Chapter Text
From the open window, the noise of battle reached all the way up into the Brass. The fires lighting up the dark of night. Focus. He needed to focus. Francis paced around the room, and slammed the window shut, leaning back against it with a shaky exhale.
There was a bomb under his bed.
The rain had stopped. The room was quiet. There was a weapon of mass destruction, wrapped in a ratty towel, under a creaky bedframe in a half-penny inn, in the center of a war.
You’d expect it to make a sound, he thought. An ominous drone, or a whir caused by fifteen cubic meters of condensed destruction contained within a cylinder barely larger than his hand.
The bomb was silent.
When he left, there’d be a little war. There would be fire, guts and scrapnel, shattered pikes, bent limbs and burning barricades and they would rush by like the river, and he’d keep moving and staying alive, patching skin back together whereever he could. There would be no time to stop. Fast reflexes and quick decisions of who was bound for death already and who would live to see another day, following the logic of his surroundings.
The war tended to go one way.
In the end, there’d be a handshake, and scraps for a peacemeal. A few arrests. There would be vows of revenge and tears of despair, there would be nothing left to say, and eventually, they’d clear the rubble from the streets, and the waterwheel would turn again, and ships would tow and set sail and crates would be loaded and unloaded and thousands of feet would scrape the blood off the pavement and move on as if nothing had occurred.
Until the next time. And the next, until the end of days. So Francis just stood there. For a long time. And stared at the bomb, while the bomb stared at him – in silence.
There was a crevice in the cliffs, where the river turned.The notch in nature had no name, but a long, rich history – smugglers had been using it for centuries, young couples had been hiding and falling in love there, and tonight, a bunch of would-be revolutionaries laid in wait thereto make history.
Beast had his hand on the rudder, humming a tune. Their boats slid silently across the water, smooth sailing in an almost-storm – when the waves rose, and began rippling across the surface.
Kemm’s fleet was arriving.
Floodlights broke the darkness. Blinding, harsh alchemic limelight crept over the cliffs inch by inch. The ships were huge. Made for the open sea, hardly able to maneuver in the shallow curves and rapids of the river. Beast slung the grappling hook tight around his shoulder, gave the signal, and the sailors pushed their poles into the sediment of the Olmere.
A revolutionary was only worth his salt if he learned from those that failed before him, and if there were two places you found time to read, it was prison and the open sea. He looked around at those accompanying him. Nervous. Determined. Armed to the teeth. This was where they’d win or fail, where the moral of their story was decided – an inspiration, or a cautionary tale.
He found the answer way too soon.
The attackers came from nowhere.
No time to pull a weapon. A hail of crossbow bolts rained upon the fishing boats. Bodies hitting the planks. Throats slit in the dark, gurgling screams of death. Shadows descending from the cliffs, and butchering everything in their way. They cut through the sailors like a knife through butter, and the mace hit his ribcage and flung him against the railing, and silent, steady feet conquered the fishing boats in a victory faster than a breath. Beast’s vision went dark.
"Hey, sailor. How goes the revolution?"
A voice, sweet as honey. A black cloak, an armor of full leather. A hand, closed around the throat of his shipyard steward, Emil – the young dwarf struggled against it, eyes widened with fear.
"You wanna play in the big leagues? Hm?"
A laugh, high and infectious.
"All’s well in moderation, kid." The mace caressed the side of Emil’s jaw. "Build a few barricades, sure. Riot a little. That’s the cost of doing business, and everyone stays where they’re supposed to in the end. Mutually beneficial. But you just don’t know when to stop. If you lot wanna play war –"
The bottle grenade was wrenched from his hand, and thrown over the railing.
"– then war is what you’ll get."
A swing of the mace. The sickening crack of a broken skull, liquid hitting the wood in a splatter. The dark-clad figures looked over the corpses. And Marcus Miles, Beast of the Sea, head of the union, scourge of the navy – sank down between the bodies of his people, and played dead.
There was a waterwheel, lodged between the pillars of the bridge.
A giant of a mechanism. Powering the freight cranes in the docks, the hauling winds and hooks in the shipyard. The only thing harder than stopping the wheel was setting it in motion again, and so the wheel rattled on, day after day. Night after night. A never-ending backdrop noise that you adjusted your voice to speak over, and your ears to ignore.
A noise you only really noticed in its absence.
The wheel stood still now. Velec sat on the barricade, legs kicked out in front of her, and stared up at the sleeping giant. Sword in one hand, a cigarette in the other.
"I’m telling you again, Grandma, stay inside and lock the door!"
"I’ve had it with this nonsense, year after year after year, and I don’t care what you tell me –"
"Irla. Lock the f*cking door. Don’t come out. It’s important you don’t –"
Velec turned her head. She watched Marie gently stop the old woman from boxing her ears, and walk her back into her home with firm, steady steps. She was ancient, every wrinkle in her face dedicated to her scowl as the door closed before her – when she’d finally managed to wrangle the grandmother inside, Marie let out a long sigh, and climbed the barricade.
They sat side by side. The pile of furniture and crates was slick with water, the streets empty. Against the looming shadow, they were like ships at sea – a blink in the grander picture.
Velec reached for her hand, and scanned over the barricade. Marie’s freightloaders, harpunes in hand, and killing time. Because much of war was waiting, a card stack, old jokes, a nervous laugh once in a while, before it all exploded.
Quiet, anxious dread. Until Marie began to hum – an old and well-loved tune that everyone around here seemed to know, and it was gradually picked up along the barricade. Velec tried to remember the words to it, found them in a memory of Marie singing the song in the kitchen.
If I push here, and you pull there…
They looked to her for reassurance.
They’d follow her until the very end, Velec realized – this short, petite woman with a clipboard, a mean streak a mile wide and a sweet tooth for semolina cake, who punched above her weight day after day and earned undying loyalty. A true spawn of Lowbridge. Marie grabbed a harpune.
"You’re fearless," said Velec.
That night, she saw her lover in a new light – the braid fastened to her head, overall tied around her waist, a fierce glint in her eye as she rested the weapon on her knee and huffed a laugh. Without the tune, it was so quiet.
"You give me too much credit, love. I fear the wrath of Granny Irla, just like the rest of us." Marie leaned in, until they sat shoulder to shoulder, eyes on the crossing. "She does give good advice, though. Wanna hear it?"
"I could use some wisdom." Velec turned, and fiddled with her lighter – the look in Marie’s eyes intense and meaningful, as she leaned over in to whisper in her ear.
"Spend your life with someone you won’t mind dying next to."
"We’re not going to die."
"Nah. They need us to get back to work in the morning." Marie chuckled. Her reply was easy, practised, spelling out an open secret, or the color of the sky. "But that’s not the point."
A slender hand came up, cupping the back of her neck. There was a power in those hands that Velec’s couldn’t begin to compare with, even if they refused to crack so much as a pickle jar.
"Does it feel strange?" Asked Marie. "From this side of things?"
Velec took some time to answer. She’d never seen it that way – a slow disillusionment after the war had ended, from honest fervor to staying in the Order because she didn’t know what else to do, to looking upon the blank-faced, sewn-up horror of a silent Monk. A storied career.
From deciding to leave the order, to funneling information instead and helping sourcerers escape because Marie hadinsisted that running won’t do any good. The union scuffled with the holy guard from time to time, but it wasn’t like they’d ever found themselves eye to eye. You didn’t pick sides in a war. The sides picked you.
"No." She replied with certainty. "I’m right where I’m supposed to be."
Marie kissed her. Slowly, with a force behind it, and Velec sighed into it. "Get a room!" It sounded from the other end of the barricade. Marie snapped her head around. "Get laid, Hector!" And the freightloaders laughed, and their lips met again, weapons in hand, under the dawn of tomorrow.
