Fight. Fight. Fight.

The word kept echoing in her head as Quinn slowly opened her eyes. She had no idea where she was or what had happened. In fact, there was plenty of evidence to support the claim that she was dead.

After all, she had driven straight out to the storm. Quinn remembered glimpses of lightning in the prevailing darkness. At one point, she imagined she had seen Dolor's ship and kept driving toward it, willing the little carrier to go faster.

That reminded her of something.

"Cassie!" she gasped, sitting upright.

Then Rhys was there, catching her in his arms and gently lowering her to the floor again. Quinn looked up into his eyes and saw a deep, dark sadness there.

He came for me. And now I've killed us both.

"Where are we?" she murmured, looking around.

It was nothing like anything she'd ever seen before. First of all, she was all tugged up in something like a wrap. Turning her head was painful, but Quinn saw that it was a large, warm coat, much like the one she'd had in the fortress, only much bigger. Fit for a Nayanor.

The coat wasn't the strangest part of her surroundings, though, not by a long shot. If she left out the fact that she still seemed to draw breath, as painful and ragged as it was, Quinn was still left with the feeling she was on a roller-coaster.

The ground didn't stay still, swaying softly under her, hard and unyielding. She was lying on some platform made of metal that kept rocking her in a lullaby-like fashion. It wasn't violent, just noticeable.

"We're inside a Gech," Rhys said in a morbid, deadpan way, sitting next to her.

Quinn saw his sword laying on the floor a little further. There were items discarded all over the floor, some of which looked like needles.

Then it connected.

"A Gech?" she asked, wide-eyed. "You mean one of those huge harvesters you showed me? But – how?"

Rhys regarded her with the most serious look she'd ever seen on him.

"I came after you," he said simply. "I found the carrier nearly torn to pieces and you inside it. You were barely breathing when I found you. I got you out but by then the storm had broken the ship I followed you in.

"It's one of the main reasons why the ships are grounded during the storm. Some of them are able to function during the first few days when the storm isn't at its full power yet, but only while they're airborne. When they stop, it's almost certain some of the debris will hit."

He looked at her, his piercing green eyes telling Quinn that she'd broken more than just her body with her attempt to save Cassie. Something between the two of them didn't feel as warm and loving anymore.

"We would both be dead if the Gech hadn't nearly stepped on us," Rhys said so calmly like he was describing a casual stroll at the beach. "I followed it, trying to keep you warm. It seems the gods want us to survive this night, because it didn't go far before it started drilling for water. Even then it took me five minutes to find the maintenance door and pry it open.

"I brought you here. It will be more stable on the upper floors but I couldn't take you there. I didn't want to risk hurting you when you were already barely clinging to life."

Quinn looked at him, feeling a terrible cold dread gripping her heart that had nothing to do with the cold that was prevalent in the Gech. Just like Rhys had said. The Gech wasn't a safe place, just the safest. Once the storm got its full force on, it wouldn't be enough.

"I had to," Quinn said, knowing apologizing wasn't going to do her any good. "He had her, Rhys. He had Cassie. He dragged her into the ship. I saw her hurting, I saw my sister crying. I have no idea what got into that bastard to do this, but I had to try.

"I hoped I could knock his ship off course. That if I was close enough to the fortress, it would all be over. Kol-Eresh's people were still coming in, after all. Then I lost track of them."

Rhys said nothing at first. He was leaning against the Gech's rocking wall, observing her with a sense of seeing her for the first time. Quinn didn't like that look. It implied that all the good things that had happened between them were based on a lie, somehow.

Finally the harbinger nodded.

"Fair plan," he said tersely, his voice telling her it was not. "Only it never occurred to you to ask one of the thousand warriors in the hall for help? You are my female, wearing my colors. Any warrior there would have provided assistance if you'd asked.

"No, it had to be you. Even after I warned you that the storm is deadly for humans!"

It was the first time Rhys had been mad with her. Quinn recoiled, but then her own anger returned. Struggling free from the coat – then pulling it back over her – she sat up and faced the harbinger who didn't move a muscle other than looking at her.

"Yeah?" she demanded, gesturing to their surroundings. "I remember. Explain to me why I'm not dead then? I'm very grateful for that, don't get me wrong. But why did you lie? If the shock of seeing Cassie being physically dragged to her death hadn't pushed me to risk my life for her, I don't think I would have followed!"

She knew she was spouting nonsense out of anger, now, but her bitter disappointment at losing Cassie, something that she didn’t dare admit to herself yet, spurred her on.

"Good," Rhys said with feeling. "That's exactly why I didn't tell you. That's why we never tell any of the females. It makes you do reckless, harmful things.

"There was a time when my people were honest about the long night. It's true, during the first days and the last when the storm is already calming down, it's possible to survive even for a human. Everything else still applies. You still need to be incredibly lucky, incredibly well-equipped, to know the land and the ships, to have shelter with food and water, to have heat!"

The harbinger glared at her.

"Do you have any idea what that did to the females? It gave them hope. They stopped listening after "possible". Every year, some of them, especially those who had just been brought here by the raid ships found ways to get out of the fortresses.

