RYSON FELT THE whip fire across his back, but that was not the source of his agony. Agony came in the form of energy, a potent concentration of cien that washed through his veins from the stone of the medallion.

It wasn't a physical pain, but fractures that traveled deeper. His mind ripped into flashing images of a past he had forgotten and secrets he'd hoped would perish with it. The cien was waking up parts of himself that he'd thought dead for years.

He breathed in through his teeth, struggling to ground his mind in the pain.

What's your name, Ryson? his cien chided, coaxing him into the oblivion of the past, guiding him to remember himself. The empty gap of his soul now sang with a deep and insufferable longing.

The whip broke across his back again and the room spun. His cien circled the room, pacing behind his captors, faceless now in the darkness. Ryson hoped to lose consciousness, unable to trace the direction of events that were rapidly taking shape.

The medallion is giving you one last chance to wake up and fix all of this.

The soldier behind him tossed the whip to the ground. They threw him on his back. His cien now crouched beside him.

They are beating you like a dog. What's your name, Ryson?

The soldier kicked Ryson in the ribs, and he coiled up, hearing the bones crack. They clicked back together again inside his body.

Aren't you tired? his cien whispered. Aren't you so tired? You don't need to completely give in. That's not what I'm asking—just let go, just let go a little. What's your name, Ryson? You've been holding your breath for years, just inhale, just one breath of life.

The two enemy soldiers spoke with one another. The one closest to the exit laughed and tossed the second soldier his spear. Shortly after, the first near the exit shouted an order, and a guard outside closed and locked the steel door.

Ryson watched the second soldier, now just a dark figure, draw back the spear to strike him.

What's your name? his cien asked.

Suddenly, Ryson forgot that he had one at all.

* * *

Clea could not touch the fork. It lay next to a porcelain plate rimmed with gold, and despite her hunger, she didn't have the stomach to eat. She glanced at the hamper near the door. Inside was her dagger, her clothes, the bags they had traveled with, but still there was no medallion. It had been very obviously rummaged through, and it had taken the servants several hours to gather it all from the soldiers.

She leaned down and blew out the candle on the table, and in the dimness of her bedroom, she closed her eyes. She could still feel the presence of the medallion. It was getting stronger or she was simply regaining more of her ability to sense presences. She wasn't sure, but she was short on time.

The medallion was deep in the castle, pulsing like a beating heart, pulsing almost in joy of freedom from her restrictive presence. What would it do? Clea could only imagine the horrors it was capable of if given the time. While in Virday, it had needed to overcome the barrier of Veilin to exert its influence, but what about here? The very bricks of this castle were stained with cien. It lined the walls, like curses had built this place. Maybe they had.

She turned, still deep in thought, as she approached her bed. Her things had been packed and tucked beneath it.

The bed's framework was like most things in her bedroom, in the sense that it boasted the carefulness of the designer's hands. Scarlet draped the bed's skeleton. The legs sat upon a marble platform with a short obsidian stairway leading down into the main part of the room.

She would try and escape tonight, tracking the medallion through the hallways. She needed more time to restore her ansra, but the medallion's threat outweighed the risks.

The door opened as if in pursuit of the thought, and guards followed two maids inside, one of whom held a silver tray and a glass. Clea eased back against the bedframe, knowing that these determined maids wouldn't think twice about accomplishing whatever it was they'd arrived for.

Instead of grabbing for her, in the presence of the guards, they offered the small glass.

It was more of the sleeping tonic, and Clea stared as it lingered between them, unnerved by the timeliness of its arrival.

They knew she wouldn't be able to sleep without it, because they knew that no Veilin would be able to achieve real rest in a place like this. This was a small sign, perhaps one of many, that this room had been inhabited by several Veilin before her. Maybe one or two of them had worn the exact same red dress she'd had on earlier that day.

Clea was disgusted, and wanted to flip the silver tray in front of her audience. Her mind raced for ways to avoid taking it as she glanced at the guards and resisted looking at the door.

They nudged the glass toward her and she refused to take it.

Ryson had urged compliance, but she couldn't do this.

The maids nudged again as the guards encroached on her.

She took the glass in her fingers, dropping it on the floor in hopes that they'd perceive it as an accident. The guards lunged for her as it spilled across the marble. The maids leapt upon her next. Clea prepared a blessing, but there it was, that stifling cloth, pressed into her face. As she struggled, she held her breath, casting one maid off with a shield and then another. She tore the cloth from her face, collapsing against the bedpost as she tried to breathe clean air.

