little southern friend at the trading post?"

"Nothing."

"Shall I poke you again?" Rafi twisted the end of the rod, increasing the voltage.

"No!"

"Then, just tell us, Estera," Rafi replied, and when she looked at Magnus, her tears finally spilled over the embankment.

"Please know that what I originally wanted, and what I want now, has changed."

"Stop stalling," Rafi said.

"I'm not!" She glared. "Dev figured out that I'm here, and he told my mother."

"Dev?" Magnus asked.

"The man Samson saw me talking to."

"And who is he? Someone important?"

"He's a warrior. One of the best. I was one of the best too, and he and I would've become partners - or married, as northerners call it."

"I see." Magnus inhaled sharply. "And I'm guessing you still have feelings for him."

"No...yes." She shook her head. "It's complicated because he turned his back on me, but he was following our laws. And when he saw me at the trading post and figured out I've been living here, it was like he forgot all about throwing me out of the gates. Like he forgot that he ever betrayed me, and I foolishly told him about my plan to take this place from you."

"Your plan?" Magnus' eyebrows flew to his hairline.

"Like I said, what I wanted then, is not what I want now, and in the beginning, I thought if I gained power here, then it would prove to everyone how wrong they were for casting me out."

"Did you sabotage tower two, and our cameras?" Rafi asked.

"What? No." She furrowed her brows. "How could I? I was in the Weather Room during that storm!"

"Then what about me?" Magnus asked. "Was part of your plan to seduce me? Did you think I'd hand this place over to you if you succeeded? Was any of it real?"

"Yes."

"Which parts!"

"The part where I care about you," she admitted.

"See, I don't believe you, and I think it's time I tell my father what's going on."

As he turned to leave, she screamed, "But they're coming!"

"Who's coming?" He paused at the jail cell door.

"My mother and an army. I know this because last night, I went into the forest, to the spot where you found me, and I met with Dev. He said they're coming here to take this place. To finally conquer it."

For the first time since meeting him, she watched his face harden for her like the cold masonry that surrounded them. He was often serious, yes, but never was his expression ever bitter towards her, and at the moment, his glare was an ice pick stabbing into the glacier surrounding her heart.

"Do it." He nodded.

"Do what?" Her eyes followed his line of sight, and she gulped as Rafi walked forward with the rod. "No. Please don't!"

The pleas fizzled in her mouth as she felt the electricity radiate outwards in a pulse that lured a haze of clouds until her vision was black.

∆∆∆

The next time she awoke, it was to the strike of a match. She blinked to focus on the figure sitting in a chair in the cell's corner. The slight flicker of light illuminated Jupiter's face as he brought the match to a cigar, took a few puffs and made the amber end glow. She shivered as a breeze from somewhere caused the urine-soaked dress to graze her legs in a cold caress.

"My son says you confessed about what happened with Samson." He blew out a smoke ring. "You say it was an accident, and I'm inclined to believe you, even if he doesn't. Want to know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I already knew you aren't a westerner, and you've been doing a poor job of behaving like one."

"What?"

"Surprised?" He blew out another smoke ring. "I'm not. I knew it was only time before the south made a move for us. Especially after we sent your mother and her army back where they came from with tails tucked. Not to mention how, because we won, we got to set the rules for the territories. We got to create the trading posts as neutral ground. We got to spread stories about witchcraft and cannibalism to keep the next generation at bay. So, I've gotta hand it to your mother for trying again, but she won't win."

"I can help you defeat her."

"We don't need your help," he chuckled.

"I'm a warrior. I know how my people fight. I can teach your people their weaknesses."

"Foolish. Just like your mother..." he tutted.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go on." He nodded.

"If you figured me out, why didn't you confront me?"

"You know what they say: keep your enemies close."

"Wait..." Her eyes searched the ground. "Is that why you moved me into your apartment?"

"Bingo," he winked, making a finger-gun.

"When did you know?"

"The very next day when I walked you through town. The west doesn't build homes on the beach out of sand bricks. They need their shores to park their boats. Also, you're the spitting image of a young Catalina. The way you walk, talk and observe people. Even your arrogance is alike."

"What will become of me now?" she sniffed back new tears.

"I haven't decided yet."

"Does Magnus really not believe Samson's death was an accident?"

"Can you blame him? You've been using him, and now he feels like a fool who's lost his brother all because he chose a girl over his own blood."

"But you believe me?"

"I'm not sure yet, but what I know is that your mother has only ever cared about one thing: power. I can imagine how hard it must've been to spend your life trying to please her, only then to have her cast you out. So, you're a victim, and because I'm a father, I can't help but feel bad for you."

"For what it's worth, I am sorry about Samson, and I'm prepared to face my death if that's what you choose for me."

Jupiter stood and stubbed his cigar out on the wall of the jail cell. "I have much to consider, and now a war to prepare for, but I'll be back."

Before leaving, he crossed the floor to stand directly in front of her, and with two fingers, moved the collar of her shirt aside.

"I noticed your birthmark that first day we spent together. Remind me when this is over, to tell you about your father."

At those words, he exited the cell with the door screeching as he locked it in place while taking one last look at her. Then the tap of his boots faded as he disappeared from sight, and while Estera sat there in the drafty darkness, her chest shuddered with every breath she released.

Now she was truly on her own in the world and with no one to blame but herself.