The sweet sting of a well-played note echoed down the hallways. Its successors lilted upward, the once sorrowful tune rising in hope as the song continued. It quickened and slowed, adjusting from moment to moment as the music wove a tale all its own. There was love lost, and solace gained, a story of the inexorable path of life moving ever onward.

Only to be cut tragically short by a note played horrifically off-key.

"Dammit," Alarion swore, barely resisting the urge to throw his bow out the open window.

Music was like that. Many things in life came easily to Alarion: language, combat, and meditation, among others. Music was not one of those things. Even the convoluted mess that was the Vitrian legal system felt less opaque than Sierra's handwritten music sheets.

Had it been anything else, he would have given up weeks ago, as he had the first time. But try as he might, Alarion had struggled to rid himself of the visions the True Heart had imposed upon him. He saw her in his dreams, smiling serenely as he played. He heard her whispers as he went about his day—the gentle affirmations and the desperate pleas alike. They had mixed with his genuine memories of her, always at the front of his mind, the moment he had time to think.

So he tried not to. Which had predictably failed.

Stop looking, stop thinking. Stay here. With me. With the music.

If you were… if things were different. I think I could fall for you. Maybe I already did.

Alarion shook his head and tried again.

The music had become as much meditation as it was tribute. Unlike the more common [Celesian Meditation] that focused on disconnecting from the outside world, Alarion's [Kel-Taran Meditation] welcomed the activity. The Kel-Taran monks who had developed the technique believed that attachment to, and interaction with, the world was vital to self-harmony and understanding. To sit idly, trying not to think, was to ignore one's problems. The Kel-Tarans believed in confronting their issues, observing them from every angle, coming to terms with why they were painful, to better expel them through active meditation.

It had helped, to an extent. His nightmares had dimmed, as had the worst of his self-loathing. He still heard her, though. And saw her. Never directly, of course. He wasn't crazy. It was always black hair in a crowd. A flash of silver on a belt, or Vitrian blue in a stranger's eyes, all gone as soon as he knew to look.

He felt closer to her through the music. Part of him wished he had taken up the bow earlier, but he'd been terrified, worried that opening that door would let in what he'd done his best to bury. But with the wound torn fresh by the True Heart, there was no time like the present.

Alarion drew a breath and set his bow, playing the first sorrowful notes anew before a harsh rapping on the door frame interrupted him.

"You have a visitor," Nurse Glass said with her usual gruff demeanor, her eyes locked hatefully on the cello in his grasp.

It was hard to fault her irritation. Listening to a complete amateur fumble through the learning experience must've been excruciating.

"Send them…" Alarion trailed off as the older nurse rolled her eyes and walked away. She'd given up waiting on him hand and foot after the first few days. As soon as he had been healthy enough to walk, she'd abandoned him almost entirely, save for his daily checkups.

The only reason he was still in the hospital at all was that they had nowhere else to put him. Ashad-Vitri was overflowing with refugees from the East, filling every inn, tavern, and grand hotel in the city. The local barracks and public housing had been filled to capacity, with tent cities popping up along the outer walls. About the only places that weren't full were wealthy private estates and the hospitals.

The fiends rarely left survivors.

He wondered how bad the situation must be in the Old City. The ruins were dangerous at the best of times, a haven for gangs, smugglers, and wildlife made toxic by the ruination.

A second knock brought Alarion back to the moment to find a very different woman standing in his doorway.

She was beyond beautiful. Tall and slender, her skin was porcelain pale, untouched by sun and impossibly smooth, as though she'd been sculpted rather than born. He'd have thought her Godborn like Kali, but her hair refuted that. It was jet-black and sharply cut, framing her face like a raven's wing—glossy and severe. She had painted her lips a passionate crimson, her Vitrian blue eyes shaded in thick liner that extended from the corners.

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Every inch of her struck him as deliberate, from the fashionably risqué cut of her dress to the warm smile on her lips, but what surprised him the most were her tattoos. Her chest and collarbone sported fiends battling one another in gray-scale, her right arm a horned woman engaged in an unseemly pose. These weren't the sort of random gibberish inked into the skin of half the Auxilia, but true art inked on a canvas of flesh. A provocation to anyone who saw her.

It was impossible to tell her age. Older than him, certainly, but whether it was five years or fifteen, Alarion could not tell. If anything, she looked outside of time, at once mature and youthful.

"You must be Alarion," she said, adjusting a pair of spectacles so thin they might've been invisible. "It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I am so sorry for the delay, but shipping caused… you do not care at all. My name is Lily Hart."

Alarion blinked, color rising to his cheeks as he realized how blatantly he had been staring. He knew that name, but from where?

