Sisters of Westwinter: Chapter Two

Blood on the Ridge

The fresh recruits marched lockstep with the wagon and carried with them an air of silence. Some of them buzzed with adrenaline as Klauven led them, but others, Kerrick included, marched through the snow with an uneasiness he couldn't define. Their six hour timer was running low, and they hadn't made it to the river. What little time they had left would need to be spent wisely. General Vandruss likely wasn't lying about leaving them to be dragon scrap if they weren't back by nightfall.

Their organized march had been broken by Klauven after they'd left the forest where he split them into organized marching parties. Kerrick at the front of one group. Heindor marched quickly at the helm of another. A third led by Verrita, a young woman a few years his elder. As they pushed along the path, the second team who had been sent with the cart veered a corner on the edge of the woods. The Hunters passively regarded one another as the groups merged. The wagon with Ginu's group had been filled to the brim with large metal plates and poles, some kind of box which was lined on each side by a series of symmetrical holes and spouts, with two openings on the top. Bundles of flaccid hose laid beneath the mess, and folded neatly atop it all was a black mesh fabric. Some soldiers from Ginu's group muttered amongst themselves while Kerrick's company remained silent.

They continued for another span of daylight, just over an hour, when they heard the gentle bubbling of the river. Far enough out of the steep mountain ranges to weaken the current, but on flat enough land it formed a small lake atop the cliff overlooking Godspine. Klauven waved his crew to follow while Ginu barked orders to the others, removing the metal parts from the wagon and aligning them on the ground.

"My boys, get in a line." Ginu shouted over his company. Klauven turned to face Kerrick and the rest.

"Orders are, clean the river." He began, and paused briefly before he switched back to speaking with the accent from when he first arrived. "Yer duty is to fish out e'ry piece of the scouts 'for they run off river." The imposing man swung his hand in a wide arc toward the group led by Verrita. "Lass, you take charge."

She nodded and marched forward to the opposite end of the lake with her group, many of whom Kerrick noted were part of the company who stood back, or even fled from the dragon attack.

"Rest 'o 'ye, yer on patrol." Klauven motioned to Heindor's group. "Ye' shining' pillar o' the community, take the nor' side."

Kerrick straightened his back as Klauven turned to look his way. "Snow, ye' take a walk on south."

Kerrick nodded and started off toward the southern half of the lake as Klauven shouted after both parties.

"Ye' see a snake, shout!"

A handful of the soldiers shouted in agreement while Klauven departed. Kerrick led his team across the river and to the southern side of the lake, his pike at the ready.

"Spread out." He spoke, uncertainty in his voice. He'd done plenty of patrols before, but nothing of this scale. He had walked neighborhoods and districts in Godspine, had to scrub the muck from his feet after a routine in The Camps. He'd been familiar with the twisted, interlocked and enclosed streets of Godspine. Nothing like this. Watching the skies for potential dragon attacks wasn't something he'd ever considered having to do.

He sucked in a breath and set out across the shoreline while his group spread themselves a pike's reach from one another and paced. Along the lakeside, the gentle water lapped against the grit of the beach. Patches of grass poked through the overlain snow and as he approached he could feel the warmth of the lake's surface. The river that fed it poured from high in the mountains, the lake itself was connected to the myriad of hot springs that Godspine boasted to its frequent tourists. Steam rose from the surface of the lake as he peered across and watched Heindor with his own pike in hand, retelling a story to one of the other boys that clung to his pockets.

At the eastern side of the lake, the third group had submerged themselves in the waist deep water and had begun spearing bloated body parts from the makeshift rocky dam. Most of them held rags over their mouths as they fished for remains in the warm river. A few of them, Verrita included, worked stoically.

The dragon attack sullied all of their moods, Klauven certainly didn't help. He separated them as soon as they reconvened outside of the forest and appointed a "leader" to each of the teams. Heindor, whose team was comprised of those who charged in initially. The brash and dauntless of the squad paced the opposite side of the lake and chattered. Kerrick's group, silent, changed by what they saw. None of them spoke much besides telling one another about wildlife sightings, the occasional warning of a deer or a fox that scattered as soon as it saw them. While Klauven's three companies worked, Ginu's constructed a large machine in the snow. A large metal panel rested on the ground, and in the center they attached the box, which fit all manner of hoses from the various spouts. On either side rested two large poles on mounts with hooks on each side.

Kerrick paused as the group locked together pieces of the filter, and behind them Ginu rested on the wagon. Klauven, however, was rooting through the wagon for something. He pulled open cabinet after cabinet from the cloth covered wagon and rooted through them. He was looking for something, and judging by the way he threw his hands up and leaned against the wagon, he assumed whatever the Hunter was looking for wasn't there.

"Snow," One of the soldiers, a golden haired ex farm boy with a sharp jaw named Clip, motioned toward the mountains that overshadowed their lake to the south. "I think there is something there."

Kerrick followed Clip's finger into the peaks, the light of the setting second sun split over the horizon and cast a golden beam across their operation, and nestled in the shaded boughs of pine trees, Clip pointed at something moving.

"Think we should warn them?" He asked, his voice trembled. Kerrick focused.

Lurking beneath the cover of the pine trees, he could barely make out the shadow. A sprawling form tangled between thick, towering trunks and wrapped itself along the top of a higher ridge. Certain he knew what he saw, he held a hand to steady his partner.

"Let's wait." Kerrick shot a glance over his shoulder to check on their leaders who had sprawled themselves out on the back of the wagon with their eyes closed.

"Snow, if we wait we will..."

"Don't say anything." Kerrick fired back, the sudden frustration from within felt out of place. "It is watching us."

"But the General said-"

"I know what the General said. I'm telling you to relax. It can see us, and it isn't stupid. It knows we can see it. If we rally the party and prepare an offensive we are at a disadvantage, an incredible one. We don't know what kind it is, if it is hurt, or angry, or if it is curious. If it sees us assemble to attack it, we will be dead faster than Klauven could command us to fire."

Clip let his jaw hang slack as the creature lumbered through the trees. The other soldiers didn't seem worried by their side conversation, perhaps distracted due to the echo of Heindor enacting slaying a dragon of his own on the other side of the lake. Kerrick's face flushed with anger.

"We watch, and if it doesn't come for us, we don't raise an alarm." He lowered his pike and turned, enough to appear as if he wasn't watching but not so much that the sprawling mass of scales was out of his sight. "Even if we wanted to attack it, it's so high and so far we wouldn't make it in time. If that dragon wanted to kill us, we'd be dead." He patted Clip on the back and took a step around him.

The soldiers continued about their duty, with Kerrick and Clip keeping a watchful eye on the dragon that had followed them with its eyes. Two piercing gems far in the shadows of the forest. He worked through their remaining tasks and how much time they had left over and over in his mind, powerless to make things move faster. The filter team dragged the tangled metal mechanism to the other side of the lake, just before the waterfall that fell to Godspine. Kerrick left Clip and marched to Hesch who had positioned himself near the filter and guided the other soldiers through the assembly. Hesch hoisted a large steel bracket onto his shoulder and passed it off to a large woman, built like a Troll's neck she hefted it as if it weighed nothing and swung it onto its mount.

"Bit far from the south end, Snow." Hesch chided.

"Wanted to make sure you were alright." He took a step past the filter as the second sun set behind the mountaintop. "Not a lot of time left."

Hesch sighed. "Unfortunately they didn't send an Athellan Engineer with the parts. We're making it up as we go." He laughed and Kerrick realized how tense he'd gotten. He stepped past the filter and followed the river to the edge, where below Godspine had sprung to life.

Beneath the Ferrous Cliffs, Godspine had already been plunged into darkness. Two hours prior the townsfolk had lit braziers and torches all across the city and from his vantage point he could see it all. He slipped his water skin from his pack and felt the cold bite of the metal against his lips as he looked over the city. The leftover townsfolk scampered around through the streets like ants, their walkways covered by large metal sheets. He'd never been fond of the way the defenses looked like Prickle Figs on the tops of the roofs. Hundreds of little barbs and spikes that shot out from barbed wire nets and wooden spikes. From the Ferrous Cliffs, the top of his home town looked identical to the little square fruits, covered in curly hair and little thorns.

"What good do you think that does?" He leaned towards his friend.

"Well, it kept the dragon out this spring." Hesch kicked a hollow pipe toward another of their companions who gestured for it at the silent urging of the large woman.

"Strange that the dragon flew over our city then, we killed it, and no one came looking for it."

Nearby, The pile of mangled corpses stacked on the snowbanks attracted carrion insects. The third crew had slowly been moving the parts to a large hole they dug, but the work was slow. As Hesch complained about Ginu's smell on the way to the lake, Kerrick took a hard look at the pile of corpses. Each of them, though bloated, were piled with clean cuts along their joints, with large gashes in the parts of them that remained whole. Their bodies were carved up severely, but each of the cuts where their limbs were severed, not ripped. Each of them looked like clean cuts as though they were put through a guillotine.

He nudged Hesch, and gestured to the bodies. "Does that seem odd to you?"

His friend studied the dead scouts for a long moment before he replied. "I think you're overthinking it. I know you are going to tell me that they don't look torn up, but I need you to consider when you've seen a dragon attack victim. There is a chance they pulled so hard and so fast that it appears like a clean break after this long. Not to mention anything that might have fed off of the corpses."

Kerrick looked around the field that surrounded the lake and gestured. "Right, so where are the dragon tracks?"

