Sitara considered pushing thoughts into the soldier's mind to convince him to conceal their encounter, but it was too late for that. She should have thought of it earlier. Her only option was to kill him before he could reveal any more information.

Sitara crept toward the fallen soldier until she caught a glimpse of flickering torchlight around the corner. She leaned against the cold earthen wall and cast out tendrils of thought.

Her heightened senses flowed around the corner like fingers sliding along the chill earthen walls. The earth was damp in places, covered in others with moss. The musky air, long-undisturbed, tasted stale and dirty.

As the soldier sat up, her fingers of thought flickered along his form until she could picture exactly where he sat. With darkness filling her soul, she felt a bond with the dead lying all around, as if the filthy power drew strength from the old bones rotting bare inches from her face.

Sitara shaped fingers of invisible power and drove them into his soldier's chest. She wrapped them around his heart, and squeezed. Hard.

The soldier's gasp rang loud in the darkness. Sitara squeezed harder, fighting to still his powerful heart and end the struggle before her nerve broke.

She'd done this once before and still hated herself for it. She saw no other option, so she could do it again, despite the cost.

The man staggered to his knees, clutching at his chest. His panic radiated through her conduit of power. His death was sure, but he was strong. His heart fought valiantly against the invisible tendrils of her power, but it slowed.

She bit back a squeal of horror and shook out her hands against the sudden sensation of his blood spurting between her fingers. Tears she couldn't suppress moistened her cheeks as she tightened her grip.

The second man, who she had ignored, placed hands on the soldier's chest and began chanting softly. An invisible blade shattered her power and wrapped the soldier's heart with a protective barrier.

A Stalwart!

Sitara shook with fear. One Stalwart already blocked the other direction. If the two of them converged, she'd be caught in the middle with no escape.

She had little experience with Stalwarts. The old Fire Stalwart who had lived in her village had terrified her as a little girl. She had avoided all the orders residing in the palaces. She always felt exposed around them, as if standing in their presence would peel back the layers of illusion she concealed herself with.

She had to get away. And yet, if she didn't finish off the soldier, they could still track her down. The thought of being unmasked in the light of day, her lies laid bare before the keisara, filled her with more dread than the thought of the Stalwart crouched barely thirty feet away.

Sitara gritted her teeth in a silent snarl. Why did this have to be so difficult? Why couldn't she just meet with Masego before these meddlers intervened? She didn't want to kill them, but they left her no choice.

The distant Stalwart asked the soldier in his surprisingly gentle voice, "Tell me about this woman, quickly."

Sitara lashed out at the Stalwart, but her power slid off him like water from a rock.

"Ah, she was young, pretty." The soldier spoke between labored breaths as he recovered from her assault.

Sitara slammed her fist into the earthen wall, barely holding back her panic. She needed a way to strike these men down, but she carried no weapons.

Sitara cast her senses in every direction in a desperate attempt to find something, anything to use as a weapon, even though she knew the passages were empty.

Then she opened her fist where it rested against the chill catacomb wall. She sucked in a sharp breath as realization struck, followed by a wave of horror that made her recoil across the narrow passage.

No. She couldn't do it. She shook her head in silent denial while tears of frustration filled her eyes. There had to be something else.

The soldier said, "And her voice."

"What about it?" the Stalwart asked."

There was no time. She had to do it.

She gritted her teeth and drove fingers of power into the walls on both sides of the men. She allowed herself one deep breath to still her shudders of revulsion, but they tasted like rotting meat to her. She wrapped those fingers of power around the only weapons she could use, and unleashed them together.

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The graves along both walls of the narrow passageway burst open, raining dirt and decaying debris. Bones, still hard despite years interred, hurtled out like makeshift spears.

The soldier cried out in fear, trying to shield his face with his hands. Bones, some with bits of rotting cloth still clinging to them, smashed into him.

A new sound echoed through the close confines of the passage. It sounded like steel striking wood. Sitara flicked her senses over the two men and found that the Stalwart now bore a heavy war hammer. With amazing skill he struck her grisly missiles out of the air, shattering them into bits of harmless dust.

Sitara grimaced and reached for more bones. No longer caring what they represented, she hurled them at the two men with growing desperation. Why wouldn't they just die and let it end?

It wasn't enough. The Stalwart deflected too many of the missiles. The barrage had managed to bruise the soldier and cut his exposed skin in several places, but that wouldn't kill him.

Voices called out questions behind Sitara. The men stationed at the next intersection were drawing closer, alerted by the sounds of conflict. She was nearly out of time.

