As the play continued on, I found myself drawn to the spectacle below out of boredom. The stone amphitheater was packed, from the stage up to the level of the garden, and into the stands. Are Ussen Ysta’s guards really just somewhere else? The play itself was bright and colorful, and from what I gathered, it told the tale of Uzh’s founding.

Or perhaps history. There seemed to be a lot of cataclysmic storms aided by sigilcraft that sent sheets of rain down into the lower seats. As the sun dipped low, a glow from the stage announced the arrival of the Guardian of Uzh.

I fully expected Phaeliisthia to stride out onto the stage herself. Instead, an elf with an elaborate costume played the role, aided by magic that didn’t quite carry the same substance as Phaeliisthia’s own warmth.

Not that the display wasn’t impressive. I even wondered: were Phaeliisthia’s deeds exaggerated at all? Especially, when a dark tide made of a swirling array of props so synchronous I wondered if they were held aloft by sigilcraft threatened to consume the city on a stage.

From out of the dark water, cloaked fish-people arrived and laid siege to Uzh. During the battle, Phaeliisthia struck back with glowing light. The display erupted in a tide of sigilwork up through the stone amphitheater and into the stands, swirling chaotic patterns of light and dark around the audience as peals of thunder and the crash of waves rang out loud enough that I thought them real at first.

In the midst of the chaos of the play’s climax, Kyrae’s hands tensed, and her sigil array exploded into a kaleidoscope of sharp light. Ussen Ysta screamed, and Ssiina hissed, her hands quickly moving. Something—or someone—rushed through the shadows of early evening up the sides of the stands and toward us.

The fake shadows from the play distracted me. They weren’t my own—they weren’t even real. Except… some were. Some had that same bone-chilling cold attached to them.

But those shadows weren’t mine.

And I know how to make them mine.

I wrenched at the foreign-yet-familiar shadows, feeling something inside them. Kyrae just managed to jump free as I struck out like a viper toward the darkness. The shouts from the play below suddenly seemed all too real. Swirling light and shadow blinded me, but I could still feel through my shadows.

And I could feel where this thing, this person, was going to emerge. Just like my own shadow movement, someone was traveling through the void. I slid the knife I’d bought only hours ago from its sheath just in time for a figure in dark clothes to appear directly behind Ussen Ysta, melting out from the shadow like an apparition from a nightmare.

The small lamia who emerged had a blade of their own—longer than mine—and the gleaming edge was stained dark. A ray of light from the play below bounced off their blade and lit up Ussen Ysta’s wide eyes as she turned to look. Next to the assassin and ussen, Ssiina’s hands were too slow. Kyrae was nowhere close.

The blade plunged down to a triumphant roar from below and a cheer of the crowd. Both oblivious. The blade’s tip reflected in Ysta’s gray-blue eye, the ussen too shocked to act.

And then I slammed bodily into the assassin.

We went down in a tumble, and I barely kept hold of my blade. Together, we slid into the back of the stage box, tails thrashing. Light and shadow played over us, and I caught flashing fragments of a masked face. My size gave me the upper hand, but they were a better fighter. Their arm crumpled against my thrust, but it was enough to deflect and my blade bit into wood.

I slammed my other arm into theirs, but their dagger slid along my arm. Needles of cold pain drove into me along the cut, and I sucked in a breath. The blade immediately came down again, but a dark-skinned blur rammed the arm hard enough that I heard something pop.

Kyrae stumbled into a roll and hit the other end of the box’s barrier hard enough to crack it, but the knife flew out of the attacker’s hand. Shining metal caught the light like an early star before the deadly weapon went spinning away into the evening gloom.

“I can’t get a clear shot!” Ssiina shouted.

Shadows tried to pull around the assassin, gathered from the box and the display both, but I ripped them away with my will, too frantic to do more than toss them aside where they writhed and twisted like severed tentacles. I brought my knife down again, this time sinking into flesh.

Immediately, the attacker tried to roll us back toward the others and get me on the bottom. The sudden motion wrenched my knife free with a wet sliding sound. I blocked the roll with my arm and my bulk, grunting against our combined weights on the single limb.

I’m kelaniel. A constrictor. I jerked the muscles in my tail tight, and the assassin gasped. A tendril of shadow pulled itself out of the display around us and rolled us back the other way—fast. We landed on my arm that had been cut, which was starting to go numb with a pain that pulsed at the back of my eyes.

