55

(Bastille- Pompeii)

Desmond

Cramps shot through my lungs, the clumsy stomps of my sprinting boots silent to me. My whole head was locked in a sweating mess of pressure and heaving. Little particles of ash bit at my throat and mouth with every breath as I broke out into the square before the park. Meanwhile, the frail figure in my arms fidgeted and threatened to shatter like glass if I made even a slightly wrong move. I’d skinned deer and elk, but I’d never gotten used to just how much blood could spill out of a body. It spewed out of her every time I jostled her the wrong way, staining a crimson trail behind us.

I stumbled into the treeline, slipping over the muddy earth beneath me, unwilling to let myself fall. I stomped through beds of flowers and small shrubs. Adrenaline was rushing through me, guiding me forward when my body couldn’t take it any longer. Miriel was the goal.

Her slashed arm dangled in front of me while her stub drenched my chest. She was so light, as if bouncing a little too much would send her off like a feather.

How did she even get like this? Jaw off kilter, missing an arm, eviscerated waist and a broken leg. What the fuck has she been up to?

Her agape eyes stared emptily into the ashen sky like it was calling her away. I wouldn’t let her go, cradling her in my arms, wrapped in her wings.

Branches whipped my face and bushes grasped at my feet. I ducked to avoid a limb and my body gave out, crashing into a patch of fiery orange flowers.

All I could see was smashed flowers and soil, panting on my hands and knees, gasping for breath. The brisk day became hot, a cold sweat was consuming me. I couldn’t even stand. My legs were limp and shaking, struggling to push off the ground.

“God dammit!” I screamed into flowers, ripping a clump up with my hands and launching it. “I’m so fuckin’ useless all the goddamn time! Give me this, just this once. God, I ain’t ever ask for much. Gimme something, please!”

The flowery fumes attacked my nose. My heartbeat thrummed through my head like church bells. Spots of light and dark darted across the world in front of me, fighting for hold over my soul. I turned my head up, searching for something to remedy it, to ease the pain.

A moment of calm washed over me, like the animal staring into my eyes was asking a question of me. “Why are you struggling?” A moss green llama-like creature that we’d seen before casually stepped forward, sniffing at the ground around Vetia.

Blood. She needs blood.

I slipped the dagger I’d found by her body out of my belt and crept forward. A second wind graced my legs and I acted. I crashed forward, scrambling toward the animal on all fours, wrapping my arms around its tall neck and my legs around its torso, yanking it to the ground with me. I gouged the dagger straight into its throat and ripped as hard as I could, carving a wide smile across its main arteries.

I wrenched its neck backward, dragging it toward Vetia, ripping its head further and further back, trying to make it bleed faster.

Its blood is soaking into her skin, but how much does she need? Will this save her or only prolong her death. Fuck it. It doesn’t matter.

I slashed and bled it for ten minutes. The flow had gotten so much slower, it was just dribbling out. Blood from one of those things restored her entire tongue, this had to be enough to at least get her stable.

“Go faster! Fucking Christ, what’s a guy gotta do to bleed something quickly around here?!”

A brush of needles on cloth behind me. About ten feet back. I glanced behind me, ready to tell a motherfucker to keep walking.

“Clear out, this spot’s taken-”

My eyes locked onto a cloaked figure watching me from the edge of the trees. The dark blue cloak concealed the entire body of the figure except a pair of black boots tipped by silver hooks. Its hood was angular, like a diamond of darkness around the masked face. The mask, which was a simple, white circle with two diamond eyes and a frowning mouth of two shallow lines meeting at a sharp point which rose to meet an upside down triangle like a nose.

My blood ran cold as the figure stepped out onto the path approaching me. I whipped the dagger around, pointing it at the figure. It gracefully, without sound, stepped around the flowers, never approaching, just circling. Analyzing.

I glared at the figure, daring it to step forward. “You touch her, I’ll gut you.”

It didn’t respond, just glanced at me, then back down to Vetia, then turned around. The figure disappeared into the park just as quickly as it appeared.

I kicked the animal head off of Vetia and inspected her wounds. The knee and jaw were still busted, but her arm wasn’t bleeding as bad and her gut wound slowed a lot. Nothing from her though. Not even a sign of consciousness.

“Alright, Desmond,” I said to rev myself up, “come on, get up.” I wrestled with my body, struggling to my feet and scraping her up out of the dirt. “Lift with your legs!” I groaned and got to walking, thanking God that Vetia was as light as she was. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” I said to the unconscious body in my arms, “but you’re showing me your tits when you wake up.”

I glanced down at her face. Between the smears of her own blood, some color had returned to her already pasty complexion. Her eyes met mine and with a slight roll of them and a soft groan, she accepted. With that, my pace quickened and we got out of the park and back into the street.

“Where the fuck is Desmond?! We still have to find Vetia and get out of here!” I heard Brenden ranting from the other side of the wall to Hallax Hall, where the wagon was.

Tells mournfully started, “Brenden. Vetia’s-”

I hobbled through the gate and yelled out to them like a pissed off sailor. “Oh, would you stop your bitching and moaning?! I told y’all I was taking care of business! Now one of you get Miriel the fuck over here!”

Adam, Brenden, Tells, Miriel, Dex, Hestrel, and Al’Li all turned their eyes to me and the panicking commenced.

“What the fuck happened?!” Brenden dashed to us.

“Vetia got all fucked up. I hauled her ass here, but she needs Miriel’s healing stat.”

Miriel met us halfway and walked alongside. “Get her in your wagon, I’ll get to work. Hestrel! You others, clear space for a body in the big wagon!”

Tells stood gawking at us like she had seen a ghost while Adam looked like he just checked back into reality. Dex was still, standing there crying into Al’Li’s shoulder while Hestrel hopped into the wagon and started shifting boxes around everywhere.

“Guys! Wake the fuck up and help out! Adam, make some space!” Brenden yelled out to them in desperation.

Miriel put her hand on Brenden’s shoulder. “I need you to get my satchel from the small wagon. I’ll be riding with your group.” Brenden rushed off and we started hauling Vetia into the wagon. “Desmond, what happened to her? What are these wounds from?”

“Dunno. Far as I could tell, her side is fucked real deep, shoulder’s bad, jaw plus knee busted, and her arm is on vacation.”

Adam helped us into the wagon and Brenden hopped up front, attaching the corties and getting us moving.

“Adam,” I said, “water, please, for the love of God in Heaven.”

“Uh,” Adam patted around his belt in a distant panic. “Here. Drink up.”

I chugged the waterskin dry, savoring every last drop of cold water. My heart calmed and my head cleared. I realized we were sitting around Vetia’s body in the back of the wagon. “Woah woah woah,” I stood up and yelled up to Brenden. “Why are we doing this in here? Why aren’t we going in for this?”

Brenden peered back with sorrow filled eyes and Miriel halted her hands.

“Lord Hallax, he-” Miriel stopped, still piecing her words together, “he heard about everything that happened with the fire and them not finding Fera. He killed Zerick and banished us.”

“What?! Zerick?! Why Zerick?! Why the fuck would he do that?!”

“It doesn’t matter anymore, Desmond, we can’t do anything about it now. We have to keep going.”

“He can’t just do that! He can’t just kill a guy for not finding his-”

Miriel frustratedly snapped at me. “Yes, Desmond! He can! He’s the lord of this Quarter! Do you want me to save your friend, or do you want to argue over the unchangeable?!”

I sat back in the wagon and wiped the slick sheen of sweat off my forehead, catching my breath. Miriel quickly got to work on Vetia, scribing a sigil and repairing the gash in her side.

“How… how is she…” Tells trailed off, a tear slowly falling down her cheek. “How is she alive?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “This is the worst I’ve seen her. Must have got to her right on time.”

“No…” Tells whimpered, losing her words again. “She- she… we watched Vetia… She- she… died.”

Adam put his arm around Tells and pulled her into a half hug. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t tell you because Simira was keeping you too close.” Adam’s voice droned on, tired and distant, but he was trying his best. “She used a sigil, remade her heart while cutting it out so she could fake her death and get out of there.”

“Huh?” Tells’ face was squished between Adam’s arm and chest.

“You’re probably mad, but she didn’t have any other options to get out of that place. I didn’t want to not tell you, I just…”

“She was okay this whole time, then?”

“Yeah. She was.”

“Thank God.” Tells burst into tears of joy and crumpled into herself.

Bewilderment dizzied Miriel. “What?!”

I shrugged. “I don’t know, man, I just work here.”

Adam looked up. “Yeah, replaced it while she was cutting it out. I don’t know how, but it worked. She was awake within the hour.”

She couldn’t process it, her hands wildly trying to piece together her own thoughts in the air before her. “But her pulse would have- blood flow- and blood loss! Unless it was perfectly timed, if that’s even possible, her brain wouldn’t have had blood flowing to it for a moment, which would have caused irreparable damage, not to mention brain death.”

Vetia moaned and grunted at Miriel.

Miriel refocused and drew out a new sigil. She reached up to Vetia’s jaw and ran her fingers over the damaged part.

“This is going to hurt badly for just a moment. On three. One-” Miriel cracked Vetia’s jaw back into place, who only let out a small squeak from the pain. Running her fingers along the jawline, they glowed bright green and the energy seeped in like lightning. Miriel was panting heavily as she finished the jaw and then sealed over the arm wound.

Vetia groaned and weakly smirked up at Miriel. “I’m just built different.” She laughed to herself before grimacing from the pain in her side.

“You’re such a piece of shit,” Tells chuckled.

“Don’t lie, you missed it.” Vetia smiled at the mentally adjusting Tells. “I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to make you watch me, like, cut my heart out and stuff. That was fucked up.”

“Yeah, I know. I watched it.”

Miriel interjected. “I’m glad you’re feeling spry, but I need you to tell me what happened. If these wounds are-”

“Girlfriend, don’t you worry. It was just a little fight.”

“I’m gonna have to disagree,” I said. “You don’t get this fucked up from a little scuffle.”

Miriel nodded. “He’s right. And for me to treat you properly, I need you to tell me what happened.”

“I’m not gonna fucking-! Shut up already!” Vetia screamed and winced before catching her breath.

Miriel looked like she wanted to bitchslap Vetia back to sleep. Miriel was already sweating and panting from using so much energy. “Do you want me to help you or not? I need to know.”

Vetia opened her eyes in confusion and noticed Miriel’s frustration, responding with an apologetic look. “I’m… sorry. I, uh, my head’s been a little messed up lately. I overdid the sigil use, so I’ve been a bit snippy.”

“What do you mean overdid?” Miriel’s face turned from frustration to concern.

“I cured Lord Amien of a cold the day before I cut my heart out. Had to heal myself a lot during that. And then the next morning, I cured a little girl of some respiratory illness she had.”

If there was ever a face for baffled concern, it would be Miriel’s. Her eyes were practically bulging out of her head and her lips were pursed like she couldn’t think of which question to ask first. All that escaped her mouth was “What?!”

Vetia smirked again and popped her eyebrows up. “Like I said, alternatively constructed. I’ll tell you what, get my shoulder up and running and I’ll fix the rest of me.”

“NooOOoo the frick you won’t.” Miriel shook her head like she was clearing an etch-a-sketch. “You should be dead from that much work, nevertheless a little messed up. The fact that your head isn’t full cur is a miracle, to be quite honest. Until I clear you, you are not to conjure any sigils, do you understand?”

Vetia nodded and sighed.

We gave Miriel some time to focus and patch up Vetia, passing through the city gates and out into the northern farmlands.

“Well,” I said, “with that settled, where’d you put the barrels of booze? I need a drink.” My head was pounding and I could feel irritation building in my chest like an anxious flame. I kicked at the empty wine barrel in back.

Tells and Adam both shrugged. The other two didn’t reply.

“Brenden!” I stumbled up front. “Hey, bud, where’d you put the keg of wine?”

“It should be back there where you left it.”

“That’s the empty one. I mean the new one.”

“What new one?”

“Didn’t you say you got a new one?”

“No, I figured your alcoholic ass would buy more.”

“I didn’t think we’d be skipping town like this. You don’t need to be a dick about it.”

“I’m not, bro. Christ.” He shook his head and glared at me. “You’ve got your flask, don’t you?”

“I finished it while I was driving back to the Hall.”

“Okay, then there’s none left.”

“Well, let’s stop to get some.”

“Look around us, Desmond! No liquor stores or gas stations around.”

“Well what am I supposed to do, then?”

“Be sober like the rest of us.”

“What’s the fucking point? I’m just sitting in the back of a wagon! What else am I gonna do?!”

Brenden turned around with a gleefully pissed off face. “I suppose we should just stop everything and go back into the city that we’re banished from to get you some booze so we don’t have to deal with your bitching.”

