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“Come now,” Amira said, standing by the fire. “Gather ‘round.”

Behind her, a cluster of nerves pulsed against a craggy wall of metal, bathing the cavern in a soft, cerulean light. Each of the fibers were wreathed in a glossy fat, their hairs flexing like fingers, their tendrils snaking like the roots of a tree.

All across the cavern, there was evidence of a brain. Ganglia sprouted from the ceiling. Nerves strangled the floor. The walls were wrinkled, quivering with blood, turning a sickly pink. A raw power coursed through it all, shooting up the long fibers and exploding out from the gnarled clusters. As Sadik stood across from Amira, warming himself by the campfire, he found that he could follow the impulses of every nerve, tracking the electrical signals as they bounced and raced, glowed and dimmed, talked and responded.

The air reeked of ozone. It was hot, humid, filled with static and latent power. Cerulean light danced across the walls.

With a weary sigh, Sadik knelt down by the fire, ignoring the slippery fat beneath his sandals. He stared long into the flames.

“Hoi,” Amira said. “Sir.”

“Yes?”

“Don’t think so hard.”

They had left the city behind, some time ago. The journey into the depths of the world had taken them through a system of tunnels and grottos, all of which had been swallowed into metal. Rusted stalagmites, craggy walls of steel, the dripping of molten slag. Somewhere, the Syran river continued to flow, engorged with a noxious swell of blood. He could hear it roar through the walls, like the screaming vein of a giant.

All the rain that had fallen upon Acheron. . . .

Sadik took a breath.

Now, he was standing in a section of the plague’s brain. There were many chambers, many hills of nerves, many swarms of glistening fat. The scale was unbelievable. He could almost feel the weight of its mind, emanating from the squamous tissue and heaving cells. Its wants were colossal. Its ideas were the size of mountains.

And, even now, Sadik could remember his last sight of the city, when the people of Acheron had come to watch him leave. They had gushed from the alleys, slithered down the stairs, excreted through the doors. Their voices had joined a chorus. Their thoughts had flooded as one. Slowly, Sadik had glanced up at the fleshy sky, and he had seen hundreds of faces staring down at him, all of them growing upon the celestial skin like footprints in a muddy street.

Fortune upon you!

Kill her!

Free us!

The tree! The tree!

Ascension!

The stars!

Amira snapped her fingers in his face.

Sadik waved her hand away. “Miri, stop.”

“You’re doin’ it again.”

“I have to reflect on what I’ve seen.”

“Sir, respectfully, you got your head up your pucker, and your pecker in a god. Best pull ‘em out, for all our sake.”

“You are insubordinate,” Sadik said.

“And you’re more sour than wyrm’s milk.”

He gestured at her trousers. “At least I’m not wearing pants.”

“Least my weapon ain’t a hunk of slag.”

“Lowly grunt.”

“Highly cunt.”

They stared at each other, across the flames of a campfire. Ganglia pulsed above.

“It’s good to see you again,” Sadik said.

“Sure,” Amira replied, grinning. “Likewise.”

Nearby, Kavaia and Xaeyr emerged from the edge of their campsite, heading toward the fire. In the distance, Lanir patrolled an adjacent chamber, inspecting the clusters of nerves and fleshy corpuscles.

“I’ve assembled an alarm,” Kavaia said, standing next to Sadik. “It’s rather rudimentary—some rope and rattling tin—but it should serve as a warning, if anything approaches.”

Xaeyr grimaced at the fatty tissue beneath his feet. “I’m more worried of the floor. And the ceiling. Everything, I suppose.”

“I don’t think the brain means us harm,” Sadik said.

“Nothing in this place deserves my trust. At this point, I expect our chamber pot to crawl up my ass.”

“Yes, of course,” Kavaia added. “Obviously, the brain will steal your dreams, and soil your bed, and tickle your feet with a feather.” She gave a significant look. “With that said—sleep well, Xae.”

Xaeyr scooped a handful of brain tissue and threw it at her snout.

Amira cleared her throat. “Come on, gather ‘round. Shut your holes. I got words to say.”

Sadik held his hands out to the fire. Xaeyr looked down at the floor, made another face, and unfurled his bedroll across the wrinkled folds. When Kavaia sat down, she was already pulling a leathery waterskin from her pack, fashioned from the hide of a stallion.

“Care to taste?” she asked.

Sadik leaned forward, taking a sniff. The liquid was thick, creamy, and slightly sour. “Milk?”

“Fermented milk,” Kavaia said, teasing the skin. “Quite savory.”

“Thank you, but I’d rather not indulge. We’ll have to post watches.”

“It’s hardly worse than beer.”

“Perhaps later, goddess.”

“Oh, don’t you disoblige me.” She folded her legs together, patting the hem of her dress. “Come. Sit in my lap.”

“Can I fuckin’ talk or what?” Amira asked.