Her head already swam and she struggled to get back up, but they were on her again. Hands without faces grabbed and wrestled, ruthless, unforgiving, reaching hands.

A powerful wave of powerlessness washed over her.

It was the first feeling she woke up with the following day.

She didn't move when her eyes opened, positioned in the bed, tucked in like she'd chosen to sleep there. There was despair and fire in her blood, her mind arrested by the struggles of the previous night, but her ansra more restored than it had been in years.

She focused on that.

The castle pulsed with powerful, resounding energies and intentions. She could sense them all mingling as she sat up in bed, captured in a community of darkness.

She slipped from the bed in a long nightgown, approaching a small stone window in the corner and looking out. It was already noon, and the forests vibrated with darkness. Whispers of it resounded through the hallways, stronger than anything of the like she'd felt before, and glancing into a mirror, she saw a version of herself she had forgotten could exist.

Her eyes and skin had a brightness to them she'd forgotten, for not only was she recovering power that she'd hardly had the chance to use in months, but it seemed that she'd also grown stronger.

Looking into the mirror, with long, curly hair casting down over her shoulders, she was struck with an image of her mother.

A powerful surge of revived determination flooded her body, and she rose to the challenge as she heard the maids' feet scuffling toward her from outside. The servants were back with their tight, sallow faces and their ruddy, burgundy clothes. They circled her as they entered and closed the door behind them. The first had a series of devices used to mark and measure the radiance of her skin, and then two more wheeled in a cart full of cloth strips and layers of clothes.

Clea allowed them to move her like a doll, her mind locked onto a new future she was determined to create for herself. She wasn't just powerful now. She was more powerful than she had ever been.

She thanked the sleeping tonic as they took measurements of her body. She thanked the medallion for how it's challenges had strengthened her as they matched jewels and pieces of clothing with her skin. She thanked the humiliation, watching her eyes in the mirror as they violently cinched a corset tight around her ribs.

She thanked all of the adversity for the renewed strength in her blood.

She planned her escape.

Clea's broken understanding of Kaletik told her that the maids were experimenting with her clothing for the auction tomorrow night. She was the prize of the auction, but that didn't matter.

Tonight was her night. She would find the medallion. She would escape.

Clea patiently bided her time as the maids compared and exchanged materials, dressing her, doing her hair, and painting her face. After several hours, the look that materialized made their intentions clear.

A silken white and gold garb covered her entire body, feathered down the back. It was tight, illuminant, and rich with fur that lined the depth of the neckline. Symbols in the garb were a nod to the Lodain crest. She was being positioned as a representation of royalty and hope. Her own people had poised her as a sign of hope, and now she was meant to be a rare and coveted object. Perhaps the two weren't so different after all.

The similarities of the feeling struck her with a violent stab of emotion. Clea restrained the surge of isolation as the maids worked her hair into strings of pearls and golden clips. In Loda, she'd worn robes that hid any semblance of a human figure. Her body was a myth if not a mystery, but the use of white and gold and light had all been the same.

Clea wondered then if her parents had also sold her in such a way. After her brother's death, such use of symbols had become impossible to escape, but even before it, she and Ian had complained to each other about how stifling their parents demands to represent hope could be. It had been Ian who had once compared it to prostitution. She'd thought him awful then, and unable to take on the mantle of royalty, but now she understood. She understood him and missed him more than ever.

The servants stepped back and observed her. They spoke to one another with satisfaction. Two left as the final one sat Clea down, finished her hair, and painted her eyes. By the time she was done, red light of the sunset filtered in through the window.

Clea did not recognize herself when the maid stepped out of the way of the mirror. As she looked into her reflection, she saw what many others surely saw. Beauty and luminance, but in a way that made her feel a step removed from herself. She didn't look real. Now, she too wore the face of the forest.

The maid waited for the others to return as if to get final opinions.

They did not come back.

The maid paced anxiously for a few minutes. At last, she stepped out, spoke to the guards, and then left, leaving Clea sitting alone in the chair.

Staring into the mirror, Clea counted down the minutes to darkness.

A sound outside made her jolt.

The maid had left the door cracked, perhaps with some intention of returning after a few short minutes. Through that window, Clea saw the bodies of her guards lying across the stone.

She slipped the golden heels from her feet and eased toward the doorway. The guards were lying unconscious outside. She looked down the hallways, sensing a heaviness in the air.