"Dragon tracks?" Hesch laughed. "Yes, because we are going to waste time to find them." Hesch turned to check on the filter construction, which neared completion, before he turned back to their conversation.

"No, you aren't understanding what I'm getting at." Kerrick gestured to Godspine, nestled beneath the towering cliff. On the northeastern end of the city by the main gate, there was a massive patch of burnt trees and a huge crater in the ground that trailed into the woods. "The impact of that dragon left enough damage that eight months of restorative work hasn't filled it all the way in. Look at the size of the hole." From up so high, the divot in the earth left by the beast was roughly the size of their barracks. Two and a half family homes or more. Though, he was much too far to exact a measurement.

"So you're saying the dragon that came here and killed these scouts didn't have legs?"

"No, I'm saying it wasn't a dragon." Kerrick snapped. His mind whirled at the thought. "What if this wasn't dragon related at all?"

Hesch held his abdomen and knelt, picking up a handful of snow as he did so. "I admire your suspicion, but this is something else. Dragon came, could have attacked them from the lake, could have picked them up. If there aren't two suns, Snow, I'd say it sounds like you are trying to frame the attack on man."

"I'm not saying anything yet." He took a step away from the cliff and back to his patrol route as the final pieces of corpse were plucked from the snow and the large woman on Hesch's company flipped a latch and locked the filter together. The soldiers called after Klauven, who had fully reclined in the wagon. He rolled from the wooden bed and to his feet and jogged to meet them.

"Excellent!" He shouted. "Gather 'round, pikes." With a wave of his hand, he summoned the soldiers all to meet him and produced the pearl he'd pulled from within the dragon. He took the pearl and placed it in a small glass chamber affixed to the back of the filter, and as soon as he snapped the case closed the machine hummed to life. The dull vibration of the water sent ripples into the center of the lake, and he dunked his hand down to find one of the hoses. While he laid in the snow, searching underwater, Ginu rolled lazily out of the wagon and waddled to them.

"Pikes, 'is 'ere is a mighty tool. It's 'a stuff 'o magic, really." Klauven tapped the glass dome and the machine stuttered, and then continued. He pulled his submerged arm from the river and wiped it across his pants. "Dragons got a knack fur magic." He turned on a hell and waved for the soldiers to follow. They all obeyed. "Those l'il pearls 'an power e'ry thing you can dream. Wonders, really."

Kerrick noticed him slip in and out of his accent as he spoke, and looked to his companions to see if any of them did as well.

"We're off." Klauven slapped the side of the wagon. "Verrita, your company drags the ship."

He did not wait for any of them to follow, and began the trek back to the barracks. Kerrick turned back one more time before they departed to look at the ridge, and when he did, he found the dragon gone from beneath the creaking limbs of the forest.

--

The Exile of Second Alley

"Morning chores, Witch" The gruff voice echoed into her cell as Emry rolled onto her back. The jagged surface of the stone floor dug into her as she leaned up. She pushed off the floor and stood as the guard shoved a pair of handcuffs through the bars. "Let's go."

She took them and slapped them onto her wrists and latching them. She pulled, to display that they were on tight and when the guard was satisfied he unlocked the door.

"You're on Second Alley." He took a mop from a cart that he'd pushed into the center aisle and tossed it at her. She barely caught it with her bound hands and stepped out of her cell. The guard nudged her with his hip, and she passed by him. "Finish fast and I might sneak you an extra biscuit."

She shrugged in response and continued down the hall to another guard, draped in steel plate with a large club in his hand who directed her to Second Alley, one of six alleys that contained prisoners. Each of which was divided and stacked the same way. She'd been in and out of all six during her stay, and the monotony dug into her. Each alley in the prison, which was nicknamed "Icehold" by the prisoners, contained a varied assortment of criminals. Few of whom she'd ever spoken to.

The guard led her across the commons, where she'd been beaten half to death on her first day, and into the West Wing where Alleys one through three were located. Her cell, as far as she was aware, was detached from the alleys and off in its own corner of the prison. She moved forward through the laden snow and out of nowhere felt the club crack against her back.

"Keep your tools clean, witch."

She gritted her teeth. With a quick tug, she pulled the mop up and lifted the tangled mess of horse hair from dragging in the snow. The guard pushed her with his club, right where he'd hit her. She winced, but didn't speak.

He led her through the commons and into the west wing, through a barred wooden door and into the Second Alley where she came face to face with a handful of other prisoners. Some faces she'd seen were familiar, some not, and she marched through them to the mop bucket either way.

The Alleys of Icehold were massive halls which sported prison cells roughly the same size as hers, barely wider than she was tall and almost double her height in depth. Each of them came equipped with the exact same amenities as hers. A wooden bucket for waste, and a thatch mattress that had been pounded into broken twigs from use. On either side of the Alley the prison suites extended in groups of four on the first floor, and directly above each of them was a mirrored cell, except for a wooden floor instead of the stone floor. Each cell was without windows and on the hallway facing entrance were barred by thick iron gates. Each alley extended down to fit five suites for a total of forty individual cells per alley.

Emry shouldered past other prisoners who quipped side comments about her, that she didn't belong there or the occasional question about what she did to find herself locked in the prison with them, but she ignored all of them and approached the mop bucket. She'd found that there were specific allotments for each chore. Whoever was scheduled to mop would do it alone, and would do it last. Which meant that she needed to fill the time with something productive in order to avoid a beating. However, as she approached the mop bucket she found another prisoner who had been assigned to her task. A large man with rough, almost bark-like skin and hair tangled and knotted into long strands whose upper torso was uncovered and decorated with tattoos. Far larger than her, he eclipsed the hallway as he wrung his mop.

She stepped behind him and waited, trusting her instinct to remain quiet despite the calls from the other prisoners to answer their questions. Surrounded on all sides by guards, she felt some semblance of safety, however false the feeling might have been.

The man finished wringing out his mop and turned, nearly knocking her over as he ran into her. He immediately stuttered and reached forward to help brace her as she fell back. His massive hand caught hers, and he kept her balance, and then, for the first time since she'd been thrown in, another living person spoke to her with kindness.

"Little rootling, are you alright?" The man's voice boomed from his throat without any force. Deep and wide. He made sure she was balanced and released his grip on her.

"I'm alright." She replied, and nudged past him to wet her own mop. "Thank you."

"No need for thanks." He replied. "I see they have sought to punish you as ferociously as they have me." He lifted the mop and waited, as if expecting an answer.

She said nothing.

"rootling, it is unkind to ignore those who speak to you."

Emry did not remove her gaze from the bucket.

"I am not ignoring you. I don't have anything to say to you."

The man stepped into a nearby cell, and Emry caught the other prisoners out of the corner of her eye as they backed away from him.

"Well, let us find something to say to one another then." He replied. "I am Jundal, an Exile in a bad, bad place."

Emry scoffed. "I'm Emry. I'm a witch."

Jundal's eyes widened, and he backed into the corner of the cell, stepping over a pile of vomit that had frozen to the stone.

"You don't mean that, do you?" He shook his head and shoved the mop onto the vomit. "I do not know that they could keep a witch caged, even in a place like this."

Emry hoisted her mop from the bucket without wringing it and moved to the cell across from Jundal to begin mopping. Other prisoners loitered around them, eavesdropping while they scraped mud and blood from the bricks.

"I am whatever you say that I am."

"You are clearly a woman." Jundal replied, his weight on the mop bending the handle dramatically. "Of this I am certain, unless of course you are covering yourself with an illusion."

Emry fought the urge to laugh. "I suppose you will never know."

"I would like to." Jundal replied, his voice echoing with sincerity.

Emry sloshed water around the dirty stone, the cell she'd entered had gotten much worse since her last assignment in Second Alley. The bucket in the cell had cracked and begun leaking onto the floor. Much of the bodily fluid had frozen, except, as fate would have it, the very top layer. She took care to step on the cleanest bricks as she slopped excrement across the prison floor.

"So, little rootling." Jundal began. "I am concerned by your size. Have you been eating?"

She shrugged. The slop they fed her was hardly a meal by anyone's standards. She'd met raccoons who ate more appealing meals.

"It's no banquet, but it's something."

"You know, you should be eating regularly. Even when they give us paste. It will keep you strong. This is to be a hard winter."

Emry fought the turning of her stomach as she returned to the mop bucket and drowned hers in the murky gray water.

"I suppose so." She hoisted a fresh, wet mop out and returned when Jundal stepped out to do the same.

"You know," He lowered his voice. "The guards don't really care if you clean the cell you are in. The prisoner there is on his deathbed. He is riddled with illness. It is not worth keeping clean."

Emry grimaced and chipped a frozen chunk of vomit from the stone. "That is all the more reason to keep it clean then, isn't it?"

Jundal grinned. "You are dedicated to the task, rootling. I respect that."

Emry finished cleaning the pile of waste and rounded into the next cell, which was much cleaner than the first. Jundal skipped his second cell as she continued, and moved on to the third. He passed a bald man, emaciated with a round piercing in the center of his scalp.

"So Jundal, why are you here? You don't look the prisoner type to me."

The tattooed man laughed with his whole belly and leaned against the wall. "I am the prisoner type to the people here, most assuredly. I believe that they do not see the world as I do. I was imprisoned for burglary."

Emry cracked a smile. "Aren't burglars supposed to be skinny, and quiet?"

"Not if they are good." Jundal attempted to cross his arms, and pulled the handcuffs tight against his chest.

"But, then you aren't a good burglar either? You were caught, after all."

Jundal's face fell into a scowl and Emry's heart skipped.

