11.

Silvah heaved herself onto her knees. Her side was bursting. Doing everything it could to keep her from moving.

‘Asha,’ she groaned, touching her necklace, and trying to feel for the cold touch.

No response.

Dammit. They’d used too much energy. She was out.

Mechanical grating raked across the space, and Silvah looked up to see a haggard Ko and Ohto drag each other onto the centre of the elevator.

The egg. Silvah tiredly thought. They’re leaving with the egg.

She grabbed onto a nearby piece of intact crate and hauled herself to her feet. Silvah stumbled forwards and watched the thieves vanish beyond the ceiling.

Faster. I have to go faster.

But the sheer number of broken items, glass and general obstacles blocking her were too many. They would be long gone by the time she reached the elevator. Right then a savage jab of pain forced her to a standstill. Silvah had to stop herself from bending over because that only increased the hurt. She grit her teeth. In the silence that was the destroyed cellar, only her groans were audible.

The floor above her was like a gate. An unrevealing gate similar to the heavens that had swallowed her sister.

Don’t go.

‘Don’t go,’ she whimpered.

Her words fizzled out quietly. Silence reigned again afterwards. It was that which allowed her to hear it. A sizzling. To her left, hidden within stacks of smashed wood, lay the obsidian-skinned creature—but it was a creature no longer. Slowly but surely, its skin was fading into a tamer dark brown, the horn retracting back into the skin, revealing what was beyond a shadow of a doubt Damien’s face. He palmed a half-formed spear. The same one which had pierced through Koushin’s earlier attack. There was no part of him left that wasn’t punctured. He would die if she left him here. No doubt about it. Silvah turned towards the elevator again. The chance of catching them had already been insignificant. Choosing to carry Damien to safety would completely crush any remaining odds.

Retrieving the egg would be a start. One that would give you the potential of becoming a siege weapon.

She bit her lip and touched her necklace again. Hopes and dreams would not let her summon her sister. Yet when she looked up, she saw Asha standing in front of her. The same way she had done on that night in the alley, disapproving of her decisions.

‘Fucking fuck!’ Silvah screamed.

And she gave up on the egg.

Rage and anger could help her carry an adult man. Had she not been injured. Instead, she painstakingly searched for a cart, one the assistants had used for wheeling the heavier items to the elevator. She found one playing hide and seek in the debris somewhere. Bringing it towards the downed Damien took almost as long as finding the damned thing. Now came the even harder part. She couldn’t bend down and drag him onto the cart due to her wound, so she used a broken stick as a pivot point, pressing down on the other end with her foot. That got his feet over the edge and onto the wagon. Getting the rest of him up on it was easier.

The cart had an armrest for pushing that she leaned on after finishing the ordeal. She breathed out deep once. Twice. Then steeled herself to push. Well. It was more like she was shoving gently. She thought a turtle would’ve had a solid chance at beating her.

Was the other guy dead, that Koushin fellow? she suddenly thought. There’d been no sound from the direction she had seen him crash towards. She glanced at the spear Damien was holding. That meant he’d killed him in one hit. How strong was he?

It was when she was lost in thought like this, considering these and other possibilities as she neared the elevator, that a shadow flashed past in the corner of her view. She turned in time to see the sharpened claws of the beast she had been fighting spearhead for her chest.

Ah. Understanding raced through her mind. She had wondered where it had gone. Truly. Had even thought of trying to find it and finish it. Her weakened state had kept her from doing so. She’d simply accepted that she hadn’t seen sign of it. No news was good news, that sort of thing. Yet it wasn’t. It was hiding. Waiting for me to expend every bit of strength I had left before striking. Deep down she appreciated the cunning.

Silvah tried to dodge, which amounted to nothing more than falling to the side. The claws were the barest fraction removed from her skin. Her life flashed by her. Asha stirred within her, but her sister would be too late. She was dead—

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

An edge ripped into the beast’s stomach and out of its head.

Damien was sitting halfway up on the cart. There was a pause wherein he locked eyes with her. Then he fell back lifelessly on the hard surface of the wagon.

The beast didn’t even wail or have any death throes. It was simply gone. And just like that, silence was once more.

Silvah swallowed.

Then began shoving the cart again.

12.

It must’ve taken her the better part of half an hour to finally reach the elevator. She would’ve feared for Damien’s life if she couldn’t see some of the wounds in his flesh closing, albeit very slowly. For now, he was just sleeping.

The echoes of a battle got louder and louder as they went up. Not good. Silvah had the dagger with her of course but fighting was out of question. Not only had she lost her pistol (which wouldn’t do much of anything), but she had no more energy to enhance her blade. She also didn’t think Damien was going to wake up for a surprise safe like he had done before. The first spirit that set their sights on them would get to eat free lunch. Belatedly she thought that she should’ve gone towards the revolving door instead of the elevator. Must’ve been a part of her subconscious that tried to get her to follow the egg—still—which sent her towards this path. Luckily, the storage room Damien explained to her was void of any beasts. Alive ones, that is. Corpses were everywhere. Not just the ones of beasts. Human ones, too. Half-eaten and innards spilling out. The stench of carcass rot was pungent.

