"You're really committed to this? How do we know your information is reliable?" The masked figure towered over Cirse, his features completely obscured by his mask and the darkness of night. Even the moonlight was almost entirely blocked out by the boughs of the pine trees above them.

"Did Raktorda tell you to ask me that?" Cirse couldn't read his reaction in the near-total darkness. His silence could have meant anything, but she already knew the answer. Gusts of wind rustled the branches around them. They would have sent a chill through Cirse, if she'd had any warmth left to lose.

"It doesn't make sense. You're a knight," his voice broke through the quiet. She wondered if he had his hand on his blade now, awaiting an ambush. If he thought she was a traitor. Well, he wouldn't have been wrong.

"I was." She looked into the wilderness that had both made her a knight and stolen that dream from her. All she felt was cold.

"But you're willing to betray all of them?" She could hear his disbelief. It was nothing new. The surviving Celyan knights, sleeping in their tents just outside the forest, had thought the same thing.

"If only this world had shown me a little more mercy, maybe I wouldn't be. But it's too late for that." She sighed. "Are you going to let me tell you what I know or not?"

The only response was the silence of darkness.

"They've captured an ambassador." The man drew in a sharp breath. "He's Taronan. He was carrying an agreement with the new court. They're arguing over what to do with him."

"Just an agreement?" He spoke with urgency, suddenly.

"Also a crystal, but it doesn't seem to do anything. It's clearly steepwitch work, though."

The man was silent.

"The ambassador claims he never intended to follow through on the agreement. He claims sympathy for their cause. It's-"

"The crystal." He cut her off. "It's very important. More important than the ambassador, or this resistance, or any of us. Make the crystal the priority."

Cirse was stunned into silence for a brief moment. What did the new court want with a steepwitch crystal?

"What should I do?"

"Can you retrieve it?"

"Not easily."

"Then keep the crystal there. We'll come get it, soon."

"Good." Cirse glanced back at the camp. They would get what she owed them, soon enough.

"Have them kill the ambassador, if you can. Again, it comes second to the crystal."

"Alright." Her skin crawled at the thought of siding with Fenn, but she had done worse. "When will we meet next?"

"I can't say. Only, it won't be under the cover of darkness."

"I see." She exhaled, steeling herself. No more waiting. No more words. She would finally get what she was waiting for. "Glory to Helga."

"Glory to Helga."

They turned and went their separate ways.