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Faustine leaped into the air.

Lightning pierced the sky. A bolt of blue against a belly of red, like a tendon yanked from flesh. Grisly light and sheets of blood.

For a moment, she seemed a vision of an ancient demon. Four swords held in four arms, green eyes wide, falling with a crash of thunder.

Sadik dodged at the last second. Two khopeshes struck the bridge. He landed on his side and brought Dusksong to bear, bracing the sunbeam for a point-blank shot. A third sword forced him to parry, another forced him to dodge, and a slash of her metal tail sent him reeling in pain. He stumbled to his feet. Faustine dashed with frightening speed.

Swords crashed through the rain. Every slash came at the edge of his reflexes. Sadik weaved through the storm of blades, his greatsword too unwieldly for a proper defense. He feinted, dodged the reprisal, and put his full weight into a downward chop. The assassin caught Dusksong between her two upper swords. Below the cross, her two lower swords continued to slash, cutting shallow wounds into his thighs and belly.

A giant foot kicked her shoulder. The caracal was fast enough to reduce it to a glancing blow, but the strength sent her reeling, and Kavaia followed the strike through with an underhand swing of her fist. Faustine dodged, hissed, and slashed two swords in reply. Seeing his chance, Sadik broke their cross in a single sweep, hewing the broken tip of Dusksong across her chest. Faustine lost her footing, stumbling back, attention split between two targets.

God and man advanced together, heavy breaths impaled by the rain. Sadik put his full weight into a broadside swing. Faustine dodged. Kavaia punched. Lightning struck. Steel clanged, voices roared, blood danced in streams.

Sadik unleashed a downward chop. Three swords managed to parry, but Kavaia weaved to the side and kicked Faustine in the hip. The caracal flew across the bridge, bouncing like a stone on water, and Kavaia was already sprinting after her, every footfall shaking the structure. Faustine jumped to her feet, face peeled back in a snarl. She dodged a punch, slashed at a thigh, and leaped onto the crocodile. The two grappled against each other, lost in a flurry of claw and sword.

Sadik aimed his own weapon. Blood crackled against the bulging energy. Kavaia was trying to use her superior strength to pin down the assassin, but the caracal was ferocious, weaving and clawing through every attack. The air filled with snarls.

“Goddess!”

Kavaia turned. Sadik fired. The crocodile threw herself away just as the sunbeam clipped the assassin. It was a glancing blow, one that destroyed a nearby building more than it hurt its target, but the force of the beam sent Faustine careening away once more, her flesh sizzling as she crashed and bounced.

The Glimmer mods worked against her. When her body struck a jewel cutter’s shop, she smashed right through the wall, spraying a cloud of bricks and dust clear across the street. Steel-woven skin demolished everything in its path. In moments, the entire building sagged forward, burying her under a heavy tomb of rock and rubble.

It would not keep her down for long.

Sadik ran forward. Kavaia was leaning against the handrail of the bridge, her torso a jagged lattice of lacerations and claw marks. He had no idea where to start.

“Call me goddess,” Kavaia panted, “and I will hit you.”

“As you wish, my lady.”

There was a groan of pain.

The crocodile pushed off the rail. Sadik moved to support her, but she waved him off, choosing to stare at the piles of rubble that had just been buildings. Neither of them moved. The night was still.

“What a vicious animal,” Kavaia said.

“You have no idea.”

Most of her cuts were superficial—the worst was a gouge in her left breast, the black areola beginning to hang off the flesh. Sadik’s legs and groin were covered in shallow wounds. In terms of fighting without armor, they had come out relatively unscathed.

But their injuries were beginning to mount. Sadik’s exhaustion was testing the limits of his strength. It had been nearly two days since he had slept, countless hours since he had been nourished with food and water. Every inch of his body begged for rest.

He couldn’t afford a fight. Not with someone like Faustine. Not now.

The safehouse for the Sons was nearby. It would be full of agents. Soft beds. Doses of Glimmer to superheal their wounds.