Sadik cleared his throat, glanced at a distant cluster of nerves, and stepped over the small barricade of her shins. He sat in her lap with as much dignity as possible. As soon as he was settled, Kavaia wrapped the crook of her arm around his chest and drank from the waterskin. He could feel every gulp.

On the other side of the fire, Amira scratched at her greatbow. The limbs were shunting from the top and bottom of her wrist, the string corded by a glistening bundle of sinew. Lightning trailed across the metal spikes of her arm.

“Right,” she said. “So, main thing is—Calisto’s already fucked.”

Her brown eyes began to glow. Sadik felt a climbing resonance in his chest.

“Can show you all, if you wish.”

Kavaia shrugged, taking another swing. Xaeyr took a long look at Amira. She returned the gaze. He turned his head, remaining silent.

A flash of light came from Amira’s eyes. When Sadik blinked, he found himself standing on a corrupted shore, with intestines scumming through the mud, and human hair brimming atop the mounds of sand. Directly in front of him, there was a sloshing ocean of blood, the waves and breaks slapping far into the distance. Further beyond, there was another shore, surrounded by a tangle of massive roots.

He was reminded of Calisto’s beach.

As he watched, a wall of cerulean light enclosed the bottom of Aldunya’s trunk, like a perfect pane of glass. Mezlat scoured the air. Sunbeams rained upon the opposite shore, where the legions of plague were attempting to establish a beachhead. Metal slagged, flesh evaporated. Above it all, growths of plague wormed their way across the roots, slithering deep into the bark.

“Sadik,” Calisto said, her voice coming from a distance.

He blinked, and he was back in the cavern of nerves, staring blankly into the flames. Kavaia’s breasts nestled on his shoulders.

“Basically,” Amira said, “the plague’s gettin’ close to cracking the tree. It’s been tryin’ every which way to cut a hole into the core, deep within the bark. So far, it ain’t been successful. Too much metal, too much power.”

Sadik remembered the black mass, squirming through the rings of cells inside the tree. For a brief moment, at the very center of the Neheamatt, he had seen a framing of metal. Some kind of scaffolding. Blinking lights.

“The thing you gotta understand,” Amira continued, “is that these machines—right—they fight with their fuckin’ minds. They send volleys of thoughts at each other, all of them acting like poison or bombs, and it’s all so quick you could hardly scratch your crotch before they’d fought a thousand different wars. I got near it, once, before my body was back. The real frontline. Nearly burned my soul, just from lookin’ close.”

She gestured over the flames.

“Calisto started strong. A real pillar o’ wood. Meanwhile, the plague was just a bunch of goop, barely forming itself together. But, see, the more souls it absorbed, the smarter it got, and the more it was able to wage a fuckin’ grindstone of attrition. It’s eating her, real slow-like. The thing is—Calisto can only lose ground. The plague’s got everything to gain.”

Xaeyr grabbed another log, stabbing it into the fire. Pieces of the Neheamatt roared into flame.

“What you saw there, in that vision? All that fighting? That’s nothin’. That’s us, sailing across an ocean, and there’s miles and miles below, lost in the pressure and blackness. We’re just scum on the water, make no mistake.”

“I’m starting to understand this even less,” Xaeyr said.

“Well, fuck me. So am I.”

“What is our objective?” Kavaia asked, giving a slight hiccup. Sadik smelled milk on her breath. “Surely, our actions still matter. The plague would not have levied Rushan in its fearsome war, if none of us held any importance.”

Amira began to pace back and forth, the flames reflecting in her twin-pupiled eyes. “Far as I can tell, we’re the breaking point. Tip of the spear. Calisto’s gonna fight to her last. Aleph wants to speed the process. That’s why both of them went recruiting.”

“Aleph?” Sadik asked.

“Sure,” Amira replied. “That’s its name. The plague.”

“. . . when did it choose a name?”

Amira opened her mouth, ready with a quick reply. Instead, after a moment, she blinked, as if searching her thoughts. An expression of horror grew on her face.

“Miri?” Xaeyr asked.

She began to clutch her head, breathing hard.

Around them, the ganglia pulsed against the metal walls, glowing bright and strong. Lightning danced across the layers of fat.

“Amira,” Sadik said, sitting up in Kavaia’s lap. “How do you know—”

He stopped, feeling a rush.

Numbers filled his vision. Notation, equations, sprawling letters, entire clouds of symbols, infinite sets of integers, all of them flashing by in a swarm, as if the inner layer of his eye was being devoured by the underlying math of the universe. He could barely see the camp.

INFINITY

ASCENSION

He clutched his head, as if it might keep his brain within his skull.

The symbols collided. Numbers melted. Infinity crunched into comprehension, like the stars of the universe sucking into a central point. When the rush was over, there was only a single symbol, floating in the center of his eye.