He held the look for a short time, but was unable to maintain it as a grin spread across his face, and infectious one that threatened to spread to her. "You are correct, little one. My companions would like you."

"Are you going to recruit me when we get out of here? I can join your band of thieves then?"

Jundal nodded to a guard who was patrolling the floor above them. "I do not think they appreciate that kind of talk."

"I do not think I care what they think." Emry mimicked Jundal and moved to the next cell. He laughed and followed her, staying nearby her as they made their way through the bottom floor together. She noticed the other prisoners kept their distance while she spoke to Jundal, and made it a point to continue.

"So, Jundal, what did you steal?"

He shoved down hard on the broom and dragged it across the stones. "I stole a glove."

Emory paused and cocked an eyebrow at him. "A glove?"

"It was a special glove, of course. If it had been a traditional glove I would not be here. It was a metal glove, with intricate golden shapes that ran along it. I also happened to steal a number of scales."

Emry's heart sank.

"Scales?"

"Yes, you know, copper, silver, gold, I had two or three thousand when they caught me. To be truthful, the money was mine in the first place."

She sighed, confused. "You mean, dragon scales?"

Jundal cocked an eyebrow. "I would not be able to carry two or three thousand dragon scales, little Emry." He passed into the next cell. "I took them because they were taken unfairly, a merchant in the square robbed my friends and I would not allow it, so I retrieved the money from their employer. It happened to be in the middle of the night and I had not accounted for Lord Tilliak's watch dogs."

Emry shook her head and returned to work as a guard banged on the floor above them.

"Enough chatter."

She scoffed and continued mopping, sparing the occasional glance at Jundal who mouthed to her.

"We will talk later."

She nodded and continued about her duty until she reached the final cell. When she did, there was a tall man waiting inside, crouched in the corner. She paused and glanced down the hall, where the guards had gathered to talk amongst themselves on the other end of the alley.

"So, you're a witch." The man licked his lips, spinning a shard of glass in his hand. Emry shot a glance around her, Jundal had returned to the mop bucket and was just beneath the guards.

"Suppose I am. Would you be able to kill a witch with a piece of glass?"

The man spread his cracked lips and licked them once more. Wiry, dirty red hair fell in front of his face.

"I don't want to kill you, I'd like to leave this place sometime. Rather, I have questions."

Emry gripped the handle and pointed it at him.

"Ask the guards, they know me well."

"They don't know that you weren't really a dragon rider." The man's voice creaked, mocking her. "You're riding a high because you think it will scare these guards because they don't know what you are."

Emry stared at the man, his face vaguely familiar to her. She began to parse through her memories.

"I am whatever you say I am." She spun the mop and splashed it onto the stone, sending excrement tainted water out onto the floor near the man's bare feet.

"You think you can trick them, but you can't trick me." He stood. "I was with you, in the woods, when you landed with that golden demon and it burnt up our guards in an instant.

Emry's mind clicked, and she realized where she recognized him. He was one of the guards who surrounded them. She held the medallion up to his face and pledged to destroy him.

"I won't-"

Emry felt a hand grab her shoulder and pull her out of the cell doorway.

"She won't need to trick you if you are dead, Feeder."

The man met Jundal's eyes and grinned. "Do something about it, exile."

Jundal gripped the mop, and Emry watched the muscles on his back ripple as he wrung it between his hands, and then, he stepped out of the cell.

"Get out of here, Feeder. Go, or I will do something that I will not regret."

The thin man stood and tucked the shard of glass into his frock. As he passed by Emry he leaned into her and whispered.

"You killed my friends, deceiver. I won't forget."

He slipped past them and made his way to the other end of the hall as the guards approached.

"You two are done for the day." One of them gestured to Emry and Jundal. "Go back to your cells."

Jundal nodded and followed the guard down the hall towards the Third Alley. Another guard stepped beside Emry and led her back through the commons.

"You are flirting with death, witch." He quipped after the commons doorway closed.

"It isn't your business who I am flirting with." She shot back.

The guard turned around and put a knife to her throat. "What you brought to this city should have had you killed, and yet, you were spared. We are under strict orders to keep you alive. Feeder isn't the only one in this prison that wants you dead." The guard spun back and continued, sheathing the knife quickly.

Emry didn't bother responding. Every time she had, she received veiled threats or was ignored. The guards had grown tired of her attitude, exactly as she'd hoped. She followed him back to her cell, and he unlocked her cuffs before shoving her into the room and slamming the cell door behind her.

She rubbed her sore knees for a while before she laid back and propped up the bucket, revealing Balshenai's scales. Her time in Icehold was valuable at least, as she walked her way through the prison in her mind. Every door she'd seen, every cell with a prisoner within it she remembered, and she planned a path to escape. All she needed was a way to keep the gate open.

She dropped the bucket and rolled across her cell onto the mat with eyes closed.

--

Underhanded Designs

Late, as usual, Sekhenna ducked beneath a hanging bolt of linen that hid the exposed face of a ruined house from the aftermath of a long passed fire. Inside, she met the gaze of a man in polished armor with swords at his side. Her new dagger bucket into a belt beneath her coat rubbed against her hip as she slid a stool from a half broken bar top and offered a smile of appeasement.

“Apologies, for my usual tardiness.”

The man grunted and stiffly pushed himself from the bar top and paced around her. She tensed, stretching her fingers slightly toward the dagger.

“I would be frustrated, but you have not been late where it matters, the payments.”

She rolled her eyes and slipped a leather pouch filled with scales from her cloak.

“As per your request, twenty percent extra on top of your usual fee for procurement of a physical key.” She tossed the bag across the room to the guard who caught it and spilled its contents onto a table. Without a word in reply, he sorted the coins and flicked through them. Sekhenna watched him as he verified his payment silently, piece by piece the ting of the coins slapping against one another echoed in the room until he turned to face her.

“Adequate. In return.” The guard revealed a small iron key from a pouch on his side and handed it to her.

She took and laid it onto the wooden tabletop.

“You are certain that this is the correct key?” With her free hand she reached into her bag and felt the cold brush of metal, wrapped poorly in linen. She slipped it from the wrapping and the guard readied himself with his hand to the hilt of his sword.

“You need not worry.” She assured him. “I have no intention of harming you.”

“Wonderful, but you know that isn’t true.” The voice chimed in the back of her mind as she withdrew a plain gauntlet and slipped it over her left hand. The cold metal warped and formed around her, fitting to her thin hands as ornamental filigree curled and wrapped the metal unnaturally. The thin plates that comprised the gauntlet molded and separated between each knuckle, delicate curls and joints evolved as she flexed her hand and felt the sick and still exciting warmth from the gauntlet fill her body. Like warming her hand above a campfire, she sighed as a delicate thrum reverberated through her forearm.

The guard took a step back at the sight of the gauntlet and left his eyes transfixed on her as she spread her fingers over the key. Light flowed from the fingertips of the gauntlet like falling mist as the thrum of the metal grew more intense. A sudden chill permeated the room as Sekenna watched her own work in bewilderment. The mist pooled around the iron key and began to solidify.

Across from her, the guard stared.

“Take it and run, he can’t stop you.” The voice growled into her ear.

“There is no reason to take it if I craft a perfect replica.” She danced her fingers across the thin metal key and wisps of chilled air fell onto it. Crystals grew where droplets of moisture fell from the gauntlet. The guard backed into a shadowed corner of the stone shack, his mouth agape. The only sound from within the occasional gasp as she twirled her hands and worked to mesh the freezing mist over the frame of the key.

“Careful.” She reminded herself as the ice grew and encased the key itself. When her work had finished, she closed her gauntleted hand and allowed warmth back into the room. The guard remained silent.

Sekhenna looked him in the eye, his fear enrapturing the gauntlet. “You know, I find it amusing that a nobleman kept such a useful device all to himself. Something like this could benefit the city greatly.”

The guard shook his head, tears forming in his eyes as she waved her hand.

“My, Sekhenna you’ve grown rather fond of me, haven’t you?”

She ignored the voice.

On the table, the ice that surrounded the key cracked and melted back to flowing water. She hung her gloved hand in the air above it and kept her fingers spread wide. Below her outstretched hand, the water pooled and lifted from the table in the shape of the key. It twisted around the metal and pulled itself from the wooden counter top in response to Sekhenna’s will, and reshaped itself, into a perfect replica of the key. She snapped her fingers and the guard jumped as a flash of cold burst from the center of the watery key, which froze solid immediately.

“Are you certain this is the key to his cell?” She demanded as the replica of ice floated into her palm.

The soldier nodded, quickly wiping tears from his eyes.

“Perfect. I will see you soon then, when it is time to finish the job.” She paused, and held the frozen key lazily in her hand. “You will still be there to see this to completion, no?”

The bald guard nodded, sweat dripped from his brow onto his trembling lip.

“Say it.”

“I will be there, ma’am.” He spouted.

“That’s my boy.” Sekhenna tossed the replica into the air and caught before she slipped the key into her bag and nudged the real keys across the table.

“That will be all, for now.” She turned and stepped out of the house without waiting for a reply, and ducked behind a fallen strap of cloth as the guard within composed himself. She waited until she heard the jingle of his keys, then his timid steps out of the house behind her and a few more moments before she snapped her gauntleted hand once more.

Down the street, he heard the gasp of the man followed by cursing and a splash of water against the stone.

She stepped from behind her cover and into a nearby alley, away from the cursing guard who had gone to his knees to pluck the replica scales from the ground, as they melted between his fingers.

