I miss her. I miss her more than anything and I want to find her – to get her back.

I made a promise to my father. A promise that I broke because of a stupid plan that my idiotic, crazed, relentless...beautiful sister made. A plan that saved countless lives in exchange for her own capture. She's everything our mother would've loved to call her child, and though I'm more proud of her than I've ever been, I'm gonna kill her. I'm going to find her, I'm going to save her and hug her to pure torture, and then I'm going to kill her.

Evidently, there's a line forming for the chance to do all of that, but I'm at the front, so I get the first punch.

No one here is in the mindset for the failure of finding her, and for that, I couldn't have asked for more for her. We walked into this whole mess over two months ago thinking it'd be no more than another mission. We knew that our lives were at stake with Will involved, but we had more confidence than I do now. We thought that we'd do our mission and be done with it, but that's not how it happened. The future is never written in stone and we should've seen the unexpected coming. But we didn't, and now here we are.

Thanks to the thirteen men with me, hope isn't something of short stock during our travels. Sure, they have their moments where the silence is a blade slowly pressing on your skin, but it's all out of hope. They hope, and their hope fuels them. I'm sorry to say that it's not what fuels me – it's never been. At least, it hasn't been for a long time, and I had my lessons learned from that very mistake. Lessons no one should have to learn the hard way or in any way at all for that matter.

It's anger. It fuels me, strengthens my blows, keeps my legs moving, and allows me to stay awake for days on end. I know that they're bags beneath my eyes that belong to an elderly man, but sleep feels like a distant thing when my mind races every moment. If I want to sleep, then I wait days until my body shuts down before I even hit the ground for the night's rest. I think I fell asleep gathering wood once, and someone carried me to my bedroll. No one said anything, so I don't know if it's true, but the last thing I remember was grabbing wood, and then I woke up next to a dead fire and the sunrise.

They're good men – good friends to have, they just remind me of her all too much. They talk, but not often, and when they do, they always look over their shoulder as if they're waiting for the snippy retort that doesn't come. Their faces fall when they realize it, and then they smile faintly, likely imagining what it is she'd say. They don't know her well enough to guess right at her words, but I am, and sometimes I find myself saying them aloud on accident.

It's hard not to say what she would, as we have always thought so similarly that our mother thought we could be twins. We'd finish each other's sentences, share one look and confess a hundred thoughts, know each and every one of each other's tells and fighting techniques, and we would fight against a single opponent together seamlessly without having to even try. We were the two halves of the same coin, and not having her here or knowing that she's safe, makes me feel like I'm missing a limb. Even when I was in Kaweth I at least knew she'd be safe. She can take care of herself, and I knew that if anything went wrong my father would send for me. The less I heard from him the better, because it meant that nothing was wrong. It's different this time, everything is, and so are the men around me.

Especially Darius. He's...off. Even more off than me, and that's pretty far off. He barely eats, barely sleeps – more than me, but not by much, – uses more energy to train than he has to spare, and has eyes that just look...empty. I know what those eyes mean, what they feel like, and where they came from. I just hope that I'm wrong and that what I think happened didn't actually happen. I'm not sure how I'd handle that truth.

It's hard to think otherwise when you look at the land. Normally, Alderic is thickly coated in snow this time of year, but now, only a thin three or so inches covers the rocky terrain. That's not even mentioning that all the snow is only present in certain spots. I can see more dead grass and mud than white, and we're nearing the middle of winter. The woods should be in white and black and the small stretch of flat land after the Great Redwood should be a labyrinth of winter, not brown and gold. The only normal thing around us is the biting wind and the warmth of the fires we light.

Water and earth are waning, and fire and wind are wildly animate.

