Sera was quiet for a long moment, her expression unreadable in the firelight.
"That’s why you were so effective at gathering intelligence in Valdris. The brothel. The Velvet House. You weren’t just hiding there. You were harvesting."
"Harvesting is a strong word."
"Is it inaccurate?"
He couldn’t meet her eyes. "No. It’s not."
The silence stretched between them, filled only by the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind outside. Nacho found himself holding his breath, waiting for the judgment he knew was coming. The disgust. The rejection. The realization that he was exactly the monster she’d accused him of being when they first met.
"The women," Sera said finally. "Did you hurt them?"
"No. Never." The words came out fierce, defensive. "Everything was consensual. Everything felt good for them. Better than good, if I’m being honest. The Charm effect from my tentacle, it amplifies pleasure by a factor of ten. Maybe more. They left my massage parlor feeling better than they had in years."
"But they didn’t know what you were really doing."
"No. They didn’t."
More silence. The fire had burned low, casting deeper shadows across Sera’s face. When she spoke again, her voice was thoughtful rather than condemning.
"In Lumen, there’s a practice called soul-reading. Certain Sirens are born with the ability to see into another person’s essence, to understand their true nature regardless of what face they show the world." She paused, taking another sip of her tea. "My grandmother had that gift. She told me once that every person carries light and darkness in equal measure. That what matters isn’t which one exists, but which one we choose to feed."
"That’s very philosophical."
"It’s very true." She set down her cup and met his eyes directly. "You’ve done things that most people would consider monstrous. You’ve manipulated. Deceived. Used your abilities to take from others without their knowledge or consent. But you’ve also saved lives. Rescued prisoners. Exposed corruption that was destroying my people from the inside out."
"That doesn’t make the other stuff okay."
"No. It doesn’t." Her voice softened. "But it does make you complicated. And I’ve learned that complicated people are usually the most interesting ones to have on your side."
Nacho didn’t know what to say to that. The conversation had taken a turn he hadn’t expected, leading somewhere that felt dangerous and unfamiliar. He was used to being judged, used to the cold assessment of people calculating his usefulness versus his threat level. This was something else entirely.
"Get some sleep," Sera said, rising to her feet and moving toward the pile of blankets they’d arranged near the back of the cave. "I’ll take first watch. We’ll need all our strength for what comes next."
"You don’t have to do that. I don’t need much sleep anymore."
"Neither do I. But humor me." She settled onto her makeshift bed, pulling a blanket up to her chin. "And Nacho?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For being honest with me. I know that wasn’t easy."
He watched her close her eyes, watched the tension slowly drain from her shoulders as exhaustion overtook vigilance. Within minutes, her breathing had evened out into the steady rhythm of sleep.
Nacho stayed awake, tending the fire and listening to the storm rage outside. His mind kept circling back to what she’d said about light and darkness, about feeding one or the other.
He’d spent so long thinking of himself as something between human and monster, a creature operating on instinct and self-interest with occasional flashes of something that might have been conscience. But maybe that framework was too simple. Maybe everyone was fighting the same battle, choosing moment by moment which parts of themselves to cultivate and which to starve.
The storm showed no signs of letting up. Snow continued to pile at the cave entrance, building a wall of white that glowed faintly in the firelight. They were trapped here, for now. Isolated from the world and all its complications.
The fire burned lower. The storm raged on. And somewhere in the darkness of the mountains ahead, a fortress full of horrors waited for them to come knocking.
Morning came grey and cold, but the worst of the storm had passed during the night. Snow still fell in lazy spirals, but the howling wind had died to a whisper, and visibility had improved to the point where Nacho could actually see the path ahead.
Sera woke without prompting, her body’s internal clock as reliable as ever. She took one look at the diminished snowfall and immediately began packing their supplies.
"We should move while we can. Storms in the pass tend to come in waves. The next one could hit within hours."
They broke camp and continued their climb, pushing through snow that reached their knees in places. The cold bit at exposed skin, but it was manageable now, nothing like the killing freeze of the blizzard. Nacho’s enhanced physiology handled the temperature easily, and Sera seemed to run on sheer determination.
By midday, they’d reached the highest point of the pass, a narrow saddle of rock between two towering peaks. The wind was stronger here, cutting through their clothes with icy fingers, but the view made up for the discomfort.
The northern slopes spread out before them, a vast expanse of white and grey and the dark green of evergreen forests. In the distance, barely visible through the haze of falling snow, Nacho could make out the shape of something that didn’t belong to the natural landscape. Angular. Geometric. Man-made.
"There," Sera said, pointing. "The Hollows."
The fortress looked exactly as Corvus had described it. Built into the side of a mountain, its walls the same grey stone as the surrounding rock, it would have been almost invisible if not for the thin trails of smoke rising from unseen chimneys. Guard towers stood at regular intervals along what Nacho assumed was the main wall, though from this distance they looked like nothing more than slightly darker smudges against the grey.
"How far?"
"A day’s march. Maybe less if the weather holds." She was already moving again, starting down the northern slope with the same relentless pace she’d maintained since leaving Thornwick. "We should reach the eastern approach by nightfall."