Had his men spent their time searching for him? Wondering where he was? Most would have assumed he was dead or captured. Some of his lieutenants would not be willing to risk a search. Others would not stop until he had been found. His absence must’ve led to infighting.

He needed to return.

Kavaia placed a hand on his shoulder. A feeling of relief spread through his body.

They made their way past the weeping statue. Unlike the rest of Acheron, the buildings in the district of Nedivar were squat and unadorned, constructed only for their function. Worn flagstones lined the streets, and open mineshafts crawled along the foothills beyond, the scaffolding and pulleys appearing like a nest of bone scattered beneath the falling blood.

Nedivar had once been the beating heart of Acheron’s industry, a voracious network of blacksmiths, gem cutters, and stone mason guilds. In days long past, the clangs of hammer and anvil could be heard clear across the city, fed by the endlessly festering mines. Every Vizier had been able to commission wonderous works of art—colossal bronze statues, glittering gemstone mosaics, temples and shrines built of the rarest stone and most precious metals.

Now, the streets were empty. The great furnaces had fallen cold. There were no men at the bellows, no craftsmen at their shops, no artists dreaming of legends and honor. Nedivar had been a beating heart of bronze, one that pumped copper and stone throughout the city. As Sadik stumbled across the street, hearing only his footsteps echo through the gloom, he knew that this heart had fallen silent.

A grenade fell at their feet.

Kavaia reacted first. With a grunt, she lifted Sadik from his feet and threw him away. The world spun with brick and blood.

“Oppressor!” Faustine yelled.

He landed. The explosion raked shrapnel across his back. Behind him, a smoking crater now laid in the street, the tinges of blue flame melting the stone into slag. Kavaia had been thrown into the wall of an ore processing facility, her right leg blown off just below the hip. Above, a pair of glowing green eyes sailed through the sky.

Sadik rolled across the flagstones, barely avoiding the slash of a throwing knife. He staggered to his feet just as Faustine landed on the road, the force of her impact shattering the stone. She was covered in blood, dust, and melted sections of armor. As she stood tall, her fangs emerged with a silent hiss.

Sadik brought his sword to bear. Dusksong glowed through the rain.

Faustine stalked forward. Her lower arms spread out to the display the length of her blades. Her upper arms twirled their swords until they sang through the air. To the side, Kavaia collapsed to the ground, clutching the bloody stump of her leg.

“That’s better,” Faustine said, her voice soft and cooing. “All to ourselves.”

Sadik squeezed the haft of his sword.

“Take the first swing, comrade.”

He took a step backwards, looking for an opening to exploit. There was none. She had too many arms.

“Come now,” Faustine said. “Use that broken sword of hers. I want to taste the Vizier’s justice.”

Sadik kept his voice steady. “She would want mercy.”

“She was a tyrant.”

“She was our leader!”

“She lived in opulence! Slathered in oil and silk!” A blade sliced through the rain. “The people toiled beneath her! Thousands of refugees starved outside her walls!” She pointed a clawed finger. “Look at the sword in your hand! How many heads has it taken? How many have fallen on her order?”

“Look around you,” Sadik replied. “The Demokrats have done no better.”

Her fangs dripped with blood. “We have not extinguished the last of the old regime. Once the resistance is over, once the population has been educated—”

Sadik charged forward, putting his full weight into a broadside slash. She needed all four swords to block. When he kicked her knee, the bone was as strong as iron, nearly shattering his heel. There was a feral hiss, a tail slicing his arm, a foot kicking his chest. Sadik was thrown head over heels across the street, falling to rest among the flagstones.

“You’ve grown weak,” she said.

Sadik struggled to stand. His right arm had been opened from elbow to wrist. As she paced forward, twirling her blades, he stumbled back to his feet, raising Dusksong once more.

Behind the assassin, Kavaia was crawling across the street, trying to reach for her severed leg. There was a growing vigor in her movements. Her wounds seemed to be—

“It’s like you’re begging for death,” Faustine said. “Walking around this unmodified.”

She threw a knife. Sadik barely managed to dodge.

“The last of the Luminous Path, fallen back to baseline. Barely more than a candle of light.” Her hum was devious. “How the mighty have fallen.”

