A dull flickering was the first thing Hamnet's blurred eyes saw upon regaining consciousness. When his head cleared, he saw that the light came from a torch on the opposite wall and his breathing slowed. With the torch there, he would have light.

He stayed his gaze on the torch for some time and it was only afterwards that he grew interested in the rest of his surroundings. When he looked around him, he recognized the large room. It was the hospital ward in Regalia. There were other beds with other patients – he assumed he was a patient as well, though there was only a faint pain in his back – as well as nurses and other workers moving through the room in an uneven stream.

A man came up to his bed, one with a kind face and voice, though Hamnet did not understand a word he said. He frowned and shook his head and, finally, though his throat scratched and burned, he said, "I do not understand..."

The man's expression changed from kind to concerned. He was most likely a doctor, Hamnet thought. He did not recognize the man, though.

And so it passed for one or two days. The hospital workers gave him strange potions to drink that would make him thick-headed and groggy, sometimes even prompting him to sleep for what he guessed were hours at a time. He would have refused if he had been strong enough, but it was a vicious cycle. He had no chance to come fully awake and alert before they dosed him again.

Eventually, however, they began to give him food, real food, and plain water.

People came to see him, but they spoke a strange language and he had no memory of any of them.

One man, an older man, came to see him often, sitting beside Hamnet's bed. After the first few attempts at speech, he said nothing but only sat and studied Hamnet's face or the floor. Many times, tears ran down his face and he made no attempt to wipe them away.

There was also a middle-aged woman with a strong, hard face who came to see him once, a woman whose face softened into tenderness for only a moment during her visit. And then there was a young woman about his age who brought a little girl with her. They visited him more often than anyone else. One time, the girl brought him a gift, a strange blue crystal.

It looked, for all the world, like a fish.

And, in a flash, he remembered.

He remembered the crystals, the beach, Luxa, everything. And with that remembrance came the memory of what happened after the beach with the crystals, and what happened after that and after that and forward and forward until he arrived at-

Hamnet sucked in a deep breath.

"Judith," he said, staring at the woman sitting beside him. His twin. His friend. And Luxa in her lap, his niece. "Judith," he repeated, anchoring the name, the face, the recognition in his mind.

Her face broke into a smile, it quickly turned into a sob. "Hamnet..."

Luxa curled up in Judith's lap, trying to comfort her mother.

"You know me?" Judith said.

Hamnet nodded. He knew the rest, too. He knew that the man who sat beside him and wept was his father, and that the stern woman was his mother and that what he had done at the Garden of the Hesperides was unforgivable to anyone, but especially to himself.

He did not deserve to sit here, safe and warm and bright, with Judith and Luxa sitting beside him as though he was still their cherished twin and uncle. He was not. He was a monstrous creature and he would not be made to perform more monstrous acts by his mother who he knew could still force him to do anything.

Judith spoke again. "You spoke strangely for days," she said. "We almost despaired of your mind."

Hamnet shook his head. They were the ones who had spoken strangely.

"Mareth has been too busy to come, but he wanted you to know that he found Perdita. He found her where you had left her and brought her home safely. She is well." Judith leaned forward and wrapped her hand around his. "You were not to blame for what happened, Hamnet." Her hand was hot against his chilled skin. "You must not think that."

He did not speak. There was nothing he could say anymore, nothing that would change what had happened to Persephone, to dozens of soldiers and their fliers, to the gnawers' pups. And so he would not say anything.

Judith squeezed his hand in hers and then stood. "We will come back later."

#####

Perdita came to see him on the third day.

He had taken to pacing the floor of the ward when there were no doctors around – officially, he wasn't supposed to move at all, but he could not keep still. The guilt gnawed at him so, making him restless, anxious, aching to do something. But there was nothing for him to do. So he paced.

Perdita came into the ward and fell into step beside him, saying nothing.

