Seth sat by a fallen tree with Sera leaning on him while he tended to her wound. Her armor was beaten, entire sections crushed and wrinkled from where the kick had taken her. Her eyes were distant, and she grimaced infrequently as Seth worked. Her bow hand had taken almost as much punishment as her side and chest, and needed one of the two healing potions that survived.

“How are you feeling?”

“About as good as you expect to feel after nearly being snapped in half by a kick,” Sera said.

Seth heard the anger in her voice. She was still angry, and she had every right to be.

“If I had known this is how things would have turned out... I would have said something at the tent last night.”

She sat up and turned to stare at him, tugging hard against the wrap he’d made. “It’s a little too late to be changing your mind now, Seth.”

Her hard blue eyes dug into him, and he slowly nodded. He didn’t need reminding. The Ravens were well past the point of return now. They’d defeated the guards and carried some magical artifact tucked away in Ellie’s bag that might be powerful enough to confront whatever was in the temple. Honor dictated they finished their mission, but he wanted nothing to do that place. After what the vampire had said, it terrified him. His concentration slipped, and he tugged a little too hard on Sera’s bandaged hand.

“Are you trying to cut off the blood to my hand completely?”

“I’m sorry. I just have a lot on my mind,” he said. Sera’s face softened, and he took it as a cue to continue to bandage.

They sat in silence for minutes, and Seth pondered over how best to begin until Sera spoke.

“I keep thinking about what Hanson talked about. The legend of the temple.”

Seth nodded. “It’s been on my mind since the fight." He paused to think. “Whatever is in that temple might not be a cult of crazed blood mages, but it’ll likely be powerful enough to kill us with very little effort.”

“I agree.”

He took a deep breath before he began. “I am starting to think, and don’t tell me you told us so, that we should have never accepted this mission."

He split the end of the bandage Sera had helpfully packed before and formed a firm knot. She watched him as he worked the entire time.

“What would you like to hear then, Seth?” she asked. “If you expect forgiveness, you won’t find it. You all chose this. I was just dragged along.”

He ground his teeth and struggled to keep his voice low, “I had to side with Ellie, you know how it is. She is family, I’m sure you of all people understand that. As for Brick--well, he-” the words escaped him. The guilt nearly crushed him when he thought of Brick.

All three of his potions survived, but they weren’t enough. The vampire punch had shattered his rib, sternum and left bits of bone sprinkled in his chest. It nearly brought him to tears to see him like this. The four years they spent at the borderlands fighting for their lives deepened their bond. Brick was like a brother to him, and Sera a sister, despite Ellie reminding him that they shared no blood.

“I think we should run,” he said slowly, and Sera raised a brow.

“I didn’t think I’d hear that from you, after all you’ve said. You will be going against her, you know.”

Their eyes fixed on Ellie, who dressed Brick’s wounds. She slowly wiped soaked up blood, bandaged, and wiped again. Her face was pale, and she looked deep in thought.

“He’ll die if we don’t find him a good healer,” Seth said. “The vampire that I fought, she said in not so many words that whatever is in the temple is worse than she was. Runes are not worth Brick’s life or ours.” He felt some part of him rage out at those words, but he clamped down on it—Brick was worth it.

“To the priests then?” Ellie asked. “They’ll take us in. I’m sure of it. Despite what you all might think, the priesthood of the Six gods is made up of good men and women.”

He frowned, “I am not sure. In my experience, most priests and holy men look out for themselves when someone like Roko threatens them.”

“I don’t see any other choices, Seth,” Sera countered. “Our only alternatives are the mages, and you know how few of them they are. The odds of finding one in a border town is next to none. Brick needs a healer, one trained by the church of the six gods, and we’ll probably only find one in the nearest town,” she drew the last sentence out, forcing him to really listen.

Seth ran his hands through his hair and acquiesced with a slow nod. “The next town is two days away. Ellie has two potions left on her after all the healing. They might get him through the journey, but he’ll be in a great deal of pain.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What do we do after we’ve healed him,” she said, casting a look at Brick’s direction. He’d given the question some thought himself and had decided.

“We take a share of whatever weapons and loot we can scrounge up from the enemy and Ellie's backpack, and we sell it for profit and go into hiding. Hopefully, we somehow leave the empire before Roko finds us.”

“That... is not a bad plan,” Sera admitted. Sera didn't talk much about her family, but he couldn't help but think she came to the borderlands trying to avoid them.

She moved away from him and reached for her armor and weapons that laid ways away from the tree. She came back when she was battle-ready. “We should get on the road as quickly as we can before whatever is in there comes for us." She cast a wary look at the temple once more. “You just have to tell your sister first.

“I know.”

---

Seth had an easier time convincing his sister than he’d anticipated. Her talk of how no one mattered but them and their survival seemed to evaporate when the life of a beloved teammate was at risk.