CARDINALITY

THE FIRST OF MANY

Suddenly, as quickly as it began, the symbol faded from his eye. The ganglia relaxed, the nerves grew dim and slack. Pink tissue sagged against the rocky walls. When nothing remained in his vision, Sadik realized that Kavaia was holding him very tightly. She gave a small laugh.

“Oh, my. What a humble god.”

Xaeyr rose back to a sitting position, his creamy fur standing on end. Amira began to shiver. In the distance, Lanir approached from a nearby cavern, finishing her patrol.

“Like I said,” the human woman continued, “it’s an ocean. Right? If you’re swimming the depths, and you see some fuck-off monster, you just better hope it don’t look at you for long.”

“I’ve never been to the ocean,” Sadik said.

“Don’t start.”

Lanir continued her approach. Burning logs shook beneath her weight. When the dragon reached the campfire, she sat down on her haunches, slowly looking at the various faces. Her expression grew mildly concerned. “Was there some disturbance?”

Kavaia took another swig from her skin. Sadik shifted in her lap. Xaeyr rose to his feet, struggled to keep his balance, and made his way over to Amira.

“Hey,” he said.

Amira held up her left hand, attempting to hide her transformed bow behind her back. “I’m alright. Don’t coddle me.”

“I haven’t said anything.”

She took a sharp breath. Lines of exhaustion crawled beneath her eyes. “Just a lot. Right? Lotta shit, lotta tumblin’ around, jumping through nightmares. Just . . . just let me finish this.”

Xaeyr nodded, holding out his palms in surrender. He still remained close.

“So,” Amira said, affecting a soldierly tone, “sir, far as I see it, that’s our mission, near as we have one. Head to the beach, sail across the blood, and crack the tree into splinters. From there, it’s anyone’s guess.”

Sadik stared into the campfire. “We’ll be letting the plague inside.”

“Aleph,” Kavaia corrected, as if she still found the name funny.

“Calisto will be eaten alive,” Sadik continued. “That is, if Rushan doesn’t kill her first. I don’t know if we can stop them. Once the door is opened, we can’t shut it again.”

Amira shrugged. “Aren’t we trying to kill her, anyway? How’s it matter?”

“I don’t know,” Sadik said. “That’s the problem. We don’t know very much at all, and there will be consequences for our actions.”

“The machine has earned her judgement,” Lanir said. “I will feel no pity.”

“Give me the chance,” Xaeyr said, “and I’ll rip her wires myself.”

Kavaia raised her drink in celebration.

“Well,” Amira said, nudging a campfire log with her boot, “if it makes you feel better, sir, I’m getting the notion that the plague ain’t gonna be around much, when the last bird has sung. Not in a way that matters to us, at least.”

“How do you mean?” Sadik asked.

“Not sure, exactly. Like I said, ain’t been too deep in the ocean. Not a place for mortals, down in those depths.” She shrugged. “I’m just gettin’ a wrinkle in my brain—whatever this ‘ascension’ is, Aleph’s gonna find it in that tree, and it’s gonna change what it is. For better or worse.”

“Do you know anything else about ascension?”

“Not a wink.”

“That doesn’t reassure me.”

“Ain’t you used to that, by now?”

Sadik sighed. With a shift of her arm, Kavaia began to stroke his hair.

“What about Rushan?” Xaeyr asked.

“Oh, yeah. Funny you mention. Aleph doesn’t care. The big metal goop of souls is just usin’ us to hedge its bets. Two contingencies. Right? Two rams at the gates, batterin’ Calisto down. So long as that tree is carved, Aleph won’t interfere in our little feud. It’s got bigger things to mind.”

“It doesn’t mind?” Sadik asked. “Truly?”

“If you had some ants squabbling at your feet, would you stop to interfere? Would you look down at them, all high as you are, and just find their little war amusing?” She gestured with her bow. “I say—why would you notice them at all?”

“It won’t stop us from killing him?”

“No, sir.”

“. . . are we even capable of killing him?”

“Remains to be seen, I suppose.”

“We’ll just have to try,” Xaeyr said.

Amira jerked her thumb at the baboon, nodding.

“But couldn’t Aleph just revive him?” Sadik asked. “Make a clone? Another copy?”

“Think of it like this, sir. You read a book. Right? Then, you burn that book, and you watch every page curl into ash, just to make sure it’s gone. Of course, you still remember what was in the book, don’t ya?” She let the words sink in. “The book may not be gone, in a total sense, but you have killed it. Make no mistake.”

Lanir raised her chin. “You have prompted a new line of inquiry.”

Amira rolled her eyes, exasperated.

“Could we be reduced to books?” The dragon stared deeply into the flames, pondering. “Metaphorically speaking, our days would become pages, our memories chapters, the span of our lives merely two ends of a binding. Does Aleph read our minds in the same fashion as reading words on a page?”

Kavaia covered a burp with her hand, beginning to titter off-balance.