Snap.

I screamed.

They grabbed my good arm this time, and my knife started to slip through loose fingers. As we rolled, I caught a glimpse of the scene. Kyrae and Ssiina were in shadow, the former holding a lance of fire in one hand, and the other staggering upright.

Ysta was in the middle, in a beam of light from the show. Behind her, outlined against the setting sun, the shadows boiled, and another figure slid forth.

“LOOK—” I shouted, then cut off as we slammed again into the back of the box and the air left my lungs.

There was a crack, and then the floor disappeared from under us. We tumbled, intertwined, off the back of the wooden stand toward the ground below. The main beam of the next floor hit me in the back, and I hissed again. Instinctively, shadows pulled around me, fighting the same reaction from my assailant.

We rolled over, lower bodies wrapped around each other and fighting for control. They slammed into the second beam, loosening their grip on my good arm.

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I got my knife hand free from their arm and held it tight. A shadow tendril of mine got free and pushed.

We missed the beam holding up the lowest floor, and a flash of light from the play illuminated the dark stone below, rushing up to meet us. I swung the knife. They blocked, and, still tangled together, we rotated.

Now I saw sky.

I hissed and bit down on their face, the motion’s speed surprising me. Muscles contracted and my fangs pumped. The assailant screamed—the first real sound I’d heard them make—and their own shadows surged past mine, confused and desperate.

I pulled at the darkness, twisting.

The shadows. Are. Mine!

My stomach lurched, and the light of the play and the fading sunset winked out. For a moment the pair of us sailed through the void between spaces, still twisted around each other. Biting cold wrapped me and my broken arm like a vise. We wrestled, but we were both weak and poisoned, and I was stronger, if barely.

And I was more desperate.

I just got my family.

I just got the life I always wanted—I always deserved.

I wasn’t going to let it end here, but I couldn’t find home with my blade a second time. One of their shoulders was bleeding, but they kept my blade at bay.

I felt the lurch again, the air rushing past us as the shadows receded. I could almost feel the lingering warmth of the sun on the rapidly-approaching stones above me. Above me? I feinted with my knife and twisted my tail as hard as I could, sending us into a faster spin. Something pulled out of place in my lower body as I constricted my assailant, but it was worse for them as a series of small snaps heralded broken ribs.

Mask now torn to reveal an unfamiliar face, they hissed and went for a bite themselves. I saw yellow-green eyes, and two bloody, swelling holes on their cheeks where I’d bit down as their jaw opened.

I brought the blade up against my sternum, right between my breasts, and held fast.

They lunged.

We finished rolling over and I saw sky instead of stone above me.

And then they hit the ground like we’d fallen from the top of the Grand Temple.

The impact drove me down. It drove my blade down.

Past their wide eyes.

Into their open mouth.

Up and through, my bronze blade slid into their skull.

My own weight hit, driving handle against bone.

With a hideous, awful, wet crunch, the knife sunk past the handle and their head split apart like an overripe melon.

***

“LOOK!”

Kyrae struggled to her feet just in time to watch Issa and the assailant break through the back of the box and tumble off toward the ground below. Issa’s eyes had looked past her—past Ussen Ysta.

Without hesitation, Kyrae dove again, ignoring the pain from her bruised shoulder. This time, she dove for Ussen Ysta. The affable woman was still frozen in place with fear. Outlined in a beam of light from the climax of the play, an elf-like figure was stepping out of the shadows in midair, gleaming blade in hand.

Kyrae hit Ussen Ysta’s upper body squarely, knocking her over just as the knife flashed down. The brass blade bit into the wood a finger’s length from Kyrae’s head moments before an orange streak lit up above her.

The lance of fire Ssiina hadn’t been able to throw at the first attacker was tossed forward with a primal shriek from Kyrae’s hssen-raised sister. Shadows moved as the assassin bent aside, but the spell caught them on the shoulder, burning through flesh and cloth both.

“Move!” Kyrae hissed at Ussen Ysta. “Move or die!”

Usen Ysta jolted, then the lania’el darted out from under Kyrae like a viper, scales rasping on wood. On instinct, Kyrae rolled again, and the blade flashed down again.