It's hard not to glance at Darius now and then, wondering if he's the reason why we have yet to get blue fingers and toes. Or if his clenching fists are why the winds will suddenly pick up, or the fires surge. The flames don't do more than grow a few inches when it happens, but it's still enough to make all of us lock our eyes on him and prepare to knock him out if he decides to tear up another forest. It was terrifying to see him hovering in the air with flames licking his feet. I never imagined that he'd be capable of such power within a few cycles of receiving the gifts, but the elements have a way of continuously surprising us. I don't like it. They're a pain, and they remind us that though they're powerful, they're still unreliable when it comes to not breaking what they create.

I've stuck to the orders my Queen gave me – though I don't really have a choice. Darius and I train every night once we've made camp or reached an inn. For roughly two hours we'll go through drills and spar one on one. After that, he practices summoning and controlling the elements. I stay to watch, making sure he doesn't light himself on fire or accidentally blow himself off the edge of a roof. He claims that the flames don't harm him, but I'm not willing to take my chances. He worries just as much as the rest of us do when it comes to him losing control over them again, which is why I don't stop him when he pushes himself to learn control on his own. None of us can help, and the people that can are too far away to do so. He's self-teaching, and all the trial and error tends to bring a lot of mistakes or near-death calls, so I stay and I watch, and I do as my sister wants.

Every time I've tried to go against Fey's orders about training him and the others, my whole body rejects the decision. It's nothing like a stabbing or slicing pain, but more like an...internal burning. My chest tightens and then stings, my throat closes, and the tattoo that I now have singes the inside of my wrist. Aillard never told me what the symbol meant, but he said enough that night that it burned itself into my skin. If she dies, the ink disappears and I can do whatever I want, and that's not something I need Darius and his friends worrying about. I don't need them constantly watching my wrist to see if it'll go away. I need their focus on this - on now. On getting her back. They're no use to me if they're not, but my worries on the subject are small. I trust them, and it's awfully hard not to.

They told their story back at the Layara cabin, and I listened to them repeat over and over again about how they refused to leave her. If she hadn't thrown them in a fucking waterdrop to the edge of the forest then they would've done so. I don't know when it happened, nor why it did, but somehow, during no particular moment, they became her guard. Maybe it was her being named Queen. Or maybe it was her short involvement with Darius. For whatever reason, they made a silent vow to guard her life with theirs, and as a brother who's made that vow a thousand times, it's a comfort to know that she'll have that. It's a comfort to know that we're no longer alone in this world of greed for power. It's good to know that we have friends again and that we can trust them not to stab us in the back. I still have my doubts here and there, but Fauna trusted them, so it's well worth it to give them a chance.

I keep doing that. Saying trusted or "she was," as if she were gone. Come to think of it, we all do. Talking about her is inevitable with her being our reason for the journey, and every time we've done so, we've spoken in the past tense. "She would've said" and "she used to," but that's not the case. The latter may be true with what she's likely going through, but she's not gone. She can't be, because if she is...

Torture changes you. We've had our lessons on the topic, and it was through lessons learned, not the book smart shit they've been trying to teach Darius in the library that's useless even when it comes to real life situations. The only way to learn is to do it. Not that I'd say that to his professor's face. Fauna told me how she threw her sandal at my sister's head, and after hearing her story about the mother who gave her a bruise with a toss of her shoe, I've decided to stay off her hit list. Nothing's wrong with going by the book, don't get me wrong, but some people don't learn that way, and Darius is one of them, but my sister and I were raised on that tactic. You learn by doing it or by experiencing it, not by reading about it.

We learned everything but how to read and write in different languages by doing it firsthand. We learned to fight by getting in the rings and running the drills. When we were told to scale the wall of the House of Jade, we put our hands in between the bricks and climbed. When our lesson on torture came along, our father gave us a hand on the shoulder, told us to be strong, and then sent us downstairs with Rykiel, who was to be our teacher for the next given months since our father didn't want to hear us scream and beg. If he was down there...I fear he would've been more distant than he already was, and none of us needed that.

