Tiriz garbed herself in a dirtied signal banner left behind by their foe. She wrapped it over her shoulders and let it fall over her chest and back to conceal her closing wounds rather than waste the time to clean her tunic.

It soon became clear Tiriz was not the slowest in their number even before the journey began. There were those that were missing legs or other parts that proved influential in maintaining a swift speed.

It helped that Ad Scy shared her ichor with Tiriz. Ad Scy appeared as as a fusion of a human and a pack of wolves. The light in the eyes of four of her six spare lupine heads went out. An adequate understanding would be the fellow dyte “died” multiple times during the last battle.

The ichor of all spawn was universally compatible. The same could be said of their pieces. One could graft a part onto another without fear of rejection. But such practices were almost unheard of outside of emergencies as a spawn would naturally prefer to be restored to their original state. Also, just because one could perform a graft without rejection did not mean it was so simple to find such an opportunity, not when spawn could be of any size or shape. It would do one little good to add wings that were too small or replace a hand with a hoof.

If Tiriz made the final decision, she would have had the cores of the severely injured ripped out for quicker transport to restore them later then distribute their ichor to those that might need it more.

Her rel chose otherwise. Those that could not keep pace with the others were set in route as couriers to the origin. Ad Scy and several healthier ones stayed with them, as losing them would be the same as losing forever the comrades whose pieces they were carrying.

The tireless march went in a gradual but steadily pace. They did not need to sleep with the distant yet unsetting sun to nurture them. They covered the distance without pause and the leagues swiftly closed.

Humans may have been weak and short lived but they had generations to study the cosmic bodies surrounding them and reach a conclusion that was close to the truth. Their world was an island, one of many in a ring of similar islands. They once were under the impression that the sun revolves around them but the nature of nightfall proved such an assessment to be inaccurate.

If their world was one island in a chain of such things, it was somewhere near the front of the ring but not quite. Such an explanation did little to fully convey the scale and number. The even the shortest of distances between such bodies still failed to be fully comprehended.

But what was important was that their island was not the frontmost facing their sun. There were others ahead of them, some larger some smaller but going at a similar enough speed that collisions were observed.

What should be appreciated is that the closer one was to the innermost part of a band, the less distance needed to be traveled to complete a loop. Humans saw such principles in their chariot races. Even if traveling at the same speed, those in front of their world passed them from time to time.

The closer another island was, the more sunlight it blocked and worse the slower it was to pass by. One way to estimate the length of a night was observing how complete the darkness was.

There were rumors of humans trying to find a way to sail away on the the ocean of emptiness. Not that they could survive in any barren realm they happened upon. Their island was the only one which the Seed saw fit to populate. Though Tiriz knew there were spawn that were cast into the void to survey the other islands to be sure. But with such distances to be crossed, their voyages would be expected to last ages if they returned at all.

Their island was unique, not only in that it could bear life by the blessings of the Seed but it also gained a companion. In the Age of Princesses, the princesses’s combined efforts placed a living moon in the sky, the largest spawn known to exist. It was the size of a small continent, grand but not enough to block the sun, except the occasional eclipse. It existed to watch and come the rare occasions deemed fit, it could pour down the light it had collected during a long night.

Before they reached the Arcos, they encountered their enemy once again or what remained of them. The camp was between them and their destination and Tiriz’s rel saw fit to investigate.

The direction they had been traveling led to a swift unspoken conclusion from all those gathered. These were the ones that bested the Arcos.What they came cross should have been impossible. A troubling instruction that the Arcos bestowed upon all spawn was to not kill the ones that bested her. That order was usually interpreted as letting the humans return home as long as they did not try to steal the Arcos’s body.

The investigation group comprised of Tiriz, her rel, and several other of the more intelligent members and proficient trackers of her kind. The rel should have continued the march and left the party to their survey. Though Grafin Herst’s right eye was quite keen and might detect details others could not.

