Tif found the knights where she had left them--at the bar. The poor establishment had tables leaning on their sides and stools crushed by the mass of people who had been stomping around. There were still a few lanterns lit, but all of the patrons were gone and so was the aquaros bartender, which gave the building a hollow feel compared to how Tif had last seen it. Only Bes-Ahl remained, sitting cross-legged at the front of the establishment, her large keshe eyes closed as if she was meditating.

Tif slowed in her walk to meet the knight, but one of the path’s bamboo rungs creaked, and Bes-Ahl went from sitting a dozen feet away to standing in front of her in the space of a heartbeat.

“There you are.”

Tif expected the others to appear around her just as suddenly, boxing her in, but another moment passed and it stayed just the two of them. “Where is everyone else?” she asked.

“Trying to find you.” Bes-Ahl had been using the time to search her over with a critical eye. “What happened?”

Tif hadn’t really considered how she must look with dried blood on her face from the fairies departing cut and her clothes covered in dirt and grit from the climb. She had been so focused on coming up with a way to get her parents from Vak-Lav without the crest she hadn’t thought about needing to explain her disappearance to the knights.

“Um…”

Bes put her hands on her hips and leaned over Tif in a decidedly ominous way. “There better be more where that came from.”

“Um, well…” Tif floundered but then Pep suggested that she go with the truth--at least part of it anyway--which sounded well enough to her. “I was kidnapped.”

“You were what?” the keshe said, her mood swinging darker not lighter.

This way of explaining things didn’t seem nearly as inviting to Tif anymore, but she figured she might as well press on with it. “I think the riot was a distraction so that they could get me.”

Bes-Ahl narrowed her eyes. “Last I saw you, you were in the middle of the bar.”

Tif was glad she was used to staring down das opponents trying to figure out how she had laid her tiles, otherwise the knight’s penetrating glare might have made her break out in sweats.

As it was, it nearly did.

“Ported me away,” Tif answered.

Bes-Ahl didn’t speak as if waiting to see if she’d say more, but Tif was familiar with that trick, too. When she didn’t offer up anything else, the keshe motioned at her front with a long-nailed hand. “And the dirt?”

“I got away, but they had taken me to the lower part of the island, so I had to climb up the side to get back to the city. I figured out how to Blood bond with my feet, too!” she added, lifting her bare foot as proof.

The knight didn’t even look down, dashing Tif’s hopes of shifting the conversation to safer ground. “Why would they kidnap you?”

Tif raised her shoulders in a brief shrug. “I didn’t find out. Maybe for my Blood ris?”

Bes-Ahl still looked displeased, which was better in Tif’s book than unconvinced. If the keshe had picked up on something wrong using her seals, surely she would have said something, but Tif’s foremost desire was to be believed, and there was nothing wrong with that. In addition, the knight spent her time traveling between Lercel and Sah’Sah, fighting Death, so there probably wasn’t much use in the skill of noticing lesser wants. Or so Tif first assumed, but the way Bes-Ahl was continuing to scrutinize her was starting to make Tif worry that she might have misjudged the keshe’s savviness with her Gold senses.

That’s when the air shimmered beside them and then snapped into Yuu-Fen. Apparently porting outside of the usual posts was allowed during an emergency--that or he was breaking the rules again like Bes-Ahl recently had.

“Any news--” he started before noticing Tif, giving her a lopsided grin once he did. “Ah, our wayward debtor returns to us.” Tif was glad to see that not everyone was mad at her but then his smile slipped. “You cost me a good buzz.”

“Sorry--”

Again the air nearby seemed to bend, more so than before, and Udaru appeared. Unlike with Yuu’s arrival, Bes-Ahl immediately related Tif’s story in concise bits. The conversation took less time than Tif would have liked because as soon as the keshe finished, the division leader turned his pointed snout toward her.

Tif nearly gulped at how cold his gaze was. She had never played das against an aquaros.

“Where on the island did they take you?” he asked in a more rushed croak than normal.

“I’m not sure,” Tif said, and when he didn’t answer back, she added, “It was dark.”

