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"Move, and I open your throat."
The blade is already there. Cold steel kisses my skin, and warm blood slips down my collarbone before I can get my elbows under me.
"Hands," she says. "Where I can see them."
I raise them slowly. Palms out. My pulse jumps against the knife.
Past the blade, I see her face: sharp jaw, half-loose braid, slate-gray eyes measuring how fast she can kill me if I twitch.
"You're Sona."
The knife stays still. Her eyes don't.
"Everybody in this keep knows my name. Try again."
"Sona Vhelrn. Youngest blade of the Nine Bells. You haven't told that name to a living soul since the sisters took you in. Not even Ethlin."
Her knee drives into my chest. Air bursts out of me. The blade presses harder.
"Who sent you?"
"Nobody."
"Nobody knows that name. I buried it with my mother's bones." Her voice drops. "Tell me who's paying you to dig up graves, or I'll start taking pieces until you remember."
Nine loops, and she still goes for the knife before the questions. Some things don't change.
"You've held this exact knife on me before," I say. "Different room. Blood on your sleeve. Your hand was shaking so hard the blade rattled against my collar. You asked me the same question. Word for word."
"I've never seen you in my life."
"You will. You did. Depends how you count it."
Her balance shifts. The edge trembles against my throat—not from fear. From doubt.
"Explain that."
"Ask me something only Sona Vhelrn would know."
She studies me. Her thumb slides along the hilt, slow and deliberate.
"The scar under my left arm," she says. "Where did it come from?"
"Ograne's boy. Training yard. Four years ago, before you became a blade. You were still a scared kid he let hold a practice sword too soon. He caught you by accident. He cried harder than you did."
The pressure on my chest vanishes. She stands, but the knife stays raised.
"Nobody knows that," she says. "I never told the sisters. I never told Ethlin. I never told—"
She cuts herself off.
I sit up, careful and slow. "I've been here before."
"Here? Tonight?"
"Tonight, and the eight nights before it. Nights nobody remembers because they never get to happen. Same room. Same siege. Same ending."
"That's impossible."
"So is you putting a knife to my throat nine times and forgetting every one of them."
Her fingers tighten around the hilt.
"How do you know my name?"
The question lands softer than the blade. That makes it worse.
I see her outside the east gate, seven loops ago. Snow under her back. Blood black in the torchlight. Her mouth forming my name before the last breath leaves her.
She steps between me and a blade meant for my spine every time. She never remembers doing it.
"Rhys." Her voice snaps me back. The knife rises between us again. "I asked you a question."
"Because I watched you die."
Her breathing catches.
"Once?"
"Eight times."
She stares at me. Her face stays hard, but the point of the blade dips a fraction.
"You're insane."
"Maybe. You're still listening."
"Prove it."
"The horn. Three blasts from the east wall. It sounds in—"
Three blasts rip through the keep.
Sona turns toward the window. Her skin loses color.
"The breach alarm."
"Yeah. I've heard it eight times. By dawn, everyone in this keep is dead."
Her eyes cut back to mine. "Everyone?"
"Including you."
Footsteps hammer down the hall. Someone shouts. Steel scrapes stone.
Sona backs toward the door without looking away from me. "What happens next?"
"Ethlin comes through that door in ten seconds. He says the east gate is breached. The outer ward is lost. He orders you to fall back to the inner keep."
"And I obey?"
"Every time."
"Then what kills me?"
"I don't know. I never make it far enough to see."
The door slams open.
Ethlin stumbles inside with blood across his armor. He grips the frame, breathing hard.
"East gate's breached," he says. "Outer ward's gone. Fall back to the inner keep. Now."
Sona doesn't move.
Ethlin looks between us. "Sona?"
"He knew you'd say that."
Ethlin's gaze locks on me. "Who the hell is he?"
"The reason we don't follow your order."
His hand drops to his sword. "You want to explain that?"
"Not while your soldiers are dying outside."
"Careful."
"I'm being generous. In three breaths, the west bell rings. Then the inner gate opens from the inside."
Ethlin's expression hardens. "The inner gate can't open from inside."
"That's what you said last time."
Sona points her blade at me. "Lock him up."
"Sona—"
"Do it. Keep him where I can see him."
Ethlin crosses the room and grabs my arm. His grip bites through my sleeve.
"If he's lying, I'll kill him," Sona says.
"Get in line," Ethlin mutters.
I let him pull me toward the hall. Fighting him now only changes the route, not the ending. Sona follows, knife ready, close enough that I catch the heat of her shoulder when we squeeze through the doorway.
"If you're telling the truth," she says, "you'll tell me how to stop this."
"I will."
"That wasn't permission to sound confident."
"You don't want confidence. You want an answer."
Her gaze lingers on my face for half a second too long. Then she looks away.
"You know what happens to me," she says. "You know what happens to the keep. What aren't you telling me?"
The question follows us into the corridor.
Ethlin shoves me forward. "Keep walking."
"Ask him why the outer ward fell so fast," I say. "Ask him who moved the reserve to the west tower."
Ethlin jerks me to a stop. "What did you say?"
Sona's eyes narrow. "Ethlin?"
"He's guessing."
"I watched you give the order," I say. "You were bleeding from your left hand. You told Captain Vey to pull the reserve from the east wall. He argued. You threatened to have him chained."
Ethlin's grip tightens.
Sona steps closer. Her sleeve brushes mine. "Did you give that order?"
"Of course not."
"Then why does he know?"
A deep bell booms somewhere below us.
Sona's face changes. "The west bell."
"One breath left," I say.
The inner gate groans in the distance.
Ethlin draws his sword. Sona's blade rises beside it.
I look past them toward the dark passage leading to the inner keep.
"They're already inside."
Sona grabs my collar and pulls me close enough for her breath to touch my cheek. "Then tell me why I can hear someone unlocking my—"
A second set of footsteps starts behind us.