“If this is true,” Lanir continued, “then the plague could be considered a librarian. It plucks our souls from its shelves and reads the fabric of our being, like ink upon a page, growing more intelligent with every tome absorbed. From what I’ve gathered, it seems that the plague has chosen the name Aleph—in the study of mathematics, the aleph numbers are used to measure the size of all infinite sets of integers, with aleph-nought being the smallest possible infinity.”

Xaeyr folded his arms.

“However,” Lanir said, “it could be supposed that the relationship between us and the plague is actually more akin to a parasite, as it is siphoning the knowledge from our minds like a leech engorging with blood. We are the host of the plague, the substrate upon which it grows, the nourishment by which it feeds. Ultimately, all of us might merely represent a single stage in the cycle of its life, upon which it may soon reproduce.”

There was a moment of silence, punctuated by the crack of the fire.

“Who the fuck brought you along?” Amira asked.

Lanir straightened her posture. “I have been useful in some endeavors.”

“Chamber pots are useful, too.”

Xaeyr leaned down and gave Amira a high-five.

“It seems I must apologize,” Lanir said, “for my renowned intellect. It has often been a point of jealousy. If you would like, I could explain the concept in simpler terms.”

Amira waved her hand. “Whatever. I’m still me, and I ain’t ever gonna stop bein’ me. That’s all I care for.”

“How can you be certain you are not a clone?”

“Fuck you, that’s why.”

Lanir decided not to respond.

“Look,” Amira said, “you all got my meaning. We’re going out tomorrow, and we’re takin’ a big axe to that tree, and maybe, in the meantime, we’ll get some jackal to sweeten our stew. That’s the goal. Nothing else matters, until it does.”

Sadik nodded. “We should focus on what we can change.”

“Good.” Amira blew out a long, heaving breath, her black hair dangling above her eyes. “Dismissed?”

“Get some rest, Miri.”

She nodded, relaxing her posture, letting all the aches and pains show at once, and trudged over to Xaeyr’s hip. She raised her arms. Dutifully, the god of cataracts bent down and let her climb onto his shoulder.

“East chamber,” Amira said, pointing off into the distance. “Grab your bedroll.”

“Why?”

“I’m not fucking you in front of them.”

Xaeyr cleared his throat, grabbed his bedroll, made an awkward gesture to the rest of the party, and began to march through the brain-filled cavern, the impulses of the nerves illuminating the folds of his toga. As he moved, Amira wrapped her legs around his midsection, clinging to him like a knapsack. He whispered in her ear. A snickering laugh echoed across the cavern.

Kavaia hummed to herself, watching them leave, still stroking Sadik’s hair. Her breasts rested heavily on his shoulders.

“Goddess,” he said.

“Are you ready for a drink?”

“I would like to stand up now.”

She spread her legs apart, letting his body sink into the fabric of her dress, and then squeezed them back together, trapping him in a canyon of her thighs.

“I have made a tactical error,” Sadik said.

Kavaia gave a deep-toned giggle, folding her legs until he was trapped in a fortress of knees and feet. Her breath smelled strongly of milk.

On the opposite side of the fire, Lanir fluttered her wings, watching the two of them with red, pupil-less eyes. “It seems I am the only one not distracted by these . . . baser instincts.”

“Oh?” Kavaia asked, amused. “Baser instincts?”

“Lesser urges. Carnal proclivity.”

“You can say the word.”

“I will not.”

“Sex.”

“Goddess, you must act as a paragon to the mortals.”

“Sex,” Kavaia said, loudly. “Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, sex—”

The dragon scoffed. “You should abscond yourself of all physical trappings. I take no succor from food, I enjoy no release of the flesh. As a matter of record, it has been three-hundred and forty-two years since I have masturbated.”

“Oh, Lanir, this explains so much.”

Lanir thumped her tail against a spire of nerve tissue, causing a surge of lightning throughout the floor.

Sadik cleared his throat. “Um, goddess—”

“Yes?” Kavaia asked.

“Not you.” He batted her hand from his groin. “Lanir—goddess—if you’d be so kind, would you take the first watch? I’ll relieve you in two hours.”

Lanir rose to her feet, folded her wings, gave the two of them a long stare, and slowly began to trudge away from the fire. The disappointment lingered behind her.

Moments passed. The campfire crackled, splitting open a divine log.

With a slight hiccup, Kavaia raised her drink. Sadik attempted to slap it from her hand, but his lower body was still trapped beneath her legs, and the goddess of death used her superior height to lift the waterskin slightly out of his reach. He pawed at her drink like a cat playing with a feather.

“Perhaps,” Sadik said, blushing, “you should abstain from revelry, goddess.”

She giggled again. “Oh, my little ‘Deek.”

“What did you say?”

“Kivie,” Kavaia said. “Xae. Lannie. Rooshy. Even you, with Amira. Miri.” She lowered the drink, dangling it in front of his face. When he lunged for the skin, she pulled it away, just barely escaping in time. “So, of course, you have to be my little ‘Deek. And now the world is right.”