“Did you hear any names?”

She wanted to tell him Hahna and Ipsol, but if she did and Udaru managed to find them, the two might say things Tif would wish they hadn’t. She shook her head this time instead of answering.

Udaru growled, but he looked to the side as he did it, as if frustrated by the situation, not her, which loosened some of the tension in Tif’s belly.

For a moment at least, anyway.

“You must have heard or seen something else,” Bes pressed. “The smallest detail could matter. Think, gir--”

“Alright, alright,” Yuu interrupted, walking over to stand beside Tif. He even put an arm around her, though he was careful to just touch her shirt. “Look at her. She’s clearly had a rough night. And she came back to us!” He smiled widely looking at everyone. “This has to be the best debtor I’ve ever met.”

Tif blushed at the undeserved compliment, Bes-Ahl and Udaru’s lack of agreement making it feel all the more so. Yuu-Fen’s brief speech did stop the interrogation though, and the knights ported her to their nearby accommodations where Rof apparently already was.

As Tif settled into the open-air room on the third floor she had been given, she worried that Udaru or one of the other knights might go hunting for the gang members. However, the aquaros ordered everyone to bed and chose to spend the night standing guard outside the partition that separated Tif’s room from others on the floor. She found the gesture very sweet, but it also made her feel horribly guilty about not telling her travel companions the truth. Because of that, sleep was a long time coming and fitful when it finally did, full of dreams of disappointed faces looking down on her as she scaled the side of a mountain without end. It was mainly her parents Tif saw, but others also came to watch her climb like Sur-Rak, the Archon with Jer beside her, Udaru, and even Awt, all judging her and leaving before she could reach the top.

***

Though she woke hale and whole thanks to her Blood ris, Tif felt like she had barely rested when Udaru roused her. He handed her a piece of bread that smelled of fish and a pitcher of water to clean herself with before vanishing for a short time. They were gone from Sah’Sah soon after that, the sun barely inching over the sea, casting the flowing green undulations in colors of ochre and red.

Tif didn’t know if their early departure was to avoid a second attempt at her capture or because they had a long trip ahead of them to the Blood Plains. Either way, she didn’t ask, not wanting them to think on last night any more than they might already be.

Fortunately for her, Rof required a great deal of the knight’s attention. Now that the young keshe had his second seal of Tears, he could travel on his own, which caused some changes to the previously established travel pairs. Udaru took the lead, alone, while Tif went with Bes-Ahl, the keshe gripping Tif’s sleeved forearm to keep them connected. In some ways, it was frightening to Tif to be linked with the knight at only a single, small point, but in others Tif delighted in the additional freedom, able to swing her right arm and legs however she wanted without needing to worry about knocking into anyone.

Yuu-Fen and Rof brought up the rear, with Yuu traveling just behind the young keshe, so the knight could catch Rof should he make any blunders. For the first part of the trip, Tif spent a good portion of it looking over her shoulder to see how he was faring. She had heard Udaru explain to Rof before they left that there was much less to run into when jumping through the open air than the land, but even so, Tif was honestly rather shocked they were starting his lessons this way--making Bes-Ahl’s proposed stab training seem practically safe in comparison.

And though Rof ported in fits and starts, often flailing his arms after each new jump, to the newly fledged knight’s credit, or perhaps Yuu-Fen’s, Rof managed not to die before their usual midday stop.

Like on their way to Sah’Sah, Udaru left to scout while Bes and Yuu sat back-to-back, meditating. Rof was supposed to do the same now that he was expending ris on the journey, and he certainly made a good show of it, back straight and his breath nice and steady. But when Tif went to check on him, she saw the half-scroll in front of him again in addition to a second one laid partially over the edge of the first, as if together the two of them made a full scroll.

“Why were you practicing only half of it before?” she asked.

Rof’s attention twitched toward the seated knights who were twenty or so feet away, clearly not wanting them to find out that he wasn’t actually meditating.

“I didn’t have both,” he whispered.

Tif crouched down beside him to talk quieter and block the knight’s view of what he was doing. “You got it in Sah’Sah?” It was hard for Tif to imagine quiet Rof going shopping after the riot, but she supposed she had been gone with Plumya for quite some time.