The greatest argument Tiriz could imagine for bringing their progress to a halt was if the enemy might possibly pursue them. But such a possibility was highly unlikely, as all enemies present were already deceased.

Around the lingering embers of a cooking fire, four tents still stood undisturbed. These were not army tents that could hold eight or ten people with ease but the type that those accustomed to venturing alone used. Two or three might fit at most.

Scattered in various locations were five human bodies. Some were wounded but those injuries were not fresh and certainly not the cause of their demise. Two were around the half full, clay cooking pot. One was found in their tent, one at the fringe of parameter were they likely fell from their stead, and one laid near the seven remaining horses. No signs of spilt ichor except some that had been long dried on their weapons and armor. There was no signs of battle except what appeared to be carelessly split food and trivial belongings. The horses were burdened with the usual human trappings remained in place.

They were still dressed from their battle with the Arcos, with full tunics under their armor with the hoods now drawn back. The humans discovered a chemical concoction to treat their fabric in order to protect themselves from a princess's blue light. The blue light was not truly light, distorting mirrors and going through objects.

It appeared there was at least one survivor that left. A faint trail heading further away from the Arcos suggested someone did not stay.

Tiriz used her left stump to execute simple movements like rolling over the bodies while her right hand with its three recovered fingers performed the more delicate tasks.

What soon became clear was that they all bore the mark. The mark appeared as six imperfect red triangles, each pointing towards the same center. Their sides curved inwards to leave six whitened ovals between them where the skin blistered. Three of the ovals were always shorter and narrower than the others and divided from each other by the longer petals. These all formed together to give the clear outline of a flower.

Those that fought her kind developed a natural resistance to the poison overtime the way one might become immune to a disease from contracting it. The mark might have been an indicator that they developed that resistance if it was that simple though. There was more to the disposition of her kind’s toxic nature than a sickness. It had a will.

Those marked for the Arcos had little choice but to pursue her if they ever wished to know peace. There was no escaping the mark. Removing the place or limb it formed upon made it reform somewhere else, often the forehead, as if to reinforce the responsibility to those that attempted to ignore it.

They were often not exiles but they were regularly unburdened by the borders of nations, going wherever the Arcos was. This phenomenon was commonplace enough to be acknowledged by most, allowing such warriors to pass freely without concern for the nation of origin or allegiances.

Those with it gained some resistance to the abilities of the Arcos. What might have been immediately fatal like her poisons or azure, false light simply proved that they needed further application to be adequately lethal. The mark also allowed the bearer to understand the language of the spawn. The understanding was mutual. By the time the humans reached the Arcos, both parties likely shared a common tongue.

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Not that the ability to communicate mattered. More often than not, the humans simply attacked, speaking with actions rather than words while other times they might waste their breath in some speech that only helped to reveal how blind they really were.

A similar or identical effect could be accomplished if a human drank the freely given ichor of a princess. With that in mind, the princesses seemed to have the unique privilege of choosing whether or not to grant a mark upon defeat.

The title of “princesses” was granted by humans and it had been accepted. They were the ones that led before the Arcos’s birth. Their uncontested authority was transferred to who would become the rels after the Arcos graced the world with her arrival.

The princesses were unique in many ways. Most noteworthy was that they did not need to be recovered when they were lost. They appeared to share memories, a lost princess was reborn without the need of the old body with the experiences up to the last time they interacted with another active princess or the Arcos. Tiriz theorized that would lead to strange memory gaps, likely not remembering their multiple final moments or what led to them.

The body in the tent caught Tiriz’s attention. It had both sides of his head bandaged over his ears. Perhaps, he had been caught in the fringes of the Arcos’s bone shattering shrieks or found he did not have the will to resist the influence of her voice. Tiriz would have to examine to be sure what it was but it most likely had been the latter as Tiriz recognized by instinct some inhumanity within him.

Humans found a way to gain the heightened capabilities of her kind but remain human. To have her kind’s power used in such a way was abominable. It was even worse because there were only two sources humans ever could hope to use to gain such power, the ichor of a particular princess or the Arcos herself.