“Do not ever call me that again.”

“Would you prefer Saddie? Or, perhaps, your initials—SUZ. Suzzie. I particularly enjoy Suzzie. Little Suzzie Wuzzie.”

Sadik turned around, faced the goddess of death, and poked her directly in the breast.

Kavaia gave a mild flinch, more surprised than hurt. The drink lowered again, and Sadik snatched it with a dexterous speed, corking the mouth and tossed it over the licking hills of the campfire. There was a dull thump in the darkness.

“You are a savage!”

“Death before dishonor.”

The crocodile growled, rattling every bone in his body, and wrapped her arms around his chest, pulling him down to the floor. Flames and nerves lurched through the cavern. When he landed, Sadik found himself lying on his back, with breasts hugging his ears, arms binding his chest, and legs constricting his waist. Soft scales yielded beneath a kalasiris dress.

There was no hope of leverage.

“You are not leaving,” Kavaia said.

“Oh, cruel heavens. Oh, the wrath of the gods.”

“Cry in anguish, mortal, for your poking has earned you damnation.”

Sadik wriggled his back against her abdomen, watching the way her breasts wobbled beneath the dress. “Flip me over, and I promise not to poke.”

“Oh, yes. Lower one finger, but raise another in secret.” Her hand gestured to his crotch. “Maybe it won’t be a finger at all.”

“You could call it my little ‘Deek.”

Kavaia laughed from deep in her chest. Sadik might have smiled. Slowly, with the sounds of their merriment echoing across the caverns, the two of them began to relax, adjusting their positions and falling into a comfortable silence. Fire crackled at their feet.

After a while, Sadik found himself staring up at the ceiling of branching nerves, trying to track the spurts of lightning as they surged and splintered throughout the larger brain. There were hundreds of clusters. Thousands of connections. He was only seeing a small fraction of its true complexity, and it was already too much for his mind to follow.

Lanir’s words echoed in his mind.

Infinity.

Aleph.

Ascension.

Sadik began to frown.

For a moment, he remembered the sight of Calisto, gripping his shoulder in desperation, her long hair dangling against the fabric of her coat. Waves roared on the shore. A storm approached from the open sea, twisted and dark.

Did he really understand what he was doing? Was he going to kill one tyrant and replace it with another? How could he possibly trust a creature like Aleph?

It occurred to Sadik that, even though they were both machines, Calisto seemed more . . . human. She was not a being that he struggled to understand.

Perhaps it was all a trick, meant to play on his sympathies.

Perhaps she had once been a human, long ago.

Perhaps. . . .

Kavaia squeezed his chest with her arm, her long tail slithering against the edge of the fire. “Stop that.”

“What?”

“I can feel you pouting.”

“I—” Sadik deepened his frown. “I do not pout.”

“Just enjoy this. Right here.” She sucked in a breath, raising half of Sadik’s body, and blew it through the rows of her teeth. “It had been such a long time since I tasted tsegee. Oh, it’s salty, and thick, and reminds me of long days in the saddle. The smell of grass after a rain.” Her fingers traced the scales of his kepresh. “The aftertaste is delicious.”

“. . . I’ll consider a drink, sometime.”

“I hope you do.”

They fell into another silence. This time, Sadik did not let his mind wander—in fact, he became very aware of Kavaia’s body, from the rising foothills of her breasts, pressing on either side of his face, all the way to the thighs channeling his legs onto her tail, like a river through a canyon. Her heart was a steady pulse beneath his armor.

Something nagged at his thoughts.

“Goddess,” he said.

“Hm?”

“How are you acting so . . . carefree?”

She shifted beneath him, as if his question had knocked her out of a stupor.

“You seemed quite worried for me, in the pantheon. I would have thought. . . .”

“I was,” Kavaia said, quietly.

Sadik waited for an elaboration. None came. Her hand continued to stroke his chest, soft and idle.

“And?” he asked.

“And I feel quite better now.” She gave a long, lazy rumble. “You are here. I am warm. Simple things are often the best.”

“I hate to remind you,” Sadik said, “but nothing about our mission is simple. It will be a cataclysm of two gods. In some manner of speaking, we are likely deciding the fate of the world.”

“Yes, but. . . .” She paused for a moment. “Salkhi minii chikhend baina.”

“Pardon?”

“Salkhi minii chikhend baina. ‘The wind is in my ear.’ To the Kesunae, it means, essentially—” She waved a hand, searching for words. “When you are riding toward a city, with men at your back and supplies on your saddle, you need nothing but the wind. It shrieks in your ears. It cuts away your thoughts. It blinds you to everything but the reins in your hand and the stirrups on your feet.”

Her hand continued to stroke his chest. Somewhere, the hairs of a ganglia began to stand on end, bristling with power.