“Some of them convinced weak warriors to open the gates for them, pretending to be on some kind of errand. Some broke their way out, having had the genius idea to take one of the ships – or a carrier, like you did.

"Can you guess what being prepared won them as a reward? They just died more slowly than those who suffered the quick death of exposure to the storm."

Quinn was listening quietly, her heart beating hard in her chest. The words made sense to her in some distant way, but the disappointed anger of having been lied to didn't ease up. The fact that Rhys said "hope" like it was some kind of a curse word had been the last straw for her.

"I understand them," Quinn said when the harbinger was done, the gaze of his flashing eyes turned to her again.

"Of course you do," Rhys said with spite. "Females are all the same in the end."

The rage inside her was almost palpable. Quinn felt as if a monster that had been hiding in her skin was now raising its head, roaring, bellowing out everything she'd wanted to tell the warlord ever since she saw him.

She'd been so blinded by him and how kind he could be when things were fine. As long as Quinn played the dutiful little housewife and never bothered him with real questions, everything was okay.

Quinn thought of Cassie and whether it had been the same for her. Maybe her fated had seemed better than the rest at first as well. Then as time went by the cracks would have started to show and her beautiful, bright sister sunk deeper into despair.

Quinn knew she was projecting. It didn't help knowing that. It didn't make it impossible for Cassie to have suffered the same fate she did.

"Females..." she spat at Rhys. "Is that what I am to you?"

There was a softness in the harbinger's eyes for just a second, but it was gone when Quinn sat up straighter, cradling the coat and staring him down.

"No, wait," she said bitterly. "I'm your female, there's a difference. I thought that it meant something, but I see how it is now. It just means that I'm the one that belongs to you, the one whose messes you need to clean up.

“I get a bit more patience from you, that's what your whole damn fated bond means. If I didn’t pop out a son for you in a year, I am sure your patience would have run out regardless."

Rhys said nothing. For a moment, Quinn thought that he had been waiting for her burst of hatred for a while now and was letting it play out. It didn't matter. She couldn't have stopped herself from talking if she'd tried.

The Gech rocked gently around them, but the platform they were on had mercifully stopped moving. Quinn had already been seriously considering the chance of getting seasick.

"I said that I understood those women, not I am one," she went on. "I'm not suicidal. When you spoke of Luminos and the storm and everything else, I listened! And I paid attention and I believed you. My decision to go after Cassie was just using everything I knew to try and save her like a normal human being. You know, with feelings and those relations you think so little of.

"But I don't suppose you have anything as ludicrous as "normal" here. Or humans. We are expected to become Nayanors overnight, only without any of the rights. We just have to accept that we're some kind of trinkets to you now, all wrapped up in your colors and be happy with it."

She was panting by the time she was done and Rhys still hadn't said a word.

"Hope," she told her fated. "Hope is all we have when we get here."

Rhys didn't blink an eye before Quinn had settled down again, wondering if she just bought herself a fate she didn't want for the price of a few angry words.

It needed to be said. These assholes think they rule our lives. Even our deaths aren't our own anymore.

"You can try and romanticize dying in the storm all you like," Rhys said quietly then. "I have seen the bodies and I can tell you that none of those females were happy with the choices they'd made in the last hours of their life."

"Yet I bet some of them still chose that fate even after hearing the stories, if the other option was spending their lives as a slave," Quinn replied.

"They did, yes," Rhys agreed, the tone of his voice threatening.

Quinn drew back, naked fear beating in her heart all of a sudden.

"And it only got worse," the harbinger said. "Some of them were very clever, hiding their traces and making sure no one knew how they'd gotten out. You see, not all females who attempted this had been here for a short time. A few of them had been on Luminos for years. They knew how things worked. They had won the trust of their fateds.

"They killed entire fortresses."

That Quinn hadn't expected. She sat silently, staring at Rhys as the harbinger shrugged.

"You see, one of the many truths I told you that wasn't that single lie I hoped would save your life, was that the fortresses need to be reinforced to weather the storm. The only fortress that has never been breached by the storm is the Black Hall up north.

"Smaller ones have to go through it once in a generation. And the females helped. Slipping out to die, they thought they were only risking their own lives. I was a very young boy when that happened in Jos Gharo. My mother spent the entire long night huddled in the deepest reach of the fortress with me in her arms and a Fermanoli coat on top of us.

"My father gave us five before he left, she gave four of them away. Two of them actually helped someone survive."

The shock and the sadness were slowly banishing Quinn's fury. Seconds ago she'd been mad enough to argue with a Nayanor warlord, now her hand was aching to touch his.

"What happened?" Quinn asked quietly.

"To the fortress?" Rhys asked.

"To everyone."

Quinn had never seen Rhys being that serious. There was no particular emotion on his face – neither grief nor sorrow, no anger or hate. Just a deep contemplation that made Quinn think that perhaps even the mighty Nayanors could be hurt by something.

"The fortress survived," Rhys said, nodding. "As you have seen. It suffered terrific damage, but it was rebuilt in the coming years. Now it's one of the better ones, even if it's not as grand and large as the Black Hall is. I make sure it's properly maintained.