“You don’t have to say anything, brother. I think it would be best if we left too,” She said without turning to him. Her hand methodically swept up and down Brick’s chest, wrapping and pulling blood-soaked bandages.

“After what you said, I thought I would have to work harder to talk you into it."

“Hanson is gone, and the vampire knights would have wiped us out if you hadn’t struck out first. I see no way we could possibly win.”

Seth nodded, somewhat relieved at the decision she’d made, but he was still unsatisfied with her answers. She'd obsessed over this for as long as he could remember. It wasn't like her to let things go.

“What exactly was it that changed your mind. I know it wasn't just Hanson?”

She stopped working for a moment to look at him. “It was mostly you, Seth. You’re barely upright."

Her words made him shift uncomfortably, trying to right his posture, but she was right. He was in pain.

"You’re still hurt from that fight, and Sera's bow hand is seriously injured. I used all my mana taking down those vampires, and Brick-- he won’t survive another day like this without a competent healer.”

She touched Brick’s shoulder and let her palm slowly travel downwards, returning to her bandaging. She grimaced. “Despite all I have said and how hard I pushed for this, I know you all come first, though I've tried to convince myself otherwise. We’ve fought and bled for four whole years. I would be a monster if I sent Sera and Brick to their deaths. I don’t want runes if it means dying or turning my brother against me forever. ” He saw the pain in her eyes in the end.

Seth stared at her for a moment, blinking and scrambling to string together his thoughts. “I didn’t think-- that must not have been easy for you.”

She drew a long breath and let out a low chuckle. “It wasn’t. But don’t dwell too deeply on it. Get a stretcher and whatever vines you can find. We need to get Brick out of here as fast as we can. Round up the vampire’s weapons when you can too. We are about to desert the army, and we’ll be running for our lives. Every bit matters.”

Seth didn’t move immediately and remained still for a moment to process her words. When he caught himself in a daze, he blinked and hurried back to Sera to share the details in not so many words. A simple nod told her Ellie acquiesced, and together they started work on the great trunk they formerly rested on, hacking into it to form a barely functional stretcher. They cursed several times as they reopened potion-stitched wounds, but they never stopped. Seth didn’t let them. Ellie’s words still spun in his mind, and he needed busy work to parse through his emotions. The end product of nearly an hour's work was uneven and shaggy but flat and stable enough to pass as a stretcher.

“I’ll go get the weapons,” he mumbled to Sera before he hurried towards the body of the fallen vampire. What was left of his armor jingled and creaked as he ran, but he didn’t care if a vampire could hear him. If one could, he figured he’d be dead anyway. Only thinking of Hanson really bothered him. He would be furious if he’d survived somehow and caught them deserting.

He found the vampire’s hammer sitting on its head a few paces away from her body, in a heap of freshly upturned soil. Chills ran up his spine as he regarded the black metal handle. Rough memories of the fight came back to him. She’d nearly cracked him open like a walnut with her weapon. He took several deep breaths to dismiss his fear and came up to the weapon and reached to snatch it. It didn’t budge.

His body jerked back as he tried to lift it with a single pull. Seth’s eyes bulged in surprise at the weight of it. Rubbing his two gloved hands together, he tried using his two hands next, bending his knees and lifting with all the muscle in his legs, back, and arms. He managed to get it a few inches above the ground before it plopped down hard. He breathed hard and sent a passing look at the dead vampire to his side. How strong was she?

Just as he was thinking about moving on to the second vampire, saber wielder, a stray wind blew past him, causing goosebumps to pucker out under his armor.

“You’re not fit to carry that weapon,” he heard a seething voice whisper from the fog. Seth nearly and jumped back from the hammer. He reached for his sword and tried to unsheathe it, but his entire body suddenly froze.

Every inch of him was entirely numb, and he could only blink in terror as the fog peeled back and a figure emerged. He was a vampire with pale skin, slicked-back white hair, and black eyes with no irises. He wore a deep black long scholar’s robe that nearly glistened in the low fog light. His left hand was outstretched, and the tips of it dripped with deep red blood. He flicked a finger, and the numbness trickled out of Seth's horrified face and stopped at his jaw.

“Did you kill her?” he demanded with a grating voice. Seth's mind froze in realization as he stared at the figure before him. It was the vampire from the temple, Tamir. He flicked another finger, and Seth’s entire body wracked and wreathed with pain. His mind went white in pain, and he opened his mouth to scream, but another finger flick stopped him.

“Barely any magic flows through you,” the vampire said, his head tilting in assessment and he cast Seth to the side with a swipe. “One of the remaining then,” and made his way towards their make-shift camp.

Seth’s full senses returned as he hit the ground, and with it came pain. He pushed through it and sprang to his feet on instinct, rearing to charge, but the vampire swiped again, sending him hard into the dirt. It felt like a mountain came down on his head. His face bruised heavily, his eyeballs snapped hard inside his head, and everything went to black.