“Beneath the wind,” Kavaia said, “there is no doubt. There is no place for fear. You are in motion. You have made a decision, and the wind is there to keep you in flight, to narrow your path and remind you of your purpose. So long as the wind is singing, you are still alive, and your dream is still approaching, somewhere beyond the horizon. There is nothing else that you need to hear.”

Sadik did not respond. He laid in silence, staring up at the nerve-wrangled ceiling, watching the lightning shoot through the tissue.

“Suffice to say,” Kavaia said, chest heaving with a sigh, “I am quite content. This journey I have followed—my fall from the heavens—has reminded me who I was, and what I used to treasure. And I will always have you to thank for it.”

Sadik glanced down at her hand, feeling a twinge in his chest.

“I have worried for your safety, but you have always managed to survive. I worried about Hisana, about any anguish I might have caused by . . . growing close.” There was a small hum. “Then, not long ago, she was returned to you, as if she had never left at all, and I saw no reason to feel betrayed. Our love is still strong. I was not replaced.”

Sadik swallowed. His throat was dry.

There was a long pause, as if she was expecting him to respond. When he remained quiet, her hand stopped stroking his chest. “Sadik?”

“Yes?”

“Oh, novsh, I misspoke.”

“It wasn’t—”

“I’m sorry. ‘Replace’ was a terrible word. I didn’t intend—” She began to sit up, raising her body into an incline. Her voice grew instantly sober. “I never asked how you felt, seeing her again.”

“It’s fine, goddess,” Sadik said. “We have been busy.”

“It’s no excuse. Stars align, I have been selfish again.” Her tail whipped beneath his legs. “I should never have been so playful. It was horribly careless.”

“Goddess,” Sadik said, more firmly. “It’s fine. In fact. . . . “ He grabbed her hand, guided it to his lips, and gave her knuckles a gentle kiss. “Thank you, for staying so strong. You have been a pillar for me.”

She shifted beneath him, leaning up on the head of her bedroll. He felt her heart quiver between her breasts.

“It was only now,” he said, “that I realized how little I’ve thought about Hisana. Everything used to remind me of her. Now she just . . . hasn’t crossed my mind. For quite some time.”

Kavaia took in a breath.

“Whenever this happened, I would feel guilty. I felt as if I needed to carry her memory for the rest of my life. Now . . . I don’t know. I feel almost relieved, to not have her shadow on my thoughts. I feel as if I can finally let her go.”

He took her larger hand into his own, feeling the leather of her palm, the cool skin between her fingers. She quivered beneath his touch.

“And I can finally say,” Sadik said, “something that I’ve wanted to say for some time now.” He squeezed her hand. “I love you, Kavaia.”

There was a sharp breath, a heart skipping in its rhythm. The walls surged with light. When Kavaia managed to speak, her voice was nearly choking.

“Oh, Sadik!”

Her hand squeezed his in return, swallowing him to the wrist. Down below, her legs clamped him into a prison of scales, and her tail began to outright batter the floor, side to side, full of spines and muscle.

“I love you, too!”

She began to grab at him, arms and legs, elbows and knees, as if she didn’t quite know what to do, but was very determined to start. When Sadik leaned his head back, pressing down through the fabric between her breasts, Kavaia stabbed her head forward, using the length of her snout to nibble at his face. Teeth clamped on his nose, his mouth, the bottom of his chin.

“Goddess.”

With one hand, she pressed his arm flat against his armor. With her other hand, she began to reach lower, trailing down to the pleated lengths of his skirt.

“Goddess!”

She hooked her wrist beneath the fabric, seeking the length of his shaft. He was achingly hard—had been so for quite some time—and the moment her fingers wrapped around his cock, the entire appendage began to flex, bucking against her touch, the nerves electric and wild.

Above their heads, the brain tissue glowed in a uniform blue, shining down with a pleasant light.

“Wait,” Sadik said, pulling away from her teeth, “hold on—”

She gave him a single stroke, slowly dragging her way from base to tip. When his words turned into a hiss, she threw back his skirt and began to slide her hand in earnest, up and down, palm on his shaft, fingers on his head, the rhythm somewhere between firm, sloppy and enthusiastic. Precum slicked her leathery skin.

“You’re so adorable,” Kavaia said, breath on his face. “I can hardly stand it.”

Sadik tried to sit up, but her other hand was still pressing on his chest, locking their fingers together, and every crude fondling of his cock was leaving him unbalanced, squirming with the sensation, gasping at her heavy caress.

“You’re so small, and cute, and precious, and when you have to crane your head to look at me, I just want to squeal.”

“Mercy,” Sadik said, red in the face.

The hand on his chest shunted to the side, bringing the rest of her arm into play. Her elbow lifted her left breast, their hands supported the right, and her forearm raised both of them together, like two loaves of bread held securely in a box. The result was Sadik’s face being smothered in her bosom.

“Cute!”

