Adna came crashing down through the ceiling as the light went out in the atrium. Even as she fell, she flung daggers by the light of the stars overhead. Brandon wouldn’t be too far behind her so she would leave their defense to him. Her only priority was to recover her friend. One of her knives went careening into the chaise lounge, the other buried itself to the hilt in a man’s thigh. He fell to the ground beside a small body.
Dread froze her to the spot for a brief instant until she saw Timbrelle’s trembling hands reach for the sword sticking straight up from her chest.
Adna kicked the man with enough force to feel his skull give before her boot. She fell to her knees, hands fluttering over Timbrelle, not knowing where to start.
“No, no, no, no, no—” Adna swallowed a sob. “You’re ok, you’re ok. I’ve got you.”
One unfocused eye blinked at her and a slight smile crossed her friend’s face. “I knew you would come. I just… didn’t think I’d be alive for it.”
“No.” Adna’s voice cracked, the defiance little more than a paltry mewl. “I can’t lose you, Timbo. I came to save you. You have to pull through this. Ok? You’re my only family. We can still get you—“
“I’m sorry… I can’t hear you… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry... Adna. I’m…” Timbrelle’s lips kept mouthing the words when it became too difficult to breathe.
Adna held the woman’s slight hand and brushed stray hair from her cheeks until she could deny the stillness no longer. Timbrelle had died.
What was she to do now? For the entirety of Adna’s miserable little life, Timbrelle had been her focus. No, even that much was an understatement. She’d been Adna’s very purpose for existing. With her gone, there was nothing left for her to live for. Questions about her past felt so trivial now. Days ago when they’d been sitting beside the canal in Yost, Timbrelle had claimed to be one of “Adna’s people”.
And Adna had let her die.
Eventually, Brandon placed a hand on her shoulder but said nothing. She didn’t have the will power to make good on her threat to him from earlier.
“I taught her how to do that.” She gestured to the man who’d received a knife through the jaw and into his brain. “She… she almost did it to me with a dull training blade in the temple. I gave her so much shit. I’m glad we worked it so hard that day.”
Unblinking, she slowly flipped through interface notifications. In a cruel twist of the knife, Adna watched as windows she dismissed would disappear from in front of Timbrelle’s lifeless eyes.
“What are you doing?” Brandon asked, his voice strained. “Can you… see the interface?”
“A little. ‘Windows’ pop up with messages for her. I hadn’t been able to interact with them until now.” She said in monotone. “I don’t know what anything means, though. Fat lot of good it does.”
“What do they say?”
“‘You have taken damage to your medium.’ ‘Congratulations, your Hidden Ability has matured into your new Fate Skill.’ ‘Would you like to begin the Tutorial?’”
She was about to dismiss the final window when Brandon yelled, “The Tutorial? It’s asking if she wants to start it?” The man spun her around to face him, his eyes alight. “Does it say those words exactly? Not ‘you’ve failed the Tutorial’?”
Adna smacked his hands away and snapped. “I can read, you asshole! It says: ‘Would you like to begin the Tutorial? Yes/No.’”
“…it can’t be. Was she not an Unmade?” He mumbled to himself, then shook his head. “Adna, call me crazy, but I don’t think Timbrelle has been unmade yet. This might be her first death!”
They stared at each other, Adna waiting for the pieces to click into place. Her eyebrows raised into an expression that begged “…and?”
“For whatever reason, her soul isn’t entirely gone—not if you can see her messages from the interface! We might still be able to trigger her unmaking!”
Adna shot an apprehensive look at the elated Unmade. Despite his connection with the spider queen Tellushra, the man had only treated Timbrelle with kindness. Whatever this game was, she couldn’t decipher his motives. Perhaps that’s just how Unmade were, complete and utter messes with agendas beyond her comprehension.
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She merely nodded to him and thought her assent at the window.
The effect was instantaneous. Bits and pieces of Timbrelle’s body began to dissolve into threads of gauzy white light that wafted into the air.
Brandon squeezed her shoulder, not meeting Adna’s terrified gaze. His brows knitted together as he monitored the process.
“It worked.” He stated in confusion. “I’ve never heard of one of us being on Kitos without dying first, Earther but not Unmade. That must be why she couldn’t access the interface on her own and why it never assigned a mentor to her.”
Adna’s face turned stony. “Is… she safe?”
“We need to find her. Unmade are usually summoned by a God through a temple. We have some time before she finishes the process, but we need to determine where she’ll reform. I can’t be certain that the interface will assign a mentor, meaning that she may end up alone wherever she wakes.”
“So, she’s safe for now.” Adna sighed and flopped onto her back.
