Waking up after an impromptu sleep was a lot like opening your eyes after a river has ferried you down a hill and a few bends. Your surroundings don’t line up with your last memory, and then there’s that vexing gap preventing you from tracing the line between where you came from and where you are. Leaving your mind to grasp for anything it can use to hold on while you figure out what’s happening and what you’ll do next.

“Nadia’s up,” Lupe said, her voice distant as if on the other side of a room.

Melissa asked, “Nadia, are you feeling okay?”

The room I was in rippled into irregular focus as I floated up into consciousness. When it all stilled, I kind of wished it hadn’t. The walls and ceiling were a freshly painted beige that inspired nothing to the mind. They didn’t even have the grace to be white enough for you to imagine they were a canvas you could paint over with daydreams and idle fantasies.

“Where am I?” I asked.

“Somewhere calm, Temple,” Amber said. “Don’t move too much.”

I ignored her advice and pushed myself up slowly, but not slow enough as my head swung like a weight was dangled from the tip of my nose. A groan eased its way out of me as the sudden movement caused the light headache I had to rake its nails across the folds of my brain. I whined and shook my head only to feel that weight swing me past my intended range of motion in both directions.

“Alls below, what’s on me?” I growled.

My hands swatted the front of my face trying to catch the weight only to land against cold metal. Both hands explored its shape—boxy, square gaps between metal rods, all bent at an angle just barely beyond a right one—then I tried to yank it off. The leather strap that crossed the back of my head bit into my scalp.

“Fuck!” I snarled.

The pain sobered me up as everything popped into perfect clarity. I was on a cot. Opposite me sat Sphinx, her body leaning against the wall next to Mother’s Last Smile as she watched me. While the boxy metal thing on my face suddenly had a very simple name—a muzzle. They’d put a muzzle on me. I looked one way—wall—then the other to find a set of vertical bars segmenting the world within my little box from the broader one outside where Lupe, Amber, and Melissa looked to have been waiting. As they leaned against the metal railings of a catwalk that overlooked the ground level of Fort Tomb’s interior—cells lining the walls opposite and below us.

Melissa said, “Nadia, I need you to try and stay calm—.”

“Why am I wearing a muzzle?” I asked, my voice quivering.

“Three guesses and the first two don’t count,” Lupe said. “It has to do with the same reason you had your nap.”

I swam past the gap of memory to find everything hazy and glazed over in…carmine. The curse. Fuck! My face fell, my body wanted to collapse with it, but I gripped the cot and tried to keep it together. Focused on sifting through memories, placing them side-by-side until they fit together like a window of stained glass.

There were the two summoners I’d rescued—I didn’t kill them even though I felt the temptation. My fight against Tsumugi—I’d relished in beating her but it was the false death of a Dream Shell. Then I recalled in pieces my battle against the mob that’d hunted Melissa. First by myself, then with her—suddenly a pain gripped my chest. A feeling impaling my heart like a stake and pounded in until I shattered. Melissa didn’t see me.

In recollection my heart broke all over again. The shards of it all beating out of sync as my breath became erratic. Sphinx rushed over to my side pushing her face in front of my eyes. Her mouth moving as she spoke words intended to pull me back into the present, but everything rushed in from too many angles for her to block, swallowing me in the throes of memory.

I saw my prey groggy and unsteady. Her face—her head—in my hands; that sleepy expression that’d never wake up. Mother’s Last Smile, dull and disappointed—Mom, you stopped smiling on me, I’m sorry. Melissa, below me, bleeding out, the taste of her on my tongue—why did she taste so good? I wanted to retch, to vomit like they do in the stories, reject my act of cannibalism as something the curse made me do; nothing came out, no revulsion could inspire my bile to act, why wouldn’t it come out!

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I rambled.

My body rocked back-and-forth as it felt like the world spun. If I couldn’t vomit it back up did that make me a monster? I earned this muzzle. This cell. I’d earned this designation and when I looked to see my friends they were on the other side—we were all at the same table this morning and now they were…I pushed Sphinx aside and stumbled toward the bars reaching out with my hand for them—they all stepped back, afraid. A sharp wail tore from my throat.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice getting smaller.

