A mass grave sprawled beneath Kit’s feet.

The point of her scabbarded sword found purchase amongst the bloodstained grass and golden armour as she limped through the dead. Dappled sunlight emerged from the canopy above to caress lifeless skin of all colours. Each of the corpses stared fathomlessly at somewhere beyond sight. Their bodies were still warm.

Three dozen Albright soldiers had stumbled upon the Seeds rallying towards their master’s castle. Though this retinue numbered less than a fifth of Gaia’s overall forces – four other encampments were mobilising from different locations – they had nevertheless dispatched the group with minimal casualties, and no fatalities. Even so, each of the Shrikeblooded warriors paced with agitation as their leaders – Gaia, Erin, and several advisors – conferred between one another. Deep circles ran beneath Erin’s frantic eyes, and her words were full of spittle.

A stroke of poor fortune for both parties: the soldier’s because however well-trained they were, no contingent could ever hope to beat double their number in Blooded warriors; the Shrikeblood’s because one had escaped. But only the former’s fortune had proved lethal.

There had hardly been a choice, for them. All Albright soldiers had families in villages near the castle. Generous, for a House to offer their warriors such assurances – until a dereliction of duty left their children without heads. Their fate had been sealed the moment they had become trapped in their role: a formation of gilded golems, patrolling with deliberate disregard for the souls that animated them.

The Seed’s gazes were fixed upon their leaders; eyes tight with expectation. Kit’s were between her feet. Despite all the people gathered between the trees, only two pairs of feet walked amongst the dead.

Sweat beaded her face with every second step.

The lean woman’s blade hadn’t been drawn, yet its scabbard was already stained with blood. It prodded the lifeless soldiers. She manipulated its length with practiced ease to flip cadavers onto their backs and remove stiffened limbs from their side. Instinctually, its point sought strings of chits or pouches at their side. But though Kit eyed them quietly, it would take one more hand than she had to bend down and pick them up.

For all her practice picking through the dead, she had missed the one thing that might interest her most: a lacquered wooden lute, miraculously unbroken by the fall of the armoured soldier who had carried it. Only its strings had snapped, and even they were easily replaceable. After several long moments staring at the body – Should his helmet be lifted? Should words be spoken? Should the body be left untouched? – the instrument was carefully extracted from the warrior’s scratched armour. Beneath flakes of gold lay blunt steel.

Once removed, the lute was brought over to Kit, whose pained grunts accompanied her as she limped amongst the corpses. When her idle poking was interrupted, she craned her neck upwards with a cocked eyebrow. Yet the moment her eyes brushed over the lute, they did not leave.

The instrument was extended towards her.

“An’ what am I gonna do with that one-handed, Beaky?” Kit’s lazy drawl belied the intensity of her gaze. Like a mortal transfixed by a god. “Use it t’scratch my back? Maybe shove it up my ass?”

It did not move.

Her lips curled into a light sneer. “You got an answer? ‘Cause it seems to me I can’t bloody well use the damned thing,” she spat, brandishing her stump, “so why don’t you jus’ play it yerself. Ain’t much use to me.”

A final quaver ruined the intensity of her speech

Without a sack to shove it in, the lute was slung over a limb for safe-keeping.

The Seeds continued to argue while Kit returned her tightened gaze to the bodies. Yet occasionally, when she thought no one was looking, her eyes would flicker to the lute once more.

----------------------------------------

For Kit, yesterday had ended with a nightmare. Likewise, her morning had begun with one.

The previous night, there had been a small debate about who should accompany the Seeds to the Albrights the next day. Bhan, Blake, Ronnie and Kit had been the only true contenders for the role – the twins and Taja were children and Maleen couldn’t be endangered due to her political importance. With Ronnie still unconscious from her ordeal at the talons of Yoot and… Blake having apparently disappeared that morning, the Face and her had remained the only options.

The Face had claimed that as a speaker for the gods, he was best equipped to simultaneously raise the morale of the Seeds and calm any unbalanced entities that might be marching with them. It was a reasonable, persuasive argument. Unfortunately for Bhan, Kit was not in a reasonable mood.

She had strangled that debate in the crib through a combination of insults, brow-beating, and waving her stump around as if she were offering a torch to those who’d never seen fire before. The former swordswoman argued two points: of the two, she had the most experience in warzones, and that her demise would be less crippling than Bhan’s. Of those gathered, no one’s words were equal to the crackle in her eyes.

Afterwards, she’d slept. Kit had always been good at falling unconscious.

She had become less adept at the sleeping itself.

In her cot, the young woman’s sweat-soaked blankets tangled with her limbs as she writhed. Lightly, for the regency of slumber was ponderous compared to the intentionality of the body’s rightful liege, and whatever small groans escaped from her mouth were easy to ignore, for the occupants of the barracks. After all, Kit wasn’t the only one with nightmares. And as those around her had learned, anyone who sought to wake her would be met with a barrage of pointed insults designed to conceal her embarrassment. Who would brave such treacherous waters to save someone who wanted to drown?

Head Maleen, of course. She hadn’t slept at all, that night – merely lain abed and stared at the featureless darkness of the cavern’s ceiling, teeth gritted while her fingers seized at her chest. Occasionally, she threw a glance in Kit’s direction. A waking nightmare must’ve prowled behind her eyes. When Maleen noticed Kit’s shaking, she quickly stood upright and creeped over.

Initially, the orange-haired woman tried to rouse her with a brief touch and a few muttered words. When those attempts were revealed as failures, Maleen stilled, gaze following Kit’s twisting form with clenched teeth. Her hands hovered over the larger woman, yet failed to find any avenue to touch her. Then suddenly the small Head heaved in a vast breath and seized Kit by the shoulders.

Kit’s awakening came with no struggle, sudden blows, or screams of terror. Instead, her whole arm seized her former sword-arm by the elbow and bore it onto her bedding as her eyes rolled wildly in their sockets. Each of her breaths emerged as a puff of white mist from between clenched teeth.

Then her eyes caught onto the person who held her. “Wha… Maddie? Why’re you wakin’ me up?” Kit’s voice – rough from sleep – rolled over the barracks quietly. She swayed her head to the side and squinted. “An’ blood’s the big oaf doin’ with you?”

Maleen chose to answer the second question first. “She was there when I got here. And you were having a nightmare.”

Kit extended an accusatory finger past the smaller woman’s shoulder. “You’re a damn creep, y’know that?” Her dark eyes met a jade pair. “An’ you jus’ woke me up fer no godsdamned reason, ‘cause I wasn’t havin’ a nightmare. Go back to sleep.”

The smaller woman removed her hands from Kit’s shoulders to perch on the side of the cot, lips quietly quirked downwards.

Kit released a heavy sigh. “Don’t gimme that look. I’m fine, Maddie.”

“What was it you said to me, back during the reception of the northern Houses?” The Head tapped a single finger on her chin in mock thought, then adopted a caricature of Kit’s accent. “‘You ain’t so much as ask fer piss if you on fire.’”

A scowl stretched across Kit’s face. “I don’t sound like that.”

The imitation continued. Her voice couldn’t quite hit the other woman’s lower notes. “Well,” Maleen drawled, “if’n you say so, little lady.”

“Eugh.” Kit’s face scrunched as if confronted with an overflowing latrine. “Stop.”

“Now, you jus’ know that I don’t damn well believe I will, because…” The accent paused for a beat to correct herself. “’Cause I reckon I’ve got to offer an ear… T’do to you as you’ve done t’me.”

“I don’t even know what you’re sayin’, Maddie.” The former swordswoman buried her face in her hands. “It’s so bad. S’like you’re talkin’ through a mouth full o’ mash. I don’t sound like that.”

Maleen raised a plucked eyebrow.

Kit peeked through her fingers. “I don’t, right?”

The eyebrow retained its menacing position.

“Well, say somethin’.”

“I’ll tell you if you say what you was dreamin’ ‘bout.”

Another scowl. “Jus’ stop with the damned voice, alright? I don’t even sound like that,” she insisted.

Maleen nodded, returning to her usual careful enunciation. “I will, Kit. But tell me.”

The other woman said nothing for several moments. Briefly, Maleen opened her mouth – perhaps to fill the uncanny silence Kit had brought into the space between them – however she forced it shut once more. Instead, to remedy the asymmetry of their relative positions – Kit prone while Maleen sat over her – the young Head lowered herself beside her, to stare at the ceiling.

The former swordswoman rolled onto her side, to face away from Maleen.

“Okay,” she murmured.

----------------------------------------

An army stood on the horizon.

Troops of gleaming metal, made lambent by the sun. Press-ganged common-folk, swaddled in gambesons or thick cotton clothing, hoisting spears tipped with shining bronze. The career soldiers, plated with bone lamellar reinforced with bronze over their old sweat-stained gambesons. And their final evolution: elite contingents of seasoned warriors mixed with Blooded; moulded of steel beaten into them through every battle they’d been through.

Alone, each was grimy and weak. Yet arranged together, they were clean, disciplined, and great. A formation of humanity that at its nadir was pure chaos. But at its zenith, where its components aligned in perfect symphony, all its disparate parts flowed like currents of silver swirled by a god-like hand.

A long time ago, that arrangement had lain at the core of House Esfaria. Strength borne of discipline, ready to grind any enemies beneath cogs of sweat and blood.