However he had acquired it, Rof’s face went still at her question, except for his lips which pressed together. Tif nearly laughed at how obvious he was being.

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered. Tif didn’t think it would make much of a difference--anyone with eyes could tell that he had twice as much scroll as before--but if the promise would make him feel better, she was glad to give it.

His reply was stiff as a board, “I need to meditate.”

Tif let him be--he could have his secrets, she certainly had her own--and went over to a tree she had been eyeing for practice. First, she rolled up her pant legs. Tif had already given away her sandals to a little boy in Sah’Sah that morning, and tonight she planned to ask Bes-Ahl to borrow her knife so could shorten her pants and shirt.

The cloth bunched to her knees, Tif squared up in front of the tree, her arms raised. She still didn’t know any forms for Blood, but having bonded not just the palms of her hands to things the other day but also the bottom and side of her feet made her think that she could do the same with any strike, whether it was a punch, a chop, a side kick, or something else. That meant she didn’t have to be so obsessed with grabbing like she had been before. Instead, she could use the Gold forms she’d practiced so long, and if she could connect just one punch or kick and stick to an opponent, she’d win!

She started easy, striking at the body of the tree but pulling her attacks some so as not to skin herself on the rough bark. Only a few jabs in, she realized that she could punch or kick as hard as she wanted since her Blood ris would heal her the moment she pulled away. Like when she had charged the gang member’s spear, Tif had to resist her natural urge to avoid hurting herself, but once she pushed past that and the sting of broken skin, being able to go all out was such an amazing feeling--like falling through the sky, but in a different way. It was so freeing in fact, Tif started going rather wild with it, leaping at the tree with jumping kicks that left huge bruises down her whole shin until the heat of Blood ris rushed in to take it away. She ended up making so much noise rattling the tree that Bes and Yuu finally shouted at her to settle down.

Tif didn’t stop of course--she was just getting started!--but she did find a bigger tree that didn’t make as much sound when she hit it. Also, in her excitement, she hadn’t tried bonding yet, so that’s what she focused on next. Punch, bond, release. Kick, bond, release. It was tough to stick at the moment of impact, but not nearly as hard as her training with Bes-Ahl where she was the one getting hit, so Tif fell into a nice rhythm with it after not too long. To give herself a challenge, Tif decided to go a bit faster, but on her second punch, she pulled her fist back before she had stopped the bond and ripped a piece of bark off, stuck to the knuckles of her hand.

“Sorry!” Tif said. She quickly released the piece and was able to wedge the chunk of bark into place, to where you could hardly tell it had been broken. “Hope the tree takes it back.”

Pep assured her that if the mighty plant could, it would.

“Using Gold forms with Blood ris. Interesting.”

Tif would know Udaru’s voice anywhere. She looked up and found him standing in the thick branches above her. He vanished, reappearing beside her--the air warping like water before suddenly turning into his blue-scaled form. She wondered why she could see his approaches more clearly than the other two knights. Maybe because he had more Tears ris than them?

“It is a shame you will be losing your seals soon. If you had trained longer before entering the Challenges, I think they would have ended differently for you.”

There was a time when Tif would have given anything to hear a compliment like that from a division leader, but instead the comment made her wonder how the Blood Aspect would react to receiving a crest--would it receive it? And of course there was the nagging questions of Vak-Lav: what would the underground leader do when she returned without any ris? Had she been stupid not to go with Plumya?

“Did you hear anything about a cyclops in Sah’Sah?” was what fell out of Tif’s mouth.

“A cyclops?” Udaru said, tilting one eye toward her in that way he had. “No? Why?”

“No reason,” she said, speaking quickly. “So, how did you become an arcknight of Lercel?”

Udaru stared at her for a moment. “I am not an arcknight.”

“You’re…not?” Tif had thought all division leaders had be arcknights.

