Ko’ais couldn’t kill Li’nha. The older Razor Acolyte was a senior sect-sister like Xi’ruo, and though her mastery of the Scarlet Thorn was unremarkable, her skill in the Nine Bleeding Petals blade Form was as astounding as it’d always been. Ko’ais still vividly remembered all the times she’d been trounced by Li’nha in the Temple’s training halls.

She shrieked as her blade clattered uselessly against Li’nha’s sword. The older woman picked apart Ko’ais’s offensive sequence and launched a riposte that nicked the skin of her abdomen.

“You’re being too sloppy, littlest one,” Li’nha tittered. “Keep this up, and I’ll cut off your fingers and toes one by one.”

This is going to take forever. Ko’ais took a step back into the habitant unit and dove for the pile in which her equipment had been stacked. Li’nha surged forward instantly, sword flickering in a dozen bewildering patterns.

Ko’ais took a gash on her upper shoulder and a shallow cut across the bridge of her nose, but she reached her equipment and snatched up the spiked chain. Smashing aside another of Li’nha’s sword strokes with her blade, she twirled the spiked chain and launched it at her opponent.

Li’nha parried, but Ko’ais flicked her wrist, looped the chain around the hilt guard of Li’nha’s sword, and tore the slender weapon from her grasp. The senior-sect sister gasped and backed hurriedly out of the habitant unit and into the corridor.

“Now scream for me. Cry for me,” Ko’ais hissed as she stalked after Li’nha. “I’ll eat your eyes! Drink your blood! Tear your—”

“Enough,” a cold, feminine voice said.

Ko’ais spun towards the speaker. A palm strike tore through her aegis and crashed into her chest. The impact hurled her upward. Ko’ais clipped through the top of the doorway in a shower of plastiboard chunks and bounced off the ceiling before crashing down upon her face.

She crawled to her knees and vomited a torrent of blood. Not even the Scarlet Thorn’s fury could hold back the agony that seared through her. Her aegis wavered and flickered, on the brink of dissipation. Broken ribs, crushed sternum, massive internal bleeding. Not good.

“Pull yourself together, Ko’ais!” Raksha growled.

Ko’ais coughed and turned to him. He was locked in an aegis clash with Xi’ruo and two other sect-sisters.

A slim woman stepped into the habitant unit. She wore purple and black silks rather than a battle harness. Crimson eyes rimmed with kohl burned from her pale, ageless features. Black veins laced her cheeks. She was Vo’rei, Blade Mistress of the Temple of Razors.

Mistress. No. Knives and spikes and ropes and… no… Ko’ais choked back a horrified moan.

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“You’ve caused us so much trouble, littlest one,” Vo’rei said. “Luckily, we’ve found you. It’s time for you to come home now.”

Raksha roared, flexed his aegis, and blasted Xi’ruo and the sect-sisters through the bedroom wall. He snatched up his blade. Blood flowed freely from the corners of his eyes and mouth, a sign of severe damage to his major channels. Ko’ais tried to stand, but her limbs felt leaden and heavy.

“And this is your new friend?” the Blade Mistress asked. “Interesting.”

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Raksha charged at Vo’rei and struck out with his halberd. The Blade Mistress hopped above its scything arc, let it cut empty air, and then landed on its tip, her slippered feet perched perfectly upon the bloodied metal. She smiled down at Raksha for a heartbeat, just long enough for fear and uncertainty to flicker across his features. Then she slammed a heel onto his face and stomped him into the unit’s floor.

She… she crushed the Stormbringer’s aegis just like that… Ko’ais stifled a whimper.

“What an excitable little boy,” Vo’rei muttered, brushing off a few spots of dust from her sleeve. Raksha lay unconscious beneath her feet.

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all!” Ko’ais growled, but the Scarlet Thorn fell apart beneath the weight of her injuries. Its strength withdrew from her limbs, leaving her to feel every iota of pain and every drop of the horror that shrieked through her soul.

Vo’rei reached out and stroked Ko’ais’s cheek. “I think you will, someday. But not today, littlest one.”

“No… don’t touch me!” Ko’ais tried to lean away, but Vo’rei seized her jaw in a painful grip and pulled her close. The Blade Mistress smelled of the musky incense that burned throughout the halls of the Temple.

“Oh, how I’ve missed you, littlest one,” she said. “I’ve missed you so much. But you’ve been a bad child, and you know how much I hate bad behavior.”

Xi’ruo staggered back into the habitant unit’s main room. Li’nha walked in as well and picked up her sword.

“How did you find me so quickly?” Ko’ais gasped.

Xi’ruo laughed and threw something wet and crimson at her feet.

It was Ma’s face, flayed neatly from her skull. No, no, no. Ma. No.

“She came to us. She wanted chems or coins. We gave her something else,” Xi’ruo sneered.

Ko’shin screamed. “Mama! Mama!”

He clutched his cheeks so hard that his fingernails bit into his flesh. Li’nha seized the boy by the scruff of his neck and dragged him to his feet.

“An insect.” Li’nha licked her lips. “I wonder how it tastes.”

“Leave him alone!” Ko’ais tried to stand, but Vo’rei knocked her down with a casual backhand. Xi’ruo placed a boot on her throat and pinned her to the floor.

“No!”

Li’nha ran her tongue over Ko’shin’s neck. The boy shrieked in terror.

“Don’t hurt him! Please, don’t hurt him! I’ll return to the Temple. I’ll do everything you say. Just please, leave him alone!”

“Now, now, littlest one,” Vo’rei said. “You did just hear me talk about bad behavior. Bad behavior must be punished, wouldn’t you agree?”

“No! Please! No!”

Li’nha tore out Ko’shin’s throat with her teeth. Blood gushed from the gaping wound. Ko’shin’s body convulsed in shock-induced spasms. Li’nha spat out the chunk of flesh in her mouth, placed her lips against Ko’shin’s opened neck, and began to drink his blood.

Ko’ais screamed.

Xi’ruo thrust her hand into Ko’shin’s torso, ripped free a fistful of reddish-gray meat, and took a hefty bite.

Ko’ais struggled uselessly under Xi’ruo’s boot. Her vision misted over with tears until she couldn’t see Ko’shin’s body taken apart a mouthful at a time.

She screamed and screamed until her voice gave out. Eventually, Xi’ruo removed her foot from Ko’ais neck, and Vo’rei swept her up in a tender embrace.

“There, there, my littlest one,” the Blade Mistress cooed. “Everything is fine now, you see? Let’s go home, back to the Temple of Razors.”