In that regard, the Seeds were similar. Beneath the hill on which Gaia stood were rows of seasoned Shrikebloods, the majority bereft of visible weapons or armour for they carried both within their veins. Some had chosen to wear steel or wield armaments that couldn’t be easily grown – bows, arrows, javelins, halberds – but they were in the minority. Amidst the trees, the rugged clothing – donned to shield them from the cold of the caverns they’d spent Tempest within – seemed to blend in with the browns and greens of their environment. Yet their common garb could not conceal the standards to which they held themselves to.

Like any army, they looked to their leader. Gaia’s advisors had departed to coordinate the other groups of Seeds, leaving the aging woman alone upon the hill except for Erin, whose bloodshot eyes surveyed the land around her with an almost sightless intensity.

But there were differences, as well. For the Seeds were terrifying.

A detachment of an equivalent size could have anywhere from one to five Blooded, depending on the type of Godsblood and the prosperity of the commanding House. Yet of the sixty-four people gathered – comprised of sixteen squads of four, judging by their groupings – all were Blooded.

Shrikebloods were not as powerful as Oxbloods, nor as dextrous as Kani’s ilk. They could not predict events like Spiderbloods, nor march for days like Lizardbloods. They could not rally a troop as a Dolphinblood might, and they could not conjure miracles from nothing like an Owlblood. Externally, the only thing truly impressive about them was their size, and even then there were several outliers who were smaller than an average mortal. The traits of the Shrike were subtler things.

Days spent training without break, where mortals had only the will for hours. An exacting standard levied towards their own skills and those around them. Consistent improvement in their abilities. The fact those improvements never plateaued.

Unlike other Blooded, their abilities were not supernatural. They were simply superhuman.

Or so it might seem.

But the way they waited was alien. Their discipline was exacting, and their silence absolute. Their predatory patience inhuman. And the way they stared at their leader…

They looked to Gaia as if she were the only star in an empty sky, with a hunger only matched by the way long-dead Raven Cultists had looked to their god.

Yet their leader’s eyes did not respond in kind. Her dark pair scarcely seemed to register them. They were directed towards the horizon that peeked through the tree-trunks and ranks of Albright soldiers; at the inscrutable earth beneath the Albright’s tangled castle.

Kit lounged in the shadows of a tree, apart from both the Shrikebloods and their leader. Her blood-stained furs and banged-up helmet hung off her body in a way they hadn’t months prior – she’d lost weight. Her gaze was directed at neither Gaia nor the castle. Instead, it gravitated towards the lute, before she wilfully tore her eyes away once more.

The former swordswoman’s attention turned to Gaia as the Shrikeblood tapped Erin on the shoulder, signalling her subordinate to begin the speech she could no longer give. Gaia had tried for several nights in a row, but speaking full sentences brought her great pain.

As the speech began, something like relief passed over Kit’s face.

Erin cleared her throat. “Twelve years ago, the Houses set out to kill a god. As we all know, they succeeded.” Sunken eyes surveyed the Seeds before her. “Today, we strive for a much greater task.

“We will,” Erin lied, “harness the power of the land beneath our feet.”

Kit blinked where she lay apart from the others, then arduously levered herself upright. “That’s not what she said last time.”

It was the second speech given today. The first had been to the group that sheltered in the same encampment that Kit and the others had. To them, Erin had spoken of ending a god; completing the task that House Albright and all its adherents were too foolish to finish themselves.

Wounding and harnessing were, to those who sought to make monsters and gods bleed, often the same thing. But no one needed two distinct, pre-planned speeches to address the intricacies of that point.

“What in th’ blood’s goin’ on?” Kit whispered to herself.

“The earth,” Erin continued, projecting her low voice from deep in her chest, “will be shaped as we see fit.”

She lifted the hem of her shirt, revealing the tattoo writ across her skin. Seven discrete lines – several more than she’d possessed six months ago – lay there. Viewed together, they created a vague splodge. To the vast majority of people, the pattern would resemble little more than an ink-stain. If a mortal were to think on it more, they might believe each line to represent something: lives taken or children lost, perhaps. It wasn’t unusual for people to engrave things they could not forget onto their bodies. But to several rare individuals who bothered to track the Heartland’s cartographical changes, its meaning was clear.

The Shrikeblood’s eyes bored into the warriors with an intensity mindless of the fatigue ringing them. “On each of us are maps of the Heartlands. The region at the centre of our human continent, in which the humblest of gatherers and the highest of Heads must plan around.

“But what if,” she insisted, a fleck of spittle leaving her mouth, “we could do more than plan around the earth? What if we could mould it?”

Kit straightened. “She’s sellin’ a different song t’these Seeds,” she murmured in quiet disbelief. “But they don’t seem surprised.”

They didn’t. Neither surprise nor confusion lingered behind their eyes. Only the fire that seemed to burn within all Shrikebloods.

“They’ve heard this before,” Kit concluded.

“You all know our charge,” Erin called, a note of zeal finally entering our voice. “To better humanity!”

Each sentence was punctuated by the Seeds pumping their fists in the air silently. “To better ourselves! To steal a brighter tomorrow from the jaws of the divine!”

“…What in Yoot’s saggy teats’s goin’ on?” Kit whispered out the side of her mouth. “Gaia ain’t sayin’ nothin’. So, what: they tellin’ everyone different stories? You reckon that’s how they got so many t’join their little cult?”

“Gaia’s lyin’.”

“Perhaps to ensure none can expose their true motives.”

“Good thing you don’t buy into it.”

Kit huffed. “I’ll tell you what, Beaky: They’re all such greasy bastards. But it’s either them or livin’ in a cave, an’ Maddie’s real attached to makin’ sure they don’t ruin the, uh…” She sucked in air through her teeth as she searched for a word.

“Land?”

“Future?”

“Political situation?”

Her dark fingers snapped. “I think that’s the one.” Her eyes settled on Erin. “Blood, I hate that girl. Got no idea how you an’ Blake put up with her.”

Blake? She wasn’t so bad. No. Is that right? Look what she did. But was it deserved?

Kit’s eyes flickered upwards, then widened. Her mouth opened.

Did Erin have a choice? No, but. All that time spent together. For what? For what? That wasn’t fair. Was it? But despite everything, she was still up there talking. Why-

“-hey, hey, hey, hey,” the crippled woman was saying. “Calm down, Beaky. Come on, jus’ calm down. What’s got you so riled up? Ain’t said yer name or nothin’. Her godsdamned slimy ways gettin’ t’you?”

Erin was still speaking.

“…final obstacle is House Albright: so-called paragons of humanity secretly more concerned with the protection of a god than the betterment of our people.” She leaned forward, lips stretched into a snarl that didn’t reach her eyes. “Maybe their great-grandfather clawed his way to a crown a century ago. So what? The same power that bore them there flows through our veins as well, and unlike them, our leader shared that divinity with more than just her kin.

“We have more Blooded than them. We are mightier. We are more,” Erin hissed, “and the god at our backs will not have to lift a single wretched tendril to help us, because we will only grow greater while it remains the same.”

The Seeds watched. All the myriad features of humanity from all corners of the continent stretched into the same rictus of raw need.

“At edge of the horizon waits our future. Will you laze about here and let it pass you by?” she spat.

“NO,” the Shrikebloods chorused.

“Will you let it stomp you into dust?”

“NO.”

“Or will you seize upon what could be, and make it reality?”

As one, the Blooded howled their approval.

Erin watched them, gaze boring through sleep deprivation and the maelstrom of noise, then looked to Gaia, who waited behind. A single nod from the older woman was enough to transform her stern façade into a tremulous grin.

“Least the end stayed the same,” Kit noted, wincing at the volume. “They’re just as loud, too.”

When their roars died down, Erin continued. “You all know your roles, and your squad leaders understand the plan. Head to your rally point, and we will see you on the field.”

Under the thunderous clamour of sixty-four Shrikeblooded heels marching further away, the muscular woman whirled and stalked back into the trees, where she squatted down to bury her face in her hands. Gaia stared after her inscrutably.

Perhaps scenting weakness, Kit levered herself to her feet and hobbled over to Erin without giving the more muscular woman a moment to breathe. Her gaze drifted towards the lute, then flinched back to Erin.

“Nice, rousin’ speech,” she drawled. “Very cute. You even seen a battlefield before, piss-head?”

Erin kept her head down. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

Kit sniffed. “Spent a lot o’ time talkin’ ‘bout humans up there. I reckon pickin’ at scabs’s the most human thing in th’ world.”

“And I’m the scab?”

“Eyup.”

Erin snorted. “Says the cripple.”

Immediately, Kit growled, “What’d you say?”

Instead of retracting her statement, the Shrikeblood simply scowled to herself. “You can’t fight. You can’t walk. You certainly can’t help us plan. So what good are you?”

The former swordswoman glared at her for a moment, then smoothed her face. “I’m good enough not t’lie to people who might die today.”

A biting chord snuck into Erin’s tone. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh?” Kit raised her arms in mocking innocence, then adopted a look of exaggerated ponderance. “Lemme see if I can figure this one out. You tell th’ first group one thing… An’ you tell th’ second group another!” She raised a scarred hand to her cheek in shock. “Wow! It’s almost like you’re trickin’ them! But surely not!”

Teeth ground together within the squatting woman’s mouth.

“You wouldn’t!” Kit’s voice was so full of sarcasm it practically leaked at the seams. “S’not as if you lied t’yer very bestest friend for years!”

She flinched. Seemingly unconsciously, her hands began to wipe imaginary filth from one another.

“Oh, yeah,” Kit crooned. “You didn’t like that, did you? Maybe I should jus’ lie t’you, like you lied to all th’ people out there.”

Erin mumbled something.