She landed in a crouch and kipped up, hands already forming the sigils to a spell. Light and dark flashed by and the assassin and Ssiina appeared and disappeared alternately, blows frozen in time like ink on parchment. Behind them, the play continued on, even as the pair teetered on the front edge of the viewing box.

The two were locked in combat, her sister using her lower body to keep the assassin away. Their blade skittered across her sister’s well-polished scales, but only managed to scratch them.

Kyrae threw her spell, blind force catching the elf in the midriff and stumbling them. Ssiina’s tail pulled their legs out from under them, and she finished the sigils to form another lance of fire. This one she brought down toward the assassin. They rolled to the side, and the fire scorched a hole in the wood before dissipating.

Kyrae started another spell, and behind her, she heard Ussen Ysta, mumbling in a shaking voice. This time, Kyrae aimed for the legs, and the assassin wasn’t fast enough. But the shadows were. Like inky blackness, they enveloped the spell all the way up past Ssiina’s hands, snuffing out her spell. The kelaniel hissed and jerked her hands back.

Kyrae saw the next strike coming, but her fingers weren’t fast enough. “No!”

“Hah!” Ussen Ysta gasped.

The plank under the assassin’s foot bent up sharply, a pair of nails flying off down into the crowd. They tripped, and Ssiina managed to twist out of the way. Another lance of fire formed in her sister’s hands, as Kyrae hit the assailant again with a spike of magical force that collapsed their knee and sent them to the ground.

More shadows came to meet Ssiina’s latest attack, but she loosed early and twisted her body under. With a soft click, Ssiina’s jaw opened and her fangs dropped down. She bit down quickly, but the elf kicked her off a moment later, rolling away towards Kyrae and Ussen Ysta.

Hissing, the kelaniel whipped her lower body around, smashing into the elf and sending them toward Kyrae. She jumped to the side, and let loose another spike aimed at their legs. It went wide and blasted a hole through the side of the box.

Unfortunately, the assassin now had a clear shot at Ussen Ysta. She shrieked in fear, her hands dropping the latest sigil she was casting, as the elf stumbled to their feet.

Then, the assassin gasped and fell to one side, spasming. Ussen Ysta took the chance and darted over to Ssiina who drew herself up in front of the smaller lamia. The spasms of the elf on the ground continued, already slowing down. Far away, down on the stage, the play must have finished, because the crowd roared with applause.

Kelaniel venom, Kyrae thought. Lamias were resistant to the venom of other lamias, immune if close enough by blood. Kelaniel venom, though, was lethal to non-lamias.

Kelaniel.

Issa!

Kyrae looked up at Ssiina, her eyes wide, before she dashed over to look where Issa and the other assassin had fallen. Right as she reached the edge, the first shouts of alarm started from the seating under and across their own.

***

I gagged, and rolled off the body. Above me, against the sky, I saw the last of the magic lights from the play fading to reveal the deep violet of a finished sunset. The crowd cheered, but the cheers soon turned to shouts.

The numbness from my arm was spreading higher, getting colder. I tried to cry out, but all that I managed was a croak, staring up at the broken box I’d fallen from more than twice my length above.

Just as my eyelids drifted closed, I saw Kyrae peek her head over the railing and shout.

Forcing my eyes to stay open was the hardest thing I’d done. I tried to move, succeeding only in opening my eyes again to a fresh wave of pain that brought stars far more real than the ones above in the celestial realm. I pulled at the shadows, and used them to bring myself upright.

Kyrae was still shouting something, but it was all a buzzing noise.

I have to stay awake.

Everything hurt. I had blood and brains all over my outfit.

I sat up and tried to wave my good arm up at her. It moved a little, and the shadows helped the rest of the way. I pulled on more, trying to force them to carry me to her.

And then the coldness from my arm wasn’t the only chill I felt, as a presence settled against my mind, knocking like a battering ram against a rotten gate. The small croak I made was barely audible before I felt myself falling.

Oh no.

Please no. Not now.

The chill waned, and I stopped falling, stuck somewhere between the between. Green-gold warmth—Kyrae’s warmth—trickled in through cracks and crevices. The presence pressed on, but I pulled away even as my mind grew hazy like my sight. Mercifully, the shadows retreated along with the presence, and I collapsed onto the stones just as I felt the arrival of a surge of familiar golden warmth.

The plaza lit up like day right before my eyes fell closed. Phaeliisthia! Please don’t be too late.