His world became nothing but soft linen, white fabric, pillows of doughy fat. Nipples brushed his cheeks. Flesh wrapped his ears. All he could hear was the rustling of cloth, and the only reason he was able to breathe was because Kavaia was still stroking his cock, the motion of her arm bouncing into her breast, jiggling them aside, giving him the barest spurts of air.

Down below, she slowed her ministrations, tightening her fist, making sure that every stroke was low and firm. With a blind lurch, Sadik began to thrust his hips, erupting the head of his cock through the top of her hand. Droplets sprayed on their legs.

Kavaia rumbled so loud that it vibrated his teeth.

At one point, Sadik reached a hand for her face. He slapped her head chines, tried to grip the scales on her cheek. After a few desperate attempts, he found a place that was wet, and warm, and sharp. Pressure clamped on his wrist.

Gamó.

“I wuv du do much,” Kavaia said, chewing on his hand.

Everything blurred together. The heavy jiggle of her breasts, the motion of her hand, the pleasure, the wet slicking sounds, the breaths lifting her chest, the tail flexing beneath his legs, the static lightning coursing through the air. Somehow, he managed to breathe through the mounds of bosom. He learned the rhythm of her strokes, timing his thrusts for maximum friction. Above all else, he kept a firm grip on her left hand, stroking the rough scales of her knuckles. She squeezed his palm in return.

Slowly, the pleasure overwhelmed him—a sun was rising in his groin, warm and strong, racing toward the horizon.

Breasts piled together. Teeth kneaded his wrist. Limbs clenched and shook, gripping down, holding tight.

Her rumbling was all he could hear.

Faster.

Harder.

Louder.

When the pleasure reached a climax, his moan was smothered beneath her breasts.

And he came into her hand, sharp and fast, bucking, thrashing, pouring every rope of seed that he had to give. The sprays rose high, and the pearls dropped in globs, and her fingers dribbled with fluid, and by the time his ecstasy had fully cratered over him, he had painted the scales of his armor with a smattering of white, glistening strings. Through it all, she never stopped stroking, heightening every wave of pleasure, growling at every moan from his lips.

When Kavaia lowered her arm, letting her breasts sag away from his face, the first thing Sadik said was: “Gods above.”

“Only me,” she replied, spitting out his hand.

He took several breaths, feeling the raw humidity from the nerves. After a moment, Kavaia raised her hand from his crotch, dangled it in front of his face, and slowly began to lick his cum from her fingers. Her tongue was long and drooling, her eyes still hungry.

“Perhaps my goddess desires an offering,” Sadik said.

She dangled a pearl of cum on the tip of her tongue, swallowing down.

He shimmied himself down the length of her body, spilling out into the forest between her legs and tail. Quickly, he stood, racing toward his pack, fishing out the nearest bandage and wiping his armor free of emissions. When he was done, Kavaia was still lying on her bedroll, the bottom of her dress spread open and wide, revealing a black slit that glistened by the light of the fire.

She curled a finger, as if summoning a servant.

Sadik approached, sitting on her tail like one would saddle a horse. He placed his hands on the soft inner walls of her thighs. When he dipped his head below the fabric of her dress, the smell of her desire wafted up to greet him. Black folds glistened like the petals of a rose.

He closed his eyes, lowering down.

Suddenly, there came a sound of rattling metal.

“The alarm!” Kavaia shouted.

Sadik was shoved back, falling back to the ground as Kavaia rushed to her feet. She had already grabbed Dawnstar by the time he was scrambling around the edge of the fire, hands and knees sinking through wrinkled folds of fat. With his head held low, he rose to a knee, peering out into the darkness.

A lone figure stood by the edge of the cavern, shadowed beneath the glowing nerves. One of their footpaws was continuously jerking against the tripwire, rattling the metal with a loud announcement, as if they had seen the trap upon approach and chosen to deliberately set it off. Two swords were held high in the air. A gesture of peace.

Sadik felt a sinking in his belly.

“What do you want?” Kavaia shouted, her hammer glowing a bright yellow.

Faustine yanked the tripwire again, causing an avalanche of clattering tin, and began to approach the camp, her twin khopeshes still held high above her head. “I want to speak!”

“You can speak from there!”

The caracal stopped, hesitating. Her feline eyes searched the rest of the cavern. From the east, Amira and Xaeyr came spilling out of an adjacent room, armed with weapons and missing all their clothes. From the west, Lanir’s heavy footsteps caused a surge of lightning throughout the ganglia.

“Go on!” Kavaia yelled. “Make your parlay, if that is your purpose!”

Faustine’s ear began to flatten, her tail swishing against the red sashes on her waist. After a deep breath, she shouted: “Sadik!”

He stayed where he was, crouched behind the fire, trying to judge the distances.

“Sadik! Please! I. . . .” Her voice trailed away, echoing into the caverns of brain. “Please. I want to talk.”

There was a moment of heavy silence. Nerves quivered in clusters, the hairs bristling like worms. In the distance, a river of blood sloshed through the earth, pouring into a gory ocean.

