“How long to do what you must?” she asked instead, pulling Sil closer. She was cold to the touch.

Depends. But it shouldn’t be long.

Tallah nodded. Maybe they’ll have enough time before Erisa descended on them. Regardless, “Sil, I’ll need you healed up. Anna’s going to get those things out of you but I’ll need you afterwards.”

“Good,” Sil whispered. “I’ll do anything.”

“Then you’ll be my meat shield. I’ll use you to distract the girl. We know she means to take you alive and are the only one she’ll hesitate in killing.”

“Lovely.”

“Tallah, you can’t,” Vergil protested. “She’s barely still awake.”

She could only imagine the boy’s face in the darkness, but his concern for Sil would’ve been touching if their lives weren’t in quite immediate danger. A phantom pain in her attached arm reminded her fondly of having smacked Panacea on his behalf, and that invigorated her.

“We can’t win a straight fight. Even if I were at my best and bringing all the ghosts to bear, it would still be a coin toss considering what I’ve seen of her strength. We need every advantage, and Sil’s the only one we’ve got. If she won’t have you defending her, then I’ll use you.” An idea had begun forming. She could rely—maybe—on Anna’s senses.

With dread of the dark she hadn’t experienced since girlhood, she took off the mask and handed it to Vergil, “Wear this. Tell me if you can bear it.”

The Ikosmenia passed hands. A few moments later Vergil heaved. “Fuck me, that’s… how do you turn it off?”

“That’s the sight of an Egia. That’s how Erisa sees the world always. Can you bear it?”

Some more heartbeats of silence passed and the boy squirmed. His voice when answering was uncertain, but gaining confidence. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I can. What do you want me to do?”

Good. Pieces aligned.

“The moment our feet hit solid ground, I want you to make yourself scarce. Move away some distance from us. Keep away from pools of dark purple or red. Those will hurt.”

“Got it. Do I wait for you to engage?”

“Precisely. After I start trading fire with Erisa, I expect you to circle back around. I need you to surprise her. For all intents, you will be invisible to her sight. Pick a good moment. I may not have enough resources for attrition.”

An actual coherent plan for once? Tallah, what’s gotten into you?

She ignored Christina’s jesting and, instead, gave her instruction. “Christi, I need a Punishment ready. I don’t care how you build enough of a charge, but have it ready. That, and our little experiment from Valen.”

That is not ready for us to use. You will need contact.

“I will gain you contact. But we won’t have time for a cast. I need you to be ready the moment I demand it.”

No pressure.

She shook Sil slightly as the healer had gone nearly limp on her arm. “Sil, still with us?”

“Barely.” Her voice was faded but she stirred. “What do I do?”

“Live. I need you to activate Vergil’s helmet when he attacks. Do you think you can do that?”

“I’ll do it.”

And not a heartbeat too soon. Their feet touched the bottom, roughly, as Anna dropped them. A strange feeling, like her veins swelling suddenly as the blood was retracted. Disgusting couldn’t begin to describe it, but at least they were down. Howling resounded down the shaft, but it was still distant. Its echoes crashed ahead of the monster chasing.

Erisa would need to send one of her hunters from what Tallah had seen, as the girl was part of the room itself up there. Even so, a focused hunter wasn’t something to easily disregard.

The ground shifted beneath their feet, clattering and snapping as they tried to remain upright. It took a moment for her to realize they were perched atop a mound of ancient bones crumbling to dust beneath their weight.

Before anything, Sil. She sat down on her knees and eased the healer’s head on to her lap.

“Do what you need to do, Anna.” Her hand grasped Sil’s. Anna took control of the second one and stream of blood erupted from her fingertips.

She felt it moving, touching Sil, seeping into the wound. Anna’s mind took in every detail and shared it. She now had a much more intimate knowledge of Sil than she’d ever wished for.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

They’re barbed. The audacity.

Inside the healer’s womb rested seven marbles pulsing with life, squirming beneath the attention. Hooks kept them attached firmly, with tendrils spreading out even as Anna simply observed. What grew inside wasn’t something Tallah wished to imagine. Nor did she care to learn what would happen if they didn’t act fast.

Sil shivered and trembled, her hand squeezing Tallah’s as Anna worked.

“She’s coming.” The healer’s teeth chattered even though the chasm was unpleasantly warm, the air dry and dust-choked. “I can feel her.”

“We’ll worry about that after we get you sorted. Won’t be long.”

However, it was slow work, Anna proving far more gentle than Tallah had expected of her. The ghost didn’t seem eager to add to Sil’s pain, nor to prematurely pop any of the eggs.

“That’s odd…”

She’d come to dread those words coming out of Vergil. In the dark, he was a few steps away. Bones stopped clattering.