“Bold of you, Sekhenna. Refusing his payment will lead to his betrayal.” The voice quipped.

“I have no need for him. In fact, I’d adore being greeted at the gates of Icehold. It will make my arrival so much better.”

--

Loyalty to the Hunter

Cold wet snow crunched beneath Kerrick's feet as he marched lockstep with the rest of his platoon. Forty soldiers trudged in time with one another behind Klauven and Ginu. The Hunters led thirty-eight soldiers who fell into rank behind them. Organized into nine rows of four with two in the rear where Kerrick found himself, with only Verrita as a marching mate, leading the remaining six who dragged the cart filled with frozen body parts behind them. The bitter cold of the approaching night sunk into his steel armor and wrapped itself around his leathers as the constant footfalls into snow soaked his boots.

Klauven and Ginu demanded a ferocious pace, every so often shouting back to the rear of the formation to keep up, and Kerrick was sure he wasn't the only one among them who had begun to feel the sting of the winter's night in his lungs.

The supply road that the second party had taken the wagon along was their path back to the barracks, a thin and infrequently maintained strip of cobbled stone that ran along the edge of the Ferrous Cliff, which arced around the outskirts of Godspine proper, far below them. Kerrick had taken his position against the cliff at Verrita's urging. One look over the edge had sent a deep green hue through her cheeks. Followed by a violent shake of her head, he'd obliged to keep her away from the ledge as best he could.

They'd made it a quarter of the way back before she'd spoken, whispering to him low enough that the soldiers before them couldn't hear.

"Does Klauven bother you, too?"

He'd been carrying a feeling deep within that he'd avoided confronting since the onset of their mission. The Hunter, and his companion both were out of place against the rest of the army. Even when compared to Vandruss, they seemed like street vagrants who'd somehow found themselves at the helm of an army. Kerrick mulled his thoughts over in his mind, searching for the words he'd need to phrase his feelings truthfully and without cruelty. Klauven was dirty and vulgar, the frequency with which he slipped in and out of the Eastern Atlean accent alarmed him. Whatever accent took its place he'd not recognized. Perhaps from somewhere across the Ilden Seas. Or even from the Crooks, though, he paled at the thought that a former native of those isles had gone so far north and claimed so much notoriety as a warrior.

"It isn't that Klauven is from another place, but rather, that he seems to look beyond us. As if we don't matter, or exist in comparison to his greater goal, whatever that might be."

He shrugged, the cold metal of his plate rattled.

"Klauven is odd, and makes himself out to be a danger, but he knows the Ridge, certainly. Not to mention, as unsettling as it might be, he knows how to put down a Dragon."

Verrita shivered, and Kerrick suspected it was not because of the cold.

"I know, that's just the thing. How could he do it so easily? When that dragon roared, I couldn't." She paused. Heindor, two rows ahead of them, turned and locked eyes with Verrita and put a finger to his mouth.

"How could he hear us?" Kerrick questioned himself, but chose to obey and hung his head.

Behind them, over the Ridgeline, the sun fell behind the mountaintops as they moved. Verrita had progressed beside him from the occasional jitter to a constant tremble, he edges of her armor clinked together. Still, the soldiers didn't speak. Klauven and Ginu had taken to whistling a tune in front of the group as they kicked through knee high snow drifts and moved against the wind as if it weren't there at all. As they neared a split in the path, just beyond the forest that his company had found the dragon within that morning, Klauven turned to face the group. With a hand held high above him he gestured for them to stop.

"Do ye' 'ear that?" He chided the soldiers. Kerrick silenced his breathing along with his companions, and listened. He strained his ears over the sound of Verrita's trembling body and nearly gave up before he heard it. Faintly, high above them, he found the sound of beating wings.

Beside Klauven, Ginu cracked a devilish grin and slid a hatchet from his disfigured side.

"Figures we couldn't make it back."

The fat man waved at the soldiers and guided them forward, splitting the group once more into two halves.

"Anyone notice the dragon that was looking out for us at the lake?" Klauven asked, speaking plainly despite the threat of immediate attack.

The soldiers shared looks amongst one another while they separated, some of which being summoned by Ginu. The beating of wings above them grew distant, and Kerrick swelled with fear that it would not be distant for long.

"Well?" Klauven continued, expecting an answer from the frightened soldiers, and Kerrick slowly raised his hand.

"Congratulations, Snow." The hunter sneered. "You're with me." Klauven and Ginu continued separating the soldiers until they had reorganized into two groups, Verrita followed Kerrick closely as he approached the rest of the party and Klauven put a hand on her shoulder.

"You're with Ginu, girl."

Her head fell, and she muttered a quiet acknowledgement before she turned to reunite with the other party. Ginu shouted above them as they dragged the wagon along the split in the path.

"We will be safer if we stay apart! There is no more order, we move quickly."

Klauven repeated nearly the same and set off on the lower path that the wagon bearers had used to arrive at the lake that morning.

"I won't spare anyone who falls behind." The Blonde hunter called over his shoulder as he took off in a steady run toward the barracks. Above them, the beating of wings in the dark drew near.

Kerrick collected himself and started running. Among the soldiers on his side of the path were Heindor, and the aforementioned's friends. Hesch and Verrita had been called to the other group and beyond them, no one that Kerrick had grown truly familiar with ran alongside him. The Ridge dipped, sheltering them from the sudden flash of light above them. Mere moments later, thunder rumbled through the air. The hair on his arm stood on end and he pushed himself. Exhausted with burning lungs, he and the soldiers followed Klauven who charged through the twilight, away from the sound of crashing thunder and the scarce flashes of lightning.

On the other side of the lower path, many of the soldiers had slowed. Heindor and Kerrick remained in front of the group, the realization that they were under attack gripped him and pushed himself, not chancing a look behind out of fear for what he might find. Klauven stayed ahead of them a number of feet, until the lower path rose back up and they emerged on the other side of the split, the distant lights of the Barracks in the distance. Gentle flames flickered and curled in the windy night.

"You go." Klauven called out against the frequent crashes of thunder, and turned on a dime toward the second group, still hidden behind the walls of the forest. "I will go back for them."

Heindor nodded and took off in a dead sprint with his friends, away from them all, and Kerrick finally turned back, fearing that they'd gotten too far from their companions. Along the path, hundreds of steps behind them was a small pack of soldiers, he couldn't make their faces out in the darkness but saw above them exactly what he'd feared.

Perched on the edge of the cliff rested a massive scaled dragon, whose two pairs of wings had unfurled into the night sky. It's scales glittered, green and blue. A bipedal creature, which stood on hind legs with its fore claws attached to the end of a smaller pair of wings. The second paid spanned far longer than anything Kerrick had seen before then. From its shoulders protruded a long, serpentine neck that stretched far over them and loomed over the forest. It's cavernous jaw unleashed bolts of lightning that flashed from within, scarring the depths of the forest with light and fire.

Kerrick shot a glance back toward the barracks, another twenty minutes at least if he were in a full sprint. The stranded soldiers wouldn't survive the journey if the dragon turned its attention back toward them. He pulled a deep breath in as another bolt of lightning tore from the jowls of the dragon and unclasped his steel gauntlets. Then, he unclipped his breastplate and let it fall to the snow.

One foot before the other, he began to sprint toward the struggling soldiers, and into he presence of the dragon.

The clouds above them churned and swirled, preparing a vicious snowstorm as he reached the group. Six soldiers, one of whom had rolled their ankle.

"Snow, what are you doing?" One of them called out. A young woman, closely cropped blonde hair and marks beneath her eyes that denoted her ancestry in the Isle of Magi. Four violet-red patches of skin that decorated her upper cheek. Sardra Calleri. They'd spoken before, but rarely.

"What slowed you down?" He replied, ignoring her question.

"Luthier caught a piece of debris where the dragon landed. We didn't even hear it come down, but it sheared rocks from the upper ledge and they landed on his ankle." She gestured to a soldier, larger than Kerrick by a few stones, limping on a blood soaked ankle. His arms wrapped around Sardra and another soldier who didn't speak.

"Shed his equipment." Kerrick crept around them as a bolt of lightning shot across the sky and arced onto the path, sixty steps in front of them.

"What for?"

"It will make him lighter, we can work together to carry him. If we stay here long enough, the dragon will find us. Best outcome is we get knocked over the edge. That fall is thirty or forty stories down. We won't live regardless of what kind of armor we are wearing.

In the distance, screams of soldiers echoed into the night from the cover of the blazing forest. The dragon's tail whipped against the outcropped wall and shot stone from the surface, crumbling down to the farmland far below them. Sardra didn't move fast enough for Kerrick's liking, and he slipped his fingers between Luthier's breast plate and tunic. With a quick press, he unlatched the buckle that kept the armor on him and it fell to the stones below, nearly landing on the boy's ankle.

"Apologies." Kerrick muttered, and crouched below Luthier. He pushed off of the slick ground and caught the boy's knees in his shoulders, pushing forward until Luthier was suspended in the air, his knees over Kerrick's shoulders and his back supported by Sardra and her companion. The remaining soldiers paused to collect the armor they'd left behind.

Luthier whimpered with each step, but Kerrick ignored the sound and set a quick pace for them. The faster they got away from the dragon, the better. Behind them, one of the soldiers screamed. Kerrick couldn't turn to see where the stragglers were, but it didn't matter. The dragon's tail whipped through the air and slammed against something metal. Then, the scream faded into silence as the soldier it crashed into was flung from the ridge. Two more violent thunder strikes crashed around them as the pound of the dragon's claws vibrated the earth. He didn't turn his head, knowing that it would do him no good to try with Luthier's knees over his shoulder, but more so because he knew that he didn't want to see how quickly he would be killed.

