Amo had moved to the center of the room, saying as they went, “The truth is, I’m not really here shopping for clothes.”

“A person of such secrets!” Norgash laughed as she spun in a circle around Amo, her movements naturally becoming a dance as she went. Now that she had been revealed, it seemed that dancing came so naturally to her, from the curve of her tail to the corners of her smile. “The first to see through my mask in so long.”

“I have a talent for masks,” Amo chuckled.

“The talent of a pitiable fool,” Norgash said behind Amo, as the swing of her arms put momentum and power into the knife in her hand. She thrust it into Amo’s back with such force, aimed precisely between Amo’s ribs, that she knocked Amo to floor. As Amo’s limbs suddenly went weak and they crashed face-first on the hard tile, a horrible crack of skull on stone, Norgash spat disgust and stepped back. “You think I wouldn’t recognize you, too? From the warehouse? You and the woman who ruined the face of my dear Anbash?”

Amo shivered on the floor, finding it in themself to groan and sputter and reach their arms. Blood bubbled out of their back around the knife still stuck there. Amo made stupid, confused sounds.

“Your enchantments left you the instant you entered this place,” Norgash rumbled.

“What?” Amo groaned desperately. “What?”

“Fucking amateur.”

Stepping from among the clothing racks, a black silhouette in the shape of a man paused to look on the scene. With a heavy sigh, he used one shadowy hand to tug on the brim of his hat. As he paced over, he grumbled, “What have I told you about killing people in my boutique?”

* * *

"No." Mardo put himself between the crossbows and Indirk. The brass sphere of his chiming orb in one hand, he swung his arms to pull the song across the space in front of him and form a magicked barrier that would have protected him against anything except the iron bolts of the Foremost. The bolts tore through the barrier. He knew they would.

The bolts embedded in his large arms. In each arm, a bolt sank inches deep into his muscle, the force enough to crack bone and knock him onto his side. The song he'd summoned broke and echoed around them, discordant notes like windchimes dashed against the walls. Mardo snarled on the ground and pulled himself up to his knees, ignoring the pain in his arms to bring the chiming orb in front of him. As it sang and gathered magic, he looked up to Indirk.

And Indirk stared down at him, her features empty of expression. Her pistol hung from her fingertips. There was a darkness in her eyes, a frigidly cold distance, as though in her heart she'd already fled all the way to the frosted slopes where she'd been raised. Mardo met her gaze and held it, searching, finding nothing.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Behind him, the Foremost set new bolts in their crossbows.

Mardo spoke in a whisper. "It's not too late, Indirk."

"It is," she said. "It was. It has been."

"We can try. What we have is worth trying for."

"We never had anything, Mardo."

He looked down at the music in his hands, a dancing light on the surface of the orb within which echoed a complicated chorus of building notes. The yellow glow grew brighter moment to moment. "I want to try one last thing," he said, before unleashing the song he held. It was an uncomplicated spell. Force blasted outward in all directions, knocking desks flying, throwing aside the Foremost, the Commodore, Mardo himself. It struck Indirk and cast her away. The song threw them all away from one another, blowing out the building's windows and walls. It scattered them like wooden figures from an overturned table.

On the streets outside, glass and wooden splinters fell. Passersby threw their arms over their head and shouted in confusion. A patrolling trio of Watch officers put their hands over their faces and looked up to see the shadow of a falling soldier just before the body hit the ground. Before them lay a member of the elite Foremost Crew. He’d landed on his neck. He didn’t move, tangled armor and regal cape.

One of the Watch officers gasped, “The Commodore’s guard?” and another snapped, “Get up there and find out what’s happening. I’ll signal the guardhouse.”

* * *

"Go! I'll follow!" The Watch Captain waved the others on and they charged out of the Admiralty guardhouse toward the raised alarm, blades in hand and iron-nocked crossbows at their hips. The Captain, now alone, moved as quickly as he could to secure the bladed pauldrons on his shoulders, tangled as they were in the gold and green cape of his rank. Then he grabbed his great gauntlets, their steely sides polished as mirrors. He reflected the light like a prism as he reached for his helm.

An old voice said, "Hold a moment, Captain."

The Captain flinched. "Phaeduin? I told you not to come back. Go spend your last days in peace, old man." The Captain turned and stopped, stunned, at the sight of blood-drenched armor. He flinched back, for a moment thinking he'd laid eyes on a demon.

Horns still dripping blood, the fur of his tail matted with gore, tabard and armor crusted with the fluid of a dozen dead mean, Phaeduin said, "You've been working with the sorcerers, haven't you?"

The Captain stammered, "What? Phaeduin, what in the world happened to...?"

"You have been. Corrupt and, so, condemned."

Phaeduin tried not to get too much blood on the Captain's fine, glistening armor, but the man's head burst like a ripe melon between Phaeduin's blunted blade and the wall. Afterward, Phaeduin stood unmoving in the room. The stink of blood and terror surrounded him, holding him in place for a minute. Two minutes. Phaeduin listened to the magic in the air around him, the subtle echo of Sinner's Hymns emanating from the orb of blood he'd taken from the cathedral. He listened to the words.

Salvation is a promise broken.

Trust not the covenant spoken.

The god of all is a god of sin.

As he spake the world, so he spake its end.

In the pristine guardhouse of stone and wood, on a rack above the Captain's armaments, Phaeduin found a helm left over from the Sickle-Sough festival. Metal in the shape of a seabird's skull. He picked it up by its sharp beak, looking into the hollow of its eyes.

All creation damned as one!

Salvation has fled, the demon is won,

Well-deserved, our torment earned.

Cry not for mercy. You justly burn.