"From the publicity bureau," she clarified helpfully.

"The-" he frowned, still in the dark for half a second before it finally clicked. "Lily!"

"That is me, yes," Lily smiled. "I heard you playing. Quite good, until it was not."

Alarion very much wished to curl into a ball and die.

"Again, I am sorry," she said, covering her laughter with a dainty hand. "I find levity does wonders at breaking the ice with new clients. But my tongue tends to be a bit… sharp."

With those words spoken, she stepped forward, offering the back of her wrist in both greeting and apology. Alarion looked at the offered hand and reluctantly raised his own, pressing it against hers.

"Lily Hart."

"Alarion."

"Mmm… see, that is something we will have to change," she said.

Alarion cocked an eyebrow. "My name?"

"Your names. You have too many of them. Alarion, Orphan, Two-Thirty-Eight. Titles are one thing. You can have as many of those as your herald is willing to shout; but having too many names dilutes your brand," she tsked. "There is a reason your patron goes by Ruin, and not Jeremiah."

"His name is Jeremiah?"

"I have no idea." Lily waved away the question as she moved to lean against the nearby window frame. "And the fact that I do not know is the point. You can remain Alarion to your friends, but to the public, I recommend the Orphan. It is catchy, memorable, and evocative. It makes you stand out, and will play well with the Vitrians."

"And Alarion will not?"

"Vitrians have familial names. Casually, I am just Lily, but in a formal setting, I am Lily Hart. We are proud of our heritage, and as a people, we look down on those without a lineage to name. Orphan speaks to your power and accomplishments, Alarion will make them think less of you."

"Mm."

"I do not, for the record. Think less of you, I mean. I am speaking descriptively, not prescriptively." Her hand stretched out the open window, casually moving from side to side in the cool breeze. "These are just facts. It is 23° outside, and Vitrians are snobs."

Alarion snorted a laugh despite himself.

"So you do have a sense of humor. Good, I was worried."

Alarion looked away as she paced past the window, the midday sun silhouetting the shape of her body through the breezy black fabric of her dress. If she noticed his discomfort, she was polite enough not to mention it as she continued her meandering around his hospital room.

"Cards on the table, I know you have a complicated history with Vitrians. Williams gave me access to every nonconfidential file the Auxilia has on you, and I had one of my assistants pull every bit of public reporting she could find. They paint a picture of a young man who has every incentive to hate the Empire," she said. "And absolutely no reason to trust me."

He said nothing, but his silence said everything.

"Do you know why they assigned me to this job?"

"Because it will be good for your career?"

A bright smile blossomed on red lips. "Mothers, no. It will be incredible for my career, but only because I am outstanding at my job. No, try again."

"Politics?"

"Closer," she said. "That explains why many in the bureau wanted no part of it. But not why they sent me specifically."

He stared blankly for a moment, then a thought occurred and Alarion activated [Observation].

[Human (?) - UCL ???]

Strongest Equipped Item: Rank II. Rare. Expected Loot: None.

ZEKE had warned Alarion early on to be careful with how he used [Observation]. Some cultures, though not Vitrians, considered it an insult to be the target of identification skills without permission, and there were plenty of ways to detect their usage. As a result, he had not made it a habit of identifying strangers, but he had still used the power on a large enough variety of targets to know what it meant when there was no expected loot.

"You are unawakened?" Alarion blurted out in surprise. "But you are a Vitrian."

"A failed one, if some of my cousins were to be believed," she told him, more detached than bitter. "But do not worry, they did not send me here because I am incompetent. I am very good at what I do. I just lack the status to be worthy of doing it for those who matter."

She was underselling the difficulties she faced, if Alarion had to guess.

He'd seen how Vitrian society treated the Ordinates, and even they still had Aptitude enough to Awaken. He knew of endless rumors about Vitrian houses that disposed of low-Aptitude infants. Though the behavior was considered infanticide, even in Vitria, Alarion had little doubt that it still occurred in secret.

He looked at her with fresh eyes, and this time he felt he understood her. She didn't look like Sierra or Elena, but that was by design. Her look was a mild rebellion, a refutation of expectation.

"You can trust me, because I have everything to gain from your success and a chip on my shoulder," Lily said. "But I will offer you more than that. The Empire pays my salary, but I work for you and the 238th. If you are ever dissatisfied with the quality of my representation, you are welcome to dismiss me."

Alarion felt a strong urge to do just that. This was no spur-of-the-moment conversation; no argument or misunderstanding had provoked it. She had arrived with the full intent of swaying him to her side. It felt unseemly, even manipulative. But it was working.

She really was good at her job.

"Welcome to the 238th," Alarion said.

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