And then, the signal.
They were ready for it, more ready than they’d ever been. Until they realized, with sudden horror, that it came from the wrong side.
From the river. Where the streets weren’t studded with caltrops, the side the barricades weren’t reinforced against. Alchemic floodlights broke the darkness from behind them. They scrambled to their feet. Weapons in hand. Down the street, dockers clambered onto the barricades, stood tall against the blinding light. Shouts rising from the docks, breaking the silence, the flare of bottle grenades lit on fire, and the looming sails of seven Order warships, dropping their landing bridges, the clanging of a hundred boots in unison, and the glint of metal, as a hundred armored soldiers marched towards them. Vizors down. Swords and shields, instead of pikes.
Equipped for war. Equipped to kill.
Everything exploded. Oil caught fire on the ramps, the rhythmic clang of metal rose to a thunder as the crusaders charged. Hand in hand turned into everybody for themselves. Cries of hold the line turned to screams of despair within the minute. The barricades were overrun. Broke and crumbled. The dockers fled, scattered into darkness, those who fell buried under the boots and blades of the soldiers, and Marie’s freightloaders aimed their harpunes, looking to her for the command –
"Run," she whispered. "Run."
Francis ran. He jumped the fence by the tannery, into the middle of the street, where they noise of battle came from. Everything was up in smoke. Barricades set aflame as they were abandoned, a crowd of dockers running into his direction – and an army on their heels.
His eyes widened. Francis let himself be carried along. He ran. He heard the screams of those falling behind. He saw – the Bridgepost in the distance, looming above the district, blinds closed and unlit. A crate was placed to the side of the tannery. Francis bolted, grabbed a rope harpune, dropped to the ground and fired it across the street. The rope uncoiled with a whirr, and the head of the harpune got stuck in a wooden fence on the other side. Francis pulled. A line of crusaders stumbled over the rope, others caught themselves only to be ran over by those behind them.
"Grenades!"
His shout seemed to wake some of the running dockers. The tell-tale hiss of powder fuses. Some of them fell back, or turned while running, drowning Kemm’s army in smoke.
For a moment, everything caught fire. It stuck to armor and skin with every movement. For a moment, the crusaders retreated. Francis ducked out of the way of a swinging sword, grasped the arm of a young docker who’d been almost trampled into dust, pulled him to his feet.
A shield hit him in the back.
Francis fell forward. "Out of the way!" It sounded from behind him. Another push, the pommel of a sword hit the side of his head. Francis hissed, raised his elbow to protect him and the injured docker from the attack and tried to pull him out of the street, stumbled and crashed right into another shield in front of him. "Out of the way!" One, two, three soldiers joined in on it. Something hit him in the spine, he couldn’t see through, "I’m f*cking trying," shouted Francis, "Let me –"
"Out of the f*cking way!" They weren’t words. They weren’t talking. Like a barking pack of dogs, as the soldiers surrounded them, and Francis curled up and fell, covering the man’s body with his, and everything narrowed down to a shield on his back, a knee on his neck, pinning him down while the dogs barked, "Out of the way!"
Then, suddenly – it let up.
The knee slipped with a shout. The shield was lifted from his back. Francis raised his head - the soldier in front of him was hit in the face by a heavy rooftile from above, and dropped like a stone into the street. A cry of victory. From the alley beside the tannery, a crowd of dockworkers swarmed the main road, and clashed with the army around him.
Bang. A fire grenade was flung from the roof, into the charging soldiers. Francis was pulled to his feet, he slung the injured man’s arm over his shoulder and stumbled off to the side, into the alley. Focus. He needed to focus.
"You alright, boss?" Marie DeSelby shouted over the noise. She lit another flash-bang, hurled it into the main road. A flare of light. When the smoke faded, the entire seven back rows of Kemm’s army stormed and bushwhacked blindly into their direction. "sh*t. Retreat!"
Bang. A cursed fire bomb went off in the entrance of the alley. They bolted, toppled crates and fence-sticks behind them as they went. The air was thick with powder smoke. The docker he carried could still move his legs, but the blood dripped down his face and his eyes drooped heavily. Francis cursed, pulled them into an open shack by the side of the street.
The Bridgepost.
They wouldn’t touch the Bridgepost. In years and years of riots, that was the one place that had neither accidentally caught fire, nor been raided by the Holy Guard in the aftermath. An institution, a protected landmark. A safe place, to – everyone but him. He carried the man there.
"Come on!"
Others followed in his heels, pulling along their injured and terrified, and Francis busted the door open with his free shoulder. No time to stop. No time to think, and what a mercy that was.
"Move the tables!" He ordered, and turned to address one of Marie’s companions, "Can you walk? Good. Get a fire going." The man on his shoulder suddenly doubled in weight, and dropped off. "sh*t – help me move him!"
Bang. Something detonated in the street out front. The explosion rang through the alleyways, up into the taproom. The door opened, while Francis heaved the man onto the table, two of the freightloaders holding his legs, and another injured docker was carried inside.
"You two! Run to the Medica, and find the most terrifying nurse in the emergency hall. Her name’s Inicia. Tell her she owes someone a full moon shift, and she knows damn well who’s asking–"
The door flung open again. Four people carried a man whose arm was blown clean off, like a bomb had misfired and exploded in his own hand. f*cking idiot. Francis cleared another table with a swipe of his arm, glasses toppling and shattering on the floor. He pointed at the new arrivals.
"His arm! Did someone find his f*cking arm?"
Blank stares. Francis clicked his tongue, and snapped his fingers.
"Put him down. Find the f*cking arm."
He worked like a machine, like a rock against the ever-rushing tide. Triage. Mild injury. Hopeless case. A woman who’d almost been slit in two by a sword, bleeding all over the table. Traditional means would fail here. And suddenly, he couldn’t bear it. To abandon the one thing he’d managed to contribute. He would’ve liked to say he did it without thinking. In truth - he simply didn't care.
"Get me a chicken," said Francis. "There’s a coop in the back."
By now, they knew better than to ask for an explanation. He grabbed a knife and bled it dry, muttered an incantation, and the woman’s skin began to sizzle before pulling back together over the wound. Everything lit up in a dark, violet glow. Every head turned in his direction.
Silence fell over the room.
The stairs creaked.
Francis knew what he’d see without looking. Disdain. Hunched shoulders, weighed down by life itself. Those angry, reddened, deep green eyes. The source cracks receded, and everyone was silent. Waiting to see what played out between the two of them, and how to stay out of it, as usual.
"Where the f*ck are they?"
He’d picked the wrong f*cking day for this. Francis turned, and felt nothing when he did it. Unlike last time he’d taught the manalesson for the ages. Someone had to. Gods help him, one step, and he’d do it all again.
"Are you just gonna stand there?"
Francis' voice ripped through the eye of the storm, like the cathedral bells ringing through the dead of night. And finally, he met the eyes that looked like his. The disdain, the fear – and ultimately, the despair. His father didn’t answer. Francis, covered in chicken guts, was quiet when he spoke again.
Calm, and carefully controlled.
"Or are you gonna make yourself useful?"
There would be time to mourn the dead.
Beast knew that much. Death was an old companion here. There’d been many things to learn about the ways of the docks, their rituals and strange cycle of seasons. Three days were customary. If they were having funerals, they wouldn’t have time to try again.
Hefound the alchemist in one of the dockers’ pubs.