“Do I want to know?” she asked. Sil squeezed her hand as the blood tendril drew out one of the eggs and crushed it. Six to go.

“I’m being pinged. Well, Argia is,” Vergil answered, as cryptic as ever.

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Something is connecting to me. Like… like in the maze.”

Cold sweat broke down her back, the remembrance of the creature coming vividly to mind. She was in no fit state to deal with both that and Erisa.

Five eggs to go as another popped with a squelch.

The others are reacting, Anna said. They’re digging in new hooks.

“Is that creature down here?” Tallah asked.

“I don’t think so.” More bones clattered in the dark as Vergil moved away. “This is an automated signal. It’s… uh… it’s a distress call. It’s asking permission for connection.”

“Best deny it, then. I don’t need another surprise.”

Sil shivered violently as the third egg was removed. It tried to latch onto the wound when Anna pulled it out, digging in sharp barbs into the rendered flesh. It got squeezed to mush.

“Aye, ma’am,” Vergil replied. His steps moved away in a random direction, doing precisely what she’d asked of him. Good lad.

“I need to get that stud off him,” Sil groaned. Her hand was terribly cold. Tallah infused and shared her warmth. “You nearly killed him earlier.”

“I tried not to, if that makes it any better.”

“You… you should tell him.”

“After we’re done.”

The fourth was more aggressive, wiggling in Anna’s grasp, trying to hook back into Sil with every chance it had. The rest had become agitated now, growing quickly as if sensing their demise. If what Sil had described was accurate, then Erisa was deeply connected to her eggs and would be feeling each of their deaths.

She should move from the bottom of the chasm. Head away. Hide. Like this, atop the mound of bones—how high was it even?—Erisa could fall straight onto their heads without warning.

Last one. Another egg burst apart with a squelch. They’d had to widen the wound to pull it out. The last one was growing aggressively and would be, soon, too large to extract if they didn’t move fast.

A howl echoed down the shaft, like wind screaming in the gorges above, laden with anger and pain. Even without the Ikosmenia, Tallah could tell Erisa was nearly upon them.

She rose, arms under Sil, and took off down the bones. She would give anything for a sprite just then, but there was no time. Anna continued her work. Bianca aided her steps, holding her from stumbling as they descended on a route left of where Vergil had headed. The fight would be on them soon and she needed positioning.

Sil tightened into a ball in her arms, knees coming up to her chest as Anna continued her work. Her hands grasped Tallah’s shirt desperately.

We are almost done with the last. It’s grown. I would love if you could preserve it.”

“No chance of that. Just get it out and kill it.”

The howl came down again, loud enough that it shook the world and made bones rattle. Even with Bianca’s help her feet sank beneath the detritus, stumbling her as she went. How high was the mound? And what were these?

Something to ponder for later, as always.

Sil screamed as Anna pulled out the last. It was the size of a fist and she had to rip it out, hooks and all. Blood slicked Tallah’s shirt and trousers as her friend went limp. She stumbled to a halt as Anna’s presence retreated into its mental gutter, sending a surly reminder of the promise extracted.

Tallah opened a rend and dug through for Sil’s supplies. She knew where the accelerants were, but the others not so much. In the dark, she couldn’t trust not to grab a wrong one.

“Bloody drink,” she groaned as she forced open Sil’s mouth, spilling too much of the mixture in the process. “We need your help here.”

Sil did, choking and sputtering as the draught did its work. Tallah’s back burned with the effort of staying upright and not dropping the spasming woman.

“I’m fine,” Sil gasped. “Let me down. I can walk.”

“Get me a sprite—”

Light exploded as she spoke and the sprite rose in the air. It illuminated a bleak sight.

They were climbing down a mountain of bones towards a ravine equally choked with them. A vista of grey, desiccated corpses spread out as far as the light reached, the dead heaped one upon another as they’d crashed from the height above.

Here were, at last, all the missing builders of Grefe, all the angels fallen from the rainbow grace above.

“It’s a grave.” Sil gaped as Tallah helped find her balance. “They all fell.”

“Poetic,” Tallah groaned. As expected, illum here had been poisoned by death on an unimaginable scale. If she were to wager a guess, then she expected it had all happened fast and violent. Pulling it in left an unpleasantly gritty feeling, along with whispers of ghosts.

She turned in place to gain her bearings as Sil dug in her rend, and met Rhine’s stare.

“Where are you sister?” the wraith asked. Its voice was the hollow rasp of the ruined thing Tallah had found beneath Aztroa’s Crown. Hollow eyes stared out from beneath a mess of scars to pin her to the spot. “I trusted you. You promised I’d be forgiven. You lied to me.”