Minutes passed in shared silence as the two continued their descent into the depths, though it was not tense despite the grim subject of their previous conversation. Alarion had said his piece and answered her questions. When they stopped coming, he had nothing more to say on the matter.

For her part, Sierra seemed at a loss for words.

Alarion was not one for small talk. He could be a fountain of questions, mostly those of a purely practical purpose, but with no stimulus to provoke him on the Endless stairwell, the young man was content to keep to himself. In the dozens of hours he'd spent with Sierra since his arrival at the Trinity Isles, he'd only spent a handful of minutes truly expressing himself.

And most of those had been on that very staircase.

As the minutes wore on, it became clear that Alarion would be happy to walk in silence.

Sierra was not.

"I was born in Vitria," Sierra said, her eyes straight ahead as they walked. "You probably guessed that, even if not all of us were. My family has a villa on the north shore, just off the water. A beautiful place, far removed from the busiest parts of the city. Or at least it was. The city gets more crowded every year."

Though he'd appeared lost in thought as Sierra spoke, Alarion had been listening well enough to ask, "Is the island so small that you're running out of room?"

"You have it backward," Sierra laughed, some of the tension of their earlier conversation melting away. "The island is large, but the city is just as big. It is not the largest in the world; that honor would go to the Bizarre, or perhaps Throne, or Null, or the Century Cities if you lumped them together. Even so, Vitri is enormous. If you count the merchant cities, it certainly rivals any in the world."

Alarion gave her a blank look.

"Only Vitrians can own land in the city itself," she explained. "But the Empire has so much wealth that cities sprang up on the continent, just across the Gateway Bridge. Even on the bridge."

That last seemed to spark something in the young man, his expression contorting as he tried to visualize it. "How would that…?"

"You will see one day, I am sure of it," Sierra replied before returning to her original train of thought. "I am also an only child. The only one who lived long enough to be named, in any case. Though my father recently adopted Emmaline. She is my… cousin? I think."

"Sounds lonely," Alarion observed.

Sierra thought about his words for a short while before she replied.

"In some fashion, if perhaps not in the way you think. My mother was always there when I was young. Or a nanny, anyway. Once I was old enough to leave the house and attend secta, I was everyone's friend. That was lonely in its own way."

"Hmm?"

"My father is the second seat in the House of Sorrow," she said, to another blank look on Alarion's face. "Which I now realize means nothing to you. Did they teach you anything?"

"Reading, math, and language skills mostly," He replied. "They didn't have enough time for anything else."

"And they did not even do a good job with the language, leaving the rest to me," she scowled. "All Vitrians belong to one of the seventy-seven houses. You know this much, yes?"

Alarion nodded.

"And do you know the difference between a house and a family? Or a branch family?"

This time, he shook his head.

"It is a common misconception among outsiders that the houses are families. They are not," Sierra explained. "My family, the Feln household, is one of hundreds of families that make up the House of Sorrow. We are a founding household, meaning my family has been part of the House of Sorrow since its inception. Other families have moved from one house to another, or branched out with a different name for various reasons."

"Okay…" Alarion said with a considerable lack of conviction. "So… a house is a family within a family. But not necessarily related?"

"Correct. Though most are related, if only distantly. The original seventy-seven were closer to tribes or clans, usually composed of a close-knit family group that has only grown over time."

"So what is a second seat?"

"That is simpler. Each of the seventy-seven houses has seven seated members that serve as representatives to the nation. The houses select them differently, but typically by some combination of politics, background, rank, aptitude, experience, and other minor factors. These five hundred and thirty-nine make up the political body of Vitria. When an Imperator dies or abdicates, the Seated select a new one. They codify new laws and clarify existing ones. They hold hearings and tribunals. In short, they handle the day-to-day business of Empire."

"So, your father is powerful?"

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Sierra scoffed. "Physically, not at all. At least not for a Seated Vitrian. His induction was scholastic, not military, and he never cared much for personal power. He does not need to, because no one would challenge him directly."

Alarion mulled over what she'd said until a question came to his mind. "Your father is of the House of Sorrow, but you're part of Elena's House of Hunger."

"A Vitrian's house is matrilineal." When that word flew over Alarion's head, she quickly simplified. "Your house is always that of your mother, to avoid confusion about the father being unknown or disputed. My mother was of the House of Hunger, but given my father's prominence, he is expected to adopt me into the House of Sorrow at twenty-one, when I am old enough to be seated."

"Ah," Alarion replied. It made sense.

"That is also why some houses show such interest in you," Sierra commented with a tone that Alarion had not yet heard and did not like. "Your children would be born into their house with no adoption or other legal wrangling."

"You were telling me about how you grew up," Alarion reminded her, deftly changing the subject.

"Mm," she replied, to his growing annoyance. "My father's reputation preceded me everywhere. There were always expectations from my tutors. My peers were no better. Some were at odds with my father, making us de facto enemies without exchanging a spoken word. Others were sycophants, interested in only what could be obtained from remaining in my orbit. There were some, I am sure, who were sincere, but to separate them was nigh impossible."