Surrounded by a group of night shift nurses from the Midnight Hall, who had spent the last hours helping out those who’d survived the charge of Kemm’s men. At least, he thought, they’d made the effort to change locations. And weren’t getting drunk in the Bridgepost, where –
The lad looked defeated. Like everyone else. With a blank stare into the bottom of his cup, he flipped a small amulet around his fingers, back and forth, back and forth. Beast felt some sense of debt towards him – the man had mended his ribcage, after all – so he made his way over.
The pub was eerily silent. They shared a hug. It lasted longer than either of them had intended. Comfort and cheer in the face of defeat came to Beast as easy as breathing. A long-honed skill.
They came from nowhere, Beast admitted after a few drinks. Someone must’ve told them what we were up to. Francis agreed with a nod, didn’t ask, didn’t answer.
Justinia? Asked Beast. Dead, said Francis.
And the deathfog?
Gone.
That was all he had to say. His voice was like sandpaper. With one long, meaningful clap on his shoulder, Beast left the man to his devices. The single-syllable answers told him enough. Defeat was harder to bear, when you’d allowed yourself to hope.
Morning broke, when she left Lohse behind in their room at the tavern.Sebille had aided the thieves in taking out Kemm’s war owls, on his estate. Apparently, the Red Lantern Guild didn’t just consist of prostitutes – the chambermaid had opened the door for them.
Aren’t you a little old for a whor*? One of the thieves guild’s representatives had asked, clearly with the intent to ruffle feathers. The chambermaid had only laughed.
No. But I’m not a whor*. We do have many things in common – we see the mighty at their weakest every day, and for that, we are despised and kept under heel. She’d led them down the hallway, not bothering to lower her voice, and lit a torch. Under all that pomp and gall, she’d mustered him, is just a naked, fragile body. They’re just like us. You’re justlike me. All of us are flesh and blood.
Another thief, a young elf she’d seen around the meeting in the warehouse, interjected with a laugh.
Try telling Kemm that.
I don’t have to. He’ll understand it when he dies, just like a whor*, just like a priest, just like a peasant or a thief. She smiled thinly, and unlocked the door to the gardens.Take care, now.
The main road laid in ruin, and in complete silence. The fires were extinguished. Light smoke still rose between the buildings, died and faded slowly in the breeze, and charred spots littered the walls and the pavement. Guards in full plate armor patrolled every inch of the streets.
And in between – the corpses.
Wrapped in tarp and piled up in the streets. The guards seemed nervous. The shadows were deep here – alleys and dark corners that hadn’t been touched by the sun and its year-long rotation for as long as they stood. A dark, red sunrise covered by the clouds drowned everything in twilight.
Sebille ducked into the shadows.
Almedha, Root and Kin.
She buried her hand in the mud, felt for the roots there, and closed her eyes. I, Sebille, honor you and your history. Show me your truth. The good in you. The bad in you. The all in you.
Scion Almedha may not have remembered much. Her being too torn, to cruelly twisted. But she remembered the rage, boiling and simmering, and every day, she’d seen the mighty at her weakest. She’d been in the planks under her feet, when Dallis was told by her advisor to take the Aeteran to Lucian. We have nothing to fear from the gods – it’s time for the Divine to rise again.
Her eyes snapped open. She raised herself from the floor, and began her search. Sebille scurried, from shadow to shadow, and stayed undetected. The silence was heavy. Festering. Away from the epicenter of the riots, there was light shining through the windows of a shack near the pier, the dulled noise of quiet conversation. The only sign of life around.Heads turned when she entered. The mood was, understandably, subdued. And at the bar, she spotted a familiar redhead. Francis looked terrible. He was sporting a black eye, but much worse than that was the look on his face. Sebille sat down next to him.
"Hey." Francis’ voice was rough and cracking. Too much yelling, perhaps. "How’s Lohse?"
Sebille shrugged, looking at the drink in her cup. She thought of her love – in the room upstairs, staring at the wall without a word, while Sebille brushed her hair between her fingers. Lohse’s tears had pained her less.
"She needs time," was the answer she decided on, "Time we do not have."
Francis nodded absently. He didn’t touch his drink either, just stared at it. The period of mourning did not extend to them. Lucian’s day was approaching fast, and they were down two Godwoken.
Sebille tapped one sharp nail on the counter.
"Two days," she reminded him. "We need a plan. Where is Ifan?"
The alchemist shrugged. There’d hardly been time for a proper debrief. And what few details she had were rathernebulous – Queen Justinia was dead, the threat of deathfog disarmed and disabled, the political chain reaction yet to be determined.
And Ifan had vanished off the face of the earth.
Sebille understood. She didn’t blame him – his need for solitude resonated deeply, the mark of those accustomed to finding comfort in themselves. They were all creatures of habit, in the end. Not surprising, that the brush with his past must’ve unsettled him. And still, for once, no matter how terrifying – Sebille had the deep desire to find solace among friends.
"You should go find him," She suggested softly. "I’ll take care of Lohse."
Francis grimaced. He picked up his cup – still not drinking from it, just swirling the liquid around in contemplation,seemingly deciding something, and set it down on the counter. The lack of his incessant chatter was almost unsettling.
"I don’t think he’ll be happy to see me."
He swallowed – something he wanted to say and then didn’t. Time moved differently in human realms. Clocked and urgent. And here in Arx – this was what you called not the time for it.
"Are you fighting?" Sebille rolled her eyes in disapproval. "Again?"
"Something like that."
She didn’t press for details. But there was an urgency here. Tomorrow morning, she’d tell Lohse the same thing – to get it together, to get up and fight, one more time, and they’d be free of it all.
Free. Or dead.
The lack of an afterlife was strangely comforting to her. Sebille chose not to dwell on it for longer than she had to. She turned, took a sip of her beer, staring at him over the edge of her cup.
"Whatever it is," she said, "You should settle it. And soon. We are going face Dallis, and who knows what else, in less than three sunsets. We should use that time, to prepare –" Sebille paused, and continued quietly, "and cherish what we have. Do not waste it. There’s a battle coming."
Francis shugged.
"There always is," he said. "We never have the time, do we?"
Sebille squinted slightly. Francis didn’t often get philosophical with her, but she’d seen enough to know that it wasn’t a good sign.
"We get to rest after we win." Repetition, she gestured off-handedly. "Ifan knows this. Each time, it is the same with you and him. You fight, then you f*ck, then you love each other madly once again. He will forgive you. I am certain."
Francis sighed. He settled his elbows on the counter, buried his face in his hands – he hadn’t even washed the blood off, she noticed, just changed his clothes and gotten back to work.
"I don’t want him to."
Sebille raised a questioning eyebrow. She watched him rub his blood-stained hands over his face, like he was trying to wake himself from the remnants of a dream, and stayed silent until he saw fit to elaborate.
"I did something terrible to him, Sebille."
A pause. Francis looked at her, so uncharacteristically hesitant that she began to worry in earnest. "And the thing is – I know he would forgive me if I asked. I know, and I don’t want him to. I really did him wrong, and he’d just–"
A rapid surge of protectiveness flared up in her chest - knowing thatIfan could protect himself just fine, but just as often, hechose not to. Forgot that he was able to, perhaps. Something she was certain Francis knew as well. Sebille narrowed her eyes.
"Francis. What did you do?"
"I don’t think it’s my place to tell you."
"Not your place? When has that ever stopped you before? You only choose to find your sense of respect when it suits you. Tell me what you did."
He fiddled with something in his hand. A familiar amulet, on a leather string. Since the moment he’d sat down, a deep, weary fatigue hung over his presence, his stubbled face sunken, eyes blood-shot from exhaustion, lack of sleep, orsomething else entirely.
"Look, I – I’ve got an idea where he might be," Francis murmured evasively, "And I shouldn’t ask this of you, but I don’t think me trying to convince him to come back will do us any favors."