Sitara reached farther and bared her teeth in a silent snarl of hatred for what she had to do. She cursed Masego for leading her down here to her death, then threw every ounce of power into one final assault.

From the wall of the passageway behind the soldier erupted half a dozen skulls from a single grave where an entire family had been buried together. The Stalwart stood on the far side of the man, still facing the direction of the last attack. He could do nothing but spin at the sound and reach a single hand toward the soldier in silent, helpless support.

Thunk!

The terrible meaty sound of skulls cracking into the back of the soldier's head, one after the other, reverberated through the passage. The soldier crashed to the ground, his body rigid, mouth open in a silent scream as his spirit fled to the afterlife.

Her goal accomplished, Sitara severed her extended senses and huddled against the chill grave wall. It took all of her willpower to fight down the bile that rose into her throat. She swallowed a cough and sagged to the floor, wrapping her arms tight around herself. Silent tremors racked her tiny frame.

She couldn't lose control, couldn't deal with the horror of what she'd just done. Not now. The big Stalwart would hear.

Sitara drew down the power of darkness that filled her like sludge until only a little clung to her innards like old vomit. It wouldn't help her against the Stalwart if he discovered her, and its filth was making her sick.

Footsteps rang through the passage from behind, and torchlight flickered closer. Only seconds remained before they would discover and kill her.

Sitara stood with renewed determination. She would not fall here in the darkness of the tombs. She couldn't.

She reached out with a tendril of thought, caught up a fragment of bone lying in the passage near the dead soldier, and flicked it down the passage behind the Stalwart. It made a tiny sound when it struck, barely more than a whisper.

It was enough. The Stalwart lunged after the sound with alarming speed. He cried, "I swear to deal justice for this murder!"

The men behind Sitara picked up their pace, calling out with questions about what was going on.

Sitara sprinted back to the intersection with the dead soldier. Despite the danger, she had to pause and stare at the grisly sight illuminated by the flickering torch the Stalwart had left behind. Tombs gaped open like rotting mouths, their recently disgorged contents scattered around the fallen soldier. The air reeked of death.

The Stalwart, bigger in person, stepped out of the darkness on the far side of the torch. He looked angry and pointed his deadly hammer at her. "Justice."

Sitara fled.

She ran in the only direction left to her, back toward the wide room where battle still raged, where Tanathos sought to take Kevlin, and Masego sought to double-cross him.

Harafin might already have arrived.

The huge Stalwart gave chase. He was fleet for a man his size and closed quickly. He made no sound, and his silent pursuit terrified her more than shouted curses. Other soldiers joined the chase, but none of them would matter.

Sitara applied her power to strengthen her legs and increase her stride. She managed to keep about twenty feet ahead of the Stalwart and his terrible hammer, but couldn't draw farther away.

Sitara screamed, and the echoes mocked her as she fled in panic.

Then the ground shook and the heart-stopping sound of falling earth filled the passage, followed a moment later by a blast of dust that choked and blinded her. Sitara ran on, and in desperation directed her power into the ground under her feet.

She drew water out of the air and out of the clammy walls and poured it into the hard-packed earthen floor. Within seconds, a long stretch of ground dissolved into deep mud.

The Stalwart shouted in frustration as he stumbled into the mud and fell sprawling. The men trailing him, blinded by the cloud of dust, fell right on top of him.

Sitara sprinted on, toward the growing sounds of the cave-in. To slow meant certain death. To advance might mean becoming entombed.

The earth shook again and she stumbled, falling to one knee. She glanced back.

The Stalwart shouted words lost under the rumbling of the earth. Then something whipped past her face, scraping her cheek.

Sitara bit back a scream and touched her burning cheek. She couldn't see in the darkened passage, but her fingers came away wet.

The Stalwart had thrown his hammer. Her heart quailed to think how close he'd come to killing her even when throwing blind. If she hadn't stumbled, his hammer would have blasted her into the next life.

Sitara scrambled forward on hands and knees, but the ground shook harder, and she realized the entire passage was about to collapse. She opened herself to the power of darkness and barely noticed its corrupted filth as it crawled into her soul. She threw out tendrils of power and spread invisible fingers along the ceiling.

There! The ceiling began to crack.

Sitara summoned fire and crimson flames roared all along the section of roof above her, fusing the earth in an instant.

A shout drew her gaze back down the passage. The Stalwart had traversed the mud pit and now stood in the passage, dripping with filth. Somehow he had retrieved his hammer. With the passage illuminated by her fire, he found his prey and cocked back his arm to throw.

Sitara drove daggers of energy into the ceiling between them, and pulled.

It collapsed.