"Judith told me that Mareth found you," Hamnet said. "I am sorry that I didn't, I couldn't-"

"You were not yourself, they told me. It was not your fault." Perdita's eyes darkened and flashed and Hamnet was sure he knew whose fault Perdita thought everything was.

She was wrong, however, and he told her so with a voice that shook as his legs grew weak. He made his way back to his bed.

"No," Perdita said, with a firmness of voice. "No. You did everything you could to save them, and that is what matters. And the crumbling of the dam was not your fault either. How could you foresee such a thing?"

Hamnet closed his eyes. He could still hear the screams of the dying with as much clarity as he heard Perdita's voice.

"Where is Mareth?" he asked after a moment.

Perdita shook her head. "I do not know. Solovet has placed the palace on a higher alert than usual. I was only able to come see you because I was wounded in the fight and am ordered to rest." She pulled back her sleeve to reveal a thickly bandaged arm.

"Since-" Perdita hesitated. "Since that, Gorger has increased his threats. A scout was found dead this morning."

A chill worked its way into Hamnet's very bones. The deaths had not stopped. Because of him.

"Do not think of it for now," Perdita said. She smiled sadly. "I know what it is to feel guilt over choices made on the battlefield. As does Mareth. As do most of us. Even your mother, I would expect." She let out a long breath. "In time, you will learn to leave those things behind and find a peace within. I know it to be so."

Hamnet said nothing.

The silence stretched on for several moments. Finally, Perdita gently touched his shoulder.

"Rest, Hamnet," she whispered. "We need you."

Perdita left the ward and once she was gone, a shudder ran through Hamnet. Nobody needed him except, perhaps, Solovet. She needed him to head the army, needed him to stay and be her second if she was ever killed in battle.

And so he would not live in Regalia anymore. His mother would not let him lead his own life if he stayed and he could not serve her again. He would never find the peace within that Perdita spoke of, that he ached for, if he continued to fight his mother's battles.

#####

That night when all was quiet, he left his bed and crept out of the ward, one of the hall torches gripped tightly in his hand.

Regalia was in darkness as Hamnet crept through its streets, the flickering from his torch casting a pale circle of light only a few feet in every direction. Other torches flickered here and there, but they were few.

If Persephone had been with him, they would have flown away in an instant. An ache filled his chest as he thought of her, an ache that would perhaps always be there whenever he thought of his bond.

He shook aside his thoughts for the moment and focused on escape.

He was headed toward Regalia's gate, a towering collection of crossed stone bars. There were guards, but they would know him and he would persuade them to open the gate, in one way or another. He had to leave. He could not stay in Regalia an instant longer. The walls threatened to crush him if he remained and if he left, there would be open spaces and clean air untainted by torch smoke and plenty of ways to lose himself if the memories became too unbearable.

He expected they would.

There was a scraping sound behind him, that of someone's shoe slipping in the rough rocky ground of Regalia. Hamnet turned, every nerve pulled taut, for one moment a soldier again with a soldier's instincts.

"Who moves there?" he demanded of the shadows, for whoever watched him kept well clear of his torch's light.

There was a quick breath, a moment's hesitation, and then out of the shadows slipped a thin, frail young girl with dark half-moons under her eyes. He recognized the girl at once. Nerissa, Luxa's fragile cousin who dreamed terrible dreams and was mocked by many of the Regalians for her recounting of those visions.

"Nerissa," he said. "Why came you here?"

"I must beg a promise of you, Hamnet," she said, her clear eyes staring straight into his. The fixity of her gaze would have unnerved him had Hamnet not known of her strange ways.

He shrugged, which caused his bag of provisions to slip from his shoulder. He hoisted it back up. "Then what is this promise, Nerissa?"

"Ten years hence, you will most assuredly be in the company of a hisser and a Halflander child," said Nerissa, her voice as solemn as her words were absurd. Hamnet said nothing, though, but let her finish. He had never joined the other Regalians in their mockery. "You must swear to be at the Arch of Tantalus when those ten years have passed. Many will have need of you then."