Amber stepped forward clasping my hand between both of hers. The expression on her face was one of contrition and empathy. Melissa came forward next, reaching into the cell to stroke my head. Why did she look so guilty? Lupe shook her head in disgust as she squeezed the neck of her guitar as if it was someone else’s.

“The muzzle was too much,” Lupe said. “I told you both it was.”

Melissa said, “You did, you did. And Nadia, you don’t have to be sorry. Not at all.”

I laughed, dripping with an acid loathing for myself. “Don’t say that. I—I ate a part of you,” I said. “I would’ve kept eating you.”

“I know,” Melissa said, sheepishly. “But that was the outcome we wanted.”

“What?”

Amber squeezed my hand as she said, “Temple, we—I, just I—knew that the curse would run loose eventually. Take it from someone who’s dealt with it. This thing is all but inevitable so long as you’re getting into fights like you do.”

“When Amber realized what the mask was she messaged me immediately. Putting together a plan while you slept just in case we couldn’t talk you out of abandoning the exam,” Melissa said. “She advised me on what we’d need if we had to create an Anti-Nadia plan to help keep you in check. So, rather than the normal graduation track in the Knitcroft family notes, I took the graduation trial and went for a different Baron. One less about Mutating only myself, and instead to help me Mutate my environment…and others.”

“You’re a rather tough person to put down Temple, said that one yourself. Trying to constrain you in anything Real wouldn’t be useful unless we were trying to kill you. Especially if you had that star effect of yours running. Which left only one avenue—.”

“Biological vectors?” I asked.

They all nodded. I pulled my hand back as the pieces fell into place. If biological vectors were the only avenue to affect me—such as with the somnambulant cicada—then they were betting on me…on me trying to eat Melissa?

“You didn’t have any faith in me?” I asked.

Sphinx laid a paw on my shoulder. She said, “Nadia, faith is a matter higher and harder than belief. It’s loyalty.”

“They lied to me,” I said, shrugging her paw off of me.“You all bet on me failing!”

“Temple, we did what you asked us to—help you fight the curse so you aren’t fighting alone,” Amber said. “Yeah we started in advance, but that doesn’t change we did it for you.”

Melissa reached between the bars for me—I shuffled backwards. I don’t know if I didn't trust her or if I didn’t trust myself. She curled her open hand into a trembling fist. Pounded her chest to punctuate her words.

“I chose this. I want to help you beat this curse with everything I can,” she said. “Even if you have to eat me a hundred times I’d rather that than see you stack on the pain of killing and consuming someone who can’t just bounce back from it like I can. You’re not the only one allowed to make sacrifices, Nadia.”

“Besides,” Lupe said, “we had to lie to you. If you haven’t noticed you’re very good at Sorcery and finding weird ways to come out on top. The last thing we needed was you knowing exactly how we planned to stop you and then beating the plan.”

I paced about my cell as I ran their plan through my mind—it was a good one. Wait until I eat some of Melissa’s flesh bringing it past my spell resistance. Then, as I recalled the hand-spell she’d made that I thought was a failure, she had used it as a piece of sympathy to Mutate the flesh into myself to deliver a sorcerous effect knocking me out. Once again proving Sphinx right, resistance wasn’t immunity, and I had more weaknesses than I thought.

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With their plan deduced, I ceased pacing. Clenched and unclenched my hands. Glanced at Mother’s Last Smile and nearly broke again—this time from joy—as I saw the blade glowing a soft white once more. I wasn’t abandoned just yet; not by anyone.

I asked, “Can you let me out then?”

Melissa hummed and hawed. Lupe nervously plucked strings unable to weave together any notes. Amber clutched one of my cell bars as she looked away.

“Temple…” the words failed to come to her.

I tilted my head in confusion. They’d said they made a plan to take care of things, so I wasn’t a threat—right? I looked between the three of them and none of them dared to meet my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “You trust me, right, right?”

Melissa hurried to clarify, “Nadia, it’s not that we don’t trust you. It’s just that we only really have the one plan. You know how it works now, so if—and believe me, we really mean if—the curse runs loose again then we don’t know what happens.”