The standing woman cupped a hand to her ear. “Speak up, lil’ liar.”

“…It was under Gaia’s orders.”

Kit threw up her hands. “By the blood, she’s cracked that mouth open! But even Kani couldn’t hear anythin’ but lies an’ excuses spewin’ from it!” She cackled humourlessly. “Was it Gaia up there, speakin’ t’those people?”

“I did what I had to,” Erin ground out.

Kit’s face contorted. “I’ve scraped scum off by boot with more backbone’n you.” Her hand snaked down to seize the woman by the cuff, and slowly, with all the wiry strength that remained in her frame, drag her upright. “Listen here, you rat. I’m goin’ in there for him, and he’s goin’ in there for Siik knows what- “

Because how many people would die, without a finger tipping the scales one way or another? Because what would the Seeds remaining in the caves do to deserters, or their families? Because Gaia had spoken the previous night, when Erin walked back with blood on her hands and a corpse carried behind her, and in the younger Shrikeblood’s wake she had made promises that had yet to be kept.

“ -but know that no matter how this day ends, you’re gonna remain a pathetic excuse fer a person.”

Right.

“If she’s sellin’ them lies, then why wouldn’t she sell them t’you too?”

Erin reeled to her feet, making use of her full height to tower a head taller than Kit and half again as wide. But if the attempt at intimidation succeeded, it didn’t show on the smaller woman’s face. Her mocking smile simply grew broader.

Out of the pair’s sight, Gaia, who had been watching them with a frown, began stiffly walking closer.

“What do you know?” the Shrikeblood asked her quietly. “You’re a thug. A killer. A person whose ambition stretches no further than a warm bed and a hot meal. You want nothing; you do nothing; you make nothing.”

“Everyone who knows you loathes you,” Kit replied through her teeth. “And maybe you should start wonderin’ whether th’ problem’s with you instead o’ them.”

Neither allowed their emotions to spread to their face. One retained their goading sneer, while the other’s features had scarcely moved. Until, as if consumed by slowly rising floodwater, Erin grimaced, then shivered, then began to paw at her hands. At that, Kit attempted to give a vicious sneer, but failed.

“Stop,” Gaia croaked. “This is a military operation. Have some discipline.” A stifled cough bracketed each of her words, and she spat bright blood onto the dirt.

“Military operation? You’re a bunch o’…” She gave a scowl that seemed to be directed inward. “A bunch o’ bloody…”

“Reprobates bound for the noose?”

“Blasphemers destined for hell?”

“Idiots with no eyes to guide them?”

“Be quiet,” she snapped. “I know this.”

“Tr- “

“Fo- “

“Bl- “

“Shut up!” she whirled teeth bared, jabbing with a finger that was no longer present. “Shut up, I know this. I know this.”

“Kit,” Gaia tried to say, but ended up coughing flecks of blood onto her hand.

“No,” Kit insisted. “I know this.”

Erin stared lifelessly.

“Don’t you look at me like that, you piece o’ filth!” she raged. “Shut up. I know th’ damned word!”

The truth was, only one present knew the word she was searching for. It was ‘traitor’. Not to the monarchs, but humanity itself.

Kit wouldn’t find it. It wasn’t in her, anymore. There was a hole where it once was.

The cavity that her tongue still recklessly probed was a match to a piece that lay scarcely steps to her side. A piece that would no longer fit.

A tumorous growth hugged its edges, far larger than that which it sprouted from. Kit would never be whole again.

Do you know what it’s like, god? To see a person with eyes that used to be theirs? To watch a body you knew to be yours move without your consent, as if they were possessed by a spectre? As if you yourself were one?

Of course not. You care for nothing except tomorrow.

You deserve this.

----------------------------------------

“S’anyone else awake?” Kit had asked, still facing away from Maleen.

The barracks were as cold as they had ever been, that morning. Few would choose to remain awake, or venture outside the warmth of their blankets for anything less than the call of an aching bladder.

The two young woman lay beside one another: Kit curled away, as if frozen mid-flinch. Maleen with her arm carefully draped over the other woman.

“It’s early, Kit,” the smaller woman whispered softly. “Extremely early.”

“…You think ol’ Beaky’s gonna leave?”

Jade eyes fell upon her back. “We could ask?”

“…It’s alright.” Kit closed her eyes. “I jus’… I dunno what t’say.”

“…You said it’s not a nightmare?”

A soft chuckle rang out. “Wouldn’t be fair if it was.”

“Why?”

“’Cause everythin’ in it’s stuff I done before.”

“Like what?”

There was a silence.

“Like what?” she repeated.

It was impossible to ignore questions that came from so close. “…Jus’ stuff.”

“Tell me.”

Kit’s jaw clenched.

“You promised.”

“I didn’t promise nothin’,” she muttered.

“You gave me your word.”

Another silence followed. This time, Kit was the one to fill it.

“…You know I’m a murderer, right?”

“Kit…” There a quiet rebuke beneath Maleen’s tone. “You were merely working under your mother’s orders. You were a child.”

“But I wasn’t a kid forever, Maleen.”

“You grew up- “

“Who held th’ sword?” Kit interrupted. “Weren’t anyone else’s hands but mine.”

“You were told- “

“You’re not gettin’ it. T’wasn’t anyone else, Maddie,” she insisted. “Th’ person who killed them people was me. Me every time. The me right now’s the same person that killed all them guards.” She swallowed. “An’ I had a great time doin’ it. Thought I was so big, makin’ ‘em bleed t’death. So tough, ‘cause they couldn’t stop me.

“An’ when I dream, my body’s still breakin’ teeth an’ sneerin’ an’ stabbin’ swords through people chests an’ laughin’ at ‘em fer the sheer weakness o’ bleedin’ when cut. An’…

“It’s uh…” She thumbed an imaginary spot of dirt on her nose. “It’s so easy, it’s like I’m jus’ swattin’ flies.”

Maleen shuffled closer.

“There’s, there’s this guard, an’ he’s thrown up his hands an’ he’s tellin’ us he’s got children. T’take anythin’ we want from his caravan; t’just let him go.” She swallowed. “An’ th’ whole gang laughs at him, an’ I laugh. An’ I…”

Kit’s eyes clenched harder. “Jus’ swattin’ flies.” Her voice was hoarse.

“An’ I can’t stop myself. There’s nothin’ I can do.” A strangled sob emerged from her chest. “‘Cause it ain’t a nightmare, Maddie. It’s a memory.”

This time, the silence belonged to the other woman.

Kit gave a jagged chuckle, sounding like scum being scraped from the bottom of a pot, then rolled onto her back. Her eyes cracked open to stare at the stump where her hand had once lain.

“…Does it hurt?” Maleen asked.

“Eyup,” Kit stated quietly. “I hate it. I really do hate it. Siik itself couldn’t figure out who I am without this hand. I hate it.”

Were it a few minutes earlier, Maleen might’ve tried to give some kind of reassurance here; told the former swordswoman she was mighty even without the thing that made her. But in this moment, she was listening.

And Kit was speaking.

“An’ y’know, every day it’s hard. Can’t hold a sword. Can’t climb all that well. Can’t run so fast no more. Can’t so much as put on my boots without help.” She gave a brief smile. “But I can’t help but think… What was this hand gonna do anyway?”

She licked her lips, then corrected herself. “What was I gonna do with this hand?

“Maddie, I’m only really good at three things. Insultin’ people. Hurtin’ ‘em. And killin’.” She shook her stump lightly. “Two o’ those things’re gone, now. But I reckon ain’t no one but me worse off for it.”

“…You’re more than that,” Maleen finally said.

Kit glanced at her, but didn’t dignify that comment with any further response.

“You saved us all, Kit.”

She barked a laugh. “When?”

“At Fort Vane. You were brave.”

“I didn’t feel brave,” Kit snapped rapidly, “an’ I still don’t. I don’t even rightly know why I did what I did.”

Maleen scowled fiercely. “You do; don’t pretend for a second that you don’t.”

Kit released a long huff, but offered no further retort.

They lay there for a time. The cold of the early morning caves soon began to sink into Maleen, and short bouts of shivering seized her body. Kit eyed her sweaty blankets, then eyed the orange-haired woman herself – still dressed in a short top and underwear from sleeping – before sighing and wrapping her in one of the less sweat-soaked quilts across her cot.

Immediately, Maleen flushed.

“Sorry,” Kit said quietly. “It’s pretty gross.”

“No it’s fine,” the smaller woman quickly spat out.

“Alright.” The lean woman lay back down. “If you say so.”

A comfortable quiet grew between them. Eventually, it grew so long that Maleen’s breathing began to grow slow and even.

Kit’s gaze slid over to the form next to her. To the empty air, she continued to speak.

“When th’ best and worst happened…”

Another set of voices interrupted her.

“A mother dead by their child’s hands.”

“Everything that you are locked away.”

“Gaining a home, despite everything.”

Kit nodded quietly. “Yeah. After Fort Vane, I figured it’d be all over. If bards ever sing ‘bout my life, I figured that’d be where th’ song wrapped up; all neat an’ tidy.” She paused. “Or maybe I didn’t figure. Jus’ didn’t think.

“Because…” She lifted her stump to the light, turning over the fold where her skin had sealed over the wound. “I jus’ kept livin’. Tomorrows kept comin’. Mother’s dead, an’ I’ve been made into nothin’…” She swallowed. “An’ I don’t understand why th’ story’s not over.”

She waited, but found only her words hanging in the air, unanswered. Yet when Kit began to carefully slide from the cot, a hand wrapped around the stump of her arm.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

“Wait,” said Maleen.