“I’ve never died,” Sadik said. “Unlike you.”

The caracal sprinted forward. He twisted Dusksong’s haft. A sunbeam bulged, scattering every shadow in sight. At the last second, she threw herself below the lance of energy, sliding along the bricks below. Sadik used the recoil to pull Dusksong overhead, chopping down with a vicious strength.

He hit nothing but stone. Faustine twirled around his strike like a vapor of wind. She skewered his thigh with two khopeshes, using her momentum to bash him with a shoulder. When he flew back, her swords were freed with a squelching rip.

He bounced along the street, landing facedown in a bloody gutter. It took all his concentration just to flop onto his back. His vision swam with blood. His flesh screamed in pain.

“We were slaves,” Faustine said, walking towards him. “The tools of gods and men.”

Far down the street, Kavaia rose back to standing. Her severed leg was attached by growing lines of sinew.

“It was all a lie.” Her tail slashed through the air. “A system of control. The people obey the Vizier. The Vizier obeys the gods. The gods obey the tree.”

Sadik stabbed Dusksong into the flagstones, using the haft to support himself.

“What do you think you’re defending? A city that hoards its wonders from the world? A government that denied its people a voice?”

He pushed himself. His legs nearly buckled. His blood mixed with the rain.

Faustine stopped at arm’s length. “The Viziers have reigned for thousands of years. Nothing has changed. We worship the gods, worship the ancestors, worship any martyrs who throw themselves upon a pyre. All we thought to hope for was some daily bread. A few doses of Glimmer to make us feel superior.”

Sadik stared back at her, breathing heavily.

“We deserve our own destiny,” Faustine said. “The gifts of the ancestors are running out. What happens when the last sunspear has been pulled from the earth? What happens when our energy barriers can no longer rise?”

For a moment, only the rain continued to move.

“We have to build something better. The world is changing. If you had listened to me—”

“You enjoyed it,” Sadik said.

Her ears flattened. Further down the street, Kavaia limped in their direction.

“You enjoyed killing her.” He managed to lift his sword. “You laughed. Took your time. Drove the blade in slow.”

The burns on her face began to tighten. “She had to die. For a better world.”

“You swore an oath,” Sadik said. “Guarded her throne. Defended her palace.”

“I swore to defend this city, not some hippo with a mask.” Her eyes were livid. “You call me oathbreaker. I call you blind.”

“We were brothers.”

“Were we, Sadik? Is that what we were?”

She had been timid and alone, joining the guard to avoid a life of servitude in the mines. Barely modified, barely able to lift her armor. As master of arms, he had been forced to reject her admission. She had wailed at his feet, begging for an exception.

Propriety demanded his rejection. The merit of Kohav Yaran could not be compromised. Instead, he had given her lessons. He had traded favors, arranged for special equipment. Every time, he would choose to defend her in battle.

They had taken the same patrols. They had chatted in the gardens, dined in the halls, spent days in study and training. When the time had come, they had borne the tattoos of the Luminous Path upon their flesh.

She had always smiled in his presence. For years, he had been the only person she had ever sought for company.

Now, she stood alone in the blood-drenched street, her tattoos burned, her body molded, her swords barely half a breath from gutting him where he stood.

“You betrayed us all,” Sadik said.

“You broke your vows for her.”

“You ripped our child from her belly!”

His tattoos began to glow, covering his body in light. Kavaia’s limp turned into a ground-shaking sprint.

“You are dead to me,” Sadik said. “Spare the lectures. Spare the arrogance. I see nothing but a traitor standing before me, and that means there is nothing left to say.”

For a moment, her expression cracked. He saw a glimpse of the woman she had been. The timidness. The anxiety. The adoration.

Perhaps he only wanted to see it.

“For Hisana.”

Kavaia charged with a war cry. Faustine whirled to face her, baring sword and fang. Sadik prepared to strike.

An arrow flew from the heavens.

When it struck Faustine, she was blown clean off her feet, sailing through the air like a hunted rabbit. She crashed into the wall of a blacksmith’s shop with a thunderous crack of stone. A severed arm spiraled through the rain.