Silvah had seen a lot as a member of police. This was too much. She emptied her stomach, at least angling herself so it wouldn’t land on the sleeping Damien. Leaning on her knees, the next batch of vomit exited partly through her nose.

Some time later, she caught her breath.

‘Goddammit.’

She’d barfed all over her shoes. Embarrassing. If blood hadn’t washed over most the floor in the side room of the theatre, she would’ve discarded her footwear and socks.

The main light illuminating the stage Count Celesta had occupied most of the night grew larger as Silvah wheeled herself and Damien closer to the exit. Two people she had completely forgotten about were squaring off on the stage. Both Asher and Ryu were on their last legs. The former had one knee on the floor, supporting himself with a staff that had a skull as a head. Ryu was breathing heavy, barely capable of keeping the knife he held to the throat of Ko’s partner still.

Silvah’s entrance did not go unnoticed.

‘I’m starting to think you enjoy showing up late,’ Ryu said.

Still enough energy in him to be joking around, then. Silvah scanned her surroundings. If the cellar had been a battlefield and the side room a slaughterhouse, then the main hall of the auction was a war zone which five nations had marched through and collided on. There was no description she could give to do the destruction justice. Guards—those of the auction and ones who could only be Ryūjin-kai given their tattoo—audience members and beasts alike had been chopped into pieces and tossed around. Worst of all were the dead children Silvah spotted in the massacre. In the middle of the madness, resting on top the corpses and shrouding almost a tenth of the entire room in its shadow, was the translucent body of a dragon. Weapons of all kinds jutted out of its back. Yet it was not dead. She could tell because their eyes met. There was intelligence hidden behind its sockets.

‘Ryu’s summon,’ Asher offered. ‘Quite a beast.’

He nodded his head behind him, where the remains of giant bones lay smashed in pieces. Had that been the thing that snatched Ryu’s summon? Whatever it was, it was not going to be any help any longer.

Silvah only now noticed the woman who supposedly had the egg standing next to Asher. She was trying to bite her own lips off as she glared at Ryu.

Ryu sighed.

‘I don’t have all day. Hand over the egg or he dies.’

‘Do it, Ko,’ the old man whimpered.

Silvah was certain the woman would’ve done so if the creature standing next to her didn’t have a spear pointed at her throat. It wasn’t a beast. But also, not a human. If she had to guess, it was some type of miniature version of what the giant bones had been. It was clothed in discordant pieces of armour. On closer inspection, Silvah saw dozens of inanimate versions of it strewn over the auditorium. Especially next to the dragon who was still watching her.

Asher’s power? Must be. If fairy tales truly were real, and Silvah was finding it hard to reject in the madness, was he some kind of necromancer?

Making up her mind, Silvah left Damien at the border separating the side room from the theatre hall and stepped forwards. She palmed her dagger. True, she was out of energy. But they didn’t know that. She hoped.

Ryu half-turned so he faced both Asher and Silvah.

‘The faithful are always beset from both sides.’ The blond-haired boy shook his head. ‘Not a step closer, wench.’ He pressed the knife against the older man’s throat.

She stopped.

‘I wonder if at his own funeral he will hire someone to keep up the “I’m godly” act.’ Asher chuckled. Then he regarded Silvah. ‘If you have something up your sleeve, this is as good a time as any. A spirit, for example, would do just fine.’

She wished she did. But she could only curse her lack of energy.

‘It is indeed a good time.’ Ryu’s cool voice sounded. His knife carved a smile across the man’s throat.

‘No!’ Ko screamed.

What. Silvah thought, shook. Why would he give up his leverage like that? Asher looked as surprised as her. Her mind raced and Silvah readied herself, raising her blade. Freeing himself up like that could only mean one thing: he’s coming for me. She was the weakest link after all.

But he did no such thing. Instead, energy gathered around Ryu’s arm, and he stabbed the limb into his victim’s back, his palm exiting out the front, holding the man’s heart in his hand. Silvah watched the colour drain from the still-beating organ in real-time, the vividness sinking into Ryu’s skin.

The dragon gave a holler-like roar that sounded pleased.

When Ryu finished, his skin was glowing. In the middle of the podium, underneath the lamp light, he looked like an angel gracing their little patch of the planet.

‘Then there’s also that disgusting ability of yours,’ Shisui had said.

The next words Ryu spoke were no mere words.

‘Still.’

A familiar, restraining sensation crawled up Silvah’s spine.

This couldn’t be real.