So Rykiel and two of the men who put every trainee Jade through the painful lesson were the only faces we knew for the five cycles we spent in the same room. Some days we'd be put on a table and told what we should remember and hold onto while the knife was in our skin or the crack of a bone filled our ears. Others we'd be locked in dark rooms with nothing but silence, and a whisper here and there telling us to get a hold of ourselves. They trained us for two cycles, then the teachings stopped, and it was up to us to last through the next three. We did, and we came back with scars on nearly every inch of ourselves. Our father flinched when he first saw them, and I told Rykiel and the others to go before our father made a decision he'd likely regret. The ink in his pen spilled over his fingers and papers due to his grip, and me having just gone through torture, had a calm response to it. So did Fauna, as she didn't hesitate to go to him and give him a hug. I followed, and we kept whispering and telling him that we were okay, we were alive and stronger than ever. The latter was false, as a part of us died in those rooms, and the scars and stitches pulled and tugged at our skin, but just seeing him near break himself from nothing more than the sight of us brought us back into a reality that wasn't much less cruel than what the lower levels gave.

Fauna and I hated the scars. Sure, they served as a reminder, but our father didn't argue when we asked the healers to remove them. It was another sort of torture. They had to cut and rebind the broken skin at certain parts. It took the whole day for them to finish with the top half of our bodies and another for the lower. We rid of all but one scar, both in the same spot. It was a promise of a sort. That no matter where we were, we'd have each other exactly where we belonged. Across our hearts. And so the scars stayed there, a diagonal line dividing our hearts to mark the remembrance that we'd hang onto if the day for torture ever came again.

It's the scar I pray over. One that no normal healer could wave their hand over and get rid of. We put every insurance that it would stay there. So we traveled to a woman in the north who claimed to be a fae witch and paid her handsomely to induce the scars in magic so that they'd never fade. There are ways to rid of it, ways she didn't share because she doubted that anyone would know of such things. But even now, I don't have a doubt in my mind that Will is going to mar her skin if only to get rid of it and rid her of an anchor we gave one another.

When you're tortured, no matter what, you hang onto the one thing that you can - without a doubt - depend on to keep you grounded. You need an anchor, and we're each other's. Her anchor may have changed, as she has two hands to offer. My father used to occupy one, but now that he's gone, I suspect a certain Prince is now unknowingly holding it. I still don't like him, as he's been sleeping with her.

Still, though I want to slit his throat for coming up with such a laughable plan, he's not half bad. He trains hard and pushes himself to his limits, never once scorning or rolling his eyes at me for correcting him when he missteps. He could've gone through a drill flawlessly, and still, he'd make me point out one thing that he could've improved on. It's getting annoying, and he's persistent, but I wouldn't want to trade that personality characteristic for anything. He's kind, gentle when he's not depressed and angry, and considerate...he's a good man with a good heart. A good man for my little sister. But if he breaks her heart...

He may be an elemental, but even they won't sense me coming.

We're halfway across the gap in the Great Redwood now, which means another thirty minutes and then we'll be splitting into groups to gather whatever information we can.

There are men that are easy to crack to spill their secrets. Others require a bit more convincing, and if they don't answer me, then Darius takes over. It's only happened once, as the man had plenty of scars from being a well informed mercenary. There was no point in trying to add more, as he likely knew how to keep his mouth shut during such things. A lion made entirely of fire stalking towards him, Darius encased in flames with gleaming murder in his eyes, however...he sang like a canary on the brightest day of spring.

I'm going to be honest though, the sight had even me paling. The others didn't look as concerned as I, but I know the cost of magic – even if I wasn't the one with or paying for it – so I kept both blades in my hand until all the flames went out. The spectacle cost Darius a lot of energy, so Garrison, Vlad, Al, Winston, and I had to act like drunks as we carried the unconscious Darius between us to avoid the well trained Alderic guards, as the town is well-known for its Dark Materials Market that is run underground. Anyone suspicious-looking is arrested and taken for instant trial, so we played the role and passed the guards with no more than a few snickers and cold words.