“I’m not even a knight or noble,” the aquaros continued with a rumble in his chest. “At least not how Lercel measures such things.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Not a noble? That meant the Gold ris that glinted on his scales was only enough for a single Gold seal. “But--”

Udaru held up a clawed finger. “Something I learned in the Mountain city. Fair exchange. I have given you words you value. Now it is your turn to do the same. What cyclops?”

Born and raised in Lercel, Tif knew all about the importance of a good trade, and so felt compelled to tell him something. “Just what I heard,” she answered. “Maybe involved in a scuffle.”

“A fight? Who told you this?” he pressed.

“I don’t know his name,” Tif said, and she didn’t--the gang member who had alerted them to the cyclops had never introduced himself. “Some local human. From what I heard, the cyclops ended up on the other side of the island.”

“Hmm,” the aquaros said, looking away, his wide frill gently ruffling.

Tif managed to keep her sigh of relief inside, and Pep was congratulating her on a second interrogation handled when her body gave an unconscious shake. At first Tif thought it was guilt for not telling the aquaros everything, but then she saw him twitch, too. His reaction was much different than hers--he hissed, whipping his snout to the side.

“Death.”

That’s when Tif saw her first spidra. He stood maybe thirty feet away, wearing black armor of overlapping plates that covered all four of his arms. His lower set held long, slim swords while both of his upper pointed forward, right at them it seemed. His helmet had a raised metal crest that went down to his nose but left the sides of his face clear, letting Tif see the second set of eyes he had right where his temples would have been. The grey Death tattoos on his face contorted as he shouted, running straight for them on his two legs, the armor strapped to his thighs and the rest of his body not slowing him at all.

“Go with the others,” Udaru barked at her. “I will follow.”

Tif turned toward where Bes-Ahl and Yuu-Fen had been, her heart stopping when she saw they were no longer there. Then Bes was beside her, grabbing her arm, and the next breath Tif sucked in was fifty feet in the air.

They ported through the sky, one hop after the next, much faster then they usually would. The quick jumps made Tif feel sick, to see everything around her change again and again, but even worse was the sensation of numbness that clung to her chest and arms and was spreading to the rest of her body.

“Something is wrong with me,” Tif told the keshe.

“Quiet!” Bes shouted back.

After just a few more jumps, Bes-Ahl took them to the ground, another clump of plants and trees that looked hardly different than the place they had just been.

Tif fell to all fours, spitting saliva out of her mouth. She thought she might actually throw up from how they had just traveled and the disorienting lack of feeling on her skin, but Bes shouted above her in a way that demanded to be answered.

“Is it still there?” the knight asked. “The numbness?”

Tif looked up at the keshe, trying to sort the nausea from the other bizarre sensation. “...I don’t think so,” she weakly answered. Then she pinched her arm to be sure, and was glad to feel her skin bunch between her fingers. “What was it?”

Bes sagged, crouching to the ground next to her like Tif recently had with Rof. That had been much more fun than this.

“They marked you. Getting far enough away will usually break it. If not, they can find you anywhere.”

So that was a Death mark. Tif immediately checked how much heat remained of her ris, wondering if the Spidra had used his ris to burn off any of hers. It wasn’t all there, but that made sense with the healing she had needed when training against the tree. Tif breathed out in relief, shifting into a sitting position. She could still fight if needed, and focusing on finding her ris had helped take her attention away from her stomach long enough to feel better.

Yuu-Fen and Rof appeared soon after, Yuu holding onto the young keshe’s arm just as Bes had held onto hers. Apparently the knight didn’t want to risk Rof making a mistake with Death on their heels.

“What about Udaru?” Tif asked.

Bes-Ahl stood. “He’ll be here.”

The keshe began grilling Rof about being marked while they waited for the aquaros, but Rof didn’t remember feeling anything strange.

Pep thought the young keshe was probably too busy grabbing his scrolls to notice, and Tif agreed.

When Udaru did appear, Tif felt sick to her stomach all over again. He was bleeding green from long cuts down his right arm and across his chest that immediately made her think of the spidra’s slim swords. Seeing him so, Tif realized how vulnerable he was without two seals of Gold to shield him or two of Blood to heal. If all Tears knights were so fragile, no wonder they chose to flee instead of fight.

