Skidmark hurried to obey the harsh order that passed from Bella’s lips. Her clothes of tight and torn denim spilled to the ground. Tattoos covered her body. Bright splashes of ink depicted koi and curling dragons, a garish juxtaposition to the eclectic scrawlings across Bella’s skin. Skidmark’s bleached blonde hair — though longer — was a mirror to Bella’s own. They knelt before the weapons, subtle doppelgangers, and the ritual began.

Bella gripped her sword, and the hilt wriggled like a worm against the creases of her palm. Heat pulsed from the blade as she sweated. The caustic aura expanded as the first rune lit up in lines of bright fire.

Bella angled the blade against her left thigh, the tip like the point of a quill against her skin, and — guided by the sword’s pale eyes — she carved a sequence of runes. Heat licked her wounds, but left them open. Blood flowed forth from the name she spelled.

[The Sword That Cut Down the Sun]

[Runes unlocked: Drought]

She glanced up at Skidmark, and it was as though she were a puppeteer controlling herself — so distant from the moment, but horribly, intimately aware of every motion, every breath, every bead of sweat dripping down her shuddering skin.

Words twisted themselves from her tongue.

“Are you witness?”

Skidmark’s head lolled. Her grin remained, but it was forced, a defense against the rising primal tide of the moment. Gravity washed off the weapons in waves like a black hole campfire and Bella pleaded, silently, behind the lips of her flesh, that Skidmark would…

Stay.

Please. Don’t. Leave. Me. Alone.

Why wasn’t Oriz here? Or Zoe? Even Anton…

None of them were here, it was just her, the raw blade, and this stranger, but at least the stranger was human.

Skidmark’s eyelids fluttered as she reached forth and gripped the handle of the spear. The weapon twitched in her grip, but no barbed roots dug into her flesh. Although Skidmark helped conquer the spear’s late champion, she was not the true winner.

“I witness,” Skidmark’s voice lilted like a wind through iron-rich crags. “I assist.”

Guided by an alien intelligence, she lifted the spear and placed the tip against Bella’s right thigh. With jerking motions, she carved runes until the spear’s name dripped wet and eager from Bella’s flesh.

Pain burned beneath the words, and the sword writhed with glee as blood flowed out onto the metal floor. Bella smelled the iron of herself mixing with the iron of the air. A little piece of her becoming a little piece of Hell.

No longer did she wonder where the scattered bones came from — this was a place heaped with suffering, and now it was her turn to add to the pile.

She glanced down at the runes in her thigh.

[Banshee of the Spine Twisting Gale]

[Rune unlocked: Wail]

The name resonated with the shape of the spear. Words describing a weapon and a weapon describing words.

Skidmark raised the speartip from Bella’s flesh. A single bead of dark crimson ran down the length of bronze and traced the whorling pattern of the knotted mouth. The metal unseamed. Lips stretched wide, and a tongue licked the blood. The spear shrieked like a grieving mother, howled like a mountain wind, and sang like an eagle flying beneath the ceiling of the sky.

A warbling sound sank through Bella’s skin, coursed through her blood, and trembled her bones. The sound of a creature cornered and yowling for safety that would not come. Her runeblade hummed in contentment, for no matter how terrible the spear screamed, the sound would end.

Soon.

And the sword’s contentment became Bella’s anticipation as she lifted the sword above her head.

High, straight, noble.

Skidmark bowed and extended the spear between her palms.

Low, bent, supplicant.

The blade came down with the free will of gravity and bit into the leather-wrapped bronze as though it were butter. Runes pulsed with greedy light. The spear squirmed and wriggled but the blade slurped at it greedily. Bronze screamed and twisted as the runeblade burned white hote in Bella’s hands. Her flesh sizzled but she would not let go.

Could never let go of such burning power.

[You have collected two parts of the Maelstrom-Mubilashi Cursed Collection]

[Five pieces remain in the world]

[Your weapon is evolving]

[standby…]

The sword and spear burned and slagged. White hot metal sparked and spit and struck the ground in smoking pellets. Skidmark scuttled away from the burning feast, but Bella held on, grim, and resolute, as the sword spun itself a chrysalis from the corpse of the spear.

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Molten iron slipped and wrapped as the sword swallowed. This was no longer a ritual, or something mechanical, something controllable — this was two ancient things fighting to live through offspring.

The glowing metal burned Bella’s hands, and even her Vitality and the essence of Water in her Skein couldn’t prevent the blistering wounds that coated her. She cried out as the stench of her burning flesh reached her nostrils, and three voices split themselves upon her tongue.

A spear shrieked as it lost itself.

A sword grew stronger as it took one swing closer to becoming the blade that severed the horizon.

A human, tortured and wrung out but somehow intact.

Three voices bled raw, melted, and became one as the metal cooled in her hands. A single voice sobbing, breathing, whispering, as Bella forced herself to stand. Blood flowed down her thighs. The thing in her hand was a monstrosity of misshapen metal. Cooling rapidly, brittle, cracking, pinging, and jagged as Bella raised it high. Her legs wobbled under the strain, her back bunched and heaved, and every muscle in her body worked to lift the cocoon above her head.

With a brutal roar, she brought the mass down against the floors of hell. Metal cracked. She raised it, blood pooling around her feet, and slammed it down once more. A deep crack ran up the length, and as she lifted it again, a chunk fell free and struck the ground with a ringing thud. Something gleamed, and Bella shuddered under the load. This was it, she had to break it free or she would never lift it again.