"You speak in circles," snapped Sebille. "You want to ask me something? Ask."
Francis sighed.
"Will you go and get him?" He stopped himself, and added: "And will you – tell him that he’s right, to be angry? I’m angry at myself, I panicked, I didn’t know what else to do, but I never–"
"You can tell him that," she retorted sharply. "Where do you think he is?"
Francis stared into his cup. Still not drinking from it, just looking at it, just needing something to do with his hands. Like he was doing a disservice by saying it out loud.
"Sant Niska," he said. "The old schoolhouse."
The world was quiet here.
Ifan absently traced patterns in the beams of the ceiling, and when he’d exhausted them, focused on the room around him. An unwise decision. There were forces in this world he couldn’t fathom – and he’d really best avoid eye contact, before they got any ideas. Before they deemed him useful.
It wasn’t the first unwise decision of the day, not by far, but there hadn’t really been another option. No other guarantees. If he’d spent a f*cking second longer thinking about it – all in all, it was an easy calculation.
He was weightless. Floating. Clouded in the solace of nothing.
The stuff was nothing to be trifled with, but practise made perfect. Every limb felt too light for its weight. The ancient empire trained its mystics in the pollen of a dreamer’s flower as carefully as they trained them to fight, but the leaves alone weren’t enough to take him to the depths of sweet, complete oblivion. He’d spent years there. Felt right at home there, caution replaced by repetition, and knew that if he chose to stop paying attention, any image he disliked would simply go away.
Still, an overdose of this severity – never a great choice.
For the record, Ifan was aware. What formed before his eyes was the one hallucination he’d least hoped for, and really, it just served him right. Full circle. A snake biting its own tail. Or something.
He’d seen it before.
Back in Driftwood, nearly two years ago, stupidly f*cked on a post-breakup Undertavern bender. He’d done his best to forget about that night, but forgetting just wasn’t in the cards for him. Ifan held his breath. Some of the illusions,embodiments of what lurked deep in his subconscious, were so powerful they became recurring, almost material,developed a mind, and a voice of their own. And this one had startled him so badly that he’d completely forgotten tostop paying attention.
A forest tiger, prowling the floors of the old schoolhouse.
A magnificent beast. The most revered of hunters in the valley. The last of her kind –her black fur crossed with copper-glinting stripes, in the light of a candle that did not exist.
Hello, Death, said the tiger.
He didn’t scramble to his feet this time, to flip a table or call for Afrit. He breathed through the fear, so slow that it echoed between his ears, as the tiger stalked closer. His mind dissolved patterns. He saw the elven art of war mirrored in her movements. Secure yet furtive. Elegant and terrible.
You should look away.
Her voice was like silk. A hallucination, alright – but much clearer than the others, as if the last forest tiger had crawled dead from the roots to look him in the eye. No trace of decay on her, frozen in eternity, the relentless hunter that was always on his tracks, a vengeful, timeless truth. His oldest god.
Hello, Guilt, said Ifan.
A twitch of her ears. Her stare fixed on his, her broad head tilted toward him. The tiger smiled.
Will you not run? Easy prey brings no enjoyment. Will you not deny your nature?
Ifan didn’t look away.
He stared straight into the sun. Of all of Rhalic’s lessons, the first had been the one to stick. Because he’d taught it in a language Ifan was sure to understand. Struck him hard across the face whenever he’d flinched away from the sight of his own malice reflected in the god’s white eyes. Look at it. His body was so numb he felt the bones through his skin. You can’t hide. I see the dead whisper your name as they pass the threshhold.
The tiger sat. Her long tail curled around her front legs, whipping up the dust.
You are wise not to run. To find you, I follow just the stench of slaughter. And from the bloodbath, you emerge. Never the judge – always his faithful executioner.
Ifan didn’t look away. Nails dug deep into his palm to remind him he was flesh. Her eyes bore into his like a thousand year-old star, cold and red and ancient.
Whatever he decides. All falls to your sword. My stripe, my streak, my forest. Death, said the tiger. Death, repeated in the voice of Mother Melati. Death, snarled Scion Ghallan from her maws. And every time, your hand that wields it, the crusader who slaughters with a smile in chase of absolution, following one lying god after another. Who do you follow now?
It took effort to push the answer through his teeth. Unsure who exactly he was trying to convince. I follow my own damn self. The stare drilled into him, the floor pulled out from under him, floating became falling, the tiger crouched, ready to pounce, to rip him to shreds, and when it jumped–
Ifan closed his eyes.
By the time Francis decided he wanted a drink, the pub was almost empty.
Was it a good decision? Absolutely not. The fight was over. The nurses had gone, most of the dockers had gone, andhe hated the silence. The noise of the waterwheel had stopped, only the frogs in the river and the seagulls and the clink-clink of the lanterns in the storm, andwaves larger than usual lapping at the poles of algae-covered docking quays.
Go home, Francis. It’s over.
He didn’t get sh*tfaced out of sadness. Anymore. On principle.
A bad idea in any conceivable way, and for the record, Francis was aware. He was being dramatic. The liquor felt like weapon oil, Francis was a piece of sh*t, and another piece of sh*t decision looked better than ever. He wanted a drink, and then he wanted another, and then he stared at the wall and willed down the urge to hit something along with every thought of Ifan and the sewers and the bomb under his bed and the dead dockers on his makeshift operating table, until even the barmaid had gone home, and just left him alone with the bottle.
And curiously – with the Beast of the Sea.
Francis glared in his direction, almost hoping to find a look of disapproval. The dwarf sat at a table near the edge of the quay. His own drink in hand, staring at the river, and not acknowledging his presence at all. Until the bottle was almost empty. And suddenly, Francis had the strange and uncommon urge to just –
"Oi." He waved in his direction. "Want the rest of this?"
Beast turned around. Francis tilted the bottle in his hand. Raza.Homebrew. The desperate kind.
"Tastes like sh*t," he elaborated, before squinting at the dwarf, wondering: "Why’re you still here?"
The old sea-captain smiled. Wide and gentle, and heartbreakingly sad, and eventually waved Francis over to sit with him. He followed the invitation – with a little more sway in his step than he was proud of – pushed the bottle over, and just looked at some f*cking water for a bit.
At the stretch of the bay. An endless horizon, where the river flowed into the sea. Whispering promises of faraway places, far better than here. f*ck Lowbridge, he thought. The place where hope went to die, that had all of his heart and all his disdain. f*ck this city, and everything in it.
When Beast finally answered his question, he’d almost forgotten he’d asked it in the first place.
"Just – delayin’ the inevitable."
The dwarf shrugged. Francis turned to look at him – he sat slumped in his chair, hands clasped together on the table,his expression disappearing in the excessive depths of his facial hair.
"Tomorrow, there’ll be funerals to have. Families to talk to. People to convince we shan’t despair. Arrangements to be made after Justinia’s popped her clogs. See what grand concessions Kemm’s willin’ to make. And so on, and so forth." He made a dismissive hand gesture, and emptied the bottle in one long swig. "But today’s for wallowin’." A pause. "They were all of them too young."
Francis, distantly aware he should be finding words of consolation right about now, just cleared his throat and raised his empty glass in return. Beast gave him another smile. "And yerself?"
"Huh?" Said Francis.
"Why’re ye still here?"
Francis shrugged. The sun briefly broke through the overcast sky, glittering in the waves. He felt a little sick. He thought of bodies, wrapped in tarp and piled up in the street. Of the way Ifan had looked at him – hadn’t looked at him, when he’d purged the deathfog tank of its contents, and disappeared into the night without a word. Nowhere else to go. The answer didn’t pass his lips.