Hamnet stared at her much as she had stared at him.

"What you say, Nerissa-" he began as gently as he could. "It makes little sense." In truth, he would more likely be dead in far less than ten years.

"Perhaps," she said. "But you will do this thing? You must."

Her voice had begun to grow frantic, and so Hamnet nodded. "If what you have told me comes true, I will return in ten years. I give you my word."

"Thank you." And with that, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened, she turned to leave.

"Will you be safe?" Hamnet called after her. If she showed the slightest hesitation, he would escort her back to the palace himself, even considering the possibility of capture. Inside the city's walls, Regalia was a peaceful place, but there were always dangers. And Nerissa was not yet ten.

She gave him a ghostly, though somehow cheery smile. "I will be fine. At least, until I reach the palace. After that, all is dark."

As long as she reached the palace, she would be well. The guards would make sure of that.

And so they parted and went their separate ways and as Hamnet continued his way toward the gate, he mulled over Nerissa's words. Hissers were passing scarce in the Underland and there were none outside the jungle as far as he knew. And he did not plan to enter the jungle.

As for a Halflander child, there had never been one in all the history of the Underland.

An Underlander marrying an Overlander was unheard of. Simply not done.

Deeper shadows loomed over him and he looked up to see the city gate ahead. There were two guards on duty and he reached deep into his pocket for the pouch that was there. There were plenty of coins to buy his freedom and if they did not take to the bribe, well, he was the former second-in-command of the Regalian army and they were only guards and surely he could outfight them. Even two of them.

"Halt," the guard ordered when he came closer and Hamnet recognized the guard's voice at once.

"Mareth?"

The guard relaxed his sword arm. It was Mareth.

"What do you here?" asked Hamnet, stepping forward. Mareth was a palace guard when there was no battle to be fought and held a rank considerably higher than of a soldier who would guard Regalia's gates.

"Filling in for my wayward brother. And I could ask the same of you," Mareth said, slapping a hand on Hamnet's arm. "A message from Solovet?"

A metallic taste filled Hamnet's mouth at the mention of his mother. He shook his head.

"No." He cleared his throat. "I am leaving."

At that, Mareth stepped back and seemed to take a closer look at Hamnet's clothes – sturdy and nearing the thickness of armour – and his heavy bag of provisions and the dagger sheathed at his side.

"You are leaving?" Mareth's face showed puzzlement. "Why?"

"I cannot stay," he said, feeling older with each word. "My mother will bring me back from the medical ward in days to lead the army again. And when she passes on, I will be expected to take her place. And Mareth," he finished, a tightness in his throat, "I cannot do what she wants. I cannot fight again."

Mareth nodded. "I will not stop you. But what say we to Solovet when she asks?"

"Tell her that I overpowered you," Hamnet said. "She will have an easy time believing that." And for the first time since Hesperides, he found himself smiling.

Mareth grinned, too. "When we meet again, I will have the pleasure of cramming those words down your throat."

Hamnet nodded. "I do not doubt it."

"You should leave quickly now," said Mareth, "before Horatio comes back. He has the watch with me and went for a quick flight to make sure all is well in the city." He slid back the bolt of the gate and stepped aside to allow Hamnet to pass.

"Tell Judith and Luxa and Perdita I say farewell to them all. But secretly, so Solovet does not discover it," Hamnet added, pausing just inside the city walls.

Mareth nodded. "I promise."

His words reminded Hamnet of the promise he had made only minutes before. He would keep his word, though how he would stumble upon a hisser or a Halflander child was beyond his thinking, and he would trust Mareth to keep his.

"Fly you high, Mareth," he said.

There was a moment's hesitation before Mareth returned his words. "Fly you high, my friend."

And as Hamnet stepped outside of Regalia with no flier and no friend, the loneliness almost crushed him. He looked back for an instant, thinking that perhaps he could change his mind and return. But Mareth had already closed the gate and so he turned and took a deep breath and headed into a place he did not know.

Finis.