Fucking hell.

I clenched my fists to keep myself from hitting something but I ended up kicking the wagon anyway.

“Oh, I get it,” I said. “Fuck’s sake. You’re always such an asshole about it. You’re not my fucking dad.”

“No shit, I’m trying to keep you from getting like him.” Brenden stared into me, piercing my mind with his eyes and I hated every second of it.

“Do you want me to just fuckin’ leave?! You’re acting like you don’t want me here! Like I’m a fuckin’ burden on you or something! I’ll leave if you want me to, it’s not-”

“Desmond!” Tells shouted at me. “Just shut the fuck up already. You’re not the only one stuck in this shit, so sit down and stop actin’ like a bitch.”

I turned around, biting my tongue as I glanced over the wagon. Miriel was visibly uncomfortable, trying to focus on Vetia who looked done with me. Adam had his head in his hands, and Tells was nodding her head toward the seat. She was right, but it was still annoying as all hell.

Vetia chilled her face out. “We love our dysfunctional little family, don’t we, Adam?”

Adam raised his head in confusion. “Huh? Oh… yeah.”

Vetia looked over at Adam. “What’s up, big guy? What’s going on?”

He shook his head without answering.

I sighed. “Is killing that guy really getting to you so much.”

Vetia’s face fell. “What? What guy? Adam killed somebody?”

I elaborated. “Simira’s sped brother. Adam executed him.”

“What?!” Vetia tried shooting up, but her broken body held her down. “What?! Why?! He’s harmless! Aside from his obvious issues, he’s a good kid!”

Tells scoffed. “No. He choked Lady Simira to death in her sleep. He got what was coming to him.”

Adam’s head retreated even further behind his hands while Vetia’s head was snapping around in shock at every reply.

“No,” Miriel added, like she was annoyed about something. “He couldn’t have killed her.”

“But he did.” Tells said.

“Tells, I tested the blood I retrieved from Lady Simira. There is no feasible way that a cur could have filled Simira with as much poison as she had in her system without waking her. I tried telling you last night to wait for my report, but you went on with the execution anyway. And the guards outside her door. They were drugged, or something of the sort. He couldn’t have done all that without being detected.”

“Then who did it, Miriel?” Tells was getting worked up, but it all faded when her eyes caught sight of the red-haired fireblood who was struggling with her own grief. Tells turned to the side and hugged her knees, hiding her face. She was almost inaudible whispering to herself in denial.

“I have ideas, but I’m unsure. It was somebody who had access to the keys to enter, possibly using Eulin for that. Nothing noticeable was stolen, so it was a targeted assassination, but what confuses me is the motive. Her arms, legs, and core had incisions where poison was likely applied, but the poison didn’t kill her. She was strangled by somebody with claws or nails enough to penetrate the neck. But she was in bed, so this person caught her asleep, then poisoned and strangled her, so I suppose the killer had some reason for wanting her awake during the murder. The poison was an anesthetic, likely applied because the assassin is physically inferior to Simira. So it’s a clawed individual, likely a woman, with access to poisons or perhaps the means to create poisons, who had a personal connection to Lady Simira.”

“Damn,” Vetia raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Sounds like you already know who done it.”

“I suspect, due to the night and circumstances surrounding Dex, that Fera Hallax may be responsible. If she stayed with Tarynn, that gives her access to the key to Simira’s study, she’s more frail, and she has plenty of money for poison. The claws and motive don’t make sense, though, unless the claws were poison-tipped gauntlets.” Miriel finished Vetia’s shoulder, sat back to catch her breath, and finally looked up at the rest of us. “Apologies, Vetia, but I must rest before I continue treating you.”

“No, you’ve done more than enough already.” Vetia blankly smiled at Miriel until her attention was pulled lower. “Ah, your knee, it’s bleeding.”

Almost without a thought, Miriel did a quick three circles and sealed the small cut that was suspiciously close to Vetia’s wingtip. “I didn’t even feel it.” She stretched her leg out and winced. “Ah, no wonder. It’s fallen asleep. You’ll have to excuse me.” She stumbled up to the front, sat next to Brenden, sighed and whispered “They’re not as… cheery, as you said they usually are.”

A breath of air escaped Brenden’s nose and he whispered back. “You’ll get used to ‘em. Everyone’s just pissy ‘cause of the situation.”

“How’s your hand doing?” She reached over and checked his hand, inspecting the burn scars and missing digit.

“You know it’s doing better, you’re the one who fixed it.” Brenden chuckled and bumped her arm with his elbow. “Or did you want to just hold hands with me?”

“In front of other people? Brenden, please, don’t think I’m lascivious like that.” I thought she was joking, but she seemed genuinely embarrassed. “Let me worry about you a little.”

“Sure, sure. You’re lucky I don’t know what lastavious means, or I’d be able to come up with a real response.”

She smiled shyly and laughed. “I suppose you’re lucky that I’m far too tired to give you a vocabulary lesson right now.” She paused for an awkward moment and whispered even quieter. “Did you want me to hold your hand? Even in public?”

Brenden just grabbed her hand with a smirk while she bashfully turned her head down.

The ride was quiet, but there hadn’t ever been such a noticeable rift in our group before. Tells wouldn’t look at anyone, retreating into her knees for safety. Adam was haunted and distant beyond comparison. Vetia was fucked on the outside and probably worse upstairs. And Brenden was ignoring it all, or just pretending everything would magically get better. He couldn’t see what was going on. I could imagine the group in the other wagon were even worse. They just lost Zerick, and as far as I could tell, Zerick was the only reason Dex was staying with them. Or rather, Zerick was the only way they would let Dex keep traveling with them.

* * * * *

Later in the evening, we set up camp on a hill by the road. The warm weather had left the ground like dough. Nothing but mud caking everything. Getting shit done was even more of a pain than usual. Brenden took care of the corties, Hestrel and Dex dried firewood with flame sigils, Miriel and I were on Vetia day care duty, Al’Li raised the cover of the small wagon like an awning, and Tells and Adam set up our tents.

And then we gathered around for the most awkward campfire I have ever been a part of.

I groaned through the tension. “Alright, I’m sick of the silence. What’d you motherfuckers get stuck doing at Thatcher Junior’s place? Clearly y’all didn’t get the shit end of the stick.”

Tells looked up at Adam, who was still staring at the ground. She sighed. “I was her personal servant. Adam was in the guard. I only talked to him when he wasn’t blowing Zev, so I barely saw him.”

I waited for her to continue, but in typical Tells fashion, she stopped there. “And you just… worked for Simira like it was nothing, then?”

“What did you want me to do, Desmond? Kill her? In her own manor?” She glared at Vetia, who was propped up against a tree next to me. “Maybe run and get captured and sent to the dungeon.”

“Don’t worry, Tells.” Vetia snidely said. “The dungeon isn’t that bad. There’s only rodents and bugs. The food is usually luke warm and the cell is only freezing most of the day. But they gave me a few rags and a cot right under a constant drip of water, so it was basically paradise. Not to mention the collar and the kets. That many kets will make you crazy.”

“Maybe if you’d backed off her brother and stopped talking shit, she would have treated you better.”

“Yeah. I should have just turned the other cheek when she beat me, cut my tongue out, slashed my mouth open, choked and shock collared me, then used me up like I was nothing more than a bottle of Nyquil for her worthless father that she was just gonna kill anyway.” She smiled and took on an over-the-top character, like she was a dramaturg. “You are so right, Tells. Why didn’t I think about that and prostrate myself before her, kissing her feet and declaring ‘Oh Lady Simira, your toes are just sooo scrumptious, mmm! Please kick me more so that I may have but a whiff of your tomboy spunk! Use me up like the little healing slave that I am! Oh, how I love being treated like I’m shit on the bottom of your boot!’ Does that sound better, Tells?” She scoffed and frowned. “Good riddance to that bitch.”

“You didn’t know her like I did.”

“What the fuck does that even mean?!” Vetia winced and slumped back against the tree with indignation.

I caught a glance of Miriel suspiciously eying down Vetia.

I spoke up without really thinking all that much. “Personal servant? ‘You don’t know her like I did?’ What, were you two punchin’ clams? I thought we all collectively hated her.”

Miriel’s eyes returned to normal, for the time being.

There was silence around the circle, and Tells looked like she was dealing with some real internal struggle over whether to punch me or some nearby shrubs.

“Stockholms.” Adam said, finally looking up. “It happened to me too. We didn’t have the shit end of the stick, so it wasn’t all that bad. Seems like she was just grooming us to be part of the plan before dumping us. It was nice in the moment, having stability. None of us have had that since we got here, so I just kinda kept on doing what I was told. I even liked the people there. Zev was a good friend. But I just did what he said blindly. So did she. I’m sure even Simira isn’t horrible twenty-four seven.”

Tells lowered her head and frowned like a misunderstood teenager.

“Welcome back, Adam,” Brenden said, patting him on the shoulder. “Seems like you got a lot on your mind.”

“I keep on thinking about it. How I ended up at the point where I was… executing him.” His demeanor dropped again, but he quickly sat back up with some strength, even if it was a facade.

“If it means anything, Adam,” Miriel leaned forward to look around Brenden at Adam. “He was a cur. After the house was disbanded by Tarynn, he likely would have been killed anyway.”

Holy shit, I was thinking it, but she just straight up said it, and way more coldly than I was going to.

Vetia looked even more taken aback than Adam. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s better that he got killed than maybe had a shot at living?”

Miriel sighed and nodded like she just remembered something. “Vetia, I have delivered babies everywhere I worked. Cursed children are often left to die or even killed in infancy unless under very special circumstances, such as being born to nobility. Even if the parents do preserve them, they don’t always survive because they can’t support themselves alone.”

Brenden’s face was deeply troubled. “Is that something that you do?”

Miriel’s face went pale and she almost became frantic. “No, no, no. The mother makes the decision, usually long after I’ve left. I couldn’t bear to do something like that.”

“Your world sounds a lot nicer than ours, if it’s one that curs can grow up in.” Hestrel rubbed his head forehead and sighed. “Normal people can’t afford to take care of an infant that never grows up. They run out of money and lose everything, then they die starving. Lady Simira should be lauded as a ramsa for what she did raising her brother. She was a good woman, and he’s lucky he got a quick death. In my home village, one of the boys was a cur, and he was beaten to near-death in the town square because he screamed and scared the local baron’s boy. He lay dying for a day and nobody went to him until they had to move his corpse.”

There was a tense silence as everyone’s eyes slowly turned toward my left.

“Um… Al’Li, right? Hey, um, what are you doing?” Vetia was staring awkwardly at Al’Li, who had been sitting silently next to her until now. She sniffed the air around Vetia, trying to avoid the smoke in her face.

“Iktlotl,” Al’Li blurted out, clicking her tongue on the L’s.

“Um, what is she doing? Does she speak Triali?” Vetia uncomfortably leaned away.

“That’s her native tongue,” Miriel pointed out. “Though I don’t remember what that word means.”

“Alright, well, nature’s calling,” I said, getting tired of all the deep conversations. “I’ll be back.”

“Wait, Des,” Vetia said, “Can you help me up, I gotta go too.”

She’s 100% gonna kill something out there.

“Fuuuck. Okay.”

Adam stretched out his legs in front of him. “I can carry you there and back if you want.”

“I should probably go,” Miriel started getting up, “just to make sure you don’t open any wounds.”

“Alright, sure. Anyone else wanna come?” I yelled out sarcastically. “Group shitting sesh in the woods in five minutes, everyone! We’ll rank size and texture! Don’t be late, and remember to bring your piss bottles for color comparison!” Miriel looked down in embarrassment. Sure, I felt a little bad, but Tells snickered and finally cracked a slight smile, so at least the joke landed. “I’m joking, Miriel. But seriously, it’s just a quick piss break, she’ll be fine. Adam, you carry her.”

I ignited my hand and led the way into the woods until we were out of sight of the fire. I found a tree, waved the fire off my hand, and dropped my pants, finally able to drain the ol’ hose.

“Do you want me to just leave you here, or…?” Adam asked Vetia.

“I wouldn’t do that one,” I said. “There’s a colony of spiders like three feet above her.”

I didn’t turn around, but I heard Adam yell out startled, and then there was a loud slap in the mud.

“Adam!” Vetia sounded like she was about to cry. “There aren’t even any spiders in this world. C’mon, man.”

I finished peeing and turned around to see Adam picking up Vetia, whose entire front half was caked in mud. And she looked absolutely miserable.

“Jesus Christ, Vetia,” I said. “I didn’t notice until now, but you really look like shit.”

“Desmond, as long as you live, you will never see my tits. I will show them to everyone except for you.”

“Funny thing is, I actually apologize for literally everything I have ever said or done that has ever offended you or even slightly peeved you.”