“Next time let me or Rof stay behind to keep them busy,” Bes snapped at him, as she inspected his wounds.

Udaru didn’t answer, instead looking around the clearing like he was making sure that they were all there.

Tif had been wondering why the aquaros had stayed long enough to be hurt instead of just porting away and now she knew, a tear forming in the corner of her eye with the realization. She wiped the wetness from her face with the aquaros’s sah and made a pledge to herself, Pep, and the memories of everyone in the soft cloth: before she could be the Archon, she would be a leader who put the safety of her division first, just like he had.

The sound of crunching leaves and twigs turned everyone’s head, Tif’s included. The noise was coming from a more heavily wooded part of the forest they were near, thick enough that Tif couldn’t quite make out the cause. Considering how loud it was though, and how much of it there was, it seemed to be the product of more than one animal or person--or a really big one of either.

From the foliage, not twenty paces away, burst half a dozen Death troops. Three of them were spidra, all armored like the first had been, followed by three humans wearing boiled leather, armed with spears in their hands and bows across their backs. Oddly, their attention was ahead, as if chasing some unseen prey, but when they spotted the grounded knights, they seemed all too happy to charge toward them instead.

Bes-Ahl appeared beside Tif, grabbing her arm tightly. “Time to go.”

“No,” Udaru said. “We make a stand.”

The keshe turned to face the division leader, eyes wide. “What?” she said, and Tif saw that Yuu-Fen looked just as surprised.

“If they catch us again, I won’t have enough ris to fight back,” the aquaros said. Then he barked, “Knights strike!” Despite their reluctance, both did just that. One moment Bes and Yuu were only a few feet away from her, and the next Tif spotted them up nearby trees, punching at the oncoming Death troops. Their Gold ris blows slammed into two of the spidra in back, not knocking them down but slowing their advance.

Tif thought she saw something happening beside her and turned to see the air shimmering around Udaru. She thought maybe the two knights were returning, but instead the blurred air expanded and then suddenly resolved into two identical Udarus. The reflections made of Tears ris--because what else could they be?--wasted no time in disappearing. Tif spun around to watch them go, seeing both reappear mid-air, punching out. There was a slight shimmer around their fists, just like with the other knights, and then two of the charging humans fell to the ground as if struck.

“They can attack with Gold ris?” Tif asked in awe.

“You are not the only one to combine things,” Udaru said. Tif smiled until she saw that talking seemed to make the aquaros bleed more. “Hide,” he ordered and then he vanished as well.

Holding onto her worry for the division leader but not dwelling on it, Tif resolved to stay right where she was--this was what she had been training for! Rof was the only one still beside her, in a Gold attacker’s stance. The young keshe looked incredibly focused, his left arm forward, palm out--as if a raised hand could hold the oncoming enemies back--while his right was pulled back, preparing to punch with two fingers in that odd style he had.

He took a breath and then struck, pulling his left arm back to create twist and snapping his right forward, the air bending around his fingers for a split second of ris power. Tif turned to see what would be hit and locked onto the closest spidra who had to be the intended target. However, to the side Tif saw the only still standing human, who had an arrow knocked toward the trees, suddenly freeze. He head twitched and then blood erupted from both nostrils and ears, as if his brain had exploded inside his head. He collapsed to the side, unmoving.

Tif was dumbfounded. Gold ris needed time to travel, and she had never seen a strike have that sort of effect on someone. If anything, the human’s face should have crumpled in and then there should have been the blood. Not to mention that the human hadn’t even been in the line of Rof’s fire.

“Were you trying to hit him?” Tif asked.

Rof looked just as confused as she felt. “No...I shot at the spidra.”

The four armed warrior was almost on them now, and Tif knew from the Challenges that Rof was no good up close.

“Let’s try this again,” Tif said to Pep.