The former swordswoman winced. “You were awake?”

“Uh-huh.” The pale noble bobbed her head.

Kit groaned, cheeks heating.

The Head sat upright. “And I suppose you were going to leave without saying anything?”

A nervous chuckle came as a reply. “Well, y’know, figure it might be bad for us t’be seen in bed together. An’ I gotta go soon.”

Maleen punched her in the arm. “This is serious.”

“I am serious,” Kit suddenly barked at her. “You reckon I’m not thinkin’ about these things? I might die today, an’ you better believe I won’t leave any messes behind fer you t’clean up.”

Maleen flinched, then began fumbling around in her sleepwear.

While she did this, the other woman clenched her eyes closed and sighed. “Apologies, princess. Didn’t mean t’be so loud. But- “

“Here.”

Kit opened her eyes. A square of fabric lay directly in front of them. “What in all that’s good ‘n green’s this?” she asked, squinting. Then sniffed. “Smells good.”

Maleen averted her eyes and laughed awkwardly. “Ha-ha! It’s uhm, my uh…” She shrugged. “Handkerchief.”

A cocked eyebrow was levelled in her direction. “You’re givin’ me something’ you sneezed in?”

The small woman frowned sharply. “It is a token, Kit. Given to a worthy warrior before a battle for safekeeping.”

“Battle’s s’not th’ best place for keepin’ things safe…” Her voice trailed away. “Wait. It’s like in a song…” Her head jerked in Maleen’s direction. “You heard what I said?”

The orange-haired woman nodded. “You will take my token, and you will bring it back to me.”

Kit stared at it, gaze hooded.

“Kit?”

The tall woman’s head scarcely moved. “What?”

Maleen thrusted the kerchief towards her. The fabric had faded from long years tucked in a pocket, yet nevertheless remained pristine. “Your life can fit more than one song.”

“It’s jus’ like you to believe that.” Kit tore her eyes away and rose to leave. “I guess we’ll see.”

Her footsteps echoed quietly as she departed the barracks, leaving the token laying limply in Maleen’s hands.

----------------------------------------

Spirit season hung above a legion of falling boots. A true cacophony, complete with the pounding of war-drums. If an Albright were to peer from their window, they would see a flood of Shrikebloods – four groups of about sixty powerful warriors – leaking into the gentle plains surrounding their home. But their forces had scattered too far in search of the Seed’s tail, and left their own far too exposed. Albright reinforcements would come, but they would arrive hours too late. But those that guarded the castle remained, in numbers greater than Gaia’s. So the Shrikeblood had abandoned subterfuge to rush them plainly.

The subtlety the Seeds had abandoned had been adopted by the firmament above. Myriad colours weaved through the sky; a river of souls, if the teaching of generations of Faces were to be believed. Shed from the blood of gods by the fangs of humanity, to return to the world once more.

Those fangs bit deep.

“Give it more!” Erin demanded, thrusting the prongs deeper. “It’s going to run out of fuel before we arrive!”

With each pulse of the contraption, blood was cycled deeper and deeper within it, though none would know it by looking at its exterior. The immense device was designed to stabilise the movement of its nose: a spiral almost resembling a dreidel, which would rotate when activated. Though that component was unpowered, its four wheels required a constant flow of power to trundle forward. They hadn’t originally been part of the designs when they had been dreamed up in Fort Vane, but were added after several Seeds pressured Gaia.

Tip-toeing around its purpose made it seem more impressive than it was. In truth, it was a drill. One that required no hands or torquing of the arms to operate, but a drill nonetheless.

It was slowly wheeled at the back of the Scattered Seeds’s mass, where each of the warriors gave it a wide berth. Partially to keep its path clear, but mostly to avoid the writhing, screaming mass of black attached to it.

“Raven’s blackened bones!” Kit swore viciously through the bellows, fingers plugged into her ears as she walked alongside, “jus’ get him t’push it! Why in all that’s good ‘n green d’you have to impale him on a rod o’ steel?!”

Erin shoved her shoulder into the side of the cart, redirecting it from a deep patch of bog. “Spider knows where that thing would take it!” Erin spat.

“What?” Kit shouted, unable to hear the woman over the screams.

The Shrikeblood’s bloodshot eyes wrenched shut. “Just be quiet and make sure it stays calm.”

Feet pushed through grass-strewn mires still clinging to the land despite Tempest’s passing. Agony was made industrial with skilled application of cold steel. The greater part of that pain was buried beneath immeasurable layers of stillness, yet some of it was vented into open air in the form of shouts and wails.

The pain wasn’t the worst that could be felt. An opened throat; a disembowelled gut; a severed arm: all bore a discomfort so great it irrevocably warped the consciousness that felt it. This was a mere candle to those infernos. But here lay a chronic hurt that didn’t need to exist. The cart had trundled along for hours. It could’ve been pushed, or pulled by an oxen or other beast of burden. Instead, it was yoked to the suffering of the divine. Bloodtech was just too thirsty.

Some mouths could stifle such pain. Others couldn’t. Thus, the screams.

But Kit wasn’t happy about it.

“Jus’ godsdamn unhook him, you bat-brained bastard!” she shouted at Erin.

“If you try to detach the fuel source again,” the muscular woman hissed in reply, “we’ll have to tie you up!”

“This’s pointless.”

“We are so damned close,” Erin snapped, “and I am not risking our entire plan for a god of all things!”

“I’ll kill you one day,” Kit hissed, “you bloody blinded sack of horseflesh.”

“What was that?” the other woman demanded.

The crippled woman took several more limping steps forward, then turned her head. “I said,” she began, louder, “that- “

Then a great horn flattened the sounds of those marching, squashing the abject stupidity Kit was about to commit to. Though the two women beside the cart stood on tips of their toes, but the levelness of plains meant that the heads of the Seeds surrounding them hid their surroundings from them.

Yet that same uniformity allowed the tallest amongst the army to see with ease.

“Hey.” Erin’s haggard gaze turned wide. “Get it to stop.”

“Why don’t you go fellate an arrow, whore?” Kit bit back.

Pushing to the front was a simple task. The Shrikebloods were too disciplined to do so themselves, and too wise to bar movement.

It was true that much of the Albright’s forces had roamed far. They simply didn’t have the time to make it here. But a majority had remained behind to guard their masters.

Six-hundred and fifty soldiers stood, gilt armour radiant beneath the midday sun. A hundred groups of six mortal warriors trained to fight together backed by fifty Blooded: Twelve plated giants that could only be Oxbloods, ten sparsely armoured Foxbloods with grins shining in the daylight, fourteen broad Lizardbloods, and sixteen other pyres bearing the churning marks of divinity. Too physically subtle for their nature to be discernible from several leagues away, but nevertheless a mix of several other Godsblood. The Blooded were mixed in with the mortals: a mixture of metals to make the whole a stronger alloy.

Something the Seeds did not have. They were all the same, after all: all strong and weak in the exact same way.

Only one type of divinity truly mattered, though. How many Dolphinbloods were spread across their formation, and how frequently could they rally the fighting spirit of those around them? How many would resist the natural urge to flee under Yoot’s influence?

They were an impressive sight. A wall which would rebuff the greatest of rams. The fruit of a century of wealth gathered while the seven other Houses warred amongst themselves. The crowning jewel of three generations of monarchs, yet this gem had an edge sharp enough to kill all who reached for it.

And on the other side were Gaia’s Scattered Seeds. Fifty years of subterfuge, stealth, and scheming culminating in a conspiracy spearheaded by hundreds of Blooded stolen from the earth.

One army prepared to forge a new future through the death of a god. The other protecting a world they thought would last until tomorrow. Despite all that, both were still armies of humans preparing to fight humans. The Albrights protected via murder. The Seeds aimed to kill a god, but the path they sought to pave to the divine was etched in mortal blood.

At times, it seems there’s little more to humanity than gathering in a large group to hurt something or create something. And to most, these two goals are far less distinct than one realises.

Perhaps that’s unfair.

Perhaps it isn’t.

All that stood between the two was one helpless god.

A vision rose from imagination:

Vultures and other carrion eaters circled overhead. As the sun was dragged beneath the horizon, the sky – an ocean set aflame by sol’s internment – faded as well. Yet the aurora above only thickened with each of its undulations, growing torpid from the souls that fled skyward.

The orange light of day ebbed away, but blood had already painted the land red. Soldiers dragged corpses by hand into a massed pile, where carrion eaters held vigil over the fallen and daintily plucked eyes and ears from those who no longer had use of them. The living who carried the dead wiped sweat or tears from faces, and left a trail of blood and other unidentified fluids smeared in their place. Exhaustion weighed their limbs down. Some collapsed to their knees.

Their task was simply too great. Like emptying a beach one grain of sand at a time. There were so few of them, and so many corpses.

Once, blades of verdant grass had sprouted across the plain. They’d been supplanted by the eyes of the dead. They all stared in a single direction. The wounds that ended their lives winked angrily, and each moment their chests did not rise was a rebuke beyond what words could deliver.

Within the castle were halls smeared with more viscera. The remnants of pitched combat covered every surface, transforming what used to be stone into the slick capillaries of some immense thing. A single warrior stumblingly limped through those wet spaces, glazed eyes uncomprehending of the part of his skull that had been sheared away.

The sky above was crowded with stars rolling madly in their sockets, and mouths gibbering endlessly.

By a blink’s passing, the vision had receded. The present returned.

Where the armies stared each other down and there was still a chance they could walk away.