"How do you do that?" I glance at Alister who has kept pace beside me for most of the day. He has long enough legs to do so, though I think he tends to stick to the front with me because he can look up and see a landscape and not the faces of his friends who all look rougher than the last. They all have dirt coating them thickly, a few even gaining some stubble over the long cycles of not prioritizing how we all look. Mal and Winston used to be the ones with shoulder length hair, but now everyone has gained a length that sometimes has to be tied back. Alister's the only one whose hair hasn't yet grown long enough to do so, though it is just long enough to always be in his eyes.

"Do what?"

He nods to my hands, and I find that they're flipping one of the small blades I keep tucked under my upper arm from hand to hand. It's a tell of mine that I haven't done in a while. Not since before Rose. I do it when I'm scheming mostly, though I don't know what part of my previous thoughts had to do with scheming. Fey would've likely thrown a celebration for my long-lost giveaway. Gods know that her scheming tell of cocking her head to the left never went away.

"Oh...um..." I debate what the consequences and benefits of teaching him the trick are. Then again, if you teach one of them, they'll all eventually be practicing it, and the simple flip couldn't hurt to have in your arsenal.

First things first...I bend down as we keep walking, picking up a stick that looks thick and short enough to substitute for a small dagger. Like I'm going to teach him a new trick and give him a sharp object to learn on first. Fey will kill me if she comes back to find Al with one less digit and fresh scars on his hands.

He takes the stick with a quizzical look but doesn't question it once I start teaching my nervous habit to him. "It's a trick to switch the blade from one hand to the other, that way if your arm that carries the knife is caught, you can easily switch it and turn onto the attack." He nods once, telling me that he's paying attention and doing so carefully since we're still walking. "Start off by holding it as you normally would - by the handle, aimed towards your attacker." He holds his hand with the stick slightly in front of him, the "blade's edge" pointing away from him. "Now bring the knife's point from where it's at now, and twist your wrist so that it aims towards your opposite shoulder. As it reaches a forty-five-degree angle - and follow this exactly as I say – you'll open your hand, but leave your thumb beneath the handle. With the momentum, the blade will keep tilting forward, and then drop into your other hand."

I do the motions slowly, starting from the beginning where it's aimed in front of me, and then twisting my wrist, lifting my four fingers off the handle, and letting my thumb be the center of the rotation. Watching as the knife tilts forward and then down, it flips and falls seamlessly so that the handle lands perfectly within my left palm that's open for the weapon's presence some ten inches below or so.

I was nine when I started fooling around with small daggers. I can spin them around each finger, making it look like it's doing cartwheels on my hand, or make the knife spin on the small surface of the skin between the thumb and pointer finger. I'm not sure as to why it was this little trick that exposes the working gears in my mind, but it's nice to have something to talk about while we continue on to the next town. A good distraction for the next thirty minutes.

He goes through the motions slowly, getting it right all up until he has to catch the stick with his other hand. It lands between two of his fingers instead of entirely on the palm. "Keep your eye on the handle and let your left hand come to it on muscle memory."

He tries again, and when the stick gets stuck between his fingers once more, I give him an encouraging pat on the shoulder and turn my head to the others behind us. A few of them already have sticks in their hands and are trying the move. Others scan the ground for a stick of their own. Amel and Benny spot one they both like and almost fall down the hill trying to push and shove each other for its claim. Many things have changed within the group of men since my sister's decision, but their childlike behavior isn't one of them.

Shaking my head as they still fight for it, I catch sight of Darius, who's walking at the back of the group. He doesn't carry a stick, but rather one of the small blades he stole off of a Cressidan assassin, and does the flip all in one seamless motion before easily flipping it back into his right hand. He keeps doing it, going from one hand to the other, and back again, all with those empty eyes staring distantly at the ground in front of him. Pure determination makes him a quick learner, but I fear that it's also the very thing that's slowly killing him from the