Adam dabbed some of the mud off her face. “Where do you want me to set you down?”

Vetia sounded absolutely dejected. “You could always just drop me in the fuckin’ mud again. Not like I can really do anything about it.”

“Just answer the question.”

“Under the tree, I guess.”

Adam smirked at her. “You look like that cat with its face drenched in milk.”

Vetia cynically said “Ha.”

“Huh?” I tilted my head at him.

“That meme of the cat whose face is, like, covered in milk, y’know. Same type of vibe as the grandpa who ate paint.”

“Adam, what the fuck are you talking about?”

“Eh, you wouldn’t get it. You had a life.”

Adam had really made a full 180 and it was a little scary how normal he was acting after how fucked up he was a few hours ago. I didn’t want to address it, though, cause I didn’t want to send him back to feeling like shit.

“He’s just saying I look stupid and miserable,” she said while looking stupid and miserable. “I’m just so hungry, man. Y’all can leave me here a bit if you want. I don’t care. I just need to eat something where they can’t see me. I don’t have room to breathe with Miss Miriel Marple on the case. That blue asshole probably sicced her on us.”

I shook my head at that last statement. “What?”

“Look at them. Came from working for Lord Hallax to conveniently traveling with us. Al’Li’s sniffing me up and Miriel is getting into Brenden’s head. Tells has basically turned on us, too. Simira’s all the way up her ass puppeting her even in death.”

“Are you good, bro?” Adam asked like he was a little scared.

“You guys can’t see it, can you? Maybe not all of them, but they’re in on this. Hestrel seems alright and Dex is too sad to do anything. I can feel it. They’re gonna turn on us. Sell us out. They’re all connected to Diona and Simira and Hallax. They aren’t on our side. We gotta split off from them.”

“Dude, we’re only taking them with us until the next city, to make sure Richard doesn’t come for us.”

Vetia’s eyes shot up to me. “You know Richard? You met him?”

“No, Brenden did- wait up, do you know him? You sound like you know him.”

“He’s the one that burned the whorehouse down when I was hunting Diona.”

“Yeah,” I slowly tilted my head at her. “Uh, this gotta do with the battle scars? Where’d you get those?”

“Diona, that bitch. I’m gonna kill her. I swear to God I’m gonna kill her.” A sinister, vengeful stare took hold of Vetia’s face. I hadn’t ever seen anything like it before.

Adam’s right here and I don’t know how much she knows. I’m just gonna play dumb.

“Alright, back it up. Diona? The fuck? How’d do you know her? Isn’t she just a rich hot milf with a fat rack?”

“First off, her money comes from drugs and human trafficking. Second, it’s all the makeup that makes her hot. Third, she’s a fireblood. Fourth, those aren’t boobs.”

“What do you mean they’re not boobs?”

“When she had me pinned against the wall, ripping my arm off, her two other arms came out from inside of them. They ain’t real, Desmond. They’re just skin flaps, flat as a board and danglier than an old guy’s ballsack.”

“Yeah,” Adam said, “I feel like we’re focusing on the wrong thing. You said she’s a fireblood?”

“Yes, Adam,” she snipped at him. “She’s a fireblood and worse than Simira by a country mile.”

“How do you know all this?” I pondered for a moment.

“She’s the one who connected me with Fera to get what I was owed.”

“Oh, yeah, that checks out. Wait, how do you know Fera?”

“Doesn’t matter. Dinner’s here, shh.”

We all stopped talking as a small, black-furred creature stepped out of the shadows, sniffing the air and approaching Vetia. Adam and I stepped away while she stabbed it with her wings and began tearing into it with her teeth.

I stopped Adam and put my hand on his shoulder. “Alright, on a scale of one to full blown schizo, where you puttin’ her?”

“She’s definitely better than she was at the manor.”

“What the fuck happened at the manor?”

“She was like straightjacket and padded cell bad after she healed Lord Amien.” Adam relived something gruesome in his mind. “After her heart, I don’t know. That was…”

“I get it. So you’re telling me that paranoid schizo Vetia is an improvement?”

Adam shrugged and his face fell. “I don’t like seeing her like this, Desmond, but improvement is improvement. I don’t know how fireblood healing and brain damage work, though.”

“Yeah.” I frowned in thought. She was a loose cannon like this, and if the others found out that she’s a fireblood, shit would not be good. “Alright, Adam, we’re on damage control. Tell me what you know. Like, I’m ninety-nine percent certain, but I gotta ask. Did she kill Simira?”

Adam looked down and nodded.

“Alright, cool. Understandable. Do you know if she did anything else that could get us in trouble?”

“We, um… she killed Fera.”

“Shit. Okay. Um. Does anyone know?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

I wagged my finger at him. “No no no. Is it no, or maybe no?”

Adam quickly shook his head.

“Okay,” I thought it over for a moment. “This could be a lot worse, but if the evidence is covered up, we should be okay. Wait, how do you know that?”

“I was there. Fera broke into Vetia’s boyfriend’s house and tried to kill him and his daughter. We had to stop her or else things would have gotten a lot worse.”

I sighed, having no clue what the fuck was going on. “Alright. What about you? How are you hangin’ in there?”

Adam’s demeanor turned small, like he was trying to hide himself. “I’m just… going. You know.”

“I really don’t.”

Adam let out a deep breath. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I’m just trying to keep moving forward.”

“Hey, big guy, don’t sweat it. It’s like Miriel said. That guy had a pretty damn good life, and that was gonna be over. You made it quick. Gave him mercy. Y’know what? I got a story for you. I was out hunting with the old man for the first time, came across a deer out there, bleedin’ its ass off with a bullet hole in its side. Some hunter probably shot it and lost it. So you know what my dad does?”

“He shot it?”

“No, he made me shoot it. I was only, like, eight or something. But you know what that did for me?”

“Made you stronger?”

“No, I cried about it all fucking day bro, until my he got tired of it and shut me up by givin’ me a shot of Jack. Then I went to Tells’ house and cried. Guess what happened there?”

“They consoled you?”

“Nah, they called CPS and then CPS didn’t do jack shit about it because the government blows hot donkey dick. But I learned a very valuable lesson. You know what that is?”

“Just tell me.”

“It’s gonna hurt like a bitch, but you’ll get over it eventually. And when shit’s bad, tell your friends and their parents will take care of you.”

“Thanks, Desmond. I’m gonna go back to the fire and try to figure out what that means.”

“You gotta carry the schizo back.”

“Oh, yeah.” He wandered back over to her. “Hey, you done with that- oh, that’s a second one.”

I turned around to see a second small black-furred, eight-legged chubby wolf thing with a short snout. Kind of like if there was a strange orgy between a bear, a wolf, and a spider, with just a dash of extreme radiation that somehow produced a mildly Lovecraftian offspring.

“Mm-mm.” Vetia shook her head, the creature still in her mouth.

Adam rubbed his forehead. “We gotta get back or they’re gonna think we’re actually comparing our shit. Come on, put it down.”

Vetia mumbled something back, not taking the creature out of her mouth.

“No, we’ve gotta go.” I grabbed the paws of the animal and pulled at it like I was playing tug of war with a dog. She made muffled yells and groans at me while I pulled, but her teeth weren’t releasing. “Open your fuckin’ mouth!”

Adam stepped up beside me and grabbed onto another leg, yanking at it. Unfortunately for Vetia, her grip was strong, so all he did was yank her from her seated position and into the mud. She wrapped her good leg around a tree to pull back, and a tearing sound was followed by Adam and I stumbling back with the animal while Vetia was, once again, face down in the mud.

Adam lifted her like a ragdoll. She spit out the chunk of the animal’s neck and quietly whimpered. “I hate this world. Can we go back to Earth now?”

We carried her back to camp and set her down back in her spot.

“Please tell me that’s mud,” Miriel cringed.

“Holy shit, you guys! How hard is it to just help her take a shit?!” Brenden stood up and ran over to her, wiping mud away with his hands.

“It was an accident,” I clarified, putting my hands up at the indignant Brenden. “Adam tripped on the way in and dropped her.”

“She looks kind of like the cat that’s face got covered in milk,” Tells observed, shooting Vetia a look like “you deserved it.”

“See, I told you.” Adam set Vetia down and plopped next to Tells.

“At least you guys are having fun.” Vetia just looked dejected.

Miriel walked over to Vetia and started cleaning.

“Hey Miriel, could you fix my shoulder for me?”

“Not if you’re going to try and heal yourself.”

Vetia sighed. “Re-break my arm afterward, I really don’t care at this point. I just wanna clean the mud out of my pants in private.”

“Oh, I didn’t… One moment.” Miriel cleaned out the wound, applied some ointment, and then used a sigil to repair most of the wound. There was still a massive scab, but her arm was functional again.

“Thanks, Miriel. I’ll make this up to you, I promise.”

“It’s really not necessary.”

“No, it is. Thank you and good night.” She backed into her tent and went silent.

Dex quietly stood and started walking to his wagon.

“Hey,” Brenden called out and anxiously stepped over to him. “Dex, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Dex glared back at Brenden before hopping into the wagon and laying down.

Hestrel stood up beside Brenden. “Let him be, he’ll talk when he’s ready. He’s had a rough couple weeks.”

“This was supposed to be a good thing, all of us leaving together.” Brenden quietly lamented with Hestrel. “And now everyone’s… hurting.”

Hestrel patted Brenden’s shoulder. “He’ll hurt for a while. Longer than any of us. Even so, everyone’s wounds heal. Some of them take more time.”

I added my two cents. “That ain’t gonna heal. It’s gonna leave a nasty scar.”

“Scars are proof that we lived. They’re memories of what we lost.”

“Oh, yeah, like this bad boy, I got when I was three.” I pointed to the scar on my head.

“It’s not there anymore, bucko.” Brenden tapped the side of my head and I looked down at my hands.

I’ve been in what feels like a daze for so long. I completely forgot I’m not even me anymore. These hands in front of me are mine, but they aren’t mine.

Hestrel raised an eyebrow. “How did you, well, end up here? You haven’t said anything about that?”

I spent a moment recalling. “Well, we died. Then I woke up on the ground next to you, Brenden, but Adam said we were laying in the back of that wagon that got trashed. Adam told us he was laying on a rock, and Tells came running in from the woods after… Hey, Tells, where’d you wake up?”

She hadn’t been listening. “In bed.”

“No, no, when we all woke up in this world.”

“I was on the ground next to that bigass hairy mammoth.”

“Okay, and then Vetia was… did she ever tell us? Wait, Adam, weren’t you the first one who woke up that day?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. I was. She was hiding in a bush and then called out to me.”

“Hiding in a bush?”

“Yeah, she was naked and hiding herself, I don’t know. Said she woke up like that.”

Miriel joined the conversation. “That sounds like something the mau might know about.”

Tells sat up. “What are those? Mau? Lady Simira mentioned them.”

“They’re a reclusive bunch. Scholarly and shamanistic nomads. I’ve heard that they are connected to energy so much that they can alter the very shape of their bodies at will. And I am not certain, but stories say the wisest of mau shamans retain the memories of their past lives in other worlds.”

“Jackpot!” Brenden pumped his fist in the air and let out a sigh of relief.

“Jackpot?” I repeated. “Brenden, the fuck are they gonna do for us? All they can do is maybe tell us how we got here with our memories. Even then, that really doesn’t do shit for us.”

“What if they have a way for us to get home?” Brenden asked, full of hope.

Adam sighed and muttered “I don’t wanna go home.”

Brenden looked offended. “What?”

“I don’t wanna go back to my old life. All I did was work all day, then come home and sit down doing nothing because I was so tired from work. On the weekends I’d drink and play games or go out with you guys. Compared to everything I’ve done here, even the bad stuff, my life back there was miserable. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m actually alive and not just going through the motions. I’ve got a chance to become better here.”

Tells nodded. “Same. I miss my family. I wish I could have said bye, but I don’t wanna go back now. I think I’m getting used to life here.”

“What about you, Desmond?”

I thought about it for a moment. I didn’t want to do that. Thinking brought up the memories.

Brenden tried to console me. “You had a good gig lined up back home, Desmond, but you’ve also got a good one here.”

“Yeah. I did. I don’t know. Pass. I’ll get back to you when I have some time to think it over.”

Brenden looked apologetic and torn. “Okay, what about Vetia?”

I chuckled. “After all the shit she’s been through, you think she’ll wanna stay? She’s been in recovery or a torture cell basically since we got here. She hates this world.”

“So we’re two for going home, and two against, then Desmond.”

Tells hugged her knees and leaned her chin on them. “What if… what if when we get there, there’s a way to go back? Are we gonna split up?”

I crossed my arms. “I mean, we weren’t always gonna be together even in the old world. I’m sure we would have all gone separate ways at some point.”