So he continued. Sardra and her companion hefted Luthier behind Kerrick, and as they neared the end of the lower path, he realized that the dragon had picked off the other three members of their group. Where they had gone, he couldn't know. Only that there was no sense in returning to find them.

"Move." He called back to the others, and hefted Luthier's leg above him so that he could look at the dragon. As he did so, he found that the beast had crawled further into the forest. The thrashing of its tail that rendered their companions lost to the ridge wasn't intentional. As if it hadn't noticed them.

"That can't be right." He thought to himself as he marched forward to the sound of Luthien's desperate breathing.

"Snow, why did you come back?" Sardra asked as a flurry of snow picked up and blasted against their cheeks.

"I would have wanted you to do the same for me." He replied, the shape of the barracks before them, barely visible against the coming snowfall.

Shards of snow popped against his cheeks as Luthier's body grew colder. Still, he refused to stop. The boy's whimpering had devolved into crying, and Kerrick couldn't blame him. The crushed ankle bounced against his chest with each step. Frozen blood flecked from his skin and onto the snow below. Far behind them, the sound of the dragon thrashing continued. A lightning storm localized to the forest, and the forest alone, continued to rage as they treaded through the rapidly growing snow drifts. Kerrick's toes had long grown numb beneath the frost, and he dared not think about which of them he'd have to remove before the night was over.

Sardra gasped, and drew his attention as the dragon let out a ferocious roar that pierced the darkness, and he turned to see the long serpentine neck of the beast glowing white. It remained for a moment, wings outstretched, back arched and neck into the sky, before the pent up breath emerged and bolts of lightning erupted from within the horror and crashed around the forest before it. Tens, or even hundreds of crackling bolts of light slammed into the ground all around the dragon's body, splintering trees and erupting flames upon the branches, and behind the chorus of lightning and thunder, there rose a chorus of screams.

He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat and continued to push forward until they neared the bunker, where a few of the soldiers met them in the training yard. He lowered Luthier's legs to the snow and allowed the composed, warm companions to collect the boy while he and Sardra stumbled forward behind them, his heart crashed against his chest with every strike of lightning and before he pushed his way into the barracks, he chanced one final look back into the forest. The dragon remained, its head arced over the treetops and lightning poured from it. A thousand sprawling fires had amassed into one massive blaze that crawled through the trees, and with a sigh he pushed the door to the barracks out of his way and followed Sardra inside.

The warmth of the barracks didn't comfort him, and the surrounding soldiers who'd wrapped themselves in blankets and covered their faces reminded him why he'd felt so harshly about Klauven. The man didn't feel fear, and if he did, he didn't show it. Even then, Kerrick had engraved the Hunter's face on his mind as he charged into the forest to seek out the rest of their companions, and his own friend, Ginu. Despite Kerrick's suspicions, at least Klauven cared for something.

"Snow, that was brave." Heindor's voice crooned across the barracks, tight lipped and wide eyed he spoke through a thin veil of arrogance that Kerrick saw through like spring water.

"I knew you weren't going to do it." He shot back and passed the soldiers who'd already bundled up, most of whom were Heindor's friends. A handful of them had curled against their bedposts with cups of tea or soup pilfered from the mess hall in the absence of a commanding officer.

"I came here to inform the next in charge." The pompous boy shot back, mouth full of bone broth.

"I doubt that." Kerrick unbuttoned his sopping wet, blood soaked tunic and tossed it onto the wooden floor. In the back, near the mess hall, Luthier screamed in pain and Sardra tried to comfort him.

"Three dragons in one day, Kerrick. If I didn't know better I'd say we were cursed." One of Heindor's lackeys quipped with a mouthful of bread.

Kerrick shook his head and slipped a warm shirt from his locker. He didn't respond.

"You know, Klauven has his eye on you."

He slipped his undershirt on and ignored the soup soaked words of the boy. "I think he is looking for another hunter to join their team."

"I doubt that." Kerrick replied, slipping out of his boots and trousers to find something warm.

Heindor gasped, as the room fell silent behind him. "What happened to you? Your legs are..."

Kerrick slipped his legs into his trousers one at a time and turned to face Heindor, whose face had gone pale.

"I carried Luthier, whose legs were broken and splintered, back to the barracks while you and your companions found your lot of pilfered soup and warm tea. I hope the comfort of the first pick was good for you."

Luthier moaned in the back room as Sardra continued tending to his wounds.

"You should be so lucky that the dragon didn't follow us, Heindor." Kerrick stepped towards the corner table where the boy sat. Luthier's thawing blood dripped down his calves, what didn't soak through his pants fell onto the floor.

"You would have died."

Heindor stared at him in silence for a long moment before Kerrick passed him by and made his way down the hall.

"I saved you some of the good food!" Heindor called, and Kerrick didn't reply.

Instead, he made his way to the infirmary near the mess hall, where Sardra and her companion finished bandaging Luthier's ankles. While he'd gotten dressed, they'd cracked his bones back into place and affixed them to a splint. Though, they both could have used some help wrapping the wound.

Sardra turned as soon as he entered the room and wrapped her arms around him.

"Sardra..." he began.

"No, Snow. You saved our lives. I don't know what to say to thank you."

He blushed, and wrapped his arms around her in return.

"Not being dead is thanks enough."

Their embrace was short, but he clasped her tight as thunder rumbled in the distance, a constant drone beneath the murmur of soldiers in the next room over. She released and turned back to Luthier, who stared up to the ceiling of the infirmary, tears dripping from his eyes.

From outside the infirmary, Heindor's grating voice echoed, regaling the story of Klauven's battle with the dragon in the forest, puffing the Hunter up as a master of his craft, which Kerrick couldn't debate. He stepped out into the room as Heindor shouted to the other soldiers, most of whom still held themselves tightly beneath blankets.

"...And Klauven jammed the spear into the Dragon and brought it down just before it was going to kill us!" He waved his hands in the air, one of them held a half eaten slice of bread.

"Don't exaggerate." Kerrick interrupted. "That dragon might have been a threat, it assuredly was, but it was not attacking us. It was provoked."

Heindor turned in his seat, his jaw limp.

"I was telling it how I saw it, you came late, Snow."

"I was right behind you. There was no battle. The dragon was there'd likely would have killed us, I'm not trying to say that. I am trying to say that your premature idolization of the man is dangerous."

Heindor dropped the bread onto a plate and stood, a look of betrayal upon his face.

"Snow, do you not admire his tenacity? To venture into the middle of this storm to save the others who were separated from us?"

Kerrick stepped past him without meeting his gaze and to his locker.

"I don't admire that the people he went to save, supposedly, are the same people he split from the main path, which was far shorter to travel, and incidentally, were the same people that chose not to follow him into the woods to battle a dragon with little more than splinters for weapons. I don't admire manufactured tenacity, or artificial bravery."

The room fell quiet at his words.

"Did you not notice? Or was I the only one who paid attention?" He looked to the other soldiers, most of whom shared glances at one another. Sardra stepped out from the infirmary and watched as he pushed onward.

"During the first dragon attack, Klauven charged in an killed it without hesitation, did no one notice that it refused to fight back? Did no one notice that the dragon hardly moved? It was ill, or hurt. It wasn't roaring to tell us that it was hunting us. It was wounded and it was scared. It was looking for its brood."

The soldiers looked at one another in realization as Kerrick paced past Heindor. He continued.

"Then, at the second attack, knowing that the wagon path was shorter and would help keep us hidden beneath the cliff, he sends a certain group to travel along it while the rest move into the forest, arguably with more cover, and directly to the corpse of the dragon he killed this morning."

Heindor stood quickly, knocking his chair down as he swung his arm at Kerrick, who side stepped.

"Do you doubt our leaders, Snow?"

"Don't you?"

As Heindor opened his mouth, the front door of the barracks slammed open with a crack, and thunder rumbled above them as Klauven stepped through. His body covered in blood, his clothing burned.

"Enough."

Outside the doorway Ginu stood before the cart, with a few of the soldiers, each of them bleeding and burnt in the same manner as Klauven as he stepped into the barracks.

"It is over." He lifted his torn coat from his shoulders and tossed it onto the floor, exposing his bare chest riddled with scars and tattoos that had all been coated in fresh blood. From behind, Ginu stepped into the barracks and adjusted his stance, the suit of armor that had fused to his flesh rattled. His stench pierced Kerrick's nose.

"Get to rest, we'll be on our way 'ack to Godspine by mornin' to 'elp Vandruss with a project." Ginu snorted and spit snot into the wooden floor.

"What about the rest of us?" Kerrick spoke up, pushing past Heindor.

"Most of 'ye didn't make it." Ginu replied, gesturing back to the cart.

There, piled atop the frozen bodies of scouts that they'd pulled from the river earlier that morning were the bodies of people he knew, people he'd trained with. Their limbs twisted and broken tangled around each other where they hadn't been torn from the joint. Gashes covered their bodies, their faces twisted and locked in looks of horror. Of those who remained standing, there were only a few. Verrita was among them, whose eyes had puffed with tears. Barely holding herself up, she clasped her left arm. Kerrick stepped past Ginu into the snowy night and watched her fall to the ground, with blood draining from a wound in her arm. From behind, back in the barracks Klauven's grunting echoed.

