Cathra wakes to a world of pain. She doesn’t know she’s shouting until someone is pressing a hand on her mouth to stop her. Instinctively, she tries to bite it.

“Whoa, whoa!” a voice whispers sharply. “Captain Stelias, it’s me!”

Cathra recognizes the voice.

“Bartholome?” she mumbles against the blacksmith’s hand. The room is dark and she is lying down, but when the man leans closer and holds a candle up to his face, Cathra is both alarmed and elated to see a familiar face.

“Aye, Captain.” The blacksmith smiles faintly. His lips are swollen under his mustache. One of his front teeth is missing. “Don’t worry. You’re safe now. But you have to be quiet.”

It's only after Cathra nods to show she's understood that Bartholome withdraws his hand.

"Do you need anything?" he asks. "I’ve sent Sara to get some supplies from our home but I’m afraid there’s not much we have right now.”

“Water,” Cathra whispers, “would be good.”

Bartholome reaches around the bed for a wineskin. “I have something better.” He pops it open and the room fills with a potent, syrupy smell.

Cathra’s eyes widen. “Is that... Goddess Honey?”

“It came from a flock of crows,” Bartholome says, helping Cathra drink from the wineskin. “I know it sounds ridiculous, but wait until you see what else was in the sack.”

The elixir flows slowly down Cathra’s throat, sticking to her tongue like… honey. It is alarming sweet and very soon she feels her body relaxing under its spell.

Cathra lays back down on the straw mattress. Her eyes have now adjusted to the dark and she takes a moment to glance around the room. Other than a bedside table and a piss bucket in the corner, there’s not much else. A heavy sheet of black cloth is drawn over the small window next to her sleeping mat, but when she asks to open it Bartholome cautions her not to.

"Too many knights," he explains. "It’s chaos on the streets. Everyone is looking for you two."

"Kyros," Cathra whispers, suddenly remembering him. "Where is he?"

Bartholome backs away and places the candle on the table. In the light, Cathra can see that the left side of his face has been cut up badly. A gash runs across one cheek down to his chin, the blood dark and clumpy on his rugged skin.

“This is my old workshop in the Northern Sector,” says the blacksmith. “It’s the only place I can think of that you’d both be safe, for a short while at least.” He rubs the stubble on his chin, carefully avoiding where he's been cut. “It… wasn’t easy getting you from the poles. Many good folks were cut down. Charles... lost his boy.”

Cathra recalls the young lad of the General Goods Store with a pang of guilt. Though impatient and somewhat naive, he was a bright kid with his father’s knack for economics.

“I’m so sorry,” she tells Bartholome. “Is Charles here?”

“No,” Bartholome says, moving to the windows, “he stayed behind to deter any knights that were following.” With one finger he cracks the curtains open, illuminating his bloody face in a sliver of orange sunlight. He closes them again.

"Your friend is in the other room," he tells Cathra. "He hasn’t woken up yet, but we’ve treated his wounds the best we can with boiled wine and fresh bandages.”

Cathra shudders. She can still hear the crack of the flogger’s whip, whistling as it slides through the air.

He took all fifty. I counted.

The pain has lessened to tolerable levels thanks to the Goddess Honey, but Cathra finds that her body is now too heavy to move.

“What else was… in the sack?” Her words are coming out sleepily. Her eyelids begin to close. The elixir is potent, likely a fresh batch brewed by a highly classed mage. Cathra doesn't even know when Bartholome is kneeling beside her again, but she feels him gently patting her arm through the layers of bandages.

"You can see for yourself later," he says. "For now, rest. I’m going to check on your friend.” He starts for the door but stops when Cathra calls out to him.

“Do you… think I did it? That I… conspired against the King?”

Bartholome chuckles but the sound is weak. "We can discuss this over a bottle of mead once this insanity is over," he promises her. "And I just happen to know that the Black Raven imported a batch of vintage grape wines last week, which costs seventy-five silvers each.”

Cathra hears the sound of the door closing and Bartholome’s footsteps receding. She closes her eyes, and tries not to cry. She doesn’t know how the blacksmith rescued her or who else suffered for it, but she vows to avenge them all, every last life lost to save her and Kyros’s.

The room is dark when Cathra wakes up again, but this time she is lucid. The candle must've burned out, so she waits until her eyes have adjusted before trying to get up.

Shapes emerge from the darkness, a stool here, a knapsack there. Cathra lowers herself back down. The pain is again pounding through her body. Grunting, she feels around the edges of her straw mat for the wineskin, finds it next to her pillow, and sips.

It works quickly, dulling the agony just enough for Cathra to pull herself up. She spots a thin line of light coming from the far edge of one wall.

The door.

Cathra swings herself off the mattress. She's dressed in bandages and nothing else, so she's shivering as she pads across the floor.