The arrow was a wyrmslayer. Based on the tearing of her flesh, Sadik could see that the head had been barbed and gruesome, while the shaft was easily as long as a man. They were designed to pierce the glittering scales of the sand-dwelling dragons. Firing one took extraordinary strength.

“Sadik!”

Across the street, a human woman emerged from the cover of a blacksmith’s chimney. Her great bow was nearly a full cubit taller than her, baring the marks of battle and the bones of dragons. Her frame was muscled, her scouting uniform was torn to ribbons, and she was the best thing that Sadik had seen all day.

Amira Massoud. Former wyrmslayer for the city of Acheron. Current lieutenant of the Sons of Sorrow.

“Finish the cunt, would ya?” Amira yelled.

A snarl ripped across the street. Faustine had been pinned to the wall by the massive arrow, the barbed head punching her shoulder into an armless crater. It had barely slowed her down. With the strength of a caged animal, one of her arms snapped the fletching from the shaft, while her other two began to push the embedded arrow the rest of the way through her body. She screamed with every inch of progress.

“Sadik,” Kavaia said, pattering to a halt in front of him. “Allow me—”

He ran for the caracal, his sword blazing through the scarlet light. He barely made it a single step before his wounded leg had him collapse in shock. His blood stained the street faster than the rain.

For several agonizing moments, the two of them battled through their injuries, trying to ready themselves for combat. The sounds were akin to a pair of wolves gnawing through their legs.

Sadik won the race. He rose, threw himself forward, and decapitated Faustine with a single blow. Dusksong continued through her neck and into the wall beyond, blowing the weakened structure apart. He found himself falling through a cloud of dust and stone.

A large hand caught him around the chest. The instant contact was made, a feeling of relief blossomed through his body, causing every ache and pain to melt right from the muscle. As Kavaia lowered him into a sitting position, steam began to erupt from his injuries, the flesh growing back with such speed that it was nearly boiling. It burned and soothed in equal measure.

“Goddess,” Sadik said, struggling to focus through the sensation. “What are you—”

“Let me work.”

His wounds retreated. At the same time, Kavaia’s flesh began to bubble. The crocodile braced through the pain, a dozen teeth emerging along her snout.

He glanced back at the hole in the blacksmith’s shop. There was no sign of movement. Faustine was most certainly still alive, somewhere in the building—the pantheon had lost their god of death, and a curse of immortality had been bestowed upon Acheron. Of course, losing her head should slow her down. Hopefully.

Sadik gave a weak gesture. “You. . . .”

Kavaia looked down at him, her scales an interplay of blood and myrtle.

“Could you work faster? We have surely drawn the Mezlat.”

“Sadik,” she said, irritated. “Would you like to keep these injuries?”

“I suppose they do look rather dashing on you, goddess.”

She slapped him across the face. With the size of her hand, it felt like being struck with a warhammer. Sadik nearly toppled to the floor.

“I said I would hit you,” Kavaia said. “Call me goddess again, and I’ll have you ordained as my servant.”

The pain in his cheek receded. She had immediately taken the injury upon herself. A look in her eye seemed to ask if a point had been taken.

“It’s only manners,” Sadik replied, flexing his healed leg. “You are still divine, it seems.”

“. . . so I am.” A jagged line began to tear across her arm. “Aldunya’s protection is rather playful, I suppose. We’re all having fun today.”

“Hoi!”

Amira had moved over to an adjacent rooftop, bracing the bottom limb of her greatbow in a firing position. “Could you naked cherubs get a move on? Gonna be swarmin’ with drones any second!”

Far down the street, a cloud of lights swept over the canal. A Mezlat swarm, still in hunter-killer formation. They were widening the search perimeter. Garrisons from across the city would not be far behind.

“Spread out!” Amira shouted, speaking into a small metal beacon. One of the communication devices of the ancestors, capable of transmitting speech across great distances. She must’ve been sending orders to a squad of Sons. “Teams of two! Staggered lines! Whole fuckin’ guard’s coming our way! Keep our glowin’ leader alive, or you’re eating rats for rations!”