She ran at the spidra, not needing to go far with how near he was. As soon as she was within range, the spidra lashed out with his twin blades. To Tif’s disappointment, he went for cutting attacks instead of stabbing, perhaps somehow aware of her plan. She did her best to dodge the blades, but the fact that there were two of them meant that avoiding one often left her exposed to the other. The pain of the steel slicing through her flesh was similar to her training earlier with the tree and like then the hurt was brief, each time the rush of heat from her ris responding not a moment later, there and gone, leaving her feeling perfectly fine.

It seemed to Tif she might even be healing quicker than before.

The spidra was none too happy about this, his face a grimace underneath his helmet. His upper arms, which he had previously held up defensively, jerked into motion. His right made a gesture that tickled at Tif’s memory--Jer in the Challenges, sliding his thumb through the air. Instantly, her body began to grow numb like it had before. It wasn’t a pleasant sensation, but Tif wasn’t overly worried. Bes-Ahl had said the mark would let the user find her, but the spidra already knew exactly where she was. His left hand closed around the air and then pulled, which, given Death’s reputation, she could guess the meaning of. Sure enough, Tif began to feel the everpresent heat around her body slowly diminish, and she could see the grey ris on his face fading, too.

She leapt toward him. If he succeeded in draining them both of ris, with his arms and armor, he would be at the obvious advantage. It was possible that the knights or Rof might come to her aid, but she didn’t want to rely on them--this was something she could do.

Tif ended her jump with a flying turn kick, just like she had practiced on the tree. The spidra snapped his swords up, blocking her attack with the sharp sides of both blades, which bit into her flesh, only coming to a stop when they hit bone. Tif barely noticed her blood that flew free as she landed on the ground. She used her back foot to push herself forward to tackle him. He didn’t have time to get the point of his long blades between them, so he punched her with the pommel of one of his swords. The metal crunched into her cheek, pain lancing up the side of her face, but she was focused on other things and so barely felt it. He yanked the weapon back, and Tif came with it.

His eyes opened wide in surprise, and she gave him a bloody smile, thrilled with herself that she had managed to bond in the brief exchange. She reached an arm toward his face, the closest bare skin of his Tif could see. He jerked his head away, but not before Tif’s pointer finger touched his nose. Not wanting to risk two connections, Tif released the one on her cheek while pushing heat through her finger at the moment of contact. Unlike the cold metal she had been bonded to a moment before, the feel of skin on skin sent a prick of energy dancing through her body, running from the tip of her finger down to her toes.

“Get off me!” the spidra shouted. He jerked his head away, but with her one finger connected to him already, that just let the rest of her hand latch onto the side of his face, which Tif was quick to do. The fuller connection also turned the slight tingle of energy into a pour, down her arm and into the rest of her body. With it, she could feel the heat of her Blood ris replenishing faster than the spidra was destroying it.

He shouted in anger, probably feeling the loss on his end just as strongly as she was feeling the gain. With his far arm, he somehow managed to get one of his blades back far enough to stab deeply into Tif’s gut, causing her to gasp. The cuts and bruises she was growing used to, but this...this was pain on an entirely new level, lancing from her belly button to where she swore the blade grinded up against her spine, the line between the points a shock of fire.

While it was agonizing, Tif also knew the attack was a last ditch effort. She still had plenty of Blood ris left to heal, and his ris was probably nearly gone. Almost as she thought it, she felt the numbness of his mark leave her--meaning he likely didn’t have enough power left to maintain it. He growled, twisting the blade, but Tif clenched her jaw against the corkscrewing pain in her gut and bonded her off hand to his helmet, ripping it from his head. Underneath was knuckle-short hair that made his second set of eyes--blue, she saw--even more prominent. She released the helmet and then slapped her other hand over that part of his face.

The tickling of his eyelashes against her palm was almost more distracting than the sword in her belly.

He howled, thrashing, reminding Tif a great deal of the older keshe, Ede, who Tif had faced in the Challenges. Just like then, new tattoos began to crawl up the backs of her hands, spidery gray lines that left her flesh numb, similar to how a Death mark did. Tif didn’t get to spend long thinking about that though since the spidra was using his three other hands to punch and jab her while continuing to jostle the length of metal that pierced her clean through. She could feel her Blood ris working against the hurt he was causing, but it was diminishing quickly now that it was no longer being replenished by his ris energy.