“But,” Tells meekly said, “we still talked and gamed and met up when we could. You’re basically my brother, Desmond. We grew up together.”

“And if you guys leave,” Adam started, “and we’re still here, we won’t ever see each other again.”

Miriel stepped back into the conversation. “There’s no guarantee that the mau can send you home, or that they even know of your home. And if they can, you still have plenty of time to think it over before you get there.”

Brenden’s head slowly turned to her and remorse washed over his face. His throat croaked with the words he couldn’t force out.

“Brenden,” she smiled at him, “it’s okay to miss home. I know what it’s like to be a stranger in foreign lands. It’s your decision, your life in the end. I wouldn’t ever want to get in the way of what makes you happy.”

He was speechless, staring into her eyes like he just completely threw away their relationship. I knew that feeling.

“But,” she said, “if you change your mind and you decide to stay, I’ll be here to help you find happiness in Rhial.” Her confident exterior withered as she realized what she said and batted her eyes down and then back to him, blushing.

Brenden let out a sigh of relief and smiled warmly. “Thanks.”

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“We should all get some sleep. Organize our thoughts and figure out what we want to do.”

Everyone quietly agreed and the conversations petered out to our tents.

I laid down on my sleeping mat and pulled my blankets up.

Home. I’ve done everything I could since I got here to not think about it, and yet it seems like it’s the first thing on everyone else’s minds. How’s dad doing? He ain’t a good dad, but at least he tried. Mom was out fuckin’ that doctor or lawyer of whatever he was without a care in the world for me. I wonder if she even showed up to my funeral…

All I had were my friends back home and Kaylee. My friends weren’t that close to me, but I’m sure they’d at least pour one out for me. And then Kaylee and I, who were fighting because I was yet again a piece of shit who couldn’t keep it in my pants when I got drunk. The woman who I was begging to forgive me, who was gonna give me a second chance. And here I am, making the exact same mistakes because I just don’t know what else to do. I can drink and fuck all I wanted, but I can’t go back to her in good conscience. I can’t apologize enough to make up for the sinkhole slowly growing inside me.

I shot up, frustrated and searching for some comfort, for a bottle of booze, just to make it easier. The only things around me were the darkness of my tent and the silence of the night.

It’s cold, so cold. The feeling of being alone is cold, and I can’t stand it. All I need is a shot to warm me up, ease the pain, that’s it. And then I can pass out without a thought in my head to regret. I still remember what her hands felt like in mine. The light thumps of her heartbeat through her bare back, pulled close against my chest. I loved that, our heartbeats falling in sync with each other. Even when I was stressed and couldn’t relax my mind, I could feel her next to me and find the strength to keep going.

As I quietly fought back tears in my own solitude, I heard more in the tent next to me. Nonsensical whispers and whimpers. Cracking bone and delicately slicing incisions alongside the dull hum of energy. She weeped into a blanket, muffling her voice.

Softly, like she was defeated and enraged, she said “I can’t fucking take this anymore.” Her tent flap whipped open and her near inaudible footsteps disappeared into the woods.

“Psst!” Adam tried to call out to her, but her footsteps didn’t stop.

And then I was back to being left alone with my thoughts. One hour, maybe two, had passed. It was hard keeping track of time without a clock or a phone or a watch. Life was dictated by sunup and sundown. And my thoughts were dictated by my miserable sobriety and racing brain, forcing me to think about everything I wanted to forget.

A few watches passed while I was tossing and turning. Tells was up, alone by the fire.

She glanced back at me as I sat down next to her. “You just get done pettin’ the cobra or something?”

“Fuck did you say to me?”

“The only people who stay up this late are vets and chronic masturbators, and you ain’t a vet.”

“May as well be. Got the memories and the misery to boot.”

Tells squinted at me. Dark circles and heavy bags surrounded her eyes, but she was as solemn and calm as ever.

She patted my shoulder. “You look like shit.”

“I know.”

Her eyes got lost in the flickering flames.

“Tells, what’s up? You ain’t the fire-staring type.”

“I zone out all the time.”

“Nah, you daydream. This ain’t that. I know that look. And I know this look.”

She turned to me, a brief shiver of her jaw shaking her quiet, contemplative face. She just shook her head.

“Did you actually… like, have a thing for Simira?”

She glared at me. “We weren’t fucking.”

“Well, yeah, but something happened. You hated her before.”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t anymore.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“So what the fuck is up, Tells?”

She clenched her fists and rested her forehead on them. “I watched my best friend go insane because of Simira. And I didn’t do anything. I let it happen. And then, after everything…” She clenched her eyes shut, trying to figure it out.

I patted her back and she lifted her head. “Hey, sometimes shit don’t work out. Can’t change it.”

We both sat in silence listening to the fire crack and burn. The radiating heat stole the cold from me. I spent that time trying to think of how to phrase my next question. “Hey?”

“Yeah?”

“You really mean that? About wanting to stay here?”

“Pretty much.”

“You don’t wanna see your family again?”

“It’s not like I don’t. I dunno. But, like, what am I gonna do? Un-die?”

“And college, you’re just done with that?”

“Whaaat? No, I loved it. You know, the kid with anger issues going into computer sciences, AKA screaming at a line of code for an hour until I smash my monitor or realize I fat-fingered an apostrophe on the first line. I’m good.”

“Why the hell were you even going in the first place then?”

“To make dad proud. Make it outta the hood.”

“Yeah, but like, don’t you make shitloads of money from it?”

“Good money. But like 99% of the field is a bunch of fuckin furries. I already had to go to school with ‘em. I’d kill myself if I had to work with them.”

“Is that how they afford those wierdass animal costumes? IT money?”

“You just puttin’ two and two together?”

“I don’t talk to them. Are they really that bad?”

“They’re not, like, bad people. They’re actually really nice most of the time. But then you add them on socials and realize they’re degenerates with some disgusting and depraved fetishes. They post that shit on main, bro, and they wonder why everyone hates them.”

“You’ve been single almost your whole life.”

“Yeah. Because I’m afraid of people and have anger issues. I’m not a brain rotted porn addict.”

“You sure about that?”

She side-eyed me and slapped my gut. “What’d you say, tubby?”

“Bruh.”

“Beer gut.” She slapped it again.

“It’s not that bad.”

She slapped my gut and flicked my nose as I looked down before pointing directly into my face and saying “Fat.”

“Okay, whatever.” I pushed her hand down. “I got time to cut. White boy summer ain’t coming for months. Still weird, though, being in a different body.”

“You’re telling me. I’m way lighter and I lost my dick.”

“What’s that like?”

“Breezy. And I don’t have to unstick my balls from my legs anymore. But that’s just moved up to my boobs.”

“What boobs?”

“Kill yourself.”

I snickered. “Doesn’t sound like a bad trade off, though.”

“I thought that until I had my period. Scared the shit out of me.”

“What are those like?”

“It’s… weird. You get a feeling in your gut and you just know you gotta run and take a shit. Ruined two pairs of pants until I started wearing skirts. Didn’t like the diaper look anyway.”

“Do the cramps really hurt as bad as bitches make them out to be?”

She thought for a moment. “They make me angry.”

“Huh.” There was a potent silence for a minute. “Not to change the topic from your new gooch, but I can’t just let it go.”

She side-eyed me again, like it was an open invitation to get hit.

“You said you knew Simira differently earlier. What’d you mean by that?”

“I’m gonna go wake up Brenden for next watch.” She started getting up.

“Tells.” I grabbed her arm. “You’re acting like she was your best friend. I get the whole Stockholms thing and being a little broken up about it, but you ain’t just a little hurt. Even I can see that.”

She bit her cheek and gazed remorsefully into the fire, then back to me. “She reminded me of you when we met at the police station the first time. Someone who wanted love, but didn’t know how to be loved. She was dealt a shit hand in life, but she was trying her best.”

My hand fell from her arm and I turned back toward the fire, feeling thoroughly intruded upon and a little violated.

Tells snapped in front of my face, still stoic as ever. “Hey, drama queen. Quit sulking. That ain’t you anymore.” She slapped my shoulder and walked away.

Being sober sucks. All I have is the endless expanse of darkness and the flickering blaze before me. The towering trees snuff out any light from the sky, not to mention how they suffocate the firelight. They’re so enormous and imposing. The bark is so deep brown that it’s almost completely invisible against the black of the deep forest. In fact, everything about the forests and animals are darker here, like everything has adjusted to an almost lightless forest floor.

Before I knew it, Brenden was sitting right where Tells had been. “What’s up?”

“You know.”

“We haven’t had a chance to talk in a while. How are you doing?” It was a strange change of pace from talking with Tells. Brenden would keep staring at me and actually respond to what I was saying.

“As in…” I really didn’t want to go into it.

“Your head. How are you doing upstairs? You seem down.”

“That’s ‘cause I’ve been so high up.”

“That’s what I mean. How’s being sober?”

“It sucks. It fucking blows. What did you expect?”

“But you’re doing better, aren’t you?”

“It feels awful.”

“That’s normal.”

“Vetia, I can hear you. What the fuck are you doing skulking around back there?” I turned around to see the pitch white silhouette with oversized wings hunched over her tent. She whipped her head toward us and awkwardly smiled.

Brenden’s eyes went wide and he whispered loudly. “What the hell are you doing up? You’re supposed to be recovering.”

She tiptoed over and sat to my left. “Brenden, that would make perfect sense if I wasn’t a blood monster that can regrow shit, but alas, here I am.”

“What are you doing up anyway?” Brenden was going dad mode again.

“Well it’s not like I can just walk into the woods to eat with the others around.”

I put my hand up. “Wait, why can’t we just tell them you’re a fireblood?”

“Do I really need to explain that?” She retorted.

“Yes, bitch, explain.”

“People here hate firebloods. It’s just how it is. I don’t think there are any ‘good’ firebloods either. Like Geren said, I’m a bit of an anomaly.”

Brenden countered with his hopeful optimism. “They’re not gonna kill you if you explain yourself.”

She scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Not so sure about that.”

“Well- it- it’s not like we can hide it forever.”

“Okay, maybe if your thing with Miriel gets far enough. But the people here fucking hate firebloods. I’ve been through the wringer these past months and they didn’t even know I was one. I’m not pushing any more buttons.”

“Fine. But you get to explain why you’re all fixed up tomorrow morning.”

“Perfect. Great. I tell Miriel that I healed myself and she gets pissy. Big whoop. She knew I was gonna do it anyway.”

The conversation halted, so I turned to Vetia. “Do you actually want to go home so badly?”

She looked at me confused for a moment, and then, “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?”

“I was just curious.”

“Why? Going home on your mind?”

I lowered my head and pushed back my hair. “Yeah. It has been.”

Vetia reached her arm around my shoulder and scooted closer. “Let’s go. Get it off your chest. Is it Kaylee?”

I nodded.

Brenden sounded a little taken aback. “You told her about Kaylee? When?”

“She was the only one of you who asked about relationship stuff back home.”

“Oh.”

She got us back on track. “You still missing her, Dez?”

“What do you think?”

She nodded knowingly. “Well, it’s been a while since we died. You don’t just hold onto something like this unless it really means something to you. C’mon, you can talk to mommy about anything.” She showed her teeth in a wide, mischievous grin.

I glared at her. “I’m not drunk enough for your bullshit.”

“That’s not a bad thing. Drinking makes life easier, but sobriety makes life matter. That’s why you were sober for so long, because of her, right?”

“Yeah. Then I fucked it all up right before we left for spring break. Like I was saying to you in the car, before we all fuckin’ died.”

“And I never got to answer you.”

Brenden put his hand on my shoulder. “What happened, Desmond?”

“I, uh, I was at a party after midterms. Thought, fuck it, why not. It’s just one party, y’know. Well, next thing I know, I’m going shot for shot. Fast forward ten drinks, and I’m in a closet gettin’ head from some sorority hoe. And then, I…” I lost myself in trying to find the right way to put it.

Vetia leaned down into my line of sight and smiled at me. “And then you told Kaylee. Right after the party.”

“Of fuckin’ course I did.” There were no tears. I didn’t deserve them. Brutal dejection was all I had earned. “I fucked up so bad, man. And then I got here and started doing the same Goddamn thing. The same Goddamn thing that I swore I’d never do again. I’ve been trying to just move forward and forget, but I can’t. I just feel like even more of a piece of shit.”

“What made you want to do it? What broke you?” She pulled my head onto her shoulder.

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Does too.”

I pulled away and shook my head.

She yanked my head back onto her shoulder. “If you can figure out what was hurting you in here,” she patted my chest, “you can pull yourself out of that mindset once you start falling in.”

“I miss her.”

“What does that feel like, to you?”