Kerrick's blood boiled.

--

Premonition Hour

Her arrival back at The Camps was quiet. No one greeted her, nether Frans nor Haim were out in the creeping of the evening. Where the children once had gathered around a drowned lump of disregarded meat in the gutter, there was nothing. Only the running water remained.

Sekhenna made her way through the gate and nodded to a family, recently moved into the place, with a solemn look about them. Likely having freshly turned to the slums after the destruction of their neighborhood months prior. She lowered her head and fiddled with the gauntlet, still on her hand as she stepped through the narrow, lantern lit streets.

Her mind absorbed in the coming days, she barely noticed Dhama leaning against the side of the stone supporting wall that protected Godspine from the south. She passed by without seeing her friend close her book and set it to the side.

Wrapped in her thoughts, Sekhenna wondered how the coming days would spiral out of control, like the rest of the plans she'd ever made. Certain that her desire to break her friend free from Icehold was the only option she'd have, she allowed herself a gentle sigh and passed into her own tent.

The tent was small and lightly decorated. Most of the ornaments that hung around the supporting beams were made by the children in The Camps and offered to her for holidays, or birthdays, one particular bundle of sticks tied with yarn in the shape of a person hung above her bed. The young one who'd offered it to her bore the same stiff, hard skin that covered Jundal's body. A mark that both of them came from the Isles. The girl, Serre, had disappeared years before. Sekhenna searched high and low for her for months, knowing that the guards would likely be of little assistance. Still, whatever had happened to Serre had eluded her and the rest of the guardians at the Camps for years. Eventually they began to give up, one by one, until Sekhenna and Dhama were the only remaining members of the search party.

Serre wasn't the first child to go missing in Godspine, and neither was she the last. Two more months passed before Dhama, too, gave up. Sekhenna refused until the end of the following year. Two years had passed before Sekhenna had fallen from the course. Not that she'd made the decision to give up, but rather, that she'd skipped a day of searching. Her own life had grown busy, and she couldn't tend to the needs of a single girl each night when so many children in the Camps needed her. One day became two, and before she realized it, a season passed since she'd last gone out.

Serre was never found.

Sekhenna plucked at the doll with her uncovered hand as she remembered the sparkle of the child's eyes. Serre reminded her even then of the Limawood Trees that grew in dense patches on the Isles. Tall, thin trunks and long branches that held wavy green leaves. Some of the branches so long and heavy they'd bent back down to touch the earth. Serre was tall too, like the Limawood. Her arms had grown faster than the rest of her and for a season, it was the cause of much uncertainty in the girl. Though, Sekhenna had spent hours talking her out of her silliness.

"We are all different, little one."

The girl looked up at her, eyes full of tears.

"But what if I'm so different, no one will want to be with me when I'm old?"

"I'll always be with you, Serre."

Sekhenna shook her head and knelt onto her bed mat. A shadow hung in her doorway, feminine, taller than her with long braided hair that hung to her waist.

"Evening, lady." Dhama's voice peeled through the dim light of the tent.

Sekhenna rolled onto her side and glanced to the shape of her friend.

"Up late herding the youth again?"

"Hardly."

Dhama stepped into the tent and the dim light from the overhead lantern bathed her cheeks, flushed and pickled in the cold air.

"You've got big plans, and you want to do right by the Camps, Khenna." Her friend took a seat on her knees across the tent, a gentle smile on her face. "Regardless, I am worried for you."

"What for?"

"Since the night of the fires, and Jundal's arrest, you've been tense. There is something different about you. I can't tell if it's your worry for him or something else, and to say this isn't my place."

Sekhenna offered a gentle smile, in an attempt to reassure her friend.

"If you only knew." The voice that was not Sekhenna's ribbed her mind.

"I am sorry, truly." She ignored the voice and lowered her head to her friend.

"I don't know that you are. I am worried regardless. This vendetta you are on, I support it so long as you don't lose yourself in an attempt to accomplish it. Godspine has been terrible to us, but it isn't everyone."

"Everyone that speaks to us does so as if they'd been faced with the choices we have, as if they've lived through winter in a tent and eaten scraps of food from the gutter, seasonings washed away by runoff." She shook her head. "I have no sympathy for anyone outside of our walls."

"I believe that is part of the problem, Khenna." Dhama adjusted, and let her thing ankles out from beneath her knees, relaxing. She was a beautiful woman. Sekhenna had always been fond of her. Even when she'd first arrived to Godspine with her kin, Dhama had caught her eye. A tall woman, strong, but with a gentleness that she longed to capture for herself. Dhama was to her, in many ways, what Sekhenna had always wanted to be. She knew the root of her fondness, and thinking it selfish had never voiced it aloud to anyone but Jundal.

"I appreciate your concern, dear, but please don't worry yourself on my behalf. I am just as well adjusted as I've always been."

Dhama smirked.

"You are Ven'alhim. You owe no one your fear." She paused.

"You are also not as well adjusted as you claim."

Sekhenna's heart skipped a beat. Every time she heard that word it sent a shock of excitement through her. Ven'alhim. The Bonded People. If she could show Dhama what that really meant, the name would lose its air of fear. It was not the Bonded that were the frightening, but the Bonders. To escape was more than a death sentence. It was to be unmade.

Sekhenna shuddered.

"Your feel it, do you not?" The voice inside of her chimed in before she could reply. "That upwelling within you."

She ignored the voice.

"Khenna, we are worried about you. Not just me. Haim's mother, and Frans. They both asked what has been bothering you. I know that you miss Jundal, but it is not worth risking your life."

She nodded.

"It is worth risking anything. My father freed us all, at the threat of his life. What is our freedom worth if Jundal is immediately placed back into servitude?"

She rolled onto her other side and faced away from her friend, a familiar sting prodded her eyes.

"You could hurt her."

"I don't believe that putting yourself in danger is the wisest course of action, dear." Dhama leaned against the tent and sent a wave of motion through it that rattled the dim, nearly empty lantern that hung above them.

"She is threatening our position. To give up now means you will lose this power forever. You will betray your friends, your family. Everything you know."

A tear slid down her cheek as Dhama continued.

"It is not my place, and should you find it in yourself to reprimand me, I will bear it. Sekhenna, Jundal and the others aren't worth losing you too. Whatever you're planning, some of the others told me they saw you slinking around with one of the Icehold guards this afternoon. I worry for you."

"I am not to be worried for." She shot back through the lump that had begun to form in her throat.

It wasn't fear or sorrow that wrought the uncertainty. If it she had simply been afraid or upset, she would have pushed it away deep down within her, like she did in her youth. No, the feeling that overwhelmed her and kept her up at night was not that of being incomplete, or considering the unknown. She knew her enemies and she knew what they wanted. It was not fear, but anger that rested within her and brought her into contact with the gauntlet that still wrapped itself, cold around her hand. Dhama wanted to bring her words of comfort, she knew, but she could not be comforted. Only enraged.

"Dhama doesn't understand your life, or who you were created to be. Skehenna you are a weapon and that is all. Do you want to be bound to another so soon after your chains have been broken?"

The voice crooned inside of her, and she hated it.

She hated that it was right.

"Dhama, I appreciate your concern, but there is nothing that I could tell you that would allow you to understand. This is deeper than familial connection or the bond of friendship. The way Godspine treats us, is not right. Someone must do something."

Dhama sighed in the failing lamp light.

"Someone has, and someone else will continue. No one gets out of Icehold, Sekhenna. It is secure, and deadly. To risk anything with Jundal or another of your friends is suicide."

Skehenna let her tears fall freely.

"I have already died. I don't need to worry what might happen should I die again."

"You have a long way to fall, yet."

"If you believe as such, I support you."

The words from her friend clashed with the voice inside of her mind. She expected another long tirade from the caretaker about the value of staying uninvolved, that the members of the Camps survive with their heads low. She expected Dhama to tell her it would be foolish to let the nobles know her real name. Yet, she didn't.

"I intend to free him and return here. When I do, we will make our way south to Bastrion. There is nothing left for me in Godspine."

Behind her, Dhama inhaled a short, quick breath. It was quiet, so quiet that if she were a natural born she wouldn't have noticed and yet, she was as she had been called. Ven'alhim. The Bonded.

"You don't mean that, do you girl?"

The voice creaked. Dhama stood.

"It is best, I believe, if you get some rest. I will see to you in the morning if you are still here." Her soft, bare footfalls tapped out of the tent and the open flaps bumped against one another long after her absence. Sekhenna remained there in silence until they no longer offered the gentle tap of their brushing.

She closed her eyes and let what few tears she'd had fall, and began to fall asleep.

"Sekhenna." The voice in her mind jolted her from the precipice of a dream.

"What?" She shot back quietly.

"The nursemaid is correct. This plan is foolish. I have been thinking."

"I have found it is deadly when you think."

"If you free Jundal, what is your plan? Do you have one?"

She rolled onto her back and reached for the clasp of the gauntlet. She'd rarely slept with it on her hand. The closeness of the voice had interrupted her rest each time, but lately she'd begun to feel... lost without it.

"I am going to free him and we are going to use the Under Channels to reach the shoreline, after that we will make due."

"What happens if there is a change to your plan?"

Sekhenna placed her fingers on the buckle that held the gauntlet onto her and pressed. Immediately, the voice shot back.

"Take off the glove and I will sever your hand from your wrist."

She froze. The growl of the voice chilled her spine. She released the buckle.

"Unbecoming of you, glove."

"I am no mere decoration, Sekhenna Fliss. I am your salvation."