The Arcos’s ichor could turn humans into pure spawn. The results did not have to resemble their impure origin. Those already with the mark did not transform but were granted longevity if the ichor was from the Arcos.

Rebirth started at the heart as it transformed into a core. Once the core was complete, the ones changing were free from the fear of death like all spawn.

Their consciencness was then transferred to the core as the brain melted into uniform flesh. Their memories survived but their mind became that of a spawn’s.

The unclean ones the humans made lacked cores and most traits that defined a spawn. They were simply superior samples of humanity, invested with stolen power.

This made Tiriz need to investigate further, to see how involved such a creature was in the Arcos’s downfall. He possessed a reflective crystalline shield, it had been scorched. On the back of it were tattered pieces of animal hide with burnt edges. Now that she considered it, the unclean one still smelled of burnt fur.

Armor of bone, leather, or ivory turned to flowers at the Arcos’s touch. Death surrendered to life. A battlefield she walked through was a strange thing as corpses decayed before one’s eyes to renew the soil, leaving only the sufficiently inorganic or still living behind. Even their cloth of flax and wool was undone if they were not careful.

That ability was one the Arcos rarely displayed to her foes as she normally left the ones that reached her intact. It was not meant for combat, it seemed.

Yet, it could still be employed for such purposes. So, why did the humans trouble themselves to cover the shield with a substance that would prove futile at their enemy’s touch?

The animal hide had been one piece stretched over the front of the shield but was burned away, though not with conventional fire. The damage did not suggest wild flames but concentrated heat like the rays of the sun being focused through a lens. She connected the facts and rapidly envisioned numerous scenarios, eliminating those contradicted by what she found and adjusted according to the finer details.

Her attention widened to all else. The embers of their cooking fire had not been extinguished with water but was left to starve. Parts of a meal that was still being cooked remained. Some morsels of food lied on the ground but nothing seemingly left half-eaten. She identified fruits, vegetables, but also a liberal use of seasoned meat and olive oil, clearly in celebration,

The fact each one one possessed at least one weapon shaped from rainbow glass barely registered in her mind. All those that aspired to face the Arcos usually collected such tools. What was important to her was that there was a set of such weapons collected separately in a bundle of cloth.

The collected weapons numbered at nine but some seemed to be paired. By Tiriz’s estimation, their party once numbered thirteen, a lucky number the humans seemed to prefer, seven died beforehand leaving the six that camped.

The imprints on the ground around some of the bodies suggested erratic movement, not rolling in pain. At least a few experienced seizures. The one that survived the longest based on the remaining warmth of the body had vomit on their lips and chin.

The cause of death, oxygen deprivation, though with no signs of strangulation or swelling of the throat. They simply stopped breathing.

Her rel watched as Tiriz returned to crouch over the two bodies around the faded cooking fire. She somehow recognized the knowledge being pieced together in her dyte’s mind. “How did they die?” Grafin Herst asked.

“Poison,” Tiriz stated without hesitation.

“Poison?” Grafin Herst eyed the bodies for confirmation as if the reality of the situation might have somehow changed. She waved over the site with her monstrous right hand. “They were marked. They should be accustomed to our toxins.”

“Our toxins,” Tiriz agreed as she stared at the seasoned meat. “But not plant toxins.”

“What plant?”

“Hemlock.”

Grafin Herst pressed the knuckles of what used to be Tiriz’s left hand against her chin in thought. “They use that to execute their prisoners, do they not?”

Tiriz went quiet to memorize the fact. Her rel knew human customs better than her. “I am uncertain,” she quietly professed. Tiriz noted that she needed to study human customs more. If they had traditions for execution, there might be weaknesses their culture might unveil.

The rel got beside Tiriz and crouched in mimicry of her dyte. Her eyes followed Tiriz’s gaze to the ground. The palm of her disportionately large arm rested on the ground. “How did they ingest it?” she asked, already seeing the answer for herself but perhaps wanting to hear confirmation.