"’Cause I’m a piece of sh*t," he settled on eventually.
Beast chuckled, and joined him in staring at the horizon.
"Well. Yer in good company. Better to be wallowin’ together than alone. Tomorrow’s a new day, my friend." He tapped his index finger lightly on the table. "And they won’t know what’s coming."
They were silent for a bit. Francis watched the seafarer, the easy smile that made his eyes disappear in his roundcheeks, who’d lain surrounded by the corpses of his friends mere hours ago. A question nagged at him, and Francis was completely unable to hold it in, even if his ability to form coherent sentences was worryingly far gone.
"How d’you do that?" He whispered. "How do you stay so–" Francis made a helpless gesture, trying to find whatever word he’d been looking for. "Aren’t you scared?"
"’Course I am."
Beast waved him off good-naturedly.
"Trade secret for ye? If I’ve learned one thing – folks don’t put their lives at risk to change things for the better because they're not afraid to die. Everyone’s afraid. Me? I’m sh*ttin’ bricks, right now."
He gently nudged Francis’ shoulder with his.
"No, lad. They fight because they know that they can win. They see a chance things’ll get better, and think it’s worth the risk. And those who don’t live long enough to see it – can’t let ‘em down."
"Huh," said Francis.
Nothing else. Beast gave him a long look, and scratched his beard, putting the braids in order. He seemed to remember something, suddenly, and raised a concerned eyebrow.
"Where’s yer fella?" He asked quietly. "Did he – make it out alright?"
Francis stared at him like a deer in headlights.
"How’d you–"
"Yer gettin’ hammered like a man in love," said Beast easily. "How long’ve ye been married?"
It wasn’t his proudest moment.
Francis could admit to that. The sudden pain in the middle of his chest was so terribly close to the feeling of heartbreak that for a moment, he paid it no mind. He opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out.
The pain radiated. The stench of source in the back of his mouth. He clawed a hand above his heart, and – oh, no.
His heartbeat was gone. Francis collapsed off his chair, clutching his chest, reached inside himself to summon his source, get it moving again – and he hit a wall. A source attack so powerful it almost threw him to the floor. He breathed sharply through his nose, ground his teeth together. The foul sensation of his blood being pumped into all the wrong directions. He distantly registered Beast, grasping for him, clenched his eyes shut, followed his own veins to the center of his chest.
"Alright there, lad?"
The world faded to nothing. His mind sharpened like thrice-folded steel. His source clawed forward, inch by inch, against the unknown attacker, and set his heart back in motion.
Barely. Not enough by a mile. What little of his own blood he could get a hold of, against the assault that came from absolutely nowhere, barely managed to move the valves. His ears were ringing. The world blurred at the edges, black spots dancing in his vision, cold sweat on his neck.
There. An opening.
The pressure on his heart let up, and he gasped for air – but the next attack came without delay, like a needle stabbed into his liver. He lost his grip. Scrambled to protect the delicate skin of his organs instead, and the second he did, his heart was stopped again. God’s. Blackened. tit*. His mind parted in two. Trying to hold up the protections around both his heart and his liver, only for the third attack to contract the branches of his lungs. He couldn’t breathe.Whoever was doing this –
Francis was way out of his league.
"Starling Inn," he croaked towards Beast, with his last remaining braincell, "Take me there. Now."
A distinct, pervasive smell. Rotting petals on wet earth. When Sebille entered the old schoolhouse, the smoke rolled over the threshhold like a wave – thick, grey fog enveloping her fully as the door fell shut behind her, swallowing the ever-present noise of the streets. Silence.
Pitch-dark silence.
Her ears tilted to catch more sound. The faint rustle of cloth and limb, fitful, mindless whispers, the whistle of a dozensoot-stained lungs. She moved with purpose, with the care of someone used to treading darker places, past the bodies scattered in the mist. Her vision adjusted quickly. Avoiding every sluggish pair of eyes that followed her approach, until they drifted off when she didn’t linger.
Only glances in passing.
Ifan was a hard man to track. No easy task to locate him, even among the bare handful of addicts residential to theformer schoolhouse of Sant Niska. Its namesake, the wooden saint of diligence, had long been vandalized – or maybe, he’d always lacked his head through martyrdom. She couldn’t remember. The floorboards creaked under her feet. Ink-stained desks and dog-eared books spoke of the building’s past, and in between, the dreamers dreamed.
Of places far better than this one.
Sebille recalled a night at Effie’s – the music, the warm flicker of the oil lamps, the lively buzz of conversation, the rough, but hearty familiarity. She could see why he liked it there. This place, however – where little Francis must’vecrammed his alphabet once – was quiet as a tomb. Even the smoke smelled different. Not earthy-sweet and heady – the suffocating, cloying stench of rot.
A hunter followed tracks. A skilled hunter followed habits.
Sebille knew he’d ended up here.
She also knew that he disliked the dark, disliked so much as a ceiling, even, on the days his heart refused to let himrest. Through the dirty windows, the clouds above cast a dull hint of daylight. She followed the scarce gloom to the upper level, and sure enough – laid out on a ratty carpet right underneath the window, his silhouette sharpened by thecold grey of the sky – she found him there.
No easy task. Unless you knew him.
"Here you are." Sebille announced herself in Elvish, with a quiet whistle. "I found you, wolf."
Fen’tiriaran. Ifan. Fen.
Maybe more than a wartime pseudonym, she thought for the first time, testing it on her tongue. Ifan. Fen. Maybe, aplay on the last syllable of his name pronounced properly, softly, in the way the desert language he’d been baptized in made little to no difference between the a and e.
Ifan looked different, out of his armor. Vulnerable, almost, if not for the wisely hidden dagger by his side. Eternity was written in his eyes. Clouded, distant universes and possibilities he couldn’t return from, or maybe didn’t care to. Hair sprawled on the carpet, one hand above his chest, numb and transfixed in an open-eyed dream. So still – so silent, that moss could’ve grown over him.
Sebille couldn’t hear him breathe. His eyes didn’t move. She followed the minute rise and fall of his chest, the only sign of life he gave. No reaction, when she crouched down beside him. Slowly.
You fool, she thought. Had the urge to shake him, get him moving again, implore him to come back from whereever it was Ifan had disappeared to. She was no stranger to the pull of it. To feel nothing. Be nothing. Their paths ran parrallel, and Sebille was almost grateful her first brush with drudanae had left her shaking and terrified and vowing to never touch it again. One thing, though, she knew for sure. Even if the war had ended – a soldier never really stopped being a soldier.
"Two days left until Dallis makes her move," she declared in Common. "Ma sahlin. It’s time."
Ifan didn’t react. Stared into the air like a ghost. Come back to me, she silently implored him. Felt him flinch away when her hand grabbed his, before he relaxed into the touch. Apathy, she read.
"You’ve had time to grieve," she insisted, rubbing her thumb over the soft flesh of his palm. "But you are not the only one who does. Please, come with me." Her voice softened. "I rely on you."
His response almost startled her. First, because he spoke at all, then, because of how he spoke. Quiet. Enunciated.Devoid of all emotion. So far away he might as well have been gone.
"Well. Don’t."
Sebille stared at him in disbelief. Because he’d said it with intent. Because Ifan made no move to even look in her direction, just an empty stare that went right past her.
"You’re being cruel."
Ifan shrugged. Unblinking. The apathy she read on him strained at the edges, like he was using it to fight down something deeper and much more terrifying. Sebille’s hand tightened around his, battling an old, unnamed emotion.And slowly, she realized how long it’d been, since –
Since she’d last felt this alone.
