However, this small victory presented a larger problem. Her weapon was gone, and her escape route was cut off. Lan checked her belt, and found her dagger there, dull in the low light. This was only a back-up, a tool she did not want to have to use… and yet, she had come here with a mission. Was there any point without the flamethrower, though? The men beside her stirred, and Lan stood sharply, wobbling only slightly as she overlooked the lower floor. The sound overtook the ringing in her ears then, feverish cries of confusion and fear, with Grent trying to calm them all, his voice barely recognisable among the rabble. The lights around his stage still worked – they must have been connected to a different circuit. The sight of him fuelled something within her, and she gripped the wooden railing tight, her decision made. No matter whether her weapon was shot. No matter whether she was up against a Luminary. No matter whether her escape had been cut off. She would not back down now, all her careful plans be damned. She could always make more, after all.

With that, she leapt up onto the barrier, dagger in hand, and then over, soaring through the air in a small leap that found her quickly hurtling down towards Grent through the shadows of the upper room, like a black bolt from heaven. A shout, and Grent looked up, expression changing to blind panic even as Lan landed on him, dagger sinking into his chest, biting right through his lung and grazing his heart.

Immediately the Luminary went into a frenzy. The wood around them curled and distorted, tearing itself free of its bindings and writhing as one like an animal in agony. Lan grunted, her grip on the dagger and as a result Grent shaky, and looked at his face. She noticed his features, even as twigs and vines clawed their way out of his skin and wrapped themselves around her: Thinner than she had expected, eyes wide and skin stretched taut on his bones with fear. Fear of her, she suddenly understood, a realisation that almost made her lose her grip once again, as everything around the two of them seemed to wave and buck violently. Pushing the dagger further in seemed almost impossible – the momentum of her fall had taken her far into his chest, but his skin was bark and his flesh the dark wood of ancient trees. Where his blood should have flowed out and spilled across the thrashing wood beneath them, sap oozed slowly, gumming the blade and sticking to her hands. Yet she tried, a roar coming from her throat involuntarily as she drove the blade down with all the force she could muster, millimetre by painful millimetre through his oaken body until finally, with one last spasm, Grent shuddered his last. The death grip of the plants that had taken hold of Lan slackened, falling off her, withered even before they hit the warped decking of the stage.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Lan breathed, hard. She sat up, leaving the knife where it was, and slowly stood up, body aching from the struggle. She could feel the eyes on her, but in the moment she truly felt indestructible. A shout brought her to her senses, and her head whipped round to find three guards behind her. She waited for them to come forward, to try to take hold of her, but they hesitated, staying out of arm’s reach, a semi-circle around her with the stage’s lights highlighting them all. Lan backed away, towards the edge of the stage, and glanced behind her at the fleeing crowd. She made a split second decision and leapt off, hitting the ground running. People screamed as they tried to cram themselves into the doorway, but as Lan drew closer they parted, terrified to get near her. She felt like a monster, but she could not tell whether the apparent repulsion caused by her presence was because of the murder, or because they thought she had Faith. Either way, the job was done, she reasoned, darting among the uptight industry busybodies that had made up the guest-list even as they scrambled to get away from her.

Shots called out like sharp barks in the night’s expanse, the whiz and clang of bullets hither and thither around her as she cleared the crowd. The guard had apparently gathered their wits about them. The plans she had made seemed foolish now, relying on such a strict set of circumstances in order to be successful. Her mind was full of fog, and she could not settle on a destination, even as a bullet clipped her side and blood splattered across the ground in front of her. She stumbled, gasping, slowed as she tried to steady herself.

A fair way down the path from Grent’s factory already, she could hear big clomping steps behind her as they closed in on her. With the lights from the factory’s front behind her the shadows stretched out beyond and down the road towards the inner city, no safe respite in sight. The buildings lining the road to her left leading to a complex network of passageways between then that would surely lead to her capture as well, despite the opportunity to get lost within them. Yet this was her only option, the best choice out of many where certain demise was the outcome, so she took to the side, only realised how close the guards were when a baton caught her across the side of the face and sent her spinning to the ground.

A heavy boot pressed down upon her back, eliciting a pulse of pain from the wound in her side. Lan twisted on the ground, breaking free of him and losing her cloak in the process, scrambling forward desperately as the man’s colleagues caught up to him. They reached for her, weapons bearing down and cries of anger booming at her as she reached out a hand, the tips of her fingers passing into the dark in her blind attempt to escape.

Then a sensation of overwhelming void, like the absence of sound after a thunderclap, and her world turned black.