Tiriz picked up a morsel of meat from the ground and examined the seasoning. “Willingly,” she answered. On it were several spices, but what was important was the minced green herbs. She licked it. Though two specks of the herbs appeared the same, they tasted different. Though she knew not what hemlock and parsley tasted like, she knew what they looked like. “There is hemlock mixed in among their parsley.”

The symptoms of hemlock were not immediate. Everyone would have had an opportunity to have a taste before the first signs of poisoning became apparent. Though perhaps the one that escaped did not eat the poisoned meal or ate later than the others.

“How unfortunate,” her rel sighed in a disturbing human expression.

Tiriz gritted her teeth at what she tried to convince herself was not sympathy she sensed from her rel. yes, it was unfortunate that the Arcos’s instruction that those that bested her be spared was somehow circumvented. That would mean one of their kind disobeyed a direct order but that would be impossible.

Events aligned and the final product was this encounter. It was actually the ideal conclusion for the tragedy those lying at their feet begot. They would not share their experiences and have their methods passed to the next generation of those that hunted the Arcos. There may have been one survivor or maybe more if their company split before reaching this place but there was nothing they could do to that individual without going against their Arcos’s will. One witness could provide adequate testimony but each voice lost would lead to less difficulty for the Arcos in the future.

Grafin Herst stood and examined the site. “Now, where are those coins?” The enemy often stored a pair of coins in a slot in their weapons.

Tiriz was born to think. Sometimes she needed to ask questions even if she knew the answer. She had to be certain. “May we ask why?”

“To pay their toll to the other side,” her rel replied as if the answer was obvious. Which, unfortunately, it had been.

"These are the ones that defeated the Arcos," Tiriz made sure to remind her rel.

"Yes, what does it mean for our Arcos if those that defeated her are left like this?"

Tiriz could not answer. There was too many things to say. They could not be summarized in any fashion the dyte recognized as sensible.

“We do not have to fight at the moment,” Grafin Herst replied vexingly to the silence as if it was opposition. “Place their coins in their hands and bury them before the carrion birds can pick their bones.”

Her rel departed, certain that her instructions would be fulfilled. Tiriz complied and extracted the coins while the other spawn dug shallow graves. The nine weapons that had been collected together already had their coins emptied from them.

Coins used to be wrought from electrum, “white gold” as the humans called it, but carrying tokens the Arcos could turn to deadly weapons proved to hasten a warrior’s journey to the destination the coins were meant to be spent.

Gold was not akin to iron and was resistant to the Arcos’s pull. At least, at first but that meant little when Arcos could also call down lightning. Once the area around her was suffused with such energy, all metal seemingly obeyed her will.

Now coins were blown from glass or carved from sapphire, emeralds, and garnets.

In all ways, humanity had adapted to the Arcos. Their weapons, their society, their currency, was all shaped by her very existence. The Arcos had countless abilities but the ones the enemy were most familiar with were the ones welded by the sixteen princesses. The princesses led the spawn before the Arcos emerged so the generations before had the opportunity to learn the limits of those abilities. It was easier for them to understand what she might not be immediately capable of than to account for everything she most certainly was.

The fact that they understood her at all allowed them to be brave. The generations when the Arcos was a complete mystery to them were gone. They still feared her but not to the extent they should have. They should not even have thought to approach her.

Tiriz found herself squeezing the coins as hard as she could. If she had the strength to crush them, she would have. But she did not and if she did, she never would have made the gesture. She could never disobey her rel.

The coins peaked through the gap where her missing ring finger should have been. It made no difference whether the coins were in their possession. What were a pair of gems at a grave site when the ichor of the one that granted them life was fresh on their hands?

Even if there was an otherworldly shelter, those that brought the Arcos low did not deserve peace. But her rel ordered her and her rel had been chosen by the Arcos. So, she had to obey, no matter how unreasonable it seemed.