Her hands burned.

Her muscles ached.

Her legs grew weaker with every heartbeat, she couldn’t raise the sword, but then her heart pounded.

Harder.

Stronger.

Through bleary vision, she looked up and saw Zoe. The dark-skinned woman looking at her with chains bunched in a fist over her heart. And her technique rippled out through the Skein between them. Bella’s heart throbbed in time with her leader’s. No words, no smile, no cheering, nothing but the loyalty.

The faith.

Bella’s heart thudded, steady, powerful, and the load on her muscles eased.

Bella lifted the misshapen cocoon of conjoined weapons above her head. She closed her eyes, and she smiled. The mass came down like a meteor and shattered upon the floor.

Chunks of metal skidded off across the floor of dented metal. Steam hissed up from a split in the ground. Bella’s hands flexed as they slipped free from the handle, she staggered, drunk with pain and effort, but she wasn’t done.

She reached for the hilt and lifted her new weapon high.

The blade of harsh blue metal stretched longer than the sword before, and likewise, the handle was long enough that she could wield it with two hands. She gave it a swing, and it felt completely natural, as though it weighed nothing at all. As though it were a part of her.

Two Runes glowed along the blade.

[Long Blade of Butchering Skies]

[Two parts of the Maelstrom-Mubilashi Cursed collection collapsed into a single weapon. This blade of broken-boned futures and burned worlds seeks only the purest destruction]

[Runes unlocked: Drought, Wail]

[You have unlocked a third rune]

[Please select a rune:]

* [Thunderclap]

* [Sunderer]

* [Endless Heaven]

* [Wildfire]

* [Debone]

* [Hurricane]

* [Portend]

Bella grinned.

“It’s done… “

She collapsed, but chains caught her as though she were as light as a feather, and carried her closer to the care of her friend.

“You did it,” Zoe said.

Bella nodded.

“Which rune should I…”

Sleep took her, as Zoe brought her back to the camp, but the blade never left her grip.

###

Bella still slept as Zoe examined the burns on her hands. They reminded her of the scars across her own lips. Not something of the flesh, but something of the Skein. However, these weren’t a system imprinted injury. They had no authority over them, no permanence as such as Zoe could see, so she wondered…

Why can’t I heal these?

She knew a surgeon was only one facet of healing. Cut away the bad, or insert the good, and then let the body do the rest. Now she was becoming a surgeon of Skein, so she should be able to help with injuries like this. But cutting at her friends was the wrong way to experiment.

She finished binding the wounds on Bella’s hands and thighs and dressed her in her clothes. Skidmark was happy to help, but silent. It reminded Zoe of the nurse assistant she had who would spend her time off at raves, and then come back to work mute and tired after days of dancing. She probably wasn’t even still alive, but then again, she looked at herself, there was no telling who would survive. What had been her name?

One more detail burned away by the apocalypse.

Bella lay beside Anton, the two of them in states of pain-induced stupor.

Zoe would wait for them to wake before proceeding deeper into Hell. Speaking of… she eyed the Four-Hearted Wasp, where it sat cross-legged and grinning wrapped up in one of her chains. The heavy links crinkled as she tightened them, but the demon showed no discomfort. A wasp crawled over its smooth domed head. Oriz said it would take them to the angel.

And she trusted Oriz…

She had to trust her, otherwise all of this would fall apart, wouldn’t it?

What good was a technique that placed a grenade on someone’s heart if she couldn’t trust that person not to need it?

That made sense…

Right?

The demon grinned at her.

“What are you smiling about?”

“One needs a reason to smile? How times have changed since the Gambler locked me up and threw away the key… I suppose if I must put it into one word,” he inhaled a sharp susurration. “Opportunity.”

Zoe stood.

She walked toward the demon. Her chain remained loose but shook with every step approaching. She towered above the demon and her reflection stared up at her out of the smooth black skull. Distorted features, obvious rage… the expressions appalled her.

But she didn’t back down.

“I killed the One-Eyed Crow,” she said. “I sent it back to Hell. I can do the same to you.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”

[Mind’s Eye Incision]

A blade appeared on the tip of her finger.

“I wonder what a demon is…” she pondered aloud. “You can’t be simple flesh. My working theory is that you are a living knot of Skein. Threads so entangled that they think for themselves, I wonder what would happen if I cut those threads?”

She placed her hand upon the skull. Her blade rested across where the eyes might be — translucent, humming, impossibly sharp — and the demon’s smile faded.

“True death is a glory we demons do not deserve, try it if you must, but I believe that the Gambler’s work will be not so easily undone.”

Skidmark looked around.

“I think it will take more than one cut to destroy this hell, you’re not Alexander the Great.”

Zoe scowled and gripped the demon’s head tighter. The exoskeleton creaked beneath the grip of her chains.

“We could start with one cut…”

Oriz spoke up from where she sat.

“Skidmark, please leave my student and I.”

Her words rang crisp and clear and Skidmark was on her feet so quick it surprised herself.

“I’ll go, check the perimeter…”

And she hurried away into the cages.

Zoe faced Oriz, her hand slipping from the demon’s head.

“You’ve been quiet,” she said. “Finally got something to say?”

“You are losing yourself.”

Zoe’s scowl grew as something ugly bubbled up from her heart. It rippled across her technique connecting them all, and Skidmark stumbled as she ran. Oriz appeared unphased, but as Bella stirred in her sleep, her knuckles tightened.

“I don’t want to fight you, Zoe.”

“Then pick your next words carefully… master.”