"You think I choose to depend on you now?" She whispered. "To watch you rot in smoke and misery, or run off and almost die? To drag you out by the scruff of your neck, time and time again? You are my friend," the last word, like a cut, "And the fight is not over. We are not done. Look at me."
He didn’t react.
"Look at me," she hissed. Watched his jaw tense in defiance, deepening the scars in his face, as he stubbornly continued staring at the wall. She thought of Lohse – in a similar condition, huddled in the dark of their room at the corner inn, and the feeling of abject loneliness that followed.
"Tell me what happened," she demanded. "What was it? What did he do?"
A slow blink. Pupils wide and dark as ink, an empty void, like time had stopped for him. Just his hand moved, the tips of his fingers mindlessly skimming the ground until they found the head of the pipe and guided it to his lips. He took his time with it. Letting the smoke billow out from his mouth.
"Your scar," he said then. "What’s it like? When it’s used against you?"
He said it without care. As subtle and intricate a threat as they came. Every muscle cinched under her shoulders. No matter how many times she’d had this conversation, she never detested it less. Ifan knew it, and still chose to ask. Gods, knowing he was the only one left who could still sing its f*cking song. She wasn’t surprised. They were two of a kind – so well-versed in pain and cruelty that the slightest jab stung like a needle when they decided to dish it out.
She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.
"Oh, the scar?" She began, in the scathing sarcasm the Common Tongue allowed for. "You’re only forced to watch your own hands do things that go against every fiber of your being. You fight it with everything you have, and it is not enough. It is never enough. It unmakes you, everything you are as a person, every shred of dignity you once had. Until you don’t even try to fight it anymore, and just let it happen, eventually losing the one thing you have left of yourself. Which is how I know–"
She calmly examined her nailbeds, then tipped one finger firmly into his chest.
"– that in your wildest dreams, you could never use it against me. Not out of principle, or because you’re a good man. But because you know all too well that the chain destroys both ends," Sebille asserted, with complete veracity, afterthe poet closest to her heart, "The kept, and the keeper."
He was quiet after that.
All bark, no bite. How foolishly arrogant of him, to assume she couldn’t tell, having been there for the bloody end of one master and the next. Ifan took a long hit. Still not looking at her. But he’d been listening at least, acknowledged what she’d said with a curt nod, and a gesture of agreement.
"I wouldn’t," he said. "But Francis would."
Sebille froze, involuntarily. A silent question. Ifan didn’t answer, didn’t confirm or deny it.
"It’s not the same, not by a mile," he mitigated. In the same tone as before, absent, matter-of-fact. "And he didn’tmean to. But you know how he gets, if he thinks he’s out of options–"
"Ifan. What did he do?"
"Doesn’t matter."
Sebille grasped his hand. She was about to press him, tell him that it very much did – but for the first time, Ifan’s eyes flickered up to meet hers. If only for a second before they wandered off again, to someplace far away. Shame. Disgust. It flared up raw under his skin – until he sighedpulled his hand away and wiped it over his eyes.
"It doesn’t matter," Ifan repeated. "What f*cks me up is – he was right."
"How?"
She kept it to a simple question. Sebille bit back the rising anger. She knew there’d been a reason to be wary of that man. Francis couldn’t be trusted. Too remorseless. Too hungry for control. Ifan blew smoke towards the ceiling.
"I can’t be trusted, Sebille."
It was the last thing she’d expected. To Ifan, it was written fact.
"We found the deathfog stash," he continued, distant and mechanical. "The machine almost went off, and I was tryingto disarm it, but I wasn’t in my–"
Ifan fell quiet. In my right mind, he’d been about to say, and then stopped himselfthinking that it made no difference. As usual, he gave no excuses. Just a shrug.
"I almost did it again."
The words hung heavy in the air. I almost did it again. His face, completely set in stone. Sebille had seen that look before – the same hard-shell inertia, scrambling to detach his heart from his hands, the same look he’d had after killing Scion Ghallan in the graveyard. Struggling to speak at all.
"If he’d let me," Ifan got out, "If he hadn’t stopped me, I would’ve–"
"Not by choice," she whispered. "I know this."
"Does it matter?"
Repetition did nothing make it easier. The defeat in his voice ran through her blood like ice. A path he wouldn’t return from if she left him to it. Sebille knew – what it meant to cling to the distinction, the last thing left of yourself, even just the illusion of it. She had to believe it.
"My Ifan," she said. "It makes all the difference in the world."
"How?" He whispered. "I can’t be left to my own devices. Every time there’s a chance to set things right, I go and make everything worse. And you wanna count on me, to end divinity? You know I–"
"Not every time," Sebille interrupted sharply.
Ifan didn’t reply. She couldn’t bear listening to him like this. Not a second longer. Too terribly familiar with the place he was in, trapped in hopeless absolutes, with no light on the horizon. Unless she managed to remind him that the door wasn’t locked. Not anymore. Not for a long time.
"Not in the Well of Ascension," she repeated. "Remember? You had an impossible decision to make. To let your loverdie, or let Rhalic force your hand and betray me. For so long, you have believed that no matter what you did, it would’ve led to ruin. And in that moment, it seemed true. There was no right thing to do there. No greater good, no lesser evil. No easy path to choose."
She reached out, gently brushing the hair from his face.
"So you didn’t. You looked at me, at the affected, and asked me to choose."
A soft click of his tongue.
"No one would’ve liked those odds."
"Few would have done what you did," she insisted. "I don’t think you understand just what it meant to me. Your indecision, in that moment, was no sign of weakness. Between two impossible wrongs, you fought to take a different path. And like you trusted in me then – I choose to trust you now."
Ifan hummed in response. Closed his eyes, and rested his head on his arms.
"That’d be your mistake, then."
Like a slap to her face.
No. Like a well-aimed uppercut. Quick, calculated, meant to hurt. And it did, the rage burning up in her before she could stop it. Her path was reflected in his. Sebille moved like lightning. Grabbed him by the front of his shirt and shookhim, and Ifan’s eyes snapped open, reflexively catching her arm to push her off. Sebille didn’t let up. As sudddenly as the movement had happened, they stilled.
For a moment, they just stared at each other. His face was oddly pale in the grey light, speckled with the shadow of dust on the window. The black expanse of his pupils finally focused on her.
"Las telhane."
A quiet hiss through her teeth, like the swing of a scythe.
"Not another word. There is no one here to point the way for you. Forget Francis. Forget what you almost did, forgetthe fate you’ve long fulfilled and for once in your life, make a f*cking choice."
She yanked him upright, the hard skin of her forehead slamming against his. Ifan looked stone-cold sober in the fraction of a second, one hand around her wrist, the other on his dagger. Sebille’s stare was unrelenting.
"Decide." She growled. "Now. Will you honor my trust in you? Do your best with what you’re given, even if there’s a good chance you could fail? Or will you waste it right away, by not even trying?"
It was selfish, and a little cruel. Sebille did not care. When he didn’t reply, she leaned forward and caught him in a hug.Shame. Rage. Grief. Despair. Ifan stopped fighting her almost immediately. He relaxed into it, just barely, as Sebille leaned her face into his shoulder. Still not saying a word.
What is rootless and uprooted must find a new embrace. Then, and only then, may it return.
"You are my friend," she repeated. The first one she’d ever had, the one who’d taught her the very meaning of the word, and she wouldn’t leave him here. If he wouldn’t listen to reason nor kindness– he was sure to listen to this.Sebille pulled away. Pressed their foreheads together, and showed him her teeth.
"Get up, you foolish man. We are going to kill a Divine."
There. A flicker of something in his empty eyes. The familiar sight of skin-deep bloodlust. Sebille didn’t back away. Do I have your attention now?
