Orenda was confused that the staff did not seem to impress them.

It occurred to her that Urillians on the earth continent, all the way in the capital, may not know about the Sacred Staff.

“Captain Nochdifache,” One of the soldiers stepped forward, “You are under arrest, for treason-”

“My god,” Orenda said, “You people really do always list that first. Don’t you understand that I don’t want to hurt you? You’re forcing my hand! You stole something from me and I would like it back. Look at that guy!” She pointed to the charred corpse spread out on the floor, “Who even is that? I’m sure he had a name, perhaps a family, perhaps he liked to play cards with his friends every Tuesday night, perhaps he liked to go to the temple and pray to Thesis. This was a person! And now he’s not! And I have to live with that! Don’t you understand that? Why are you doing this to me? Why don’t you just leave and let me get what I came here for? I don’t want you to die! Can’t you understand that?”

“Captain Nochdifache,” the soldier began again, “You are under arrest for-”

“I am not Captain Nochdifache!” Orenda yelled, “I… I can’t believe… I can’t understand what is happening right now. There’s no reason for you to die. I can’t… you could walk away. I told you you could walk away.”

Slay them, master.

“I would rather not!” Orenda lamented, “That’s… that’s what they do to us, isn’t it? But they aren’t… they aren’t toys or the like. These are real people.”

They will kill you, master. They want you dead. They are trying to kill Sonny.

“But they’re people!” Orenda argued, and she knew that to the Urillian soldiers, she looked mad.

“Captain Nochdifache,” the soldier said, “If you come with us, if you don’t resist any further, we will bring you, peacefully, to the queen.” His eyes were so kind as he went on, “It can all end, today. You don’t have to do this anymore. No one else needs to get hurt.”

“I can’t,” Orenda told him, “You took the artifact from the Sacred Mountain Temple, you destroyed my people, and I need it back. You have to return it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“Then get out of my way,” Orenda told him, “Just get out of my way, and I won’t have to hurt you.”

“I can’t do that, mam,” the soldier said, “I didn’t steal anything. But I have to protect the queen. And you killed Theodmer while we watched. There’s a monster loose in the castle. You have to come with us. There’s no other choice. I don’t want to fight you, either.”

“I certainly wouldn’t want to fight me,” Orenda said, “I killed a group of Urillian soldiers when I was a child. I burned them to death. Sometimes, I still hear the screaming. I suppose… what is your name?”

“I’m Corym,” the soldier said.

“I’ve always been a monster, Cory,” Orenda said, “I’m sorry. Now, move or die.”

“If you won’t come peacefully, I’ll have to use force,” Corym drew his sword, and Orenda raised her hand.

“Don’t,” she warned, but he swung from the bottom up, and Orenda cast as she jerked backwards. He was faster than her, and as his sword cut into her cheek so deeply there was now no difference between the inside of her mouth and the outside, she let out a shriek, of pain, of disbelief, of unbridled rage at the sheer lack of necessity.

“Rendy!” Anilla shrieked with her, because the wound had split her face completely open on that side, and Orenda cast out of instinct. She had never seen a flame so large and out of control as it filled the hall, and Anilla did not like the look of madness in Orenda’s eyes.

Orenda didn’t understand why the flame grew so out of control so quickly. She was in pain, blood was leaking from her destroyed face and her flesh had fallen so that she could feel the air on the inside of her mouth. She didn’t understand that Sonny had primed the area to burn because she was unfamiliar with Urillian drinks and did not know that the corn whiskey was such a powerful flame accelerant that Junior thought he could harness the potential energy to fuel machines. She did not think of those things, did not think of anything but the pain in her face, the scar she would have if it ever healed at all, and the sheer unnecessity of all of it.

But the fire was out of control as she cast it, licking up not only the soldiers but the rugs, the tapestries, everything it touched until the environment burned to ash down to the stone under the walls. The smell of the unseasoned meat baking in the armor overpowered the alcohol, but Orenda’s mind would not process it. It would not allow her to take in the screams, the pops of crackling fat, the sizzle of cooking muscle, the feeling of magic signatures flaring up in so many hearts so greatly, crying out in so much pain and desperation that it was brighter than even the fire she was still casting.

Slay them, master.

“I am,” Orenda thought.

She pulled her gaping flesh closed as tightly as she could and tried to melt it back together. The wound was deep, and the flesh singed, melted, and cooked. The pain was unbearable, but Orenda found that she felt almost none of it. There was something wrong with her, and she didn’t know what it was.

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“Rendy,” Anilla dug around in her bag and pulled out one of the potions she sometimes brewed. Orenda took it, and looked at it- she had forgotten for a moment what it was, forgotten for a moment where she was, but she downed it, and thought about the scar she was certainly going to have on her face.

She thought the soldiers were dead.

But they were not, not all of them.