A ripple passed through the arrayed Albrights. Shield-bearers on the front-line jostled their spear-wielding partners and pointed forward. The orientations of full-helms shifted; universally directed at a single point. Several took a step back, only to be halted by the press of soldiers behind them.

“Vulture,” they hissed, whispered, shouted, and screamed to one another.

Their officers quickly quashed the dissent, through either reassurances or stern orders. Did they believe their own words?

But their unease couldn’t be allowed to settle.

“YOUR.”

“MASTERS.”

“FALL.”

“THIS.”

“DAY.”

“DESERTION.”

“WILL.”

“GO.”

“UNPUNISHED.”

The words were forced apart. Spaced comprehensibly. Cacophonously.

A flinch travelled through the Albright forces as they listened. Yet just as quickly, a soothing settled the trembling tips of their spears. The Dolphinbloods were proving their divinity a worthy investment by chaining the soldiers to their graves.

No, no, no. Something more was needed. The vision throbbed into clarity once more, and it took a great exertion of will to push it aside. Something more. Something deeper.

Idly, a ghost wandered past. One of several interminable shatterings of air that could not be outrun. Much like how the eye of a tornado could not outrun the wind swirling around it. But surely every storm can grow heavier.

Surely more ghosts could be drawn here.

One moment, the space between the armies lay fallow.

Then the thing that was me clenched its heart tight, and from the cracks in the fractured past rose a legion of phantoms, who flooded the grass of the plains in an instant.

Ghosts were vague things, composed of shattered, broken silhouettes; more a suggestion of a shape than any true one. Time left them thin and degraded, as shallow echoes of actions taken in times gone by. They were feeble. No physical threat to anything, and the Albright soldiers might have known that if they’d had any experience with them.

But unlike Bhan – who saw spirits whether there was Ravenblood around to draw them into reality or not – the gilded warriors had never witnessed one before. And much like a true memory, the mind had a way of padding a phantom’s form.

Was that fluttering twist of sunlight a flock of birds? Or was it a volley of arrows, hanging in the sky moments before they fell? Was the regal dip of a sinuous line the lowering of an elk’s neck to feast upon grass? Or could it be a viper flicking its tongue to taste whatever prey lay on the breeze?

That was with a mere two ghosts. And tens of thousands writhed across the field: a frothing melee of blended madness, thickening the air like a thunderstorm in masses that made each of the armies seem a droplet on the verge of being consumed by a flood. In their great amalgamate the many seemed singular, and dozens of ghosts seemed to become a great claw or fang or sword or maw, prepared to drag the living into the sky above.

Through that resurrected graveyard, the Albrights could be seen stiffening. As a unit, they took a single step backwards. But while a few bled away from the edges – tossing down weapon and shield to sprint to wherever their family waited – the Dolphinblooded among them kept the rest teetering on the edge of total rout.

Until the thing that was me began loping across the field in the shape of a titan from a terminal nightmare, and filled the air above with enough bellows to match every ghost that walked there, and the Dolphinbloods flinched and with that their forces cracked like an egg, and the thing drew to a gradual stop.

Three-quarters of the soldiers fled immediately. Those that remained – the hardened elite and Blooded amongst them – took a moment to assess the situation. When the call of their superiors came, most had already fallen into a controlled retreat into the castle’s gaping gates. After several minutes, the tangled mass of blended stone finished sucking the soldiers inside, and their gates slammed shut.

At that point, the deserters had begun to vanish into the hills. The ghosts were allowed to leave, and soon the plain was empty once more.

With the phantoms gone, the colour of the grass was revealed. Still green.

Kit slowly limped up. She opened her mouth for a moment, scanning the sudden emptiness. After a moment, she closed it.

Eventually, she spoke “Bleedin’ guts,” she breathed. “You…”

A pause.

“Half an army gone,” Kit whispered, dark eyes wide, “an’ no blood spilled for it. That’s…”

She looked up. There was something bright in her gaze. “You’re still in there.”

No.

No.

“Good job,” she said.

Kit stood there for a while. The Seeds caught up after a few minutes; Erin doggedly pulling the cart alongside several other Shrikebloods.

“Hook him back up,” she panted.

Kit sniffed in idle consideration. “Nah,” she finally stated. “He’s cleared the way for you. I reckon you’re pushin’ th’ damned thing.”

Though she might’ve expected argument from the Shrikeblood, Erin simply hailed the Shrikebloods around her and lowered her head to continue pulling the great drill forward.

The Albright’s castle waited in the distance. Its knotted, patchwork structure resembled nothing if not an immense bramble. Tangles of hallways grafted to the building stretched over empty air, erratically supported by buttresses erected atop a rapidly expanding foundation. Whatever it had looked like originally had long since been occluded by its ugliness, but there remained an unlikely symmetry to it all. Probably borne of interminable calculation by engineers battling to keep the strange architecture from collapsing.

From a distance, it seemed pathetic. A stunted little thing dominated by the land around it. Yet as the army drew closer, a great shadow fell over them. Its branches grew into a canopy thick enough to blot out the sky. Eventually, it cut the horizon itself in two.

It wasn’t the tallest structure on the continent. The Spires of Heltia, despite losing half their number, certainly still held that title. But given its hulking breadth, it was likely the largest. A windowless city in its own right, large enough to hold the entire Albright army twelve times over.

Even Gaia – a former Albright herself – didn’t believe herself capable of navigating its confines. It had been decades since she’d left, the leader had said in confidence, and it had been a mere fraction of its current size at the time. Any invading force attempting to navigate its halls would undoubtedly get lost.

Hence the massive runeworked drill, brought to rest its nose against the outer wall of the castle.

Once, it had been theoretical. An idle daydream of what it could be made with a bottomless well of divinity to draw from. Much like the entire plan had been.

It was no longer theoretical. Neither was the pain that accompanied it.

Rotating the drill at the speeds needed to penetrate stone quickly used more fuel in a dozen seconds than could be safely contained within its runeworked tubes. The only viable solution had been to attach it directly to the fuel source: extend veins of blackened flesh with prosthetic ones of metal. To graft a circulatory system to the runework itself. Undoubtedly delicate work; hence the calibration the Seeds had performed after Dash had been removed from the hole.

Few things are physically painful, these days. For the most part, the present hovers a half-step away: just a shade less real than it could be. Long experience with discomfort and physical resilience beyond the reach of mortals handle the rest.

There are exceptions.

Discomfort; ache; pain; torment; agony; pulsation; torture; suffering. These words sketch the borders of experience. They hint at anguish. But words hold only the phantom of reality; never the essence itself. It is impossible to describe what it was like to be attached to that thing.

But it’s not impossible to describe how it took three Seeds to hold Kit back: one for each arm as Erin shoved her flailing hand from the incisions drawing darkened blood through them, as she stared despairingly at the lute. Nor is it impossible to describe the way most of the Shrikebloods averted their eyes: not with any great amount of expression but a fractional shift of their pupils to the dust clouding the air rather than the drill itself. Neither was it impossible to describe the intensity of Gaia’s gaze: as if hidden within the twin organs perched upon her face was a dark drill of her own. A truer one than the contraption that sought to breach the castle walls.

Then the tip of the drill reached open air and the Seeds allowed its rotation to slow. Finally, it stopped, and the pain petered into nothingness. It seemed unfair that the agony left no sign of itself.

Regardless, half of the Seeds flowed past according to the barked commands of their squad leaders, sliding in pairs through the minor breach to form ranks in the hallway itself. There, regal candelabras, fine tapestries and plush rugs concealed the unsightly blend of different types of stone that composed the architecture. The candles were unlit, so the Seeds swiftly scattered lanterns of their own around the area to dispel some of the yawning darkness.

They revealed nothing. No soldiers waited.

Gaia coughed heavily before making several purposeful gestures with one hand. Two squads split from the crowd gathered within to scout in both direction while the rest attempted to burn a hole in the dark with their eyes.

Meanwhile, Kit was attempting to help lift the drill into the hole alongside some of the Seeds left outside – more a hindrance than a help, being honest. It was probably one of the reasons she survived.

There was a shout of, “Contact!” from the left hall, then a hail of bottles flew from that side. Filled with boiling oil – an old-fashioned trick in an era of bloodtech – which had its effectiveness proved immediately. A surprising amount of Shrikebloods managed to catch their bottles, but enough broke across their bodies to leave the front-line writhing in pain. Entirely vulnerable to the line of spears that charged at them from within the darkness.

It wasn’t entirely effective. For every oil-splattered Seed left impaled was one that had been saved by their own hasty stumbles or a quick yank backwards by those behind them. But the Albright soldiers retreated as soon as their spears penetrated the line, leaving five dead and twice that stifling horrified screams as they tried and failed to wipe the burning oil from their bodies. The only casualties on the other side were two Erin and another javelin-wielder had managed to kill.

Two for fifteen weren’t sustainable numbers, and the tightness around Gaia’s eyes revealed that she knew that.

“Raven’s bones,” Kit whispered. “We’re goin’ in there?”

She glanced upwards. “Yeah, yeah.” She raised her voice to a discordant shriek in imitation. “‘Don’t. You. Fool,’ or some-such, right? Well, you can go shove one o’ them big arms o’ yours where the sun don’t shine, ‘cause I choose where I go. An’ I’m goin’ in there.”

What a fool. But even if she was catastrophically unlucky, as long as she stayed close nothing would touch her.

There was a brief spike of fear as they rolled the drill inside and pressed it against the opposite wall. Then it was spinning and all except pain was ash.