He grabbed at her face with one hand, and before he could work his fingers into her eyes, she stuck his palm against her forehead. He pulled his hand back, which jerked her head at an odd angle and tugged her skin uncomfortably, but it held. While keeping that bond in place, she systematically did the same for each of his other hands, even the hilt of the blade against her belly, and then his knuckles against her cheek, when he let that hand go from the sword.

Though them being fused together in a mass of limbs and weapons stopped him from attacking her, every second she kept the seven holds in place it was losing her ris. She also wasn’t sure how much longer she could sustain so many sensations at once scattered across her body. Her forehead began to burn then--from overexertion she was sure--and her back started to feel odd, too. Tif held on a few more moments, but eventually she couldn’t take the strain anymore and released everything at once, stumbling away from the spidra, his blade coming with her.

He reacted lightning fast, grasping the hilt of his weapon and yanking it from her stomach in a splurt of blood. Tif felt the last of her heat move to heal her there, but it was sluggish, and she knew there wouldn’t be enough left to do anything about the blade that was flashing toward her neck.

A zip of movement shot past the spidra’s ear and then he was the one bleeding, clutching at the side of his face with an upper arm and casting his eyes side to side trying to figure out who had struck him.

For a wonder, Tif saw Plumya hovering in the air directly above him where he didn’t see, and the little fairy gave Tif a wink.

The space beside Plumya bent, and she zipped away. Udaru appeared, upside down in the middle of the air beside the surprised spidra. Before the four-armed warrior could react, the aquaros tapped a clawed finger against the side of the spidra’s head. There was a shimmer at the contact and then brains shot out the other side of the spidra’s skull. Udarau vanished as quickly as he had appeared, reforming next to Tif before the spidra’s body finished collapsing, metal clanking against itself and the plant covered ground.

“Well done,” Udaru said to her, which made Tif think it was the real one. “You were able to keep him occupied long enough that we could deal with the rest.”

Tif looked around and saw that sure enough no spidra or human remained standing.

Yuu-Fen snapped into existence close by and whistled when he looked her way, even leaning down some as if giving her a better look.

“You okay underneath all that blood?” he asked.

Tif checked her skin both in front and behind her belly with her hands. It was reknit, and her insides didn’t feel sick anymore either. The price was that her Blood ris was all used up, no heat left beneath her skin, not even a sputter. Of course, she had gotten off lightly compared to the fallen spidra and his allies. Her eyes trailed away from the knight and over to the dead body. This was far from the first one she had seen--people often died in the alleys of the lows because they didn’t have enough food, or got sick, or a lot of other reasons. But those people were usually just trying to survive. Why did Death tribe seem to only care about the opposite?

Tif realized that she hadn’t responded yet and turned back to Yuu-Fen who looked more concerned now.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’ll be fine.”

She wouldn’t have been without Plumya though. After how they had parted, Tif was surprised that the bounty hunter had put her neck out like that for her.

“I still want to know what they were originally chasing,” Bes-Ahl commented from the side.

Tif hadn’t noticed the knight’s appearance but was glad the keshe was okay. She also wondered the same. That was until a thought came to her...a crazy thought...a wild thought…

“If Death in the area is this prevalent,” Udaru began, and Tif stopped breathing. If the next thing the aquaros said was what she thought he might…, “we’ll have to return to Lercel first, train Rof properly, and then go to the Blood Plains if the western patrol division still can’t.”

“Plumya,” Tif breathed out, but thankfully no one heard her. The little fairy had gotten exactly what she wanted, and so had she, Tif supposed. Again, her eyes found the nearby dead body and then the lumps of the others scattered further out.

This was the tribe that had killed Awt’s parents and many others over the years, but even so, Tif didn’t like that her good fortune came from their demise. Hadn’t there been another way?

“At least you won’t be coming home empty handed,” Yuu said. It took a moment for Tif to realize that he was talking to her.

“What does that mean?” she asked him.

The human knight frowned at her. “I would think you could feel it. You have a seal of Death now.”