They were burned; their flesh had melted, and pooled into lumps. They were unrecognizable as things that had once been elves- they were storybook monsters, ugly and pained and difficult to look upon- but still some of them stood, braced on walls or slumped on the floor, and one of the mages was glowing, trying desperately to heal himself, or perhaps one of the others.

Orenda realized that these people had not seen a fire mage in two hundred years.

She realized Gareth was a legend.

She had killed about half the guards that had remained in the blast that had worn her thin, and she was weak. She knew she wouldn’t be able to cast a spell like that again. She wondered if they knew that.

None of them were moving to attack her anymore.

But the mage could scry for reinforcements.

So Orenda reached into her bag, pulled out the gun Junior had made, and like she had seen Gareth do so many times, she clicked back the hammer, aimed for his head- he was so close in the hallway- and squeezed the trigger.

His head exploded like Toli’s ear. It went slamming into the wall, and what had been his brain now stained the ash of the tapestry that had once hung there.

The gun kicked hard, and Orenda had forgotten it would. Her arm flew up of its own accord hard enough that she heard a loud pop, and knew that something had happened to her shoulder. At the workhouse she had seen enough people snap their joints out of socket that she recognized what it was instantly, and her first instinct was to fix it, so she slammed herself, hard, into the stone wall.

There was no going back, now.

“Anyone who does not want to die, run to a healer immediately,” Orenda said. “I am the chosen child of Thesis, and a Pirate Princess. Tell your queen that I have come to knock her off of her throne. Tell her that I am death, that I have always been death.” She paused and said, “Well, she’s psychic, she can probably hear me herself. Xandra!” Orenda screamed to no one in particular, “I am the true Chosen Child of Thesis! Come to knock you off of your throne! Can you hear me? Do you believe me?”

Gareth was right about madness. It was easy to fall into, once you had earned it. Orenda was not exactly sure where she was. She was not exactly sure what she was doing. Everything felt hazy and far away; nothing felt real. She felt as if she were underwater again, or behind a wall, or underground. There was something between herself and reality, and she knew it was there, and she knew that if she could break through it she could feel normal again.

She steadied herself the next time, as she had seen Gareth do, with her legs apart supporting her core, and expected the recoil. She suspected that the weapon Junior had made was easier to use than the one Falsie had made for Gareth, because it was much more accurate than she had expected. But then again, Orenda, like her mother before her, had always had impeccable aiming abilities.

As she raised the gun again and again against these dripping, melted corpses, these monsters, she knew, where she was, far away from herself, that they were people. She knew that what she was doing was an abomanal act, that no child of any god, let alone his chosen avatar, would ever commit. She had told them they had hope of survival, and she didn’t know why. Not even demons dwelt in false hope. She knew that it should be difficult, that she should feel pain, both physical and mental, because the scar on her face was not the only one she received. The soldiers did not go down easily, but Orenda was not there, and did not remember the bloodshed. She was confused that her wrist was leaking blood, and as she cauterize the wound she thought that perhaps someone had tried to cut it off as she was killing them.

She knew that nothing moved in the hall anymore. No heart beat aside from the one in her chest and-

Slay the halfling, master. She will betray you.

Anilla was crying.

Anilla was looking up at her with fear in her eyes.

Orenda slammed, hard into her body, so hard that it nearly knocked her off her feet.

Everything hurt. Every single piece of her hurt, and the hall smelled of cooked flesh and boiled blood.

She doubled over at the sight of it, and was afraid she would throw up.

“They were going to kill us, Ani,” She said, “God help me they were- Ani help me! Help me, I’m dying!”

The artifact is in the room before you, master. You are in the heart of the castle. It was stolen from you. You must retrieve it.

“It’s Ok, Rendy,” Anilla laid a hand on her face, “It’s… I mean, it’s not ok. But it’s ok. It will be. I think… I think today is the end. I think after today it will all be over. And we’ll never have to do anything like this ever again. Let’s… let’s get what we came here for, ok? And then when it’s over we can think about it, and we can figure it out. I… I know you’re scared. I’m scared too. I don’t… it doesn’t feel real, does it?”

“No,” Orenda said, and wiped away her tears, “It doesn’t feel at real at all.”

“I only have two more potions,” Anilla said, “I wish… I think, Rendy… maybe we should have tried to talk to her. Maybe we should have tried that first.”

Orenda laughed through her tears.

“The woman is a genocidal warmonger,” Orenda said, “This isn’t a tea party. I came here to dethrone the queen and defeat the Emerald Knight. I… I knew what I had to do.”

Orenda thought of Ali. Of how he had thought he had known what he would have to do. It’s one thing to think of it, and another to do it.

“If this is what we’re doing,” Anilla said, “We should do it faster. There will be more of them and they will not like this.”

“You’re right,” Orenda said, “We have to be solution oriented. Do you think you could… no, I couldn’t make you touch them. I’m certain the door will be locked. I wonder if one of them has the key.”

The two women stared out over the sea of corpses, and Orenda felt her stomach trying to turn again.

“I’ll… I’ll just pick the lock,” Orenda said.