It was only then that she felt the rumbling through the mansion. The auror assault was underway—if only just beginning.
“I have to go. Killing the Head of Dimetrium is on my to-do list. I really need to be the one who does it.” He shuffled awkwardly to the doors. “You handled yourself really well earlier. Do you… want to come?”
For the first time that day, Adna’s face cracked into a slight smile.
“Yes… I think I want to see that.” She said. The woman brushed glass from her ivory braids and noted what little remained of the timer labeled “Adna”.
***
Brandon locked the door to the study after Adna slipped inside. The girl was especially winded from their fight in the hallway, though she’d only taken on two guards and a knight. It had been a long time since he’d fought alongside anyone, even longer since that person was a Kiton. Dwen kept reminding him that they had limits he wasn’t accustomed to.
“She gave me orders!” Hans Dimetrium insisted in a shout.
“I’ve got orders too, Hans.” He turned to face the slight fellow.
Wavy mustard hair, spindly limbs and a permanent sour face adorned the pathetic excuse for a man. His pursed lips clenched tighter in anger.
“At least tell me who the rat is!” The man slapped his desk with an open hand. “We only just learned how many gems she has! How could you show up to reclaim them so quickly unless there was a traitor? …well?”
Brandon opened his mouth to deny the accusation when Adna spoke up.
“How many does she have?”
“Hundreds! It was the most the Harvester had ever seen! If Tellushra wants them back I can give them back! There’s no need for this test of loyalty.”
Brandon looked to Adna whose eyes had gone wide. She didn’t ask any further questions, so he pressed on.
“You’ve gotten so many things incorrect, Hans. I’m not here for the aurora gems and this wasn’t a test… for you. I’ve come for your head after having failed my test. Think of this as my extra credit.” Brandon fought back the all too familiar ecstasy that roiled within him. He had too many things to protect now, there was no room in his actions for mistakes brought on by charged emotions.
“She—she sent you to kill me after asking me to take such a huge risk?” He asked, flabbergasted. “Why not just kill me?”
A pang of disgust shot through Brandon, but he answered honestly. “I suspect she not only wanted to kill you, she wanted to be certain your House was eradicated.”
“My wives? …my sons? They’re innocent in this.” He plead.
“What about my daughter?” Brandon demanded through clenched teeth. “You were going to take her apart piece by piece. Were you not?”
Adna stepped forward to grab the leather armchair meant for Dimetrium’s guests. She pulled it off to the side and took a heavy seat, one leg draped over the arm. “Make it good.”
Hans gasped softly. “It’s not possible. Was the girl Unmade?”
“You’ve caught up.” Brandon noted. “She’s dead now. Do you know what that means?“
Adna answered for him. “You’re a walking corpse.”
Finally seeming to understand what was bound to happen next, Hans Dimetrium retreated until his back was to the wall. It would change nothing; There would be no escape. Brandon placed the sole of his boot against the solid wood desk and kicked. With the force of a train, the desk careened into the wall pinning the once proud lord up to his hips. The shock of his lower body turning to paste between both surfaces kept the man from screaming. His ragged breaths filled the room while the sounds of Crystalurgical destruction loomed ever closer.
Feeling Adna’s eyes on him, Brandon made a concerted effort to hide his giddiness. Adrenaline fed his body and mind, making it that much easier to lose himself in the excitement. There had been so much death and gore recently that he hadn’t felt nearly so repulsed by it as he used to. Until now, it had been garish and distasteful but that revulsion was dissipating at an alarming rate. It was more… fun than he’d expected after so many years avoiding battles and wars. Morality aside, fighting a trained opponent with your lives on the line was exhilarating. The strain on his muscles, the split-second decisions, the definitive victory, the culmination of training and instinct—it was a drug whose pull Brandon found increasingly difficult to withstand.
This, however, was no fair fight. He could not claim it was anything other than an execution. Unlike his executions of Tellushra’s siblings, this one wouldn’t be quick and painless. Unlike them, Brandon would enjoy this one.
He pulled his sword with the bright shing of metal on metal. Despite his desire to slowly dismantle the Lord, the broken man had very little time left. In addition, Adna was clearly quite competent in killing but by the way she responded to the gore, it was just as clear that she had little experience acting on her skills. It was simply much more startling than what he’d expect from someone that talented. What he meant to do to Hans Dimetrium would be much worse than their little skirmishes that night. She may have claimed that she wanted to witness the execution, but…
Brandon shot a hesitant glance at his temporary partner to find a vacant leather chair.
“Adna?” He asked the empty room. “…when did she leave?”