Something was wrong.

This was her chance.

Clea rushed back into the room, pulling her bag out from under the bed and slipping her boots on. She stuffed her clothes into her bag and stepped out into the hallway.

Her heart pounded as she snuck through the silence, finding herself at the first staircase in less than a minute. She descended it carefully, and for what seemed like hours, navigated the castle that by all appearances was sleeping.

Clea could feel the medallion's power growing as she tracked it, and it reminded her of when she'd taken it from King Oden of Virday in his sleep. Its power had been strong. In Virday, it had been feeding off King Oden for months. It hadn't had long enough to attach to a new host, had it? Whatever it had found, it shared a striking compatibility with them.

She slowed as she reached the final stairway. She knew at a glance that it didn't lead to the treasury. By all appearances, it seemed to be the way to the dungeon, and the medallion pulsed inside.

More guards lay unconscious on the stairs. With a timid foot, she nudged a helmet. The guard's head rolled to the side, but she did not awaken. Maybe one of the guards had taken the medallion when they'd rummaged through her things? Clea could only hope that whatever had happened, the thief was unconscious like the rest.

She pulled a knife from one of the guards before she descended down the stairs to the dungeon, holding fast to that hope.

The dungeon was a dim place, lit by only a few torches. More guards, all previously standing before the cells, were lying on top of one another. Clea felt the presence of the medallion draw her forward to a bolted door at the far end of the hallway.

Glowing eyes stared back at her from the corners of the cells. The creatures, large or small, beast or Kalex, watched her. Those that weren't unconscious seemed highly disturbed. One behind her cawed. In response, one to her left released a low growl. Another released a bark, another a howl and a squeal. Babbling in foreign tongues erupted from other cells. The nearer she drew to the final bolted door, the louder the beasts grew, until many of them were beating on the cages and screaming. Some tried to reach their hands or claws through the bars toward her, while others gripped them and shrieked through them.

Clea remained focused on the door until she was right before it. It was fashioned from thick layers of rust-coated iron. One lock was still done. It sat right above the handle. She examined the door, and unsure of what awaited her, she attempted to ignore the frantic calling and beating of the prisoners. She undid the lock from the outside, and the loud clang silenced the entire dungeon. As if every one of them had vanished, the prison became as quiet as a winter night.

The unnatural cold of the door handle sent shivers down her spine, and she could almost feel her body temperature dropping.

Clea forced the door open with a single, violent jolt.

Emptiness. The presence of the medallion vanished in a blink.

Two soldiers lay on the floor, their fresh blood still making its way through the cracks in the stone beneath them. Bent shackles were sprawled across the cell.

Her heart pounded. She took a breath and swallowed as she closed her eyes, trying to retrace the medallion's presence, but just as she did, a hand landed on her ankle and she jolted back.

The guard at her feet let her go, unconscious again.

She turned and walked sharply to the exit of the dungeon, refocusing again as she traced the presence once more. The medallion was already several floors above her. Had she misread the location? It had begun to permeate the castle so heavily that it was becoming more and more difficult to pinpoint the source.

Clea slipped from the dungeon and into the nearest room as she heard new guards storming the castle, racing up the stairs as if in pursuit of the medallion as well. She remained tucked away in one corner or another as she made her way up one staircase and then the next, sitting quietly in the dark of nearby rooms as she tried to understand the chaos that after several minutes settled into another bout of silence.

The medallion's power was radiant now. Clea traced its core through waves of cien that sunk the castle in a dark and frightening mire.

The ansra in her body churned in anticipation of battle, a battle that seemed to be shaping up for what could be the fight of her life.

She stopped at the base of the final staircase. There were no sounds, and in the darkness, she had to rely on the sense of her ansra more than anything else. It was a light she'd missed for so long, but the stronger it blazed, the darker everything else seemed.

Clea started up the stairway that reached like open jaws. She slipped the knife through a strap of her corset. If she couldn't wrestle it off, at least it could be useful for something.

Her hands relaxed by her side. They were gentle, quiet weapons.

Steel wouldn't help her now, and escape wasn't an option.

Not yet.

The Deadlock Medallion, with all its untold secrets and the poison of its legacy, beckoned her. It represented all of her burdens for the past several years. It represented the death, the suffering, the oppression of The Decline. At the start of her journey, she'd been running from death, but in some ways, she now realized, she'd been running from her life.

She wouldn't run any longer.

In facing the medallion now, she faced all of it.