She felt attention settle on her and tasted the moment realization dawned in the gang. Indignation and fury filled her senses. They’d rip her limb from limb if they could. No amount of hunching could thwart, nothing could smother the contempt. Daiy’s stare was the heaviest of them all.

“Never would I have that you, the child I raised the child I saved would become a snake in my nest” Daisy chuckled and languidly rose from her bed of coils. A smile touched her lips, it did not reach her eyes. Rage and an echo of that all-consuming hate were levelled at her. Two noticed the strangest thing.

She sampled the air with a haggard breath and scarcely believed what she found. Pride. Pride and hurt.

Two met the old serpent’s eyes and saw what she already knew. Daiy’s smile grew and wry amusement hid simmering feeling behind still yellow eyes. “Go on girl.” Daisy waved her on. “You’ve taken things this far might as well give a proper introduction.”

Two was a mess. Pains familiar and entirely novel ravaged her body while frantic haste and bone-deep lethargy ground her mind in contradiction. She balanced atop it all, lettering and faltering yet upright all the same.

She pushed Daisy aside, ignored the blood trickling down her underclothes and treated the jeers and snarls behind her like the wind. She took a step to the governor and bowed. Her vision went down and she thought not of the blood that spilled past her boots without her notice.

How much blood was in a person? She cast the question down and sent with it all but the focus she needed.

She rose shortly thereafter. Her tone was curt, sof and belied none of the pain in her throat. “Good evening, Governor.” Two greeted the latest decider of her fate with a smile. “I am Two. I had the pleasure of helping Lady Leandra retrieve her niece. Though I bear some fault in her predicament. As such I would accept the lady’s claim and any punishment she would give me.”

A chorus rose from those she’d abandoned but none were foolish enough to step forward.

The governor’s booming laughter silenced them. It was a sound both too loud and too joyous for the dead-eyed woman. An exhalation of mirth that trembled with tones too deep for one whose lungs were made of flesh. It was better suited to the groaning of ancient wood. Yet it was joined by the trilling laughter of a girl.

Agony spiked in her eras followed by warm trickles. It was another strike against her composure, her foe calm. She swayed like a blown leaf. She was so close to breaking again, But she stood. Even, while others behind her fell in heaps.

“My apologies” the governor’s muffled words gave purchase to her fraying focus. “It is just, ‘I accept’, I accept!.” The woman hummed happily but thankfully that was the extent of her amusement. “It has been too long since I have heard such blatant sophistry. Tell me girl what do you say to that.”

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“I” two stuttered and almost tipped over as the thought of words distracted from thoughts of staying upright. “I would say thank you, ma’am.” Darkness crowded her vision and a wave of vertigo shook her but she managed to keep talking, keep her voice steady even as everything else began to fail her. “And that I am glad to be of service.”

“Delightful, truly delightful.” The governor her smile growing even as a calculating glint entered her eyes.”Yes, I shall have them both Leandra.”

“Lancet! I have staked my claim.”

“You have Leandra?” Lancet smiled and turned to noble but it had returned to its stilted and blatant dishonesty. If anything now it was worse, now it held a predatory edge. “ I can understand your desire for the elder. Your clan so does enjoy subverting your enemies, but the girl is too low for such consideration. Naivate might blind your young miss but why do you push so much for a child no one even bothered to give a proper name.?”

The insult washed over Two with the ease of an injury long accepted as fact. Something she registered then cast aside like the sun’s inevitable rise.

“My designs are not yours governor. She is a criminal and little more. The offence was committed against my kin the fact it occurred in your domain does not change the fact we have first pick of the punishment.” Leandra’s voice lowered to a snarling seethe. Her distaste for the horned woman a pungent flavour.

“True.” the governor the governor said. Then shook her head. “I suppose I will not be able to mark them off your reparations.” She sighed. “It pains me to demand payment from one who was only trying to aid the kin. While the two would have gone a way towards that. I suppose you clan shall have to pay in full.”

Despite her injury, Leandra bodily flinched at the mention of payment. The motion jerked Deadra, but she simply went from vacantly staring at the remains to Two.

“Fine,” Leandra hissed. “You may have the girl but that trollop is ours.” Deadra just stared.

“This, trollop as you put it, surrendered to the governor. She beat you, and while you were seeing your ancestors she made certain agreements.” Daisy grinned.

“Indeed” the governor chimed. “So while I am willing to lend you to her for a year anything longer would hardly dent your repayment.” Leandra hissed but said no more. “Wonderful,” The governor said and turned her empty smile at the stags. “Do you have anything else to add or claims to make?”

“No governor,” the old stag said. “We are more than happy to pay our dues as tradition dictates.”

“With that concluded I turn these criminals over to you Leandra. You may do with them as you will, save the one I’ve marked with my essence.”

Despite her pain and confusion Two found the strength to look into Leandra’s eyes. She found bitterness and spite.

The scent of steel exploded.

This time Two had a perfect view. Steel threads bloomed from nothing amongst the mass of gangsters. For one perfect moment, it was as if she were surrounded by a dancing wreath of starlight. The moon’s rays caught and reflected by every bend and flex of the innumerable little wires as they snaked through gangsters. The battered land was hidden behind the cloaked bodies and cool light. The smell, the weight had never been greater.

Then the wires were taught and steel’s scent was overwhelmed by ust. The next moment they were gone. The world seemed not to notice for a time. Wide eyes stared in terror. They stared at Leanrda, they stared at Two. Two watched a pair of eyes, Prie’s still darting for an escape, fall apart and be swallowed by a curtain of red water.

It seemed like an odd trick, But it was real. Painfully so.

Cloth whispered. Pink flecks of bone greeted the night air. Bisected eyes fell from cleanly segmented sockets and both fell further apart as yet more cuts were revealed. The moon shone on a red river. It watched as a wake fed the chasm in the marred earth.

Shocked into an unblinking stare Two watched too. Until only viscera and the tricking currents underfoot remained.

Terry his face slack and fragile wings dyed red, was the only survivor.

“Why?” The angel of mist sighed. Her eyes met his. They were orbs of soft grey but where the colour of a normal eye was bound to an iris, his seeped and wandered through his whites. Dancing through the shades of grey as it did.

The world was a horrifying beautiful place.

“What else did you expect.” She mumbled.

He turned his wandering attention to her and smiled ever so sadly. “I don’t know.” He said and though her ears bled she heard him perfectly.

The darkness took her.