She let her hand fall limp and stared at the wall of the tent.

"What is it you might have me do, then, glove?"

"When you free Jundal, there is someone else I want you to release."

She nodded, and felt a pressure build around her wrist. Pinpoints of pain shot through her forearm. She reached down in a panic and released the buckle, but it was too late. The pressure warped into a sting as needles emerged from the wrist of the glove and pierced her flesh. She felt the blood swell from beneath her skin immediately. She shot up and wrapped her fingers around the gauntlet to tear it free, but it didn't budge. In her hand, the metal filigree warped and changed once more. Each previous time she'd worn it, it arranged itself in a delicate, thin filigree. An ornamental piece with long barbed nails at each end. As she stared in the fading light of her tent she watched it reform into interlocking plates that completely covered her hand. She pried against it but it refused to budge.

"Silly little one. I won't let you rid of me so easily."

"Why?" Tears erupted from her face again. Her mind flashed with memories of her childhood. Of powerful winds and oaken sticks snapped across her back and shoulders. Dark stormy nights and violent flames erupted from the depths of her memory. Above it all, the sillouette of a spined dragon loomed in the darkness.

"Because, I am Farrakha, better known to your kind as the Bondmother."

Sekhenna's heart ran cold as she shot up. The fading flame of her lantern finally flickered out and left her alone, in the darkness.

"I have missed you, child."

"You couldn't have sent a dreg to find us in your place?"

"You found me, don't you remember?"

In the darkness, outside of her tent, she heard Dhama's footsteps leaving. Likely eavesdropping on her conversation with the voice. The pattern of her friend's footfalls disappeared into the night as she stared at the tent wall. Finally alone in the darkness, the voice, Farrakha, commanded her.

"Ven'alhim, release Emry Windsholm from Icehold or bear your own destruction at my hand."

--

Scales & Keys

“Witch, breakfast is ready.”

The echo of the steel mug against the bars rattled Emry awake. She pushed herself up from the damp stone floor and peered at him, through beams of sunlight streaking through the windows.

“Get up.” The guard slid open the small metal shield as he had for three months, and served up the same grey slop and stale bread she’d eaten countless times. “Breakfast” at Icehold was no different than dinner or lunch.  The same mushed conception of boiled meat and cream, if she was lucky. 

She stood and took the wooden tray from the guard, who continued to eye her as he backed away and continued his rounds with the rickety cart piled high with more trays of food.

She took her meal and sat with her back against the corner as she started in on it, barely able to stomach the thick, salty pudding that she figured, at one time, had the potential to still be edible. The bread broke as she lifted it from the tray and crumbs scattered onto the stone, dissolving into the puddle of water left by the previous night’s storm.

She’d been used to storms in the Atlaen winter, but the previous night’s was different. From the slit window in her cell, flakes of snow had whipped into her prison while in the distance, thunder crashed. Over and over the boom of lightning resounded across Godspine. A few miles away, judging by the space between the flashes of light and the rumble. Still, each time she’d faded off to sleep a new chorus of rumbling erupted from outside the city and stirred her.

She’d been on the verge of dreaming of Balshenai. Whatever she’d come close to nodding off she saw the golden shimmering scales of her friend, not covered in blood and broken as last she’d seen them. In the sprouting dream, Balshenai was flying.

Wherever the dragon was flying to, she couldn’t stay asleep long enough to know.

The sight of her friend, strange as she might have been, panned Emry’s heart. She hadn’t known many besides her brothers and father, and to have so quickly befriended the dragon puzzled her. It had become something that had occupied much of her time in the prison. A bond between herself and the dragon had grown, perhaps due to the amulet, perhaps due to the Dragon’s sense of kinship with her. Though she knew the creature didn’t trust her at first Balshenai still offered to take her to The Peaks and even then, when she could have gone directly to their destination, chose to fly over Godspine and show her what the nearby city was like. 

She gritted her teeth against the sludgy, slaty food.

In the weeks since her imprisonment, and the bitter torture that she’d endured at the hands of Klauven and Vandruss, she’d allowed her fury to smaller and slip into a cold unrest. She desired nothing but to escape the prison, and she would have it. Even if her anger had simmered, it remained deep inside of her waiting to return.

She swallowed the last splotches of her breakfast and stood. In her sleeve, one of Balshenai’s three scales rubbed against her forearm, where she’d been burnt. She checked the second in her waistband and the third still tucked beneath the bucket. 

She didn’t have a plan to escape, not in so many words. Rather a collection of paths to take when she got out of her cell. She’d cobbled the idea together over the previous day and a half and knew that it was a slim chance, but a slim chance was still a chance at all and she wouldn’t neglect taking it.

She slid the wooden tray out of her cell and waited for the guard to return and assign her chores for the day. While she waited, she paced the cell carefully. Around her, numerous prisoners moaned and shouted as the rickety wheels of the breakfast wagon popped along the cobbled walkway of the cell block. A few of them shouted obscenities to the guard, others begged to be released. She was sure that there were others who remained silent and accepted their fate. She would not be one of them.

As the guard approached, she quickly leaned against the wall and hoisted a leg onto the bucket. Beneath the lower rim, facing away from the hall, Balshenai’s third scale peeked out from the bottom of the bucket, barely a knuckle span. She pressed her foot onto the top and let her weight fall as she stretched a moaned out while the guard plucked her tray and moved along. Beneath the sound of the prisoners, a faint crack popped in the dim. When she lifted her foot from the bucket and knelt as if to stretch, she slipped the slivered scale into her free sleeve and reached for the tip of her foot.

The guard returned with keys in his hand and nodded at her. A guard she’d recognized, with a bulbous tipped long nose and deep flared nostrils that loomed over sunken, sullen cheeks and wide inset eyes. Eyes which lingered longer than others, though they were distant. He looked at her with longing.He’d been leering at her when he’d summoned her for morning chores. She hadn’t seen him every day, but many of them, he sought her out. When he spoke to her, he spoke gently, carefully, as if not to upset her. Even still, he referred to her as “witch”. 

He put his hand on the bars and looked at her, his eyes glassy.

“Witch, it’s time for dailies.” He stuck the key into the lock and popped the door open. 

Her plan to escape had not included him, but she was thankful for the blessing, or the luck. She didn’t bother wondering which as she stepped out and placed a hand on his chest plate while she slipped the broken scale into her palm and slipped it delicately into the locking mechanism, deep enough that it would be hidden but hopefully, she assumed, wide enough that the cell door wouldn’t lock when she was returned.

The guard stepped back and gestured down the hall.

“Fourth Alley. Inventory Inspections.”

She nodded and turned on her heel without words, toward the other guard who waited at the end of the hall. She approached him and stopped a few arm lengths away.

“Witch, Fourth Alley.” He handed her a burlap sack with a number of small punctures inside of it and sent her on her way. Through the hall on her right and down the main access path, to the right a second time and down a long hallway that brought her to Fourth Alley. A mostly vacant cell block which sported a handful of inmates. Many of which seemed as though they didn’t belong in the cells either. The inmates in Fourth Alley didn’t wave her off or disregard her any time she’d been there previously. They treated her like a person, a person whose luck had run out.

She entered and nodded at a guard who had taken her station at the entryway.

“You know this job. Get to it.” The guard spat on the ground before Emry. “Clean it up.”

She rolled her eyes and knelt, wiping the spittle from the stone with the sack. On previous days doing Inventory Inspections she’d learned that the inmates were relatively self-policing, at least, as self-policing as one could be with an army of armed and armored guards at their backs. The inmates were charged with routing smuggled items from one another and were ordered to bring them back to the Warden’s office as soon as their rounds were complete. How they managed to find anything illicit was beyond Emry, but she didn’t care one way or another. It didn’t seem to matter how much she’d found and returned, only that she’d found something. 

There was always something to find.

She paced through the cell block, silently thankful for the reprieve from the laborious chores that she seemed to often find herself assigned. Plucking contraband, especially from the unassuming inmates from Fourth Alley was a far cry from scraping blood and vomit from the halls of Second Alley and dealing with the raucous folks who inhabited that space. Save for Jundal, she hadn’t met anyone else in the Prison who spoke to her on her own level. Most of them, like the one they called “Feeder” were rambunctious and aggressive, if they weren’t outright violent toward her, guards included, they were uncomfortably flirtatious. Something she didn’t have the will to tolerate on her best day, let alone after having served three months for a crime she didn’t even realize she had committed.

The crime of existence before the people of Godspine was punished severely, she discovered as she approached the first occupied cell in Fourth Alley.

“Do you have anything you might want to turn over to the Warden in your possession?” She asked, flatly.

The tall, broad shouldered woman in the cell leaned away from the wall and shook her head. Emry didn’t care if any of them did offer something, she was sure that if she returned empty handed there would be some kind of punishment but she’d kept the scales for such an occasion. A perilous one, but it was her safety net. She knew what might happen if she handed over one of the scales, but it was better than taking the whip for not being “obedient” to the guard ship.

The woman leaned back to the wall and turned away from Emry without another word and she passed to the next cell.

“Contraband.” She gestured to the bag and the second inmate, a sickly man whose frail frame was swallowed by the space around him in the cell, met her eyes.

“I didn’t have anything when they threw me in here. I don’t have anything now.” He stifled a cough and took a seat.

“What are you here for?” She asked, not realizing she’d spoken as the words left her lips. There was something about the daily chores that comforted her. It was the only time she was able to speak to someone who wasn’t a guard.