"Oh, yes," she added. "Did I mention? Lucian is alive."
The air, at least, felt breathable again.
Dirt stuck to his shoes. The washed-up dust of Arx’s rain season covered everything in a layer of sludge – a time of cleansing, of rebirth, long before Lucian’s day had even existed. The previous chosen of the gods had placed their holiday in accordance with a much, much older seasonal tradition, the origins of which went back to the time of the eternals. Or so Francis said.
Nobody was celebrating now. The streets, completely empty. The revolution, crushed. Defeat hung in the clouds,Order soldiers stood guard on every corner.
"Sebille," said Ifan when they passed a docking basin surrounded by high walls, "Have you ever tapped into the roots before?"
The first words either of them said after a long time, since leaving the old schoolhouse. In his defense – he could’ve done without it. The light stung his eyes. His head too light, his reflexes sluggish, his mouth too dry, and every limb heavy with the collected weight of every bad decision. What a blessed day. To find out Lucian was still f*cking alive.
Ifan was dealing with it.
Ifan was fine.
Some part of him had known. There had been something… unresolved, something looming, the old, familiar feeling that fate wasn’t done with him. That something was missing, and he just wasn’t looking at it, knowing there were forces in this world you simply didn’t mess with.
"Of course. Many times. I can’t believe I didn’t look into Almedha’s memory much sooner."
"What did you see?"
Sebille shrugged.
"It was reconnaissance, for the most part. We no longer have a central source of prophecy. The knowledge is there, but it is –" She took a second to look for the right word, "Regional. If I want to access the memory of someone in the root of, say, Nuvian, I have to ask their scion for help."
"And have the scions ever – given you source? Through the roots?"
"No. Why do you ask?"
Ifan rubbed his eyes. His awareness of the events in Isbeil’s laboratory slowly returned to him. The roots had… come to his aid there. The voices, thousands of them, many more than there were scions left on earth. Ancient, and angry.
"I–"
He saw the flash of metal in the last second. Ifan jumped backwards. The swing of a mace just barely missed his head, he drew his knife, Sebille evaded the second blow and snatched the needle from its sheath, and when he steadied himself, he heard a well-familiar giggle.
sh*t.
"A little out of shape, are we?"
Francis was right. This city had a way of coming back to bite you. A cheerful voice – belonging to a short-haired brunette woman, clad in full leather armor. The hem of her cloak decorated in wolf’s fur, her bright, infectious smile cutting dimples into her cheek as she slowly walked towards him. Her eyes sparked with what seemed like humor, but then again–
"Honeyhook," said Ifan. "Fancy meeting you here."
There was a proverb in the business. No quicker way to death than meeting an old friend. And Ifan couldn’t think of any that didn’t have good reason to take him out – but this, he gathered, was a professional affair. He moved, stoodshoulder to shoulder with Sebille. Eyes on the corners.
"Not that fancy," she confirmed his suspicions. "I’m sure you can imagine."
And that was why you didn’t leave survivors. Ifan spotted a movement in the shadows of the alley, and heard heavy steps from the one behind him, a shift, from someone impatient who’d been ordered to stay still, and the subtle noise of two unsheathing cattle-hooks. f*cking Pigsbane.
Sebille covered his six. Ifan scanned the upper wall. Nothing.
"Last I recall – you were about to hang your coat and quit the business," he returned easily. "Find purpose in life, and all that. What happened?"
"You happened, sweetheart."
The mace laid lightly in her hand, her body relaxed. Ready to swing. Some sentimental part of him recalled the many nights they’d spent at camp, swapping gossip and passing a pipe between them. How she’d let him go after stabbing Anwyn through the heart, leaving the corpses of Roost and half the other Lone Wolves. Let’s hope we never meet again, Silverclaw. But honestly? Good for you.
The wind picked up. They’d been friends once, of a sort – had to be, in order for this to feel like a betrayal. They didn’t need to like each other. They’d shared a fight, and not much else. It had been enough. Honeyhook grinned.
"There was a job opening. Turns out, what I really needed after all was change. A purpose, as you say." She snickered, resting the mace on her shoulder, as the steps from behind slowly neared. "I answered the call. Honeyhook, king of mercenaries. Got a nice ring to it, don’t you think?"
And from the bloodbath, you emerge. Never the judge. Always his faithful executioner.
Whatever the world’s oldest profession was, this one arguably wasn’t far behind. Good business to be made in times of peace. Better business in times prior to war. He heard the clip of hooves, the snort of horses. A carriage in the alley. He angled his heels off the ground, set his shoulders.
Two, signed Sebille from the corner of his vision.
"Seeing how you’ve been so busy," Ifan replied in a low hum. Lone Wolves, across the board, were crazy, but not careless. He’d spotted two of them. There had to more. Wherever Honeyhook went, the rest of the council usuallywasn’t far behind. "To whom do I owe the honor?"
He listened carefully, for silent footsteps, watched for any disturbance in the air.
"Silverclaw." She gave a dramatic gasp. "You don’t just ask a lady her contract employer."
"It’s Kemm, isn’t it."
Honeyhook barked a laugh. Of course. Of course there’d been a spy at that meeting, and of course Ifan had felt the need to run his mouth.Kemm was securing his victory by taking out the ringleaders. Or, who he deemed as such. Sebille tensed at his back. The other assassin had left his hiding place, apparently.
"Clever," Honeyhook returned with a smile. "I’ve always liked that about you. If only more men would truly listen. The contract says to bring you in alive, if possible. So, if possible – be clever."
Honeyhook gestured to the carriage in the alley.
"You can get in the cart, or get dragged behind it. Your pick."
Ifan sized up the terrain. Likely three. Switch positions, he suggested with a sign towards Sebille – her fighting stylefar better matched against a heavy mace. Also, facing off with Pigsbane was an experience he didn’t wish on anyone – a vile, disgusting man throughout, and Ifan didn’t say that lightly – but not a very talented one. The lesser evil in his state. Sebille gestured agreement.
"You know my answer." Ifan took his stance. "No hard feelings."
Maybe, he saw a spark of regret in her eyes. Maybe he gave them both too much credit. They were professionals,and it wasn’t personal. Honeyhook sighed, seemingly coming to the same conclusion – and then pulled her dimpled smile back up, teeth like pearls and perfectly charming.
"Well, Silverclaw. Nice knowing ya."
Time seemed to dissolve around him. It lost all meaning, moved slow as syrup and in the blink of an eye. Honeyhook aimed. Sebille jumped her from the side, Ifan turned around to face the other alley. And from it appeared the burlysack of bad blood that bore the alias of –
"Must be my birthday."
"Pigsbane," Ifan greeted conversationally, "What convinced Honeyhook to let your ugly ass out of the basem*nt? Don’t you have a girl to terrify somewhere?"
He went over his options. Pigsbane was easily provoked. Pigsbane was a talker. The longer they talked, the more opportunity Ifan had to watch out for signs of an invisible lizard. So far, so good.
"Oh." Pigsbane grinned, and took a step forward "Oh, I don’t even want money for this."
"That explains it. Still obsessed with me?"
Ifan crouched, the single knife out in front of him. If he had no other weapon, he still had the audacity. And against someone like Pigsbane, it worked wonders. The mercenary threw his head back in an ugly cackle, then wiped the back of his hand over his face with a sigh, pointing his iron hook lightly at Ifan.
"You know why I never liked you?"
Pigsbane squeezed one meaty eyelid shut and raised his upper lip, looking at him over the edge of the blade like he was aiming for a throw. "You always thought you were better than the rest us."