Eventually, Sadik rose to his feet, displaying himself next to the fire. They made eye contact. Faustine lowered her swords. With a flick of her tail, she began to approach the camp for a second time.

A bolt flew through the cavern, crackling with lightning. It sailed over the caracal’s head, so close that it trimmed the puffs of black hair from the top of her ear.

“Hoi!” Amira shouted, naked and furious. “Drop your toothpicks, or the next one’s coming lower!”

Faustine flicked her ear, raised her swords out to the side, and dropped them to the glistening floor. Metal squished into fat.

There was another silence.

“What do you want?” Sadik asked, his voice calm.

Faustine remained still, her bronze pauldrons glimmering beneath the pale cerulean light. “It’s just me. Rushan doesn’t know I’m here.”

“How foolish of you.”

A pause.

“Are you here to surrender?” Sadik asked.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she glanced between him and Kavaia, her expression turning sour. “You were just fucking her, weren’t you?”

“That is none of your business.”

Her whiskers curled back. “I suppose I will stay at a distance, after all. I don’t want to smell it again.”

“Tell us your purpose in being here,” Kavaia said, “or take your leave. This is your final warning.”

From the side of the camp, Lanir stalked forward, her head lowered and her haunches raised. A sunbeam grew at the edge of Xaeyr’s spear.

“I’m sorry,” Faustine said.

Sadik blinked, looking into her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Sadik. For this. For everything I’ve done.” The lip of her muzzle began to tremble. “I want to apologize.”

All eyes in the cavern began to shift between the two of them. Above their heads, lightning surged through the veins, growing twisted and angry.

The caracal took a step forward, holding out her empty paws. Her eyes were green and pleading. “I acted rashly. I let fanaticism blind me to what I had, and what I was throwing away.” She chanced another step. “Acheron needed change. The slaves had to be freed from the mines. I make no apologies for liberating the oppressed, but . . . I want you to know, if I could do it all again. . . .”

“Is this a joke?” Sadik asked.

Faustine stopped, her ears flicking with worry.

“You’re doing this now? Here? After everything you’ve done?”

Her voice rose an octave. “Listen, I—I left you the necklace, in the ruins. The head of an arrow. Remember?” She swallowed. “You pulled it from my leg. You saved my life. That was when I knew we had something special, when I . . . I really loved you. As a daughter. Maybe.” She took a quick, shaking breath. “I thought if you saw it again. . . .”

“I threw it away,” Sadik said.

Her ears flattened. “Please. Can we talk? Alone?”

“No.”

“Sadik. . . .”

“You should not have come here,” Sadik said.

“Please!” Faustine shouted, taking another step. Amira and Xaeyr raised their weapons. “I’m sorry! I can’t serve Rushan any longer! He’s vicious! Completely blind! If I don’t obey his command, he threatens to kill me! He’s going to burn the tree and bury the city in ash!” Her tail flicked to the side. “I thought he wanted a better future. Democracy. Independence. Whatever it was, it’s not there anymore. I don’t know if he ever truly believed it.”

Sadik turned his head, trying to calm his quivering lip.

“Please, Sadik. I made a mistake.”

“You have done far more than that.”

“I can join your side! I can tell you his plans!” Her paws clasped together, pleading. “I want to help. I can—I can make amends. I can change.”

Sadik shook his head, unable to look at her.

“Please. I’m sorry.”

His hands tightened into fists.

“I . . . I need my father back.”

Sadik turned his back on her, eyes closed, face clenched in pain. Tears began to glisten his cheeks.

“You need to leave,” Kavaia said. “Now.”

Faustine stayed where she was, her whiskers curled, her paws wringing together.

“Go!” Kavaia shouted. “Your apologies aren’t wanted, and your sympathies aren’t returned! You are only hurting him further!”

Faustine stepped back, flinching.

“You can’t atone for what you’ve done!”

She shied toward the darkness, turning her eyes away.

“If you want to help your father,” Kavaia said, growling, “then leave us here, in peace, and find your own means of redemption.”

Faustine tried to breathe, looked up at Sadik, and quickly bent down to pick up her swords, dashing back toward the exit. She ran headfirst into the tunnels of brain, through bulging ganglia and fields of twitching hairs. It was not long before she was gone.

The sound of her tears echoed from the dark, wretched and alone.

Sadik stood by the fire, eyes closed, trying to keep his composure. He felt heavy footsteps approaching from his side. When he looked, Kavaia was kneeling before him, dropping her hammer and opening her arms. He dove into her embrace. Their hug was warm, soft, complete. He buried his face in her chest.

It did not remove the pain, but it kept the worst at bay.

“I love you,” he said, quietly.

She began to stroke his back, resting her snout on the top of his head, as if to keep an eye on the surrounding darkness. He focused on the scales. On the sound of her heart. The warmth of her body. With her at his side, it felt like the rot of the world could not touch him any longer.

“I love you, too.”