"That sounds difficult."

Sierra met his eyes, searching for mockery in their violet depths.

"I mean it," Alarion said, even as he withered under her gaze and looked away. "Trust is important."

"Eventually, it became easy to tell who was fraudulent. After my uncle-"

Sierra's words died in her throat as she squinted, then looked to Alarion. He was looking back at her, and she could see the same relief in his eyes.

They could see the bottom.

"Thank the mothers," Sierra breathed. Even with her Awakened physiology, her legs were on fire. Alarion had not complained, but she could only imagine how much worse it had been for him, trying to keep pace.

Clearly not bad enough, given how the young man abruptly rushed ahead, taking stairs two or three at a time in his desire to be back on flat ground.

"Alarion!" she snapped. Her words caught him mid-stride as she quickened her steps to close the distance. "We go together. We do not know what is down here."

"Mm," he nodded in chagrined apology.

Even with the end in sight, it took the pair two more minutes to reach the foot of the stairs. When they did, they were taken aback.

What had looked like a fairly simple landing from the stairwell turned out to be a cyclopean cavern that dwarfed the room from which they'd not so recently departed. Perhaps a mile in width and half again in length, the walls of the cavern were covered in the same glowing sigils that had doggedly pursued the pair down the whole of the stairwell, though the intensity of the light dimmed dramatically as it sought the far end of the room. That side of the chamber was a tangle of switchback fortifications. It was as though someone had taken some ancient castle from the world above and dropped it down amid a cave a league beneath the surface.

The battlements were odd. Festooned with iconography that neither Alarion nor Sierra recognized, the many-layered walls were made of sloped metal and seemed designed to be severed from one another, for soldiers to retreat in the face of a breach to stronger and stronger fortifications, in hopes of outlasting even the most vicious attempt to storm their defenses.

Judging by the plethora of shattered gates and torn metal that Alarion could see, even at a distance, the defenders had made use of every inch of the facility.

"What… is this?" Sierra asked. She looked to Alarion for answers, then clearly thought better of it as she scanned the ruined fortress again. "What could have even built all of this?"

Rather than answer her, Alarion walked toward the ruined fortress, his shrunken greatsword now in hand. Despite her misgivings, Sierra once again fell into step beside him.

As they grew closer, the signs of battle became more and more clear. Given the damage to the fortress, this was to be expected, but expectations did nothing to ease the discomfort of walking across a field of shattered bones.

"Fiends?" Alarion asked.

"They would have to be," Sierra agreed. Most fiends destroyed during a subjugation were burned afterwards, meaning she'd never seen one after it had decomposed. Despite that, it was hard to imagine that anything else could have left corpses with such distinctly inhuman proportions in such large numbers.

The trail of bodies continued into the fortress's ruined main gate, but curiously, there were no signs of the defenders. There had been a battle, and its impact was evident in every bit of scorched metal, every claw mark on rusted steel hinges. Fiends might have taken the bodies in victory, but there was no torn armor, discarded weapons, or spent arrows.

It was as though someone, or something, had systematically removed all evidence of one side of the conflict. Stranger still were the bodies of the fiends, their desiccated remains shot through with holes larger than Alarion's fist. Some had been killed with a single precision strike, while others had been peppered with a haphazard array of wounds.

"None of this is right," Sierra murmured once again. She had been making similar statements since they'd reached the landing, her nerves fraying further with every new oddity.

They advanced further through the garrison's chaotic weave. Twice, they had to double back as their path simply ended or circled in upon itself. In one instance, they forwent trying to find the correct path and instead vaulted a wall for the sake of expediency. Their eventual destination was clear. The fortress was structured like a pyramid, with each set of walls and fortifications creeping higher and higher on the far end of the cavern.

And at the top, a single, unbroken door set into the stone.

Ultimately, it took them longer to navigate the confusing mess of the defenses than it had taken to cross the enormous distance from the stairway to the fortress. Constructed by a genius, it would have been a nightmare to assault conventionally, without the aid of magic.

As a fiend might.

Eventually, the two stood upon the pinnacle, exchanging glances in front of an odd doorway built into the cave wall. Three times the height of a normal door and twice again as wide, it loomed over the pair as they stood before it.

"Is this what the revenant wants?" Alarion asked. "For us to open this door?"

"Who knows?" Sierra replied, "I do not see it here. Or any other way out. Nor do I think I would leave this place without answers, even if I could."

"Well then, we should find out how to-" As if reading his thoughts, the odd metal slid noiselessly upwards at Alarion's approach. "-open it."

The far side of the door was a white void that seemed to stretch on forever.

"A portal," Sierra said with a hint of wonder. "I have never seen one but have read about them."

"Is it safe?"

"Is anything here safe?" Sierra stepped toward it, her outstretched fingers stopping shy of the threshold. "It is safe to use. What is on the other side… impossible to say."

The girl paused, looking from the portal to Alarion and then back again before she asked, "Together?"

"Mm," Alarion nodded, and the pair stepped into the void.

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