“Can you walk?” Kavaia asked, holding out a hand for support.

Sadik gripped her hand. His fingers could barely wrap around her palm. “Yes. Follow Amira. She will guide us—”

An explosion blew them away.

The blacksmith’s shop erupted in a searing cloud of flame. Sadik found himself rolling across the flagstones, the layers of blood on his skin providing a thin protection against the heat. As he tumbled to a stop, a misshapen figure emerged from the ruins of the building, her body cloaked in flame and dust.

“Run!” Amira yelled, notching another wyrmslayer.

Faustine threw several grenades toward the rooftops. Amira let out a “fuck!” at the top of her lungs, ran towards the next building, and leaped with bow in hand. The explosions shattered a jewel cutting emporium, spraying the surrounding buildings with stone and shards of gems. Amira disappeared in the gloomy red light, her yell echoing across the street.

Kavaia popped back to her feet with the grace of a pugilist, putting herself between Sadik and the caracal.

“Run!” she yelled.

Kavaia charged forward, bellowing a war cry. Faustine shifted one of her khopeshes into an overhand grip, leaned back, and threw it like a javelin. The sword impaled Kavaia straight through the abdomen. She gave a breathless wretch, stumbled, and fell.

Faustine stepped forward. Her upper left arm was missing, her headless neck was an oozing ruin of flesh, and her body held so many burns and injuries that it seemed easier to count the places where she still had the remnants of fur. Her lower two arms displayed the length of her swords. In her upper right arm, she clutched her severed head, holding it out like a lantern. Her green eyes focused on him, the mouth locking back into a lungless snarl.

Down the street, a contingent of guards swarmed into Nedivar, supported by a glittering cloud of Mezlat.

“Gamó,” Sadik said, beginning to run.

He sprinted in the opposite direction. Faustine immediately gave chase, her heavy footfalls shaking through the stone below. She was faster than him, running with a speed that only Glimmer could give, but, very quickly, her movements became clumsy and uncoordinated. Running with her head in her hand was interfering with her vision, and even a curse of immortality could not let her ignore her injuries. Sadik wasn’t able to outpace her, but he was able to earn a modest amount of breathing room.

He used it immediately. With a single motion, he stopped, turned, and fired a sunbeam straight into the clouds above, sending a wave of electricity crawling through the gory underbelly.

“Over here!” Sadik shouted, letting his tattoos burn as bright as the stars.

The guards froze, captivated by the light. After a moment, they began to sprint.

Faustine crashed into his body, slashing both her swords at once. Sadik parried one, let the other slash across his chest, and kicked her in a wounded thigh. As she fell to a knee, he ran towards an armorer’s shop, climbing the building with a clumsy series of leaps and grapples. He stood tall on the rooftop, making sure the Mezlat and guards were still focusing their attention upon him.

Kavaia had disappeared from the street. The only trace of Amira was a smoldering ruin where a building had once stood. In seconds, the district of Nedivar seemed abandoned once more.

That was good. He had created a diversion. Protected his comrades from the attention of the enemy.

The Luminous Path would expect nothing less.

With sword and skin burning bright, Sadik ran across the industrial rooftops, trying to draw the Mezlat away from the safehouse further in the district. He succeeded. The drones tightened their formation into a stream, rushing towards him with the speed of an arrow. Mechanical whirs filled the air. Below, the guards were dashing through the alleys, the sound of their yells and footsteps echoing through the empty district. Some took potshots at Sadik. Others leaped onto the buildings like a rain of frogs, using their enhanced musculature to close the distance.

Faustine had been right. He was too unmodified. Picking a fight would be little more than begging for death.

Still, he ran. He weaved through chimneys that had lain cold for weeks, scrambling beneath cisterns that no longer contained a source of water. In the distance, the eastward mountains glowed a scarlet red, and the trunk of the Neheamatt disappeared into the clouds above, still appearing as divine as the day she fell silent. He could only imagine the oceans of plague that were writhing beneath her bark.