“Temple, between the four of us you’re probably the most dangerous and none of us are stand up fighters really like you.”

I scoffed, “Amber, I know you can fight. You have to have some kind of trick or toy inside that storage-spell of yours.”

“I have things, but Temple I—I’m better at deception. At catching people off-guard. Any ‘tricks or toys’ that could work in an upfront brawl are too lethal. If I killed you then, well, my curse would probably run loose right after.”

“Okay, okay, that makes sense,” I said, agreeing, “but I have my Dream Shell—.”

“You had your Dream Shell,” Lupe said. “When your star ran out you succumbed to every wound you had—and you had a lot. Technically, you died Nadia. Again.”

“Oh.”

I dropped back onto my cot. Sphinx nudged her head beneath my hands. Reflexively, I stroked her hair, delivered scritches, and tried to let myself fall into the sensation of my bondmate’s silken tresses. It was helpful, but not enough—the family I’d made was scared of me, in losing my Dream Shell they were scared for me. Along two axes we were falling apart; them the human beings and me the beast who needed to be in a cage and muzzled.

“What happens next?” I asked, resolved to my fate.

Amber said, “We stay here with you. All of us passed.”

“Really?”

Lupe chuckled, “It’d be pretty hard not to when between you and Melissa you took out that entire mob. You both got points for those ‘executions’, and Amber and I got the rest, shuffling them into cells to count as captures.”

Melissa said, “Now that they’re in the cells there’s no sorcery they can do that’ll get them out short of Amber handing them the control tablet so they unlock the door.”

“So we just sit it out here, recover from any summoner’s exhaustion, and wait until the test is called?” I asked.

Despite my sarcasm, it was a pretty relaxing thought all things considered; a shame that my luck then—as it is now—was atrocious. Right after I spoke, Fort Tomb was plunged into darkness. It didn’t take much, its name was well-earned as like any tomb it was devoid of windows or skylights, so when the lights were cut there went any source of illumination either artificial or natural. Lupe immediately formed a hand-spell with the intent to rectify that, but Amber caught her hand before she could conjure even a thread of Morning light.

“What’re you doing?” Lupe asked.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Amber hissed. “If we make light or noise it’ll give us away. So make neither.”

She let go of Lupe’s hand and directed them to join her against the bars of my cell. Pressing themselves as tight against them as possible to avoid being seen from below. A wise call considering that a moment later the emergency lights flicked on coating the interior of the fort in slaughterhouse red.

I grabbed my glaive and pressed myself up against the bars as well. Whispering into Amber’s ear, “Let me out.”

“Temple, now’s not the time.”

“If it’s an enemy you’ll need me.”

“If it’s an enemy that’s all the better reason to keep you in there,” Amber said.

My voice couldn’t help but rise in indignation, “I refuse to be stuck in here when godtenders know what—.”

Anything I could’ve said was drowned out in a noise that had been recorded into my body, my memories, my nightmares. A birthing mother’s scream played backwards. Melissa squashed her hands against her ears—they were too sensitive to handle the noise. She bit back any potential sound of pain by literally biting down into her lip. Amber’s face turned away from mine with an expression I can’t imagine. Though I didn’t give much thought to her expressions as my own were busy trying to deduce why they were here; it had to be them after all, the ones who’d killed my parents and hid from my righteous vengeance.

Our hearing adjusted back from the sudden sharp assault of the axis mundi’s activation. Silence settled in revealing that things were hardly silent. There was the whine of energy powering old lights that ran on electricity of all things. You could hear the air flowing through the ducts recycling bad air from good. If you really listened, I’d argue you could hear the heartbeat of every person captured during this exam as well as my own, Amber’s, Lupe’s, and Melissa’s as we waited for the answer of who did this and why.