“I want to see her. Feel her body against me. Hear her voice. I want to apologize.”

“Guilt? Yearning?”

I paused, just taking a moment to breathe. “Regret.”

“Mm, sounds like you’ve been avoiding it, huh? Drinking, screwing, singing. You’re pushing it away, aren’t you, because it hurts?”

“I’m done with this.”

“No you ain’t.” She firmly held my head in place. “Talk, motherfucker, this is an emotional stick-up.”

“Why do you even care? Why can’t I just handle it myself?”

“Look where handling it yourself got you. Life isn’t meant to be walked alone. So until you find the one you wanna walk it with, the boys are gonna make sure you’re keeping your head on straight.”

“You aren’t even a guy anymore, idiot.”

She glared at me. “You can take the boy outta your homie, but you can’t take the homie outta your boy. Even if I am just some freakish mutant ghoul woman now, I earned my spot in the last life. Same as Tells, minus the whole ghoul thing.”

Brenden leaned forward. “What’s up with all that? You keep calling yourself a ghoul and a blood monster and shit.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Have you seen me?”

“I’m not saying you’re not, but, like, you say that like you hate yourself.”

“God forbid I abhor the monstrosity I am.”

I cut in. “Hypocrite.”

She clutched the side of my neck hard, digging her fingers in. “Pardon? Didn’t catch that.”

I ducked out of her grip and sat back up. “You’re spewing all this shit about confronting yourself and yet you hate yourself more than me.”

“Nuh uh.”

“Yuh huh.”

“Yuh huh,” Brenden emphasized.

She grunted in frustration. “You’re not gonna weasel out of questioning by flipping the script.”

I rolled my eyes. “And you can’t just ignore your shit because you’re the one asking questions.”

Brenden snuck up from his seat, standing behind both of us. He slapped the back of our heads. “I’m the one asking questions now. So both of you shut the fuck up.” He pushed me to the right. “Scooch.”

I slid over and Brenden took the spot in the middle.

He began. “Desmond, you’re in denial. If you keep drinking and refusing to confront these things, you aren’t ever gonna get better. Man, look at yourself.” He vaguely gestured to my body. “It’s been like, a month since we got here, and you’ve completely let yourself go. Sure, you can’t get a haircut around here, but you haven’t done any kind of upkeep. Your beard is coming in all patchy, your hair’s a complete mess, your six pack that you came here with is all gone. My man, you gotta start by taking care of yourself.”

“Yeah, sure, lemme get a sick fade and a chin strap, that’ll get me feeling all nice and chipper, like I was never a piece of shit at all.”

Vetia flicked the back of my head. “Cut that out. All the self-deprecating bullshit is just gonna make you feel worse than you need to.”

Brenden flicked her forehead. “Silence, hypocrite.” He turned back to me. “If you keep thinking you’re a piece of shit, you’re gonna be a piece of shit. How you see yourself is how others see you. Look good, feel good. Dress and act how you want people to see you.”

All this is horseshit.

I groaned. “For fucks sake, you guys. You’re just rattling off generic self-help garbage at me when we got way worse things to worry about. It’s not like you’re both always paragons of positivity.”

Brenden flicked my head. “I’m positive as fuck. I ain’t glass half full or half empty, I’m glad I got the glass at all. You’ve gotta find a way to help yourself, in your own way. I don’t know what that looks like for you, but it starts with realizing you can be better.”

“What he said,” Vetia seconded.

“I don’t wanna hear shit from you. All you’ve done aside from cracking shitty jokes is bitch and moan about hating this place and wanting to go home. Brenden, you’ve just been all over your new girlfriend ignoring every problem around us. Adam’s barely been functioning, and Tells is hiding shit. What the fuck are we even trying to do here? Like seriously, what’s the goal? What if we can’t get back home? Do we go to another city and get kicked out? Live in a cottage in the countryside until we die of dysentery? Like what’s the endgame here?”

Brenden patted my back and chuckled. “Hell if I know. Probably the same as when we were back on Earth. Live and be happy. Find a nice place. Find a nice girl. And make the most of life. Isn’t that what you wanted back home?”

His smile, his optimism, his positivity, it was infectious. The way he looked forward with hope made me want to know what that felt like. I shook my head, defeated by his overpowering positivity. “Everything was fine for me back home. I had everything I wanted. What, now I gotta just accept defeat and move on? Accept that I’ll never get to make amends?”

Brenden let out a deep sigh and gazed into the fire. “What do you think we’ve all had to do? Desmond, none of us got to make up for anything. My family… it’d be a miracle if mom is still living at the house. If we’re lucky, the landlord heard about me dying and gave her an extension. But she was a real witch, so I don’t know. And even if she can afford the house, Kyle’s leukemia debt is just gonna rack up in its place. That’s what I go to sleep worrying about every night, but I can’t let it get to me or I won’t be able to keep going.”

“Be grateful for what you guys got,” Vetia mumbled, a longing expression washing over her face. “At least you can live normal lives here. The only thing I have is hope that maybe one day I’ll get to go back to my old life. I was finally close to my lifelong goal. I was out on a site in the middle of nowhere in Pakistan, learning from one of the coolest archeologists in the field, searching for signs of Alexandria in Orietai. Then I went home after a year, during spring break.”

Brenden raised his eyebrow. “I thought your dream was to be an actor?”

“Nobody wanted to cast a five foot nothing average looking manlet in a show, no matter how much I tried. Had to give that dream up pretty early. I’m just lucky archeology worked out… or, well, was working out. Now… I’d be lucky to live as a recluse in some backwoods shack.”

“Wait, because you’re a fireblood? I thought you were hiding it perfectly fine.”

“She’s not,” I said. “Anyone with a half decent nose can smell it on her. I’m betting Al’Li already has you figured out.”

Her eyes grew more distant. “Probably. I’ve had a bounty on my head since I got here, and the clock is running out before somebody claims it. If we can find these mau and they can give us answers, we should chase that without looking back. I should. I don’t have many other options if I want a real life.”

A chilling night breeze swirled around us, twisting the plumes of smoke rising from the fire and sending hundreds of tiny embers into the sky until they disappeared like dying suns in the starscape above. The fire’s warmth, the smell of smoke, the crackling sticks, they were like an ocean washing over me. They reminded me of what peace felt like, even if it was only for the brief minute that we all sat in silence, unsure of where to take the conversation. I held my hands out to the open flame, embracing the waves of heat that cascaded up my arms and through my body. I finally let my shoulders relax.

I’m not in this alone. They’re struggling just as much as me, but I gave up trying.

I took in a deep breath and leaned back. “Then that’s what we’ll do. Run forward without looking back. Until we get where we’re going.”

Vetia relaxed into a smile. “Hey, I didn’t get to thank you for saving my life back in Vehfirn, so thanks.”

I grinned, “I already told you how you can thank me.”

She flipped me off with a smirk.

It still wasn’t easy to find sleep on the mat in my tent, but the unfamiliarity made it more comfortable for me. Night sounds and the noises of the forest became like white noise, and the overpowering aroma of smoke kept the awful smell of mud and muck at bay. It was like I was camping back home, and that very comfort must have crept into my dreams, which were peaceful. Good dreams for the first night since I had arrived here. Me and her, basking in firelight, together.

* * * * *

I mentally checked into listening to the yelling woman outside about halfway through. Whatever it was, Miriel was absolutely fuming.

“This is how you die! You become overconfident in your abilities and fail to see the harm that is being done to yourself! That’s why I have been attending to you!”

Vetia was as chill as ever, trying to calm Miriel. “Miriel, Miriel, I know. I’m telling you that I’m fine. Most of the work was already-”

“I wasn’t remotely close to being done! Your wounds need to be disinfected and cleaned every time you regenerate them! Your vital organs must be checked to ensure jzanmah is not interfering with them! You could very easily have an internal infection that we’ll have to cut you open to treat!”

“It’s good. I’m good. Miriel, I appreciate all the help and honestly thank you, but I needed to finish it myself. I’m-”

“Is that what that outburst in the wagon was? Is that why your pupils are so dilated? You have jzanmah sickness, possibly dangerously far along now! Do you know what the steps are?! Delirium, derangement, hysteria, mania, psychosis, and then your brain will shut down!”

An exasperated groan was the only thing my body could do in preparation for the shitstorm I was about to step out into. And as I peered out from my tent, I realized everyone felt the exact same as me. Nobody knew what to do or say. Everyone was just standing off to the side monitoring the situation.

“I don’t get why this is such a big deal.”

“I’ve seen people like you kill themselves because they get caught up in using jzanmah!”

“I told you everything I did, Miriel, and I was fine after all that. I’m sure I’ve just got more energy stores than other people.”

“Energy stores?! You don’t even know how energy functions?!”

“Was I supposed to know?”

“You never should have started at all if you didn’t know what you were doing!”

Vetia’s temper finally broke and she began pacing in circles, miming her hand to her words wildly. “You think I had a fucking choice?! All I had was a book with a list of sigils in a world I didn’t know shit about! Should I have just let Adam die when his intestines were a pool of mush on the ground?! Should I have let Tells and Brenden bleed out after they got cut to high hell by giant bugs?! Should I have let Tarynn die of poison?! Should I have watched a little girl and her father die on the floor of their own home just so I wouldn’t get a little tired?! Tell me, Miriel, what would you have done in all your wisdom and years?!”

“We stabilize and treat the wounded and dying, then regenerate over time so our brains aren’t liquefied in our heads! There are sigils for all of this!” Miriel was getting caught up in the heat, turning it into a screaming match.

“Well maybe take that up to the piece of shit who whisked us away to this place! Tell him to put the stabilizing and treating sigils in my Goddamn book next time!”

“It never occurred to you to lighten your application of energy and ease the flow after all of that?!”

“How was I supposed to just know that?!”

“You don’t need specific sigils to realize the damage you’re doing to yourself!”

Vetia stepped up to Miriel, shoving her finger in her face. “I don’t give a shit about myself! Everything I’ve done is to make sure these motherfuckers get home alive! That’s all I want! I don’t care if I die! I hate this world! I hate this fucking body! It’s been nothing but a burden since I came here!”

Miriel was flabbergasted and enraged like Vetia just wasn’t listening. “Your body?! What, because you’re half-lonsu?! Because your bones are more brittle?! How else do you think you can fly?!”

A moment of realization crossed Vetia’s face before she reset back to her irritation. “That’s not even remotely it.” She was trying to calm herself down to not reveal anything, but her entire being was infuriated. Her heart was beating so rapidly that I could hear it from across camp.

“Has your brain been compromised since you arrived here? That could be the cause of depressive symptoms or mood swings. When did you first heal Adam?” Miriel was matching Vetia’s tone, similarly fighting back her own anger.

“It was bad. But it got better, just like after I fixed Simira’s dad.”

“Jzanmah sickness doesn’t get better on its own, Vetia! If you think you’ve gotten better, then you’re only slipping further into it!”

Adam broke the indifference of the silent audience and stepped up to Vetia’s side. “She’s right, Miriel, I saw her when she was completely insane. She’s gotten a lot better since then.” Adam’s calm and collected manner was like dashing water onto a raging fire.

Miriel made an exaggerated sigh. “That doesn’t just happen, Adam. Nobody has ever simply recovered from jzanmah sickness on their own. It’s a lengthy recovery process that often results in serious memory loss. They only seem better because they become better at concealing it.”

“Miriel,” Vetia scratched her head, grasping at a clump of hair until her hand relaxed. She had an idea. “We were dropped in this world with a bunch of weird shit, right? Brenden’s really fucking fast. Adam’s strong as all hell. Desmond can see for miles. Tells… I’m sure she can do things. Who’s to say I wasn’t just made like this? Maybe my gift or whatever is that my body heals better so I can heal.”

Before Miriel could rebuke, Adam jumped in. “Maybe she’s right. Maybe that is what her ability is. Why don’t we table this and Miriel, you can do some kinds of checks on her to see if she’s actually healing.”

A stern, irritated look became of Miriel’s face, and she pointed to the log next to the fire. “Lay down. I’m checking your brain.”

Vetia silently laid on the log while Miriel scribed the sigil that put a sheen of light in front of her eyes. Miriel was raising her eyebrows and contorting her lips as she examined Vetia’s brain through the sigil.

Miriel sighed and the sheen fell from before her eyes. “Have you noticed any visual or auditory hallucinations recently?”

“A little.”

“Both, or just one?”

“Both.”

“How often?”

“Most of the day and night.”

“How much do they inhibit your daily activities?”

“I can usually function normally.”

“And what kinds?”

“Shapes at the corners of my vision. Unintelligible voices at random points.”

“Any memory loss or blackouts?”

“A couple blackouts.”

“Can you describe the aftermath of the blackouts? Any reported acting out of your normal behavior?”