The wooden door comes into view. Cathra reaches out, fingers curling around the handle, and is just about to pull it open when she hears her name spoken on the other side.

“I don’t care if you want to be a hero,” a woman is saying. “But you’re endangering all of us by keeping fugitives!”

Cathra stops, listening.

“Sara,” Bartholome sighs. “Don’t call her that. The Captain has done much for us over the years. She's a hero to the Sector.”

“That was when she was still a captain!” the woman hisses. “She’s not even a Kesrockian anymore now!”

“Sara,” Bartholome warns. “We are not having-”

Cathra pulls open the door. The blacksmith and his wife jump.

“Captain!” Bartholome exclaims. “You should be resting!”

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“I’m much better now, thanks to your help.” Cathra looks between Bartholome and his wife Sara. “I am indebted to you two. I swear on my honor that I will not forget it.”

Bartholome starts to object but Cathra refuses to listen. “Your wife is right. I am not your captain anymore and you have taken a great risk in saving us. Greater than we are worth.” Cathra tries to go on but a wave of dizziness washes over her and she titters. Bartholome reaches a hand out but Cathra shakes her head.

"As soon as I can get some gear I'll take Kyros and leave." Cathra leans on the doorframe and closes her eyes to steady herself. “How is he? I wish to see him first.”

The blacksmith's face turns grim. “Are you certain you wish to leave?”

“You know better to question my will,” Cathra tells him, but smiles to show she’s more grateful than her words imply. “And you can stop calling me Captain, Bartholome. Cathra is fine.”

“You’ll always be the South Gate’s Captain, Cathra,” Bartholome replies good-heartedly. “If not in name, then certainly in our hearts.” He points down the short hallway. “Your knight has not awakened. It doesn’t look like infection has taken root but he is suffering from a fever. We do not have the means to properly heal him. It’s too risky to send for a healer right now.”

Cathra nods. “Thank you both. I mean it.” She starts down the hall, pushing past the blacksmith and his wife. Her feet are moving sluggishly and she trips. A steady hand grasps onto her arm, and with surprise Cathra sees it belongs to Sara.

“I’ll take you there, Captain Stelias,” the woman says, her eyes soft and sympathetic. She turns to her husband. “I believe Faan has a spare horse he can part with, and Charles has that old cart out back. Why don’t you see if you can buy some gear off them too?”

Bartholome scratches his mustache. “Should I take the silver pouch from under the floorboards?”

“You might need to,” says Sara, "especially for Charles."

The blacksmith nods his agreement and then he is gone, slipping out the back door on feet surprising nimble for a man his size.

“I hold no hostility towards you, Captain, I hope you know that,” Sara says as she leads Cathra down the hall. “I only wish to keep my husband and child safe. So you have my thanks to leave as soon as possible.” She touches a hand to her belly, where a slight swell has lifted her gown.

Cathra nods and keeps her eyes fixed forward. There is less than ten years difference in their ages, yet Cathra has always felt distant from the thin woman who, apart from her crown of lustrous brown hair, has no other defining features. But now, it strangely feels like Cathra is looking at a different version of herself.

Perhaps in another life I too may live a life like hers, Cathra thinks as she hobbles down the hallway on the pregnant woman’s arm. Perhaps I'd be living it already if I'd let my Lord Father marry me off into Jinyu.

Kyros is lying still on his cot. The entire upper half of his body is wrapped in thick layers of bandages and his brow is slick with sweat. When Cathra touches his forehead, her fingers feel they might blister.

“How could they do this,” she whispers, her voice tight with an inferno of emotion. “I’ll… by Nranhana and Sharn, I will kill them all.”

“He will not take the Goddess Honey,” Sara says from the doorway. “I have resorted to dipping a cloth in it and wiping it on his lips, but it is not enough to fight the fever.”

“Give me the wineskin,” Cathra says. “I’ll do it.”

Sara comes back with the skin and a rucksack. There’s a distinctly sword-shaped object in the sack and when Cathra takes it, she feels her heart skip.

She reaches inside and slides out the familiar scabbard of Frostbane, watching in awe as candlelight dances across its intricate surface.

“This…” She looks between Sara and the sword. “How did you get this?”

The woman shrugs her thin shoulders. “You may need to question Bartholome, but I fear he does not know much either. He told me something about crows bringing it to our door, if you can believe in such a strange tale.” She points to the rucksack with a toe. "There's something else, too."

Cathra reaches back into the sack and her fingers brush up against something hard and leathery. She takes it out.

"It's a... book?" She flips open the bound notebook. "It's a book of maps?"

"I have not looked," Sara says. "But I guess it must be important for it to be brought to you using such mystical ways."

Cathra places the book and sword back on the ground. "Thank you. I'll repay you both someday, I promise." She uncaps the wineskin and the alluring fragrance of the elixir wafts out at her. She goes to take a sip but stops.