Three more attacks occurred as it broke through the wall, but though some of the bottles were caught it was difficult to pay full attention with a body that felt like it had been set afire. In total, there were ten more casualties – the Shrikebloods had adjusted to their opponents quickly – and five more dead Albrights.

The drill broke through into the next hall, allowing the Seeds outside to rotate into it. Gaia spend several seconds with eyes clenched, silently consulting some internal map, before adjusting the contraption’s heading slightly.

In response, the Albrights launched several cursory attacks. Instead of oil, a volley of arrows were fired – they’d likely had time to accumulate archers in the darkness. Some splintered on the stone walls, however many reached the mass of the Seeds. But the attack was even less effective than the oil.

Most Seeds had already grown plates of ivory over their most vulnerable areas, creating segmented armour to match that the Albrights wore, and the Shrikebloods too weak or inexperienced to do the same had donned steel armour donated by House Baylar. Strangely enough, Gaia was among their number. Boiling oil seeped through cracks where arrows simple broke, and the Seeds flanking the main group had grown towering shields from their forearms to further blunt the volleys. Out of the entire, Kit was the only one in any significant danger, and she was hidden behind a wall of darkened flesh.

A few bow-wielding Shrikebloods shot back in reply, but the soldiers lurking in the darkness must have ducked down a bend, because none’s lifeforce flickered.

After a few useless trades, the drill broke through once more. This pattern repeated three more times: while the vast bloodtech device was finagled into place and operated, the Albrights would launch an attack to chip away at the Seeds. Gaia’s army would reciprocate as best it could. Though casualties were slightly steeper on the Shrikeblooded side, neither lost many warriors.

But the sixth hall was different. Besides a thick layer of dust, its walls and floor were entirely unadorned. No one had walked through it for months. As the drill slowed and the pain ebbed, that dull observation slowly gave way to a sharper one.

It was easy to forget, but the castle had more than one floor.

Agony had a way of rendering the mind sluggish; pushing back the external world in favour of screams at an internal one. None of the Seeds accounted for that.

Just a few lapses in focus. A few too many.

“ABOVE!”

“ABOVE!”

“ABOVE!”

A few too late.

The roof slid away and from it a legion of Blooded soldiers dropped down: cackling Foxbloods; dogged Lizardbloods; Oxbloods with skulls that brushed the ceiling and falls cushioned by purple light and the bones of Seeds. From above sneered deformed Dolphinblooded faces, vacant-eyed Owlbloods, and several trembling Spiderbloods.

The Shrike’s divinity made itself known before a fight. In days of training; planning; tiny adjustments accumulated over the years. In the speartree armour and weaponry they grew from their bodies. They brought those countless into combat with them.

For most of the Seeds, it was not enough.

A muscular warrior blocked a massive steel-clad Oxblood’s mace-swing with two plated forearms, only to find both snapping like overwrought tree-trunks. Every attempt to fell the giant was met with interference from a stout Lizardblood, whose immense shield seemed to form a wall of its own. Two orange-haired women ran grinning through the ranks, each opening a dozen throats before a squad of Shrikebloods beat them into the floor.

Erin fell behind Gaia as the large woman strode into the fray: powerful arms driving bone stilettos into vital organs whenever they moved, with each step precisely timed to simultaneously prepare for the next blow and avoid an incoming one. Yet every few moments a bloody cough would break from her throat, forcing Erin to step forward – clad in bone – and attempt to slap away any incoming ones.

A Shrikeblood leapt off the hands of their fellows to haul themselves into the second level and shove the Blooded there downwards. The fray descended into an outright melee: Spiderbloods shouting in quavering voices as bone thrust through them and purple shrouded random swords and Shrikebloods keeled over with empty eyes as Dolphinbloods grimaced nearby. In the span of several dozen heartbeats, the dusty hallways was painted in the colours of eight distinct veins.

The eighth slammed and choked and twisted and slashed and gouged and somehow managed to kill no one, but some were left maimed and other dying and wasn’t each Shrikeblood killed and Albright felled just murder through incompetence? Couldn’t it have all been prevented, somehow?

But the Blooded falling from the ceiling were joined by elite mortal soldiers, and the tide showed no sign of stemming.

And in the frantic, gory, stupid chaos of it all, Kit had been separated from the group.

The former swordswoman stumbled down the hallway, her gimp leg in constant danger of buckling underneath her as she hopped away from the soldier pursuing her. The armoured man’s sword had initially jabbed cautiously from behind his shield, but as his searching blows continued without reprisal he’d become increasingly bold. His rapid slashes had Kit dipping back and forth like a fish leaping from a river.

Sweat beaded on her furrowed brow, then dripped into her unblinking eyes. She staggered, but the steel never landed. As subsequent strikes failed to land confusion began to spread across her features. There was something deeply deceptive about her drunken gait – a ruse so complete that even Kit herself hadn’t really questioned it.

She limped. She stumbled side-to-side. She rolled while growling with pain. She pushed off the ground with a stump where her hand once was. She bounced off a wall, feinted sideways, then staggered the opposite direction. And despite everything, the soldier never once connected.

Why hadn’t he killed her yet?

And Kit’s eyes grew huge in her head as she stepped aside a frustrated slash and drew a dagger from her belt to slam its pommel into the side of the warrior’s helm. As he raised a hand to right it, she ducked beside him – wincing as the movement jarred her bad leg – and stabbed him through a chink in his armour and penetrated his kneecap.

His resulting swing was avoided, and as the man knelt she fell upon him with a knife in hand. The Albright soldier tried to fend her off with his shield or whack her with his sword, but their size were more hindrance than help at such close quarters. Eventually, he discarded his sword and as her lone hand thrust the knife towards the opening in his helm, he matched her hand with his.

The two hands trembled together. The Albright screamed at Kit, and Kit screamed at him.

Then slowly but surely, her hand proved greater than his. The dagger slunk downwards.

And with her stump, she felt for her belt and found the handkerchief that lay there. Its flawless material brushed against the ragged surface where Kit’s hand had once lain.

----------------------------------------

That morning, Maleen had stared after Kit’s departing form. Tears glittered in the darkness. A quiet sob escaped her throat.

Then Maleen had hissed to herself and held her handkerchief out once more. “You make sure she takes this.”

Her grip was cold, but her eyes were bright.

Finding Kit took scarcely a minute. The narrow silhouette of her crippled form waited in the central shaft, black as pitch against the white of the dead tree that leaned there. A discordant grating broke the early morning silence as she ran her scabbarded sword down the many whorls and scars its aged trunk had built over centuries of life.

“That you, oaf?” she asked, without turning. “Thought you’d stay with Maleen.”

She slowly limped beside the wooden cadaver, sword bouncing unevenly across its bark. Cold passed from the sky far above, but Kit seemed to refuse her body the right to shiver. Though her face was kept stubbornly away, the corners of her vision must have caught the handkerchief, still offered to her. Despite everything.

An uneven breath departed her throat as she wrenched her eyes shut. “…I lied to her, y’know. It weren’t a memory.”

For a long stretch of time empty of anything but the wind whistling high above and a sword running back and forth, it seemed no more words would be said. But eventually, her cinched jaw creaked open.

“I don’t remember their faces,” Kit said quietly, sword grinding against the bark. “Or how many I kill. I don’t remember sleepin’ or awake. Th’ knowin’ jus’ ain’t there.”

Her sword stopped.

“I pretend it’s all ‘cause my hand’s gone. But th’ truth is…” She swallowed heavily, eyes damp. “I can’t do my boots up ‘cause I don’t remember how t’tie a knot. Both my hands – even the one that ain’t here – have forgot. An’ sometimes when I speak I search for a word – one I’ve used a thousand times – an’ it jus’ ain’t there. Same with other things.

“Like- “ She swallowed heavily. “Like th’ other day, I found some eggs outside, an’ I was gonna cook ‘em. Right?” she clarified hoarsely. “I was gonna cook ‘em. An’ I get a fire goin’ and a pan on top, an’ then I realised I didn’t know how. It’s a godsdamned egg.”

Her eyes opened wide. “An egg. An I spent th’ rest o’ the day tryin’ t’ask people ‘bout cookin’ eggs without givin’ away that I don’t bloody know how myself.”

That phrase echoed as Kit stared at the handkerchief.

“More’n jus’ my arm was taken, that day.” She snorted. “But y’know what’s funny? All these things’re gone, but I still remember how to kill a person.”

With the tip of her thumb, she slid her blade an inch from its sheath. Inside of its gleaming steel waited Kit’s scarred visage.

“…Mother was right,” she chuckled darkly. “She’s dead, but she’ll never leave me.”

The handkerchief was thrust at her, edges fluttering limply from the force of the push.

“I ain’t no knight,” Kit scoffed, “an’ this ain’t no song.”

Words tumbled into the open air.

“She.”

“Wants.”

“You.”

“To.”

“Have.”

“This.’

A pause.

“No.”

“One.”

“Else.”

Kit flinched, then sneered ferociously. “You’re pullin’ the ‘I’m gonna throw a tantrum if you don’t take it’ card?” she spat obstinately. “Who ever said gods’re mature?”

“Stop whining and take it.”

“Don’t be a coward.”

“You truly wish to dismiss her concern?”

“Bloody…” She growled at the shadows around her, and beat her fist at empty space. “Fine. Whatever.”

With that, Kit snatched the handkerchief and tucked it into her belt, before returning to scowling at nothing in silence.