“No. There are just a few periods of time where I black out and when I come to I’m where I was supposed to be going.”

“Any recent depression or episodes of mania?”

“No.”

Miriel raised her eyebrows at Vetia. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m good. Can you just tell me what you found?”

“Abnormally low levels of white matter in the frontal and temporal lobes. Minor bruising on the front and back of your brain. Do you remember if you suffered a concussion recently?”

“Yeah. I did.”

Miriel crouched next to the log and sighed, leveling with her. “Vetia, your brain is literally falling apart due to the intensity of the jzanmah flowing through you. Having a concussion alongside that will only increase the severity of the side effects. You need to rest, and if you truly can heal, then I hope we’ll see improvement. But for now, can you please, please, refrain from healing yourself any further?”

Vetia gave an apologetic smile and a thumbs up. At the sight of it, Miriel looked like she was about to blow a gasket until she brushed a hand down her face and lightly chuckled.

“I urge you not to raise your thumb at anyone here. It’s quite the obscene gesture.”

Brenden slapped his thigh and stood up as everyone took their own silent, collective sighs. “Alright, I’ll get Dante and Vergil ready if you guys wanna pack up camp.”

Tells’ eyes opened wide and her head snapped toward Brenden’s direction. “Did you name the corties without us?”

“You guys weren’t doing it, so I did.”

Tells rolled her eyes and scoffed. “And you named them Dang and Virgin?”

Brenden gestured to the red corty and then the jet black corty. “Dante. Vergil.”

Vetia leaned up from the log she was lying on and squinted at him skeptically. “Ain’t no fucking way you’ve read the Divine Comedy.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was that funny.”

Adam walked past Brenden with a folded tent and patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll figure it out one day buddy.”

Everyone broke off into doing their own work, picking things up, and moving on. Hestrel and Dex droned on about how cold the night was. Brenden snipped at Tells and Adam to clean off their boots before getting into wagons and then told them about that dream he kept having. Miriel and Al’Li whispered about some herbs they found. Vetia and I lamented not having more clothes, as ours were mostly torn and stained with mud and blood.

The day was no less muddy, in fact, the snow was practically gone and the roads were more like sludge than roads. Ash wasn’t falling so heavily today, so we could travel without veils. The corties’ feet slapped and sucked in and out of the ashy grime while the wheels spat it all up behind us.

Brenden yelled back from the front. “Hey Desmond, it smell like it’s gonna rain to you? Clouds definitely look it.”

“It smells like mud and shit, Brenden. Mud from the road, shit from all of us, and yeah, sure, I guess it smells like it’s gonna rain.”

“For the record,” Vetia said, “it’s not me that smells like shit. I’ve only shit twice since we got here and I washed after both times.”

“Well you just smell bad in general,” I said. She looked down dejectedly.

“Yeah, Tells.” Adam said jokingly, “Wipe your ass for once.”

“Wiping wastes time when I could be on that grind.”

Adam shook his head. “The things civilized society makes us do. Truly barbaric.”

A mischievous grin formed on Vetia’s face. “By the way, Adam and Tells, how was your little slow dance at the manor?”

Tells and Adam both froze.

“It wasn’t our fault,” Tells said to cover for herself, “some whore pushed us into each other.”

“Yeah, um, she wanted to dance with me or something, which was kind of weird, but I didn’t wanna.” Adam scratched the back of his head and looked out the front of the wagon.

“She wasn’t gonna go away unless we were dancing, so we… danced.”

Vetia crossed her legs on a crate and leaned back, clearly goading them on. “How was that? Y’know, two longtime friends dancing in the dark together to quite the romantic song. Surely there was something afoot, no?”

Tells was staring at the floor awkwardly, so Adam tried his best to answer. “Nothing, no. I doubt being in new bodies would make us suddenly attracted to each other or something.”

“You sure?” She prodded. “Desmond has been staring at my tits basically since we arrived here.”

Oh great, she’s dragging me into it.

“Well, yeah. I fuckin’ love lookin’ at tits. And we’re in this bouncy wagon so they’re just boobin’ around all breastily. Of course I’m gonna be staring at ‘em.”

“He’s also a complete horndog, so I really wouldn’t put it past him,” Adam said.

I was genuinely a little offended. “Don’t you deny me my manhood. I fuckin’ love boobs and I think it’s weirder that you don’t.”

“Wait,” Adam was warming up to the conversation finally. “How do you know we danced?”

Vetia paused for a moment. “Desmond told me. He said he saw you do it.”

I glared at her and then turned to Adam, who was now staring at me. “I got good eyes, y’know. Caught a couple glimpses from up on stage.”

That was a complete lie. I was drunk as shit during the performance and trying my damnedest just to play and sing properly.

Vetia chuckled and covered her mouth with her hand, then whispered something that only I could hear. “Did I ever mention that I can literally feel people’s emotions?” She raised her eyebrows and looked at the two of them, who were more awkward than ever.

She lowered her hand and squinted at Tells for a moment. “Tells, for real though, have you noticed any changes? Not like anything crazy, but small things?”

Tells finally faced Vetia before looking around in thought. “A little, yeah, but nothing really major.”

“Like small things, right? Little changes in preference and the way you see things?”

“Everything seems a little more, like, colorful. And the flavors I like are different from before.”

“Well,” Adam hypothesized, “considering you’re in bodies of the other sex, there are different hormones that are dominant. Even I can say I’ve felt weirdly more energetic and happier like this. Seems like it’s just your minds adjusting to the functions of your different bodies. It was weird for me for a while too, getting up and wondering how I felt so good. But it’s probably because I’m taking better care of myself now.”

“You come out saying the nerdiest shit sometimes, man,” I said.

“Okay Mr. Engineer, and you’re not?”

“But,” Vetia smirked, “if your mind is connected to your body so closely, and you’re adjusting to your new biology, your new needs and desires, then-”

Tells cut her off. “You’re evil, you know that?”

“So then am I become your enemy, by telling you the truth?” Vetia smiled smugly at Tells.

Tells accepted her challenge. “You are of your father the devil and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.”

Vetia thought for a moment and responded slowly like she was trying to recite something far back in her memory. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him.”

Tells responded instantly. “And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.”

“I’m not winning this one. You know what?” Vetia shrugged off her loss. “I’m cool with being the devil. Tells can be the angle on the other shoulder.”

“You’re talking about our bodies changing us,” Tells pointed at her. “Your wings and tail have poison in them, you drink blood to survive, you even have devil horns and you don’t think that’s changed you at all?”

Adam leaned forward. “Do you think maybe she’s the angle because she’s right?”

Vetia smiled even though she seemed thoroughly irked. “Nope, not at all. I see you guys got a big helping of that Simira Kool-aid, though.”

I thought for a moment about what Tells said. “What does blood even taste like to you? Irony like normal, or is it different?”

Vetia reset her formerly irritated face. Without hesitation, she said “Dr Pepper.”

“Fuck,” I sighed, “Dr Pepper sounds good right now.”

Vetia smirked. “El Psy Kongroo.” She shared a nod with Adam.

I squinted at the two of them. “What the hell does speakin’ in moon runes have to do with my barbeque soda?”

Adam chuckled pretentiously. “Ohohoho, perhaps it’s too much of an intellectual drink for you.”

Vetia matched his pomp. “Oh, indeed. His brain is that of a stunted homo erectus.”

I shook my head. “That one of those gay jokes that I get too much pussy to understand?”

She leaned back and faked sympathy. “Woah, we never said anything about you being gay, Desmond. Is there something you need to tell us? It’s okay, we’re here for you, man. You can tell us anything.”

“Yeah,” Adam said with a matching tone of pretense, “and if you need any advice on coming out, just ask Brenden. He’s got tons of experience.”

“You talking shit back there?!” Brenden yelled back.

“Shut your knife-ear ass up.” I called back. “Speak when you’re spoken to.”

“You jackasses said my na-”

“Aht!” Vetia raised her finger to silence him. “Drive the wagon, slave, or we’ll give you forty lashes!”

“I’ll crash the wagon now, I don’t give a fuck.”

“Elves.” Adam chuckled and raised his water skin.

We all shared a hearty laugh, except Brenden who rolled his eyes at us and got back to his dutiful labor.

The conversation died out and we all turned inward to relax. Time passed as we approached evening. The air in the wagon was certainly lighter than yesterday, but angst still undoubtedly plagued us. Tells wouldn’t even look at Vetia, Adam was constantly spacing out, and Vetia was back to whispering to herself. Me? I was doing just fine. I was the only one without a problem. Even Brenden was cursing at the corties under his breath when they would slow down or the wagon would lurch from being caught in a patch of mud from the fresh drizzle wetting the ground. We were back in our own little world, separated from all the shit we had to endure before.

And then the wagon stopped.

“What’s going on up there?!” Brenden hollered up to the leading wagon.

Hestrel leaned out the back. “Wheel’s stuck in the mud!”

Wooden wagon wheels on a muddy dirt road got stuck? My surprise was unimaginable, but only because it managed to take this long to get stuck.

“Desmond, Adam,” Brenden stepped back into the wagon, “wanna come out and help us move this shit?”

Adam and I stepped out onto the road and up to the lead wagon. It was much smaller than ours and beat to hell. The four foot tall, wide wooden wheel was halfway sunk into the mud. Ain’t nothing was getting it out of there until the road dried and we could dig it free.

Brenden leaned down and pointed. “Adam, you think you could lift this sucker out while the corties pull? We’ll help, but you’re gonna be carrying us.”

Adam paced around the wheel and looked it over with a doubtful expression. “It’s pretty deep in there. I’ll give it a shot.”

He planted his boots into the road, trying to find purchase in the sloppy mud. Brenden, Hestrel, Dex, and I followed suit and readied ourselves. Al’Li whipped the reigns and the corties yanked at the wagon. The whole endeavor was a mess. Each of the corties’ six legs were slipping in the sludge, unable to gain any traction with the weight of the wagon pulling on them. Adam, on the other hand, found his footing and began lifting as hard as he could.

“Stop! Stop! Adam you’re gonna-!” I yelled out to Adam who was right next to me, but I realized way too late what was wrong.

Adam’s legs were completely straight and he was arched over the wheel, lifting entirely with his lower back. Even for how strong he was, this wagon was gonna beat his ass without proper form. I heard three nasty pops and the wagon heaved out of its hole, back on track. Adam grunted and yelled as he fell sideways like he was paralyzed. His eyes were glued shut as his face contorted and silently writhed.

“Get him back into the wagon!” I yelled out to the girls in the wagon. “Make some space in there!”

Tells leaped out of the wagon to help us lift him in, and we needed it. Adam was a big sonuvabitch and every extra hand was needed.

“Lift! Now!” Hestrel called and we all slowly carried him.

Everyone was slipping and losing grip on him, but trying not to hurt him anymore. We dragged him into our wagon and laid him down. The whole wagon rocked as he flopped onto the floor and Vetia began using the green glasses sigil to check him out.

“Adam, can you feel my hand?” Vetia pressed her fingers against Adam’s back, which was spasming so much that his skin looked like waves on an ocean.

“No…” Adam pushed out weakly.

“Fuck me, lower back muscles torn in several spots and three ruptured discs. I'm gonna have to cut in to fix them.”

Miriel climbed into the wagon. “You’re not doing any sigils, Vetia! Stabilize and treat.” She turned toward the front of the wagon. “Dex! I need you to grab my bag!” Dex hopped out and she sat next to Vetia. “Watch me.”

She expeditiously traced a circle, then several smaller symbols that were like wavy E’s around the inside. Three lines cut through all but three of the E’s and the lines formed a triangle that extended outside of the circle. The final shape was a long line stretching around the entire sigil in a circle, but with deliberate loops and valleys that made it look more like cursive writing.

“This sigil treats inflammation and reduces pain. It will make his situation more bearable while we figure out how to fix it.”

She raised the sigil over Adam and quickly whipped her finger down from the center of the sigil to Adam’s back. A string followed her finger down and the cursive around the sigil began unspooling into his twitching muscles.

The muscles calmed and only mildly twitched, but Adam’s face was still showing signs of incredible pain.

“How long does this take to activate, Miriel?” Vetia was worried and her voice weakened every time a jolt of pain shot through Adam.

“It is active. It requires me to concentrate for a few moments, though, so please wait.” Miriel stared into the sigil as every one of the lines slowly drew into Adam’s back, and she reached her finger in a couple times to tug and direct the flow into different spots. Meanwhile, Dex finally returned with her tools, setting them by Miriel’s feet.

Adam’s face showed it wasn’t working well and Vetia was growing antsy. “What now?”