Sara is still standing by the doorway.

“Um,” says Cathra, feeling her cheeks warm. “Do you mind, um…”

Sara seems to understand without needing to hear more. She gives Cathra a tiny smile and turns away, closing the door behind her.

Cathra has been sleeping beside Kyros for what feels like days, lost in her own feverish dreams when shouts wake her.

"Stand aside, blacksmith!"

She is up in a heartbeat, Frostbane in her hand, listening to the darkness.

The voices are coming from outside, rocking through the stone walls of the workshop.

“The Captain has given orders for every building to be searched,” someone shouts. “Stand aside or I will cut you down!”

Sara’s stern reply comes echoing back. “And which captain might that be? It might do you well, sirs, to remember that we are in the Northern Sector right now. Not the South. Captain Kanson's orders have no power here.”

“Captain Tigarn is missing,” replies the intruder. “As is the Lord Commander. The Kesrockian Knights are following orders from Captain Ralish in the meantime.”

Cathra holds her breath. Danton Ralish is the acting Lord Commander? She cannot believe what she is hearing.

She inches closer to the window.

Like her's, heavy curtains drape over the tiny window frame. She carefully peels up a corner. In the dim lantern light, she sees the gleaming bodies of two armor-clad knights standing by the front porch. Bartholome has stuffed his large body in the doorframe to deny them access, but between his fleshy, unprotected muscles and the knight’s steel, Cathra gets a sinking feeling in her stomach at the thought of a direct confrontation.

One of the knights snaps his head her way.

“Oi!”

Cathra staggers back from the curtains, tripping over the unconscious Kyros and crashing to the ground. Pain tears from her re-opened wounds and she bites back a cry. She hears more shouts, the sudden draw of blades, then a grunt, and Sara’s scream.

Her blood goes cold.

A loud crash sounds from the front door. Footsteps thunder down the hallway.

“Show yourselves!”

Cathra lurches up. She finds Frostbane on the floor and grips it tightly in her hands. Her heartbeat quickens.

The footsteps grow louder. The floorboards shake.

She waits.

With a crash the door flies open. Cathra lunges, splinters flying past her face and Frostbane screaming from its scabbard.

The first knight drops down like a sack of stone, his throat opening in a gush of blood.

The second knight yells, and has his sword raised to cut but Cathra takes him with a backhand swing across his legs, aiming below the knees where his armor is weakest.

Sparks burst in the dark as steel bites through ringmail. The knight howls and falls towards Cathra. She uses his weight, pushing Frostbane screeching into the knight's face, right through the bottom half of his face uncovered by his half-helm.

She feels flesh and bone parting beneath her blade.

The knight's terror turns into gargled screams. His blood gushes down Cathra's arms, soaking through her already wet bandages.

Then, silence, and the knight goes limp.

Panting, Cathra heaves the body off her. She pulls Frostbane from the dead man's skull, taking care to not look at his face. She doesn’t want to see who it is she just killed, doesn’t want to find out if she’s just slain someone she knows. She checks on Kyros, finds him still sleeping soundly, and makes her way out the room, leaning against the walls for support.

She hears Sara’s cries long before she reaches the doorway. The blacksmith’s wife is sprawled on the floor, cradling her husband in her lap.

Cathra rushes over, dropping Frostbane to kneel beside the couple.

“What happened...” her words die as she sees Bartholome. The front of his shirt is soaked red and growing ever wider with each second, spilling through Sara's fingers and staining her gown. His eyes are glassy as he stares up at the stars, and his lips are slightly parted and blue as the sky.

The blacksmith's massive body, strong enough to bend steel, was not strong enough to deflect it.

Sara falls over her husband, her beautiful brown hair falling over his pale face. Cathra watches those thin shoulders shake as the woman sobs with gaspy, broken breaths.

And she feels her own heart break.

This can’t be happening. Not after everything.

“Go.”

Cathra almost doesn’t hear Sara’s voice through the roar inside her own ears. She looks over to see the woman glaring, her eyes bright like midnight stars.

“Take the horse and cart and go. Don’t you dare come back.”

"Sara." Cathra reaches over but Sara slaps her away.

“Get away from us! Go! Before you get someone else killed!”

Cathra stares, uncomprehendingly, for another slow, painful second. She watches as Sara turns back and cries over the body that once held life to the most skilled blacksmith in Kesrock. And a snapshot appears in Cathra's mind suddenly, of her crying over Kyros's body.

"I'll come back, Sara," she says softly, fingers hovering over the woman's shoulder without touching her. "And I'll give you the heads of all those responsible for your husband's death."

Without another word, Cathra stands, picks up her sword, and heads back inside. The anguish of loss echoes hauntingly behind her and inside her, shaking apart anything more she wants to say, all the empty promises and assurances until nothing remains but a fire, deep within, for revenge.