In the moments where she thought no one was looking, her fingers brushed over the flawless fabric. Under the gentle tactility of its surface, her fierce glare faded into a rawer sheen.

“I’ll try,” she had whispered.

----------------------------------------

Kit chose not to kill him.

Instead, she looked up and said, “You reckon you can knock him out?”

Almost half the combatants had already been rendered unconscious. It had taken a while to do so without killing them – especially with the Fox & Lizardbloods. The former were slippery enough to evade capture, and the latter too sturdy. However, the Dolphinbloods had been the most threatening, and had to be incapacitated first. If they managed to destabilise the Seed’s greatest ally, the results would be catastrophic for everyone involved.

The rest had been easy. Unnervingly so. They were all powerful Blooded. But there were Blooded, and there were gods.

The Seeds kept trying to dispatch the Albrights as they lay upon the ground as well, but they had been warned away. Fools.

Kit struggled to keep the Albright soldier down. “You want me t’beg?”

Choking the soldier was simple. When it was done, Kit carefully got to her feet.

She opened her mouth to say something, yet no words came. In place of human speech came the sound of her dagger being shoved back into its sheath, and a minute brushing as the former swordswoman rubbed the token between thumb and forefinger. She stared at the lute.

After a moment, Kit looked up. “Reckon you can find Head Albright by yerself?”

That was an idea.

There were too many Shrikebloods to easily protect. They were, in all honesty, a liability. Too volatile to be trusted with their own lives or those of the Albright soldiers.

Gaia would be needed later, but the rest of them could go play hop-scotch without any significant loss of efficiency. Especially given that, with the vast majority of their Blooded unconscious, the Albrights had almost no chance of fighting back.

Better to subdue the King before he escaped and gathered aid.

Kit, somehow, recognised the agreement. After carefully tucking the token back in her belt, she turned towards the Seeds.

“Hey Gaia,” she yelled. “We’re gonna track th’ king down; be back in a bit.”

“What?!” Erin immediately snapped, shaking blood from the stiletto sprouting from her wrist. “We need the damned thing to track the Albrights- “

Gaia raised a hand. “You,” she began, voice tight with supressed coughs, “will come back if any Shrikebloods are close to escaping?”

“Yes.”

“Sure.”

“Alright.”

Gaia waved Kit off.

The former swordswoman strode away.

“You’re coming?”

“It is dangerous.”

“Maybe you should stay back.”

“Shut up, you pile o’ snot,” Kit snapped.

That was that.

Though pinpointing the king’s location was simple – there was only one other place with a heavy concentration of Blooded in the castle – navigating to him was an onerous task. Unlike a forest, where each tree was a living being supporting an ecosystem of its own, the mismatched stone hallways held no fire of their own, rendering the castle’s layout invisible to divine senses. The halls themselves offered no hints, either; this deep in the castle, they were bare of anything except dust.

The castle was immense, but hollow. Like an animal stretching its body to seem larger than it was. Its head-aching assortment of passageways wrapped around one another like the folds of a brain. More than enough to rattle any mortal sense of direction, and most divine ones. As it were, it was still strange to walk through a building without ghosts. Its architects had never intended to fill it. Some nooks had likely never been seen since they were built.

The Albright’s home would be terrifying to anyone lost within it. Bowels of stone would gradually digest them as they wandered. Eventually, without water or food, they would drop dead.

But to anyone else, it was pitiable.

Kit followed without speaking, brows furrowed. Her fingers drummed over the hilt of her sword rapidly, and every few steps was accompanied by a heavy swallow. An audience with a monarch had a way of looming large the longer you spent thinking about it. Even more so with an uninvited one. But there was something uncharacteristically pensive about her muteness. Once more, her eyes kept drifting towards the lute.

After a half-hour of walking, she looked up. “We close?”

“Shouldn’t be much farther.”

“Provided the halls do not turn dramatically.”

“Yeah.”

Kit sucked in a long breath. “Alright. You go ahead – scout it all out. I’ll follow behind. We’ll clear out any guards…” She paused. “Or I guess you’ll clear out any guards. An’ I’ll offer any help I can. Sound good?”

A few notes of affirmation.

“Let’s get goin’.”

Though we were certainly growing closer to the Albright nobility, the halls remained unfurnished. But the dust that covered them had been meticulously cleaned, and several small marks covered the walls. Scratches and a few childish etchings, mostly: marks from impacts and angular stick-figures performing incomprehensible tasks. One line read, “Ana wus here.”

Those remnants of childhood misadventures grew denser, until a corner was turned and a group of soldiers lit by blue lights were revealed. Along with a single Shrikeblood, the group was comprised of mortals and Lizardbloods – a suitable assortment to guard a single door. Behind it, many other lives churned wildly.

They noticed nothing awry. Instead, they spoke.

“The human spirit is unlimited,” the burly Shrikeblood claimed, dark skin gleaming with sweat. “Unparalleled. A dozen years ago, it proved a match for the most dangerous of all gods, and today we will prove it again. There is no mountain we cannot scale, and no obstacle we cannot conquer.”

Pretty words. Maybe true ones. But whatever power humankind holds isn’t found in a group of twenty cowering in the dark.

They proved no match against an undefinable mass of divine flesh falling from the ceiling and smothering them. It was easy. Easy, easy, easy.

But hard to forget the midnight flesh that limned and caged and sketched and mindlessly decreed that here and now is a creature that despite all it remembers is no longer human, and-

“By the blood, you made short work o’ them,” Kit exclaimed from the hall’s entrance. “That’s damn terrifyin’ is what it is. They all breathin’?”

They were.

“Good job, then.” She ambled over, then peered at the door. “If I open this, am I gonna get filled with arrows?”

Maybe.

A sheepish look spread across her face. “Feel kinda bad sayin’ this…” She winced slightly. “You reckon you can open it?”

Pfft.

“Take care of this, then.”

“Only if you hold the lute.”

“Don’t want this made into firewood.”

The lute was offered to her.

Kit stared at it for a moment, then swallowed and tucked it under her arm.

The door – a large, metal studded thing – creaked open, and a quarrel immediately shot out.

“Ow.”

“Ouch.”

“Damn it.”

Within, the austerity of the hallway gave way to a richly appointed lounge room: all plush carpets, padded armoires, and a bloodtech chandelier bright as day. A spilled bowl of porridge covered one of the chairs. Several other doors lined its walls – some ajar to reveal luxurious bedrooms – and in one of them the crossbowman who had shot frantically urged several children inside.

He was a reasonably tall, impeccably groomed man dressed in a fine robe. Yet his artfully plucked brows and trimmed beard could not conceal the signs of long-term stress that had embedded itself into his face in the form of broken capillaries in his sclera and the dark bags beneath his eyes. Despite his obvious fear, his posture was wilfully forced into relaxation.

When Kit drew her sword and stepped inside, she didn’t seem to discern his identity. “Put th’ crossbow down, yeah? My god here ain’t lookin’ t’kill no one, an’ it’s not gonna do any good.”

The middle-aged man flashed a nervous grin. “Because regicides are usually so peaceful.”

“I dunno what that means,” Kit told him, lip curled at the unfamiliar word. “Jus’ drop it.”

He drummed his fingers against the weapon, eyes flicking across the room. “You will forgive me if I have little faith in your peaceful intentions.”

“It ain’t damn well loaded, man – jus’ drop it.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “Is he stallin’ fer time? He sounds like he’s stallin’ fer time. Anyone approachin’?”

“None that will get here quickly.”

“It should be fine.”

“He’s not Blooded, by the way.”

“Good.” Kit turned back to the man. “Alright. Look. Either you put it down, or Ol’ Beaky here puts it down for you. I’ll tell you from experience that that ain’t pleasant.”

The crossbowman paused, then tossed the crossbow at Kit. Yet in the brief moments when it was in the air, he quickly pulled a quarrel from his quiver and held its point against his throat.

“Stay there, or I’ll sink this into my throat,” he warned.

“By the blood man,” Kit swore, wide-eyed, “why? Is keepin’ that king o’ yours safe really worth yer life?”

“I am the King,” he snapped. “This is… This is absurd. Am I truly going to be killed by someone who doesn’t even know who I am?!”

The former swordswoman froze. “Godsdamnit.”

King Aaron scoffed.

“What’s yer end-game, yer, uh…?” Kit frowned. “What’s the damned word…”

“Your majesty?”

“You mean ‘majesty’.”

“Majesty.”

“Yer majesty,” she repeated. “An’ why’re you tryin’ t’kill yerself, King Aaron?”

“I won’t try if you stay over there.” He clenched his eyes closed. “I won’t allow myself to be paraded as some… political dog-show.”

Though she had walked through battlefields without flinching, Kit’s fingers quivered as she gave a slow nod. “I jus’ wanna see us all walk outta here.”

“What are you doing this for, young lady? Wealth? Prestige? Power? If you help smuggle my family and I out…” The King paused, quarrel digging further into his throat. “Of course you can’t. Not with Gaia’s god breathing down your throat.”

The woman’s brows furrowed. “Gaia’s god?”

“Of course it’s Gaia’s god!” he fervently insisted, dark eyes wide. “She must have planned this damned conspiracy for decades. The Cult’s maddened slaughter; the Raven’s death and resurrection – only now can we understand who stood to gain the most from it all!”

Kit opened her palms placatingly. “Sure, Gaia made a profit off all that but, uh… Didn’t you Albrights decide to kill th’ Raven?”

He ground his teeth. “Gaia was an Albright. Perhaps she had people swaying our decisions.”