Miriel raised her hand like she wanted to help, then clenched her fist in frustration. “I don’t have good enough tools! I was borrowing most of everything from Hallax! I don’t have a knife precise and durable enough to cut next to his spine! If he wasn’t jinian, it wouldn’t be a problem. I can’t cut in safely near his spine, especially with his muscles spasming so heavily.”

Vetia glanced frantically around to all of us. The others didn’t know what she was thinking, but I could tell she wanted to play it risky. Her eyes kept darting to Miriel.

I tilted my head at her, trying to reassure her and figure out what she wanted to do. “Miriel, switch spots with me. You two can work on either side of him.”

She frustratedly protested. “No, Desmond, I can work here-”

I pushed through everyone and shoved my ass in Miriel’s face so she couldn’t see and had to get up. On queue, Vetia stumbled from me pushing her, jabbing at Adam’s back with her wing spikes in all the same places the sigil hit before. With both the poison and the sigil active, Adam’s face relaxed and the muscles calmed. She slipped her tail around and stuck that in his back while Miriel awkwardly stumbled around the wagon interior.

Hestrel returned from moving the front wagon off the road. “We may need to call it a day. The road’s too wet.”

Miriel’s eyes flicked from Hestrel to Adam’s body just as Vetia’s tail slipped away. Vetia had a claw out, slicing an incision. “Miriel, you do the sigil, just tell me where to cut.”

Miriel stared aghast at Adam’s back, “How did it calm… what are these?” She poked at the jabs with her scalpel, then leaned over him. “Okay, cut right in-” She stopped, eyes locked on Vetia’s claw.

I pressed the issue. “Miriel, what are you doing?” Miriel’s blood was frozen.

Impatience and fear spread over Vetia’s face. Her heart was pounding out of her chest. “Miriel! Do the sigil so we can fix Adam and get out of here!”

And yet Miriel stood there in shock.

Brenden pushed past us to her and looked at her closely, just as worried as the rest of us. “Miriel, what’s going on?”

Her voice was next to silent, but it cut through the sound of rain and rang through everyone’s ears, even if they could only read her lips. “Bimuari.”

Everyone except Vetia heard it, who Brenden had just stepped in front of to talk to Miriel.

“Goddamnit Miriel! Are you gonna help me or not?!”

Vetia leaned forward to grab Miriel by the arm, who recoiled with a scream of pure terror, stumbling to the back of the wagon and tumbling out like an arachnophobe staring at a giant spider. She slipped to her feet and backed away from the wagon, slowly being drenched by the rain.

She pointed weakly, pacing backwards and struggling to catch her breath, piecing together all the evidence she observed. “Claws that can cut into a neck while its being choked. Innate healing. Poison that stills the muscles entirely. You… you’re a fireblood. That’s how you murdered Lady Simira, isn’t it?”

The air froze around us and all we could hear was the sound of pounding rain as everyone’s eyes shifted around the wagon. Vetia’s breath quickened and she glanced madly at everyone in panic before hurrying out of the wagon like she was trying to avoid being surrounded.

“Yep!” She yelled out, stepping into the mud and turning between the wagon and Miriel. Her jaw was quivering, voice and body shaking with fear. “You caught me! And I don’t regret it one fucking bit because she deserved it! I told you everything she did to me! Don’t act like I didn’t have a damn good reason for it!” She turned to Miriel and started walking down the road after her. “Miriel! I need you to help me fix Adam! After that, we can hash this thing out all you want! You’ve got the sigils to fix him, I’ve got the claws and the poison to make it easy. Please, just help me this once and then I’ll leave forever. We’ll hop in our wagons and go our separate ways, please, just help me fix Adam.”

Vetia extended her clawed hand, her only hand, out to Miriel, who was still horrified at the sight of her.

“When did you become a fireblood?! Did you wake up one after cutting your heart out?!”

Vetia clenched her fist and straightened her finger. “I’ve been one since I woke up here.” She channeled jzanmah and made three quick circles in the air, activating a sigil. “I told you, Miriel, I ain’t the same as the rest of them.

“And you hid that from all of us?!

“My friends know! Have known! What else was I supposed to do?! Declare it to the world?! Get hunted and murdered!”

“You murdered a noblewoman in cold blood and let an innocent man die for it! No good person would do that!”

Vetia’s hand fell and her head dropped. Tears and rain rushed down her shattered expression. Brenden jumped out of the wagon after them, and then Tells and I followed.

Brenden put his hands up and tried to calm everything down. “Miriel! Vetia! We can work this out! Miriel, please, trust me! She’s not a bad person!

All Miriel showed was betrayal and rage, pushing the wet flaps of hair off of her face and fighting back tears as she looked to him. “What? Is she supposed to be some exception to the rule? The only good fireblood? Different or not, she’s a cold blooded murderer!”

Vetia gritted her teeth and lashed her hand out in the air. “Don’t you dare say I murdered her in cold blood like she’s perfectly innocent in all of this! Do I need to repeat for the umpteenth fucking time everything she did to me?!”

“You’re a fireblood, Vetia. All you have is cold blood.”

She began rattling off her list of grievances like she’d practiced a thousand times. “What would you do if you were assaulted, beaten, had your tongue cut out, got used for sigils until your brain turned to mush in your head, locked in a dungeon until you went mad and cut your own heart out just to escape, not sure what’s real or not the entire fucking time?! All by one woman! My body won’t let me die! It keeps fixing, and I have to deal with all the side effects of living in an immobile corpse while it fixes! What would you have done, Miriel?! Would you have let all the strokes and bruises go just because she’s a noblewoman?!”

Her words rang in Miriel's deaf ears. “You may not have started a fireblood, but you certainly became one.”

Vetia broke down in tears and rage, finally defeated by the world. “You think I wanted this?! You think I wanted any of this?! I never had a choice in this! I didn’t want to be brought to life as a fucking monster! For God’s sake, I woke up in a cave over the corpse of a dead woman, bits of her intestines hanging out of my mouth! Do you know what eating humans does to your fucking head?! When I realized what was going on, the other firebloods tried to kill me too! Ripped and tore into my skin and shredded the only clothes I had and chased me into the middle of the woods until I found out I had wings! Firebloods want to eat me, humans want me dead!" Her voice fell like all she could do anymore was beg. "Where’s my place in this world, huh? Did I come here just to die?”

Miriel’s voice softened sympathetically. “I’m sorry that you are what you are, but you gave in to your nature. You killed when you could have walked away. All firebloods are liars, whether they started good or not. There can be no good firebloods.” Her voice grew stronger. "How many others have you killed?"

Vetia stared at the ground like she was reliving a moment. “Just a bitch who cut a little girl’s throat. The same woman who was working for Madam Diona! The fireblood trafficking children and drugs through her brothels! The fireblood who tore off my fuckin’ arm and almost killed me in an alley! That strike you as odd?! Can you use your deductive reasoning to figure out why there’d be fireblood on fireblood violence?! Maybe one of us wasn't like the other!”

“Tell me the name of the woman you killed.” Dex stepped down from the wagon in cold and broken slogging steps in the moment of haunting silence.

“What’s it to you?” Vetia turned around, distraught and desperate, raising her hands to the universe asking for any signs of empathy. “What?! Nobody gives a shit that Diona was a fireblood?! Nobody cares that Fera tried to kill a little girl who was like a daughter to me?! Are my words suddenly meaningless because you found out that I’m a fireblood?!”

All of us watched Dex closely as he slowly trudged through the mud to her and stopped only a few feet out. Brenden paced alongside Dex and I was nearby, ready for anything.

Dex brimmed with anger, his voice low and shaking like he was on the verge of bursting. “My best friend died… because we couldn’t find Fera Hallax. He was murdered and his head was paraded around the district… because we couldn’t find Fera. And you killed her.” Dex finally broke. “His blood is on your hands!”

“I’m sorry that your friend died, Dex. I truly am. But that's on her.”

“Where’s her body?!”

“What?”

“Where’s her fucking body?! If I can bring that back to Lord Hallax and turn you in, Zerick will at least have his dignity in wrongful death!”

“There’s nothing left. I fed her to farns. ”

The air stilled while Dex stared intensely at Vetia, then like a flash, Dex screamed and he slugged Vetia across the face. She stumbled and slipped to the ground as Dex unsheathed his sword. I grabbed Dex beneath the arms and held him still, his sword clumsily slipping from his hand.

Dex screamed out in a blind rage. “I’ll take her head to Hallax! He was my best friend! The best man I knew! The only person who ever cared about me! And he’s dead because of you! You worthless monster!”

Vetia looked like she'd seen a ghost, scooting backward onto the grass, clutching at her neck as if to rip something away while her voice was reduced to near-silent whispers.

Al’Li caught up to Miriel and started dragging her to the wagon as Hestrel stomped toward Vetia with his lance. “Dex is right. I’m sorry you all have been deceived by her, but this is to restore order, to rid the world of yet another fireblood.”

Brenden frantically held his hands out between Hestrel, Dex, and Vetia. “Guys! Guys! Cool it the fuck off! Nobody’s gonna die here!”

Tells flanked out next to Hestrel, following him closely, gently trying to hold him back while he pushed forward.

Hestrel glanced at Tells, shoved her hand away, then turned to Brenden. “Fireblood’s can’t die. They’re already dead.”

Tells ran between them and put her hand out to halt Hestrel. “You don’t know her like we do! You don’t know shit!”

He stopped, harshly grabbing Tells’ hand to lecture her. “It’s a sevoan fireblood! All it does is lie to turn us against each other! If you can’t see that, you’re part of its game!”

“How do you know she’s the same?!”

“I’ve lost too many friends to firebloods to take any more chances.” He pushed forward.

Hope died from her face and she came to terms with what she had to do. “I’m not letting another one of my friends die.” Tells was putting her whole soul into keeping control of herself, but I knew she was a hair from lashing out.

“Dex! Calm the fuck down!” I screamed out as he lashed around, then hit my side with an elbow, slipped out of my grasp, and picked up the sword. I grabbed his arm to keep him from stabbing at me. I yelled out to everyone, but nobody would listen. “Dex, put the fucking sword down! Hestrel cut the shit! Brenden, watch out!”

Hestrel pushed Brenden out of the way, toward Dex and I. Dex sucker punched me and his hand whirled out as both of us lost balance in the mud.

And we fell.

I watched Brenden go down, blood flicked out from the back of his neck.

Between the mud and our tangled limbs, Dex slammed my cheek with the butt of his sword and for a split second, the world became engulfed in white.

I was picking myself up off the ground when my hand became drenched in warmth. I pulled it up, watery blood running down my hand. Beside me, the back of Brenden’s neck was slashed open, and Dex was standing over him in shock, blood washing down his sword in the rain.

My face swelled and I gritted my teeth as grief and adrenaline shot through me. The taste of iron filled my mouth. Reason was gone.

Oh my God, he’s dead.

I yanked Dex down and slammed my knee on his sword hand, pinning his arms under my knees.

“What the fuck did you do to him?!”

“All of this is on you, you worthless drunk! You should have let me kill her!”

Every vein in my body raged with pure hatred for this mohawked fuck. I grabbed the sword and slammed his face with the hilt over and over and over and over. Blood and rain were all my eyes could see.

Dex stopped moving and I looked up.

Tells grabbed Hestrel’s arm and yanked him off balance, into the field as he stared blankly at Brenden’s body and Dex. A rage filled him, and he slammed at Tells’ head with the end of his lance.

Vetia rushed over to Brenden while Hestrel and Tells slugged away. Hestrel used his lance like a bow staff, landing blow after blow against Tells, who had jagged bones for arms, protecting her head and landing cuts on Hestrel’s arms.

I crawled through the mud, grabbing Brenden and pulling him up into my lap. Vetia stopped in front of me, not looking at Brenden, but holding out her hand above him as if she were plucking an apple from a tree and weeping.

“Brenden’s dead.”

Across the battlefield, Hestrel’s arms were already littered with tiny cuts. Tells’ face was littered with cuts and bruises from his lance slamming her head, but she wasn’t in a losing position yet. Every time Hestrel tried to back up and create distance, Tells closed it and caught him on his back foot, refusing to be pushed away.

Hestrel called out for help. “Miriel! Reinforce me!”

Miriel was running to the wagon with Al’Li when she stopped, tracing several shapes in the air and pointing the sigil at Hestrel. A dart of green jzanmah shot out and wrapped around him before dissipating into him. Just like that, his fight with Tells turned and he overpowered her by a longshot, slamming her blades away like they were nothing and pounding into her head and ribs with the blunt of his lance, but she wouldn’t go down.

Vetia fell back from Brenden in horror at the sight of Hestrel’s sudden vigor. “No! No! Miriel! He’s gonna kill Tells!” She took off toward Miriel and Al’Li.