"I lived as well.

"I barely remember anything from that time. Or perhaps that is not the right way to say it. I remember it all as one blurred memory. There is no passage of time, like it all took place at once and lasted for a whole month. The female who ran chose to flee right when the storm was starting. I suppose it made sense to her to seek shelter while she still could. It left the rest of us to weather the entire month."

Quinn waited. She wished she knew what to say, but everything was so deeply messed up. The one thing she had come to believe was that Luminos was a vicious, terrible planet that bred people who couldn't allow themselves the luxury of mercy or compassion. It was a horrible fate, comparable to the one the females they kidnapped were doomed to.

"I hear no hate," Quinn said, making Rhys look her right in the eyes for the first time over long minutes. "I hear no hatred in your voice when you speak of that woman."

Rhys scoffed, shaking his head.

"She had her hope," the harbinger replied. "What can any of us do but fight our way to the life we wish for?"

Quinn was aware that he was looking straight at her when he said that.

"And the others?" she asked. "The people in your fortress. Your parents."

Rhys' deep forest green eyes seemed to look at something in the distance that Quinn couldn't even guess at.

"There were a lot of people in Jos Gharo that year," Rhys said, his voice impassive. "Too many. When the storm broke in, my father did everything in his powers to save the food and water, but more than half of it was still lost. The storm is merciless. You should have seen it at work. In ancient times Nayanors believed it had a mind of its own, an actual conscience.

"You can see how it went. Even the people who didn't die at once when the storm broke in after she had opened the door too late couldn't all survive, there was simply no means to do that. I let Kol-Eresh's people in and there will be a harsh month for them, but that will be nothing compared to the year when Jos Gharo was broken.

"I won't bother you with the details. My father sent my mother and me to the deepest hall of the fortress along with the fateds and children of his elite warriors. They themselves stayed by the door, guarding us."

"From what?"

"From the rest of the people in the fortress," Rhys said.

Quinn's mouth dropped open.

"They – killed them?"

"I wouldn't say that," Rhys replied, looking at her with a look in his eyes that chilled Quinn to the bone despite the already prevailing coldness. "It was a simple decision. Those outside wanted in, wanted shelter for their own families. Those guarding were protecting theirs.

“No blame to be found. If the roles had been reversed, I'm sure my father would have cut us the way to survival through any amount of bodies he had to.

"Like I would for you."

Quinn said nothing. She couldn't even comprehend the horror of what Rhys was describing. Even if she hadn't been there, Quinn could imagine the darkness and the terrible storm howling on the floors on top of them, tearing at the walls of the fortress, always coming closer. She could hear people screaming, dying, calling out.

Luminos. I came here voluntarily.

"So what happened?" she asked.

The smile on Rhys' face wasn't one of happiness, nor even of love. It was sheer, pure pride.

"They didn't get in," he said.

"So everyone survived?" Quinn asked, hope blooming in her voice. "In the hall, I mean?"

"No," Rhys said. "The storm killed almost everyone in the fortress. Even those in the back hall weren't safe. I told you my mother's coats saved lives, but the other two didn't. The cold was too severe. In the end we could have built another fortress out of the coats of the dead. By that time, of course, everyone else was dead. In the hall and outside."

"And your parents?"

"My mother lived," Rhys said. "It was the only thing that mattered to my father, after all. We never saw him again after he ushered us into the hall. He never left the door until he died of his wounds."

Quinn's body twitched, urging her on to go to him, but she didn't know whether the harbinger would welcome her after all the things she said and did.

"Is that why you let Kol-Eresh in?" she asked instead.

Rhys chuckled.

"I suppose, but I don't think choosing not to have ten thousand souls on my conscience needs any reminder from my past," the harbinger said.

"He was there, you know," he added after a moment's pause.

"Who?" Quinn asked.

"Kol-Eresh. His mother was carrying him when the fortress was breached. That's who my mother gave two of her coats to. She gave birth to Kol right in the middle of it all. Afterwards, Kol-Eresh's father rebuilt the fortress. He looked after my mother like she was his sister for what she'd done for his family."

"I don't know what to say, Rhys," Quinn blurted finally. "I didn't know any of that. I'm so sorry it happened to you."

"Of course you didn't know," the harbinger said. "How could you? It's in the past now. There is no need to cry for the dead. My mother is long gone and so are Kol's parents. I wouldn't be surprised if we are the only ones still alive from that night."

"I'm sorry I got us both killed," Quinn said.

It sounded so miserable and ridiculous when she said it, but to her surprise, Rhys burst out laughing.

"We're not dead yet, my love," he said and the raw emotion in his voice finally made Quinn rush to him, letting herself be cradled by his strong, firm arms.

They stayed there, listening to the Gech's lullaby-like rumbling around them. Outside, the storm was getting worse and their chances of survival diminished.

Quinn laid in the embrace of her fated, thinking of life and love, of fathers who died for their fated and mothers who showed kindness in the face of certain death. She thought of destiny and choices and above all, of the man who had rushed into the long night to save her despite everything he knew of the storm and the futility of fighting it.