"Debatable," said Ifan. "In your case specifically, though–"
From the side of his vision, he saw Sebille land a hit. Pigsbane spat at him, and let the rusted, uneven metal of his weapons grind against each other, a shrill and bone-curdling sound.
"Ain’t even about that. We took coin from the same c*nts. Killing the same c*nts. And then you turn around and stab us in the back. Still on the high horse? Really, Silverclaw. Who the f*ck are you."
Excellent question, thought Ifan.
Lohse had asked him the same thing, and ever since the Wellspring, it’d haunted him. Confronted him head-on withevery little lie he’d told himself over the years. How much of who Ifan knew himself to be had been put there, to shape him into destiny’s blunt instrument, by the will of one god or another? What remained of it, after the f*cker was dead? And in the end – did it matter?
He didn’t know.
He’d never fully know. He could only unravel the strings of his own myth one at a time, by pulling at them, testing them, and following them down to their conclusion when he got the chance.
Freedom. What a terrifying thing.
Pigsbane rushed at him. Ifan stepped aside with ease, evading the blow, and aimed for his neck. At the last second, Pigsbane brought his hook up, caught his dagger and deflected it to the side – and Ifan barely managed to pull in his stomach before the second hook could lodge itself into his guts.
Ifan exhaled slowly. They circled each other, and time seemed off-kilter. He was off balance. The edges of his vision, too foggy. His awareness, too dulled. This particular string was one he hadn’t been expecting to unravel for a while.
I can fight while high. Stupid. Even with Rhalic still there and refusing to let him meet his maker in some mundanefashion, that’d been a lie. One he’d told himself with his full chest, as brazenly and against all evidence as only an addict could. Surviving was more like it. Winning? Probably not.
Pigsbane wasn’t even the f*cking problem.
Ifan held him off just fine. They clashed again, in a whirlwind – and he found his malice, the deep trance of vengeance that was at the core of the elven martial art. Quiet, light-footed, blood-thirsty revenge. Swim with the tide of your anger, and rip them to shreds. Ifan ducked away, tipped his finger against the ground in the movement, and the pavement under Pigsbane’s feet cracked and made him stumble. Ifan set after him, relentless. Pigsbane regained his balance. Ifan whipped up dust from the ground with a slide of his foot, snapped his fingers – and drove it right into his eyes.
No such thing as a clean fight. Pigsbane was blind, desperately swung in his direction while trying to get the dust out of his eyes, and Ifan leveled his shoulders, ready to strike, ready to kill–
A gust of wind.
In the last second, he fell backwards. The wind rushed past him. His blade caught on something in the air, ripped right through it – a piece of fabric. sh*t. He scrambled to his feet again, scanning the air, the ground, for any disturbance. From the side, the glint of the cattle-hook came down on him.
Ifan whirled around. The wind, again, from his left. By some unknown instinct, he raised his leg, kicked at – somethingbefore it could reach him fully, pulled up another cloud of sand and dust, and blew it in that direction. Ifan jumped back. Only a few grains of dirt clung to the invisible form.
Better than nothing. He evaded again, whistled through his teeth, and with a flash of source, Afrit howled and rushed at Pigsbane. The vague shape moved fast as lightning. He barely had time to react, hit his shoulder on one of the wall panels behind him as he dodged, and she struck again.
Something grazed his arm bracer. The one piece of armor he had on. And luckily so, because whatever his opponent was trying to stab him with was, no doubt, coated in enough poison to drop an elephant. Snakeroot’s house special. Ifan crouched low, guided more by instinct than anything he really saw, and struck back. Immediately dodging after every hit, and hoping to get lucky.
A heart-wrenching yowl. Ifan risked a glance – Pigsbane’s hook was stuck in the underside of Afrit’s snout. The source flickered, Pigsbane yanked at the hook and flung the soul-wolf down into the dirt. Ifan quickly dissolved the spell – and when he turned, a long, scaly tail whipped against his heels and dragged his feet out from under him. He tried to hold on, tried to catch himself, fell and crashed into a bunch of barrels, and at the last second, pulled up a wall of rock before him.
It hit her right in the face. With a cry, Snakeroot – now very much visible – stumbled backwards, holding her broken jaw, and this time around, he didn’t waste a second on sentimentality. Hesitation meant death. Ifan stabbed her right in the neck, pulled the knife out, stabbed her again.
The lizard woman sank into the muck. Eyes wide with horror, face smeared with blood. And from the slaughter, you emerge. Glechou dumar.The tiger reared its head. He tried to push it down, and for the record, he was doing a good job of it – until an elbow crashed into his nose.
Everything exploded into white. He felt the delicate bone give way, recoiled – f*ck.
A cold sting.
Ifan was blind. The hook was buried in his side. He didn’t make a sound, didn’t move, and when Pigsbane pulled, he went with the movement. He had no choice. The world came back into focus, the blade sliced icy-cold and deep into his skin, and distantly, he heard Pigsbane cackle like a damned hyena - "Yeah, you like that? You sick f*ck?" And the other hook whistle through the air, aiming for his shoulder.
Ifan ducked.
He didn’t get far. The pain burst through his side as the hook lodged itself deeper into his flesh. Ifan screamed, doubled over while trying to follow the pull and prevent more damage, and Pigsbane grabbed the back of his neck andslammed his knee into his face. His legs gave out. Blood spurted from his mouth and nose, and he only just had time to thank whatever lucky star made sure he landed on his good side when he fell. His vision blurred into darkness at the edges.
The glint of metal from above.
He gasped for air, and choked on his own blood. Gods, it f*cking hurt. Ifan rolled over. Oh, now the f*cker had dug his own grave. Because every second stretched into eternity, every breath, every beat of his heart became a priceless luxury, every ridge and grain of dirt under his hands a blessing, all narrowed down to pure survival, and right here, hehad reason to live.
Plenty of them, in fact. First, there were nicer ways to go than being gutted in an alley, second, by Pigsbane of all people, and third, he’d be damned to be outlived by f*cking Lucian. Pigsbane lunged at him. Come and get it. Ifanreared up. Slammed his palm into the pavement, a pointy spike of rock shot up from the ground and impaled his chest mid-strike.
Pigsbane choked.
The lumpy face above him stilled. The arm holding the remaining cattle-hook slumped and fell by his side, and Ifan staggered to his feet, the blade tearing at his flesh with every movement while gravity alone tore the impaled mercenary down to his demise. He wrenched the other hook from Pigsbane’s hand. Likely dead already, but Ifan took no chances.
He separated head from neck. He distantly heard Sebille call his name, felt his heart hammering in his chest, the adrenaline pumping through his veins – five minutes, before it ebbed. At most.
They needed to get out of here. The world spun around him. From over Honeyhook’s corpse, Sebille sprinted towards him – let out a shout when she spotted the weapon lodged into his side, and reached to pull it out. Ifan rested his hands on his knees, shaking his head.
"Leave it," he gritted out, "Or I’ll bleed. Sebille–"
Heavy, metal steps sounded from the main road. Ifan raised his head with effort, Sebille extending a hand to steady him. The guards were on their way.
"You need to go. Warn the others. Kemm put out a contract."
"Are you insane?"
Sebille tapped her forehead, flicked her hand towards him. Concern. Accusation. They both knew the answer to that, but Ifan had a bone to pick with someone, either way. Might as well be now.
"Tarquin’s forge. It’s near. I’ll make it."
"Ifan–"
There was a war playing out on Sebille’s face, clear as day. They were professionals, after all, and both knew it’d be more than lucky if Honeyhook’s assassins hadn’t found their friends already. Afrit appeared back by his side, without any conscious move of his own, and Ifan hissed through his teeth, steadied himself on his companion’s back and stood upright.
Insistence, he gestured. Go.