He ran until it no longer felt like his feet were touching the rooftops. He ran until his mind could think of nothing but pain and exhaustion.

He ran, and a feeling of serenity passed through his chest.

Defeat was peaceful, in a way.

A sunbeam screamed over his shoulder. Several Mezlat swarmed into the air in front of him, cutting off his escape. Behind him, half a dozen guards brandished their spears as they closed the distance. They did not seem inclined to accept his surrender.

Sadik took a moment to catch his breath. He raised Dusksong in a low, open stance, daring any to approach.

No one moved. The rain pattered and fell.

There was a soft whistle. A Mezlat jerked in the air, its sunbeam fizzling out of the chassis. Sadik felt an arrow shoot just above his head, and another Mezlat cracked open like the shell of a pistachio, its metal innards raining to the floor. One of the guards—a four-eyed prairie wolf—had just enough time to flinch in surprise before a wyrmslayer ripped his body in half, knocking over several of his comrades with the shrapnel of his flesh.

On a higher rooftop, a metal cistern began to tilt forward, the supports groaning and snapping in rapid succession. Kavaia roared as she pushed it over the edge, letting the heavy structure crash into a trio of guards. It punched a hole in the rooftop like a fist through plaster.

The Sons of Sorrow had arrived in force. In every direction, there was an archer wielding a bow, a spearman racing to flank, more than a dozen symbols of a weeping eye. They had managed to partially enclose the enemy, catching them completely off-guard. The Mezlat were being shot down faster than they could change their targets. Guards screamed and died.

Before Sadik could join the melee, he was tackled off the roof.

He had just enough time to gasp for air before Faustine sent him crashing through a pane of glass. They landed on a metal catwalk in a tangle of limbs and blood, sending a shudder through the entire structure. Dusksong fell from his grip. As Sadik gasped again, he felt the air become swelteringly hot, reeking of molten metal.

They had fallen into a bronze workshop. Somehow, the forges were still active. The walls of the stone building were awash in the glow of molten copper, and the air was filled with the sound of pounding hammers. Below the catwalk, entire vats of molten bronze dotted the ground, belching a searing heat up into the space above. In a brief moment of clarity, Sadik supposed that the tears of molten bronze he had seen on the statue must’ve come from somewhere.

Faustine straddled his waist, raised her two swords, and stabbed them down into his shoulders. He felt every sinking inch of the blades as they tore through the metal below. In seconds, he was pinned down flat against the catwalk.

The caracal used her two lower arms to slash at him. Her claws had been reinforced with iron, and she ripped into his skin with reckless abandon, slicing and carving as fast as her limbs would allow. Above, her upper arm continued to clutch her head between its fingers, the facial muscles still twitching despite the lack of bloodflow. When her slit eyes focused on his face, she snarled and began to work faster.

Blood sprayed. Intestines flew. Sadik struggled against the swords in his shoulders, overwhelmed with pain. The violence grew frenzied. Below, the workers screamed in shock, attempting to flee from their posts.

One arm dug through his open belly. With the other, Faustine straightened her fingers and stabbed them through his lower hip, attempting to sever his leg by the points of her claws. She began to carve his body from the inside out. Her severed head looked at him with fury.

The curse of the Neheamatt was upon them. Death was not an option.

With the last of his strength, Sadik reached for the haft of Dusksong, yanking his shoulders through the blades. He had to sever a tendon to reach the hilt. He had to chip his bones to brace against the weight. Just as Faustine wormed her fingers through the back of his leg, Sadik managed to swing his sword, using every ounce of muscle he had left.

Dusksong severed her upper arm. Her head tumbled through the haze of the workshop, her feline eyes reflecting the orange glow. It fell into a vat of molten bronze with a sizzling pop. The liquid churned and splashed.

As her skull began to melt, her body started to spasm. Her arms flailed against the space where her head should’ve been, completely lost in panic. She was convulsing, falling back to the catwalk. Unable to scream.

Sadik dropped his sword. Grabbed the handle of a khopesh. Slowly, every movement blurring his vision, he ripped the first blade free from his body. He barely remembered the second. His training was gone, his mind fractured. Nothing but an animal.