“Right.” The former swordswoman pursed her lips. “Reckon it’d take a brain t’rival the Spider’s to figure all that out in advance.”

“No one has ever claimed she’s anything less than calculating,” King Aaron replied, but some of the zeal had faded from his voice.

“Take more’n a genius t’stack that deck,” Kit mused.

“So she was lucky as well,” the King admitted, the quarrel against his throat wavering. “It changes nothing.”

“Mm,” the woman opposite him hummed in agreement. “Sounds right. You’re still here, on th’ verge o’ losin’ all yer soft clothes an’ jewels.”

He barked a strained laugh. “You believe that’s what our rule was for? Jewels? Privilege?”

“Hey, hey, hey.” Kit smiled weakly. “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with that. Jus’ seems all that wealth could’ve been put t’better use.”

“Who would pay the jeweller, then? The miners?” he asked rhetorically. “We require them to steer the dogs from our throats. You would not begrudge a warrior their sword, so why rob a ruler of their jewels?”

Kit frowned. “Well, help me understand. ‘Cause I know a few warriors who’re better off without blades.”

“Yet you wield one all the same,” the worn King stated. “Young god-speaker, know this: everything we have done, we have done for humanity. I can see where your line of rhetoric is going: you will claim that we are stealing from the mouths of the people. But,” Aaron said imploringly, “we are as beholden to you as you are to us.”

A dull echo of that final shout rang in the artificial brightness of that room. The shadows were thin, here. Every inch of Kit’s face was clear: from the scars across her face and knuckles to the deep consideration behind her eyes.

She glanced downwards; at the length of steel in her hand she used as a crutch. Then at the lute beneath her arm, and the flawless handkerchief tucked away in her belt.

Kit tossed the sword aside. “Vin. Could you step out for a moment?”

“No.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re in danger.”

“Ain’t ever gonna convince th’ king here I’ve thrown away my sword ‘til the divine one behind me steps away,” she said quietly. “I know you ain’t like that. But he don’t.”

“It’s too risky.”

“He’s no mere politician, Kit. He has a warrior’s musculature.”

“Only if he disarms as well.”

“Fine,” Kit said. “Y’hear that, King Aaron?”

The King stared at this exchange, wide-eyed.

“He said you gotta take all o’ those knives from yer belt. Then he’ll leave, an’ you an’ I can talk.”

His eyes narrowed. “What’s to stop it from simply subduing me?”

“That quarrel against yer throat, I reckon.”

“…What do you want from me?” he asked.

For several long heartbeats, Kit thought. Her fingers drummed against the lute beneath her arm. Eventually, she spoke. “I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m not one o’ Gaia’s Seeds. My, uh… What’s the word…”

“Your allegiance?” the king offered magnanimously.

The crippled woman nodded. “My allegiance is to, uh, different people. Now, what that means is you got a better chance o’ negotiatin’ with me than anyone else in this castle.” She gazed at him levelly. “But you gotta be willin’ t’talk to me first.”

He stared at her sceptically. “…I refuse to remove this bolt from my throat.”

“Keep it there. But there’s no point t’all this if you stab me, so disarm.”

King Aaron bobbed his head slowly, then with one hand unbuckled his belt and tossed it to the side of the room.

Kit glanced backwards. “Fair’s fair, oaf. Wait outside a moment, yeah?”

The hall outside was barely a step distant. Though the door shut heavily, the monarch and the cripple’s voices were still audible from within. Kit’s command allowed the space to begin rearranging the unconscious warriors so they wouldn’t choke on their own vomit. But a more important conversation continued barely steps distant.

“You mind if I sit? I got a bad leg.”

“Go ahead.”

There was a brief rustle as Kit lowered herself onto one of the armoires. “…You ain’t gonna?”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m more comfortable standing.”

“Fair enough. So tell me, king o’ jewels: how’re you beholden to me?”

There was a long silence.

“…Since before conversion stones and recorded history, the Houses have always warred. No matter how much wealth they accumulate, there is no House that does not hunger for more. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of greed – it’s what drives men and women to build houses and plough fields – but the greed of the powerful runs roughshod over the impoverished and weak. And as power is only ever the product of the weak lifting others above their heads, they make themselves weaker as well. Make humanity weaker.

“A century ago, my great-uncle began and subsequently won the war that would change that. That would give him the power to impart rules of engagement upon the Houses; force them, in their battles with one another, to let the farmers and crafters to continue to uplift us all.”

“Why not stop the wars entirely?”

“Because as long as they’re fighting each other, they’re not fighting House Albright. We won the war, yes, but we didn’t defeat every House simultaneously. If all of them rose against us – if even just House Baylar and Esfaria decided to betray us – we would fall.”

“Even with the Shrike’s divinity?”

“Gaia might have given you the impression that Shrikeblood is safe to spread amongst hundreds of people, but she’s a fool. We don’t sit atop a god’s heart to monopolise it; we sit here because Shrikeblood is dangerous in the wrong hands. A Shrikeblood has no true limits; only ambition. There is no line they will not cross.”

“But it’s different if you’re the Shrikeblood?”

“…”

There was a brief rustle as Kit shuffled in her seat. “I know you’re not one. Ol’ Beaky out there told me so. But there are Shrikeblooded Albrights. So what’s different about them?”

“Our ambition is long-term stability. To keep the Houses from destroying everything just long enough for humanity to rise above our circumstances, and- “

“You keep sayin’ ‘us’. You ain’t a Shrikeblood. So who’s ‘us’?”

“…”

A sigh. “I guess even kings got people pullin’ their strings, huh?”

“Like you and Gaia.”

“I don’t give a damn about Gaia…” She paused for a moment. “…An’ I reckon Gaia don’t give a damn ‘bout House Albright either.”

“…Pardon?” King Aaron’s voice gained fervour. “Why in the blood would she have invaded my home, then?”

“I’m gonna tell you a story real quick, alright?” A shuffle as Kit leaned forward. “A person spends years an’ years makin’ this real secretive organisation, where no one really talks to one another ‘cause it’s too secret. An’ when they get together, she splits ‘em all up into several groups. You followin’?”

“Yes.”

“Except this person has sold each group a different story. Each o’ them think they’re gettin’ somethin’ else. An’ when they all gather together, and they complete their big goal, they’re gonna talk to one another an’ they’re gonna realise they’ve been hoodwinked. An’ this person who done all this is smart as a damn tack – one o’ them Shrikebloods o’ yours – so o’ course she knows this.”

A pause.

“So Gaia’s goal ain’t anythin’ long-term, because in the long-term she’s gonna get torn apart. Her goal happens today. An’ I reckon it ain’t got nothin’ to do with you or House Albright, and everythin’ to do with the god beneath yer feet.”

“What…” The King paused. “…What do you think it is?”

“Reckon that’s Beaky’s business, an’ not ours.” Her heavy swallow was audible. “But that means th’ mortal long-term is still up for grabs.”

“So you’re willing to save us, so long as I accept your terms?”

Kit sighed. “…See, I don’t much like how you were doin’ things, either,” she stated carefully. “This meeting right here isn’t for me t’tell you what th’ future looks like. It’s jus’ ‘cause I got someone pullin’ my strings back home, an’ I reckon she’d be real appreciative if you could help make sure humanity don’t fall apart after all this.”

He scoffed. “The Houses will tear the world apart after this. There is no future for us.”

“Well, I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but we kinda do have a god listenin’ to us. That’s a pretty big deal.”

“They’ll still- “

“Look,” Kit interrupted. “Either you come with us, an’ I put you in front o’ someone who actually knows things, or you stay here and keep talkin’ to a girl who don’t know th’ first thing about politics.”

“…For a person who claims to be an unskilled politician, you’re quite persuasive.”

“That a yes?”

“…Your god will help us escape?”

“You’ll have t’ask him, but I reckon so.”

“…Alright, then. Give me a moment to gather my family.”

“Sure.” Kit’s voice was suddenly hoarse. “Jus’ make it quick.”

Furniture scraping along the ground, then the heavy door creaked open and Kit exited, bereft of a sword but still holding the lute beneath her arm. The former swordswoman carefully closed it, stepped over the still-breathing people beneath her feet, and leaned against the graffitied walls of the hallway, eyes watering.

A hand was held out.

She wiped at her eyes. “Th’ lute?” Kit croaked. “Right. Sorry.”

The young woman returned the lute, neck first. Then the grip was reversed and it was offered back to her, neck first.

A sob ripped from her throat, and the former swordswoman covered her eyes with her remaining arm. “I can’t.”

“You will have help.”

“Give it a shot.”

“There are hands enough for a song, here.”

She removed her arm from her face, revealing the heavy tears streaming down her face. “What if I’ve forgotten?” Kit pleaded. “What if I don’t know how to play anymore?”

Do you understand what it’s like, god?

To know that the person in front of you has everything they need to pluck the next chord, if only they had the courage to try?

To know that despite your wishes, that the choice is not yours?

That dread, seeing her hesitating.

That hope, seeing the handkerchief in her hand.

That moment stretching a hundred thousand yards, distending until its edges spanned reality; mapping a sea of fear and stress and anxiety and the knowledge of what it was like, to give up, and that strange bittersweet faith that the person before you could be better than you.

To see her prove you right.

Kit stretched her hand out and took the lute.

It was restrung with chords of midnight.

In the space between the past and future she hesitantly placed a scarred hand on its chords, and one of fathomless divinity joined her on the neck to play an old, new song together. And slowly, precariously, those notes climbed higher and danced through the castle halls.

And Kit wept and wept and wept.