Two hands grabbed me from under my arms and yanked. My back slammed into the wagon chassis and Dex, who could barely see through his bruised and bloodied face, ran at me with a wild haymaker. He was barely on target at all. A raging scream burst from my lungs and I used his own momentum to slam his head into the corner of the wood. There was no give, no bounce at all, just a grinding and cracking before his forehead caved and he dropped limply into the mud.

I couldn’t help just staring at his smashed skull. You couldn’t even tell it was him anymore.

Hestrel had Tells swaying, but she wouldn’t move out of his way. Her hands gripped his lance as she dodged kicks and resisted pushes. He threw her every which way like nothing, but she wouldn’t let go. She was still talking to him, pleading to stop, and he screamed back at her.

“You of all people should want her dead! She murdered your Lady!”

“I know!”

“Then yield!”

Hestrel yelled and stampeded forward. Tells stumbled running backward, keeping herself up at all costs to not be trampled by him. He slammed Tells’ back into the wagon, almost sending it toppling over onto Miriel, Al’Li, and Vetia on the other side.

I rushed around to help Vetia, who was screaming for Miriel while fending off Al’Li. She clawed at Vetia, slashing away at her stomach and arm, trying for openings to gouge Vetia’s neck.

“Miriel! Please! Listen to me! We can stop this!”

“I’m done with these lies! I know what you are!” Miriel took off in a clumsy run down the road, holding her skirt up and sliding through the mud wildly.

I rushed around the side of the wagon and rushed Al’Li, grabbing onto her stomach and forcing her away from Vetia, severed tail in hand. Her movements were drunken and clumsy but she was still fighting ravenously. I threw her down into the mud and darted around, trying to get to her head. She pushed off the ground and both of her feet slammed my stomach, knocking me back and leaving me reeling for air. She started running toward Miriel, but I lunged out, wrapping my arm around her neck in a headlock. Twenty seconds was all I needed. Just to knock her out.

She wrestled and fought, but her strength was waning and both of our eyes locked onto Vetia and Miriel back down the road from us. Vetia’s wings plunged into Miriel’s arms. They went limp and Vetia freely slinked around her back and stuck her in the buttocks. Miriel dropped to the ground, unable to move.

“Miriel! End the sigil! We can still stop this! He’s gonna kill Tells! Please don’t make me drain you!” She screamed into Miriel’s face out of sheer desperation.

Miriel, who was on her knees, unable to move her arms at all, could do nothing but hyperventilate while Vetia screamed at her. Her eyes were distant, as if in a horrific memory far away from here, while a fireblood was standing over her.

Across the way, Hestrel was beating Tells down. Her head was bleeding and her bone arms were chipped and broken while he just kept beating side to side, left to right into her blocking arms, using them to bludgeon her down against the wagon.

Vetia desperately screamed at Miriel, “I promise this won’t kill you!”

I screamed out at her, but she wasn’t listening. “Don’t you fuckin’ do a thing to her!”

She sank her teeth into Miriel’s neck, and Miriel’s eyes returned to this world. Her core writhed as if she was trying to move, which only intensified the helpless terror in her eyes. She was locked in a nightmare with no ability to fight back as a fireblood drove its teeth into her neck. Suddenly a shriek of bloody murder erupted from Miriel’s mouth that halted all of the fighting, a scream I’d never unhear. “Hestrel! Help! HEEEEELP!”

Al’Li finally fell limp in my arms. I threw her off me and stood up, just in time to see Tells drop and hear Hestrel yell. “NOOO!”

As if the world slowed down, Hestrel launched his lance like a missile from the field he was fighting Tells in, across the road, cutting through the pouring rain, into the side of Vetia’s abdomen. Vetia looked up as the lance struck her, launching her backwards and pinning her to a tree. Her teeth slashed through Miriel’s neck, who slapped the ground in the instant.

In that same second, Hestrel screamed in agony. His body cramped and seized as the sigil cut off.

I scrambled up and grabbed a box out of the wagon, Hestrel just beginning to recover. I slammed it down on his head, knocking him out cold.

Sheets of rain drowned out all other sounds as the road went silent. Tells laid still in the rain. Streams of blood raced down her black and blue face. She clutched at her ribs with her only unbroken arm, gasping for air. I ran over to Vetia wrenching at the lance driven through her and deep into the wood, pulling with every muscle in my body to free her. Finally, I dislodged the lance and Vetia tumbled over, blood pouring out of her wound as she healed it, her hand moving wildly, cracking and snapping like dry sticks. She struggled forward to Miriel.

“No no no no no no no…” Vetia dropped the streak of flesh of Miriel’s throat into her hand, her eyes emptily staring at the catatonic husk before her. She activated a sigil and reattached the piece of her neck. She broke down frantically mumbling to herself, holding Miriel’s head in her hands like she was still trying to convince herself that she was right.

“No, no, no, no! Why couldn’t you just listen to me? I didn’t mean to do this!” she gasped, trying to pull sharp breaths of air in between the sobs. “I didn’t want to kill anyone.”

“Vetia! Get your shit together! I need you to save Tells!” I screamed into her distant eyes, but she wasn’t responsive.

I grabbed Vetia by the horn, dragging her across the field. She stammered and stumbled behind me, growling like a wild animal. “LetgoletgoletgoletgoLETGOLETGO!” She gasped and screeched. “LET GO OF MY FUCKING HORN!”

I released her horn and all of my instincts reacted on the instant. I whipped Dex’s sword up toward her just as she flexed her wings out, shooting up and driving her fingers into my throat, around my esophagus. Horrible, sharp pains jolted through my neck as her claws dug deep, but my sword was at her neck.

The rain poured down in sheets around us and the open road fell still, my sword at her neck, her claws around my windpipe, ready to rip it straight out. We locked eyes, a frenzied fear clutching her frantic stare through wet, dangling strands of hair. Terrified like a wild animal lashing out at everything around her. Her jaw was shaking, eyes wide like she wasn’t even processing what was happening.

I slowly pulled the sword back, disappointedly staring, emptily wondering where the fuck it all went wrong. The sword dropped into the mud and I spoke, stinging my throat with every word I forced out.

“So what’s it gonna be?”

Her eyes flickered and looked at her own hand, then my face.

“Sword ain’t gonna stop ya. You’re a fireblood. You even still in there, Rowan?”

Her fist tensed with her face. “Don’t fucking compare him to me.”

“Why? You ain’t the same person? Were Hestrel and Miriel right?”

Tears broke free. “I ain’t different, but I was better back then. Is it me, Desmond? Am I a monster now? Or is it this world that won’t let me be human?” She blankly pulled her trembling, glowing fingers free, fixing the wound on the way out.

I caught my breath as she limply picked up Dex’s sword and put it in my hands.

“I asked you to be the one for a reason, Desmond. I don’t know how to show I’m still a person… if I even am, so do what you gotta do.”

“So what, after all that you’re just gonna give up?” Something snapped in me and I started yelling out madly at her. “YOU DONE ALREADY?! ALL THAT TALK ABOUT HOPE AND LOVE AND SHIT AND YOU GIVE UP LIKE THAT?!”

She lowered her head, falling into hysterics again. “I killed Miriel! I got everyone here killed! ALL OF THIS IS MY FAULT! If I’d just-”

“THEN FIX IT GODDAMNIT, YOU’RE THE HEALER!” I grabbed her haunted face and wrathfully glared into her eyes. “If you weren’t still you, I’d be dead! I’ve seen bad men come back from worse. I’ve seen good men fall harder. That’s just how it is. You fall down, you pick yourself up and you make it right! I need you to pull yourself together right fuckin’ now! Miriel ain’t dead! Hestrel and Al’Li are knocked out! Save Tells and maybe we can make it outta here with what we still got!”

Horror took her face and she turned toward Miriel, who was face down in the mud, limp. She stumbled up, murmuring, “nononononononononono…” and reached her hand out like she did above Brenden’s body, grasping at nothing.

Her horrified visage whipped around toward Hestrel and Tells, so I ran over, pulling Hestrel’s face free and lifted Tells into the wagon. Thoroughly busted up and haggardly gasping, she was on the verge of death, unresponsive.

Vetia ran over, bringing up the sheen of green jzanmah and frantically checking her. “Internal bleeding, punctured lungs. I’m going in.”

Her claws shot out and she slashed Tells’ shirt down the middle, shoving her fingers in and forcibly pulling up the ribs. Four ribs cracked back into place and reset later, steam was rising from Vetia’s head.

“Why isn’t she waking up?!” She slapped Tells’ face lightly. “Why’s she out of her?! What’s going on?!”

I pulled Vetia’s head to look at me. “Is she alive?! Is she gonna live?!”

“Y-y-I don’t know! It’s like she’s alive but not awake, but she’s still got her jzanmah, but it’s not completely connected!”

“Then let’s leave her in the wagon and we’ll find somebody who can help her!”

I turned around to the scene behind me, approaching Brenden’s corpse, lifting him from the mud, cradling him in my arms. Vetia sealed up the wound on his neck and her eyes went wide.

“He’s dead, but his body isn’t…”

I turned away, fighting back my own tears and bringing him to the wagon. “Okay, what’s that do?”

“I have his soul, Desmond, what if we can bring him back?! Maybe there’s a sigil, a ritual, something!”

I placed Brenden next to Tells and turned back around, jaw vibrating from holding myself so steady. “Great. Now get in the wagon. We gotta clean up.”

“Desmond… why do you sound like that?”

I picked up Dex’s shortsword.

“Desmond, what the fuck are you doing?!”

A burning rage was growing in me, just wanting to be done with all of this. To be off. To be free. I knelt next to Hestrel and held the blade to his neck.

“DESMOND!”

I whipped my head around. “SOMEBODY’S GOTTA OR THEY’RE GONNA BE ON OUR ASSES TIL WE’RE DEAD!”

“No! No we’re not killing anyone else! What was the point of what you said to me then?!”

“Well I thought about it.” I held the blade to Hestrel’s windpipe. “You’re a fireblood, Vetia. Normal murders would get lost in the bounty pile. Not for a fireblood, though. Not one with sigils and poison that killed two nobles and a nyadin. We ain’t gettin’ anywhere alive if the witnesses ain’t dead.”

She knelt next to me, holding my arm. “Desmond, we can put ‘em in their wagon, let ‘em be. We’ll each take our losses, but we gotta go now before they wake up!”

“I’m trying to keep you alive God damn it!”

“I know- but we can’t just-” Her eyes turned away, to the back of our wagon, to the creature standing behind us, Al’Li.

Vetia rose and pulled me up, ready to go back at it, but Al’Li stood there, wide-eyed and soaked, her fur sticking to her wiry frame, staring at Miriel. A low-pitched lamenting wail shut out the pounding of the rain. Vetia’s body shuddered and I couldn’t help lowering my head.

“Did you hear all that, Al’Li?” Vetia stepped forward.

Al’Li nodded, hopelessness in her eyes at the sight of her dead best friend.

“I have Miriel’s soul. You let us take her body, I’ll find a way to bring her back. I swear to God I’ll find a way if it costs me my life.” She held her hand out to Al’Li, who turned limply. “Come with us if you have to. Hold me at bladepoint the whole way. I’ll do it. I’ll find a way.”

This ain’t a deal. We won. We’re setting the terms.

I slapped Vetia’s hand down. “Al’Li.” She looked up at me. “Take Miriel’s body. You’re both from the Sueri kinship, right?”

Al’Li nodded.

“We’ll find ya when we find a way, but if you want her back, you can’t let Hestrel put a bounty out on us. We got a deal?”

She finally stepped forward, wiping curls of wet fur from her beady eyes. “Pleathe, Miriel ith all I have,” she weakly uttered. “Hethtrel will no lithen. Run. If you lie, we will hunt and kill.”

I lifted Miriel and set her in their wagon, then heaved Hestrel and Dex in after her.

Al’Li pointed back down the road, her eyes falling back to Miriel. “I tell Hethtrel you are north. You go thouth, around Vehfirn. She slowly droned to her wagon, disappearing, weeping with Miriel in her arms.

Adam broken, Tells out, Brenden dead, and Vetia hysterically trying to fix all of them, I took the reins and turned us around. The corties murred and bucked against me, so I whipped and lashed them until they listened.

We have to go south. So far south that it’ll be like a completely different world from here, where nobody will hear tell of the assassinations of nobility and murder on the wagon trail. Where Diona can’t find us and the trail will go cold for Hestrel and whoever else is gonna end up hunting us.

The ash continued to fall, rain plummeted in sheets around us, and we bared our sins in the back of that wagon, eyes away from where they were committed.

I killed a man. We killed people and we can’t do anything about it anymore except hope and pray that Rhial is more generous than Earth ever was. God forgive us, we just promised to commit a miracle or blasphemy. And if it is possible to bring them back, then let it be a miracle.