The who came in the answer of a metal boot’s heavy thud. Clank. The why came in the answer of metal grinding against stone skipping between gaps in the flooring. Skkkk-tip, skkkk-tip. Both sounds intertwining to stretch taut our nerves. Clank, skkk-tip, clank, skkk-tip, clank, skkk-tip. CLANK! From around the corner on the first floor, I saw his hand—a metal glove like an old diver’s suit albeit the non-metal portions were, as I now knew, conweave. Then came the head, a bulbous helm with lights inset that brightened the deep red of the tomb into a fresher crimson hue belonging to a new wound. Ironic really, a new wound for an old enemy, as I recognized him then standing in full view—The Angler Knight.

“It’s him,” Lupe whispered.

Amber asked, “What do you mean ‘him’?”

“He’s the right hand of Marduk,” Lupe said.

“Marduk,” Amber repeated, as if in soft disbelief of the name attached to Lupe’s hated foe.

Despite the recognition, Lupe didn’t move or leap down to try and challenge him to some kind of fight. She was better than me in that respect, lacking in the impulsivity I trended toward. Instead, we all watched as the Angler Knight moved from cell to cell peeking inside for targets. He found one at the third cell he stopped at. Raised a black table that soaked in the red light and pressed it against the slot for control tablets. When he removed it the panel flashed red, then green, then held on green as the cell door clicked and swung open.

“Thank you,” the now-freed prisoner said, albeit with hesitation.

The Angler Knight slid his body to the side and gestured with the hand not holding the massive greatsword, after you. It was enough for the prisoner—why stay in a cell after all when you could have your freedom—and so he walked out. Once he passed the threshold he raised his hand in a goodbye, but before he could speak—the power of Abyss crashed down onto him turning him from a man, in one moment, to a smear against the stone in another.

Every prisoner that had been woken up by the sound of the axis mundi became a chorus of screams and pleading. Even those that had worked for the circle were screaming. The poor bastards had no idea—if they cared at all—that this was the nature of those they’d aided. None of it seemed to bother the Angler Knight though as he continued searching.

No, no, no, yes. He opened another cell with his illicit control tablet. This prisoner, a woman, tried to fight back using Tyrant spells to command the Angler Knight to step back and let her go. He stepped back and thinking she’d won she sprinted out of the cell. In true cruelty, he allowed her to make it five steps before reducing her to a smear. Then searched for the next one. Then the next one. Then the next one. Four targets he found and reduced to nothing. Two still had their Dream Shells. That saved them from his usual method of killing and won them the luxury of dying in slumber as he plunged his sword through their hearts.

After the sixth, he snapped his fingers and from around the corner hurried a woman carrying the shrine that I knew was the axis mundi. She wore a simple outfit of matte black armor—similar to the kind my parents’ killers wore, though she lacked their presence—and a glossy spherical black helmet. The woman produced a sorc-deck from her pocket.

“How many are supposed to be here?” he asked.

Reading the information on its screen, she said, “Seven. Why?”

“That was six,” he sighed, as if this was some grand burden. “When does the map update?”

“In a minute,” she said.

My heart fell as I realized what they were looking at. It was the same map that helped me find Melissa. That let every would-be killer find Melissa. I couldn’t speak. It’d give us away. The map would do that anyways. They could try to run, but I knew the Angler Knight was adept at using field-spells. They’d have to fight and I’d be forced to watch.

“Amber, please, you need to—.”

Beep. Their sorc-deck and my looted one harmonized. Echoing across the ancient skeleton of Fort Tomb. The woman looked at the sorc-deck and tapped it approvingly.

“There, still says seven if you count the bodies.”

“Hmm,” he hummed.

He looked left. Not there. He looked right. Not there. Then he looked up. The beams of light projecting from his helm spotlighting my girls. Melissa. He crooked a finger and metal whined, screamed, before roaring as bolts shot free from the wall and the catwalk ripped away into open air. The Angler Knight was a master at using his field-spell, and without a single seal or incant he’d parted from the girls. Rotated the catwalk in the air so they’d be facing him dead-on before lowering it to the ground with a gentleness that belied the fact that he’d come to kill Melissa.

“Only one of you has to die,” he said, weary at the whole act.

“Yeah,” Lupe snarled. “You!”

She hopped the railing of the catwalk rushing him. Amber and Melissa not far behind. While I clutched the bars of my cell, forced to bear witness.