Faustine thrashed along the catwalk, bashing her limbs into the metal railings. She was illuminated from below by rows of vats, all containing gallons of molten metal. It was enough bronze to feed the Demokrats’ ever-growing need for armaments. It was the only way she could die.

Sadik ran forward, lost in fury.

He bashed her with his shoulder. She crashed against the railing. Lost her balance. Tilted. Fell head over heels.

Her body landed in a pool of bronze, the orange liquid splashing like a geyser. As she sank below the surface, her form nearly lost beneath the brightness, she continued to lash her arms in a desperate attempt to swim. It did not last long. Whatever remained above the surface became wrapped in flame, and whatever sank below quickly melted into slag, the steel infused in her body only adding to the fuel of industry.

Her movements slowed. Her body disappeared. The last thing Sadik saw was one of her hands, still clawing for life. Then she was gone.

He fell apart.

His face landed on the catwalk. Parts of him were loose. Others flopped. Blood gushed through the shattered skylight above, forming a flood against his body.

Sadik was forced to endure it all. The curse of the Neheamatt kept his heart pumping. No loss of blood or air could give him the solace of death. His intestines were hanging like vines from the catwalk, his open flesh was beginning to cook from the molten bronze below, and still his mind was forced to endure.

Endure.

He had to endure.

He had endured for so long.

Gasping for air.

Endure.

Shattering pain.

Endure.

Pain.

Pain.

Pain—

“Fuck!”

Metal footsteps clanged against the catwalk. The vibrations were agony.

“Sadik! Sadik!”

A hand on his face. Rough calluses. His eyes focused on Amira. Her human features were plastered with blood. Her eyes were blue, each holding a twin set of pupils.

“Hey, hey, look at me. Focus.” A shift. Pain. “Oh, fuck me. God’s leafy cunt, you’re everywhere.”

More clanging. Shouts from above. The deep thrum of sunbeams.

Another voice.

“Step aside. Please. I can—”

“No, no, no, fuck off, he’s mine—”

“Let me help!”

Sadik rolled his head. Kavaia was kneeling above him, the wound in her abdomen only partially healed.

“Hold a moment,” Amira said, lowering her dagger. “You’re actually her. The Jade Demon, of all places?”

Kavaia placed a hand on his chest. A sliver of pain was sucked away. He couldn’t stop the whimper.

“What the fuck are you doing with him? Why the fuck are you naked?”

“You’re wasting time,” Kavaia said.

“Fuck you! Holy cunt on a cactus—”

An explosion shook the building. The sky was stitched with sunbeams. Broken glass, raining blood.

Kavaia’s hand pulled away. “He’s too injured. I need more Glimmer.”

“Aw, sure, yeah, I’ll just fart out more of that magic dust. Got it on demand, matter of fact.”

“He’s only alive because of the curse,” Kavaia said, measuring her words. “If it ends, he will die. I can save him, but I need Glimmer.”

Amira looked down at him. Up through the broken skylight. Her breathing was rapid.

“I want to help,” Kavaia said. “Let me. Please.”

“Fuck. Alright. We got stockpiles.” She stashed her dagger, slamming the bottom of her greatbow into the catwalk. “Got that godly strength, right? Punch a man in half?”

The crocodile nodded.

“Fuck it. Carry him. Keep your head down and do as I say. And so help the gods, if you fuckin’ drop him, I’m stringing you by the soft scales. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

Amira ran down the catwalk. Kavaia loomed over him, carefully wrapping her arms around his body. Sadik could only manage a guttural moan.

“Rest,” she said, her face filling his vision. He was shifted. Brought into a bridal carry. “You’ve done enough.”

He gasped. Leaned into her chest. Parts of him spilled across the catwalk.

Her hand rested on his cheek. His injuries did not heal, but the pain seemed to grow distant. He felt relief. Comfort. Her touch was a blessing unlike any he had ever known.

“You’ve done enough, Sadik.”

He blinked. Nodded. Closed his eyes.

She carried him away.