“I was poor and in the way.” He replied, whatever hope the man held had long been stripped from him. She’d only been to Fourth Alley twice before, each time for different tasks and neither of which gave her a chance to speak to the people that made their bed there.

“What does that mean?” She cocked her head and let the sack fall to her side.

“It means I didn’t have any scales, and I was a scapegoat. The King wants the city happy and, as far as he’s concerned, the city is happiest when there are no unsightly blemishes roaming the streets.”

Emry nodded, uncertain what he meant but completely certain on the other hand that he wasn’t about to explain. She stepped past him and to the next prisoner, who had their back turned and was fiddling with something in their lap.

“Contraband.” She held the bag to the cell. The prisoner didn’t turn to face her, and continued to tinker with whatever was in their hand.

“Contraband.” She repeated, and shook the bag, despite it being empty.

“I don’t owe you anything. A fragile voice called back from the cell. Shaky, uncertain. It was a young man’s voice, barely her senior she’d guessed.

“No, but you aren’t allowed to have tools, items or possessions of any kind unauthorized by the Warden.”

The boy giggled to himself briefly. “Who is to say that the Warden gets to tell me what I can and can’t have.”

Emmy paused to watch him rhythmically shove something away from his body with one hand, the other tucked close to his side.

“I would suggest you deposit whatever you are holding into the bag. I don’t want to involve the guards.

“Do it.” The boy called back, not turning to face her.

She shook her head and stepped past the cell. No sense in bothering him longer, she would return before she was finished and try again.

In the last cell on the first floor, she saw a girl, twenty seasons or more younger than her, playing with a wicker doll. When the girl noticed Emry, she stuffed the doll under her shirt and rolled onto her stomach in a vain attempt to hide it.

Emry knelt and whispered. “I won’t take it from you.” She peered to her side to find the guard at the end of the hall lazily staring into the distance. “Are you here because you are, a blemish, too?”

The girl cocked an eyebrow and then, after a brief moment, nodded.

Emry sighed and dropped her knee to the floor, more easily to see the girl on her level, against the stone floor. The girl’s knees were bruised and cut all over. Her feet dirty and caked with dried mud and flaking blood.

“Why are you here?”

The girl looked around the cell and shook her head. “There was a big party, and we were too close.”

Emry’s mind spun. She didn’t recognize the girl on either of her previous visits to Fourth Alley. 

“When did they bring you here?”

“In the spring.”

“Did you see anything else, the night you were brought here? Anything unusual?”

The girl nodded.

“What did you see?” Emry kept an eye trained on the guard nearest her, who continued to stare into the air before him.

“There was a big monster in the sky, and a lot of people got scared. Someone said that a house was lit on fire and then my family ran. We tried to go back to The Camps, but the guards got us and started to handcuff a bunch of us.”

Emry’s stomach twisted. Fire? Did she mean the forest fire that she’d caused?

“Where was the house?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere in the city. Nearby, but I didn’t see any fire.”

She nodded to the girl. “Thank you.”

Emry stood and hoisted the burlap sack to her shoulder. Before she made her way to the second floor, she leaned back to the bars. “You can hide it.” She whispered. “Under the bucket, they won’t look.”

The girl nodded and Emry took her leave, with one eye still on the absent guard.

On the second floor there was only one prisoner, and she approached them the same as the rest to find that they were asleep. She couldn’t define any of their features, but their chest moved slowly up and down in an unrefined peace. Beside them, laid a steel knife. Larger, if only slightly, than her hunting knife, but still a sizable tool. She knelt and slipped her arm between the bars, barely able to brush the handle of the knife with her fingertip. She pushed, stretching her shoulder muscles to pain as she reached into the cell for the weapon and barely caught the end with her nail and dragged it toward her. It bounced against the rocky floor and as soon as the think of the thin blade echoed into the room she withdrew her arm with haste.

The inmate churned in their sleep, and rolled onto their opposite side before their gentle snores returned. Emry took a shallow breath and reached once more into the cell, this time with her palm on the blade she withdrew the knife and held it in her hand.

“How did they get this into the prison?”

She admired the shine of the blade for a quiet moment before she slipped it into her tunic, the cold steel of the weapon brushed against her skin and sent a prickling bite of excitement through her. She slipped one of Balshenai’s scales from her sleeve and dropped it into the bag before she descended to the lower steps.

As her feet touched the first floor, the guard who had escorted her into the Fourth Alley entered and locked eyes with her.

“Witch, have you gathered sufficiently?”

She nodded, and handed the sack over to him as the knife blade brushed her skin a second time.

He opened the sack and before he could investigate the single item she’d collected, a young man’s voice burst forth from a cell in the center of the block. 

“You won’t have me!” He screamed, his vocal cords fraying as he did so, and followed by his exclamation came a sick slurp. All three of the guards present in the Alley rushed to the site of the noise and clamored to open the cell. Emry remained where she was left, in stunned horror as the guards pulled the body of the thin man from the cell, still breathing and dripping blood from a hole in his neck.

Emry stared at the small wooden shank protruding from his neck and shivered at the sight. She realized what he was doing when she’d stopped him and her stomach twisted upon itself.

One of the guards ripped the shank from his neck and let blood pour out of the wound, while another returned to her.

“Come. We are going to take care of this, go back to your cell.”

Emry obeyed and followed the guard, the knife a dreadful weight in her sleeve.

“It could be so easy”

She paused while the guard opened the cell door for her and pushed her inside. Then, he closed it behind her and turned the key to lock it. Her heart skipped a beat as he twisted the small metal key and when the mechanism popped, he slid the key out and returned presumably to Fourth Alley to tend to the inmate. 

After he left, she approached the cell door as other prisoners clamored at the urgency of the guard. She placed her hand as gently as she could on the cell door and pushed, as the deadbolt slid across the strike plate, unsecured by the groove. Her heart pounded as she pulled the door closed again, realizing that the deadbolt had been blocked by the scale. She’d done it, and all that was left for her to do was to wait.

She took a seat at the back of the cell and closed her eyes, counting down the minutes to nightfall. The knife still hanging inside of her tunic.

She remained there in still, patient silence as the knob nosed guard from before came past, pushing a dinner cart. He slid the tray in to her cell and she took it the same as she always had. She sat and put herself through the torturous dinner for what she’d hoped would be the final time. Then, when the guard came to collect the tray he didn’t speak, he offered no endearing comment and she watched him collect the tray in silence.

The sun had set while she ate, and she steeled herself for the final moments of waiting. After the trays were delivered to the kitchen, the guards would rotate stations. She closed her eyes and listened, as if they were game she was hunting. Since her time in Icehold had begun, she’d made it a point to remember the movements of every patrol, the things she could do to sway each of the guards, and how easily it would be to sneak past them when presented the opportunity, and her time to put it all into practice was quickly approaching.

“It will be useless to convince them to let me go if I’m caught.”

She stood and paced, counting in her mind.

“If I get through the central courtyard…”

She slowed her thoughts to listen to the guard step away from the door and down the hall.

“It is time.”

She turned on her heel and shook her sleeve, sliding the knife handle into the palm of her hand as she pushed gently on the cell bars. It fought, but the metal scraped against the scale and she forced it open. A loud rattle echoed through the Alley and sent the other prisoners into a clamor as she slipped out of her cage and toward the doors.

She worked back through her memories of the halls, taking note of every alcove, closet or doorway she could remember as she passed through the large double wide wooden doors. On the other side she found herself in one of the central halls. These much wider than those of the cell blocks, and decorated with steel torches that hung along the wall separated by a few steps. As she swept the hall, she found guards for the time being.

“Good”

She turned left, which would lead her toward the courtyard. The same courtyard where she was first brought into the prison, and which held the only way out she could identify.

She gripped the knife tight and ran through the empty hallway toward the courtyard door and stopped just before it. The massive arched gate hewn of thick wooden beams and reinforced with metal plates hung ominously shadowed away from the flickering torchlight. Behind her, from her cell block, the prisoners had gone into an uproar upon the realization that she’d escaped.

She pushed open the courtyard gate as slowly as she could as a horn sounded in a nearby room. She slipped through, into the courtyard as guards mobilized inside. The banging of their armor a chorus that sent a chill through her insides. A chill unlike that she felt as she stepped barefoot and without a covering into the open courtyard in the dead of winter.

Snow piles built up over the last night swarmed her bare ankles and drowned her dirty feet as she sidled along the inner wall of the courtyard. In the center where she’d experienced her interrogations and beatings, a small pile of wood had been stacked. A group of carved stumps surrounded the piles of wood and she realized that the guards were working on starting a bonfire. A thought that made sense given the temperature, but still surprised her. 

“Where are they?”

She continued, choosing not to think any more about where the guards might be. At the rate she’d gone, she would be burned on the pile of scrap wood if she were found. Instead, she continued along the inner perimeter toward the entrance gate. 

She assumed she’d need to be escorted by a guard to get through the main gate itself, but on either side of it there were two smaller doors which, though she’d never been inside of, she assumed would lead to the watchtower above the courtyard. She glanced around to see the braziers which had been lit on prior evenings were unable to withstand the winds of that particular night and their fires had gone out. If it weren’t for the attention her jailbreak had caused, the guards likely would have been on their way to reignite the flames.

She crept along, keeping an eye on the four watchtowers that stood at the corners of the courtyard and noticed movement in two, both of which were opposite her destination. 

Her feet stung with every step as she pushed herself forward. The cold steel of the knife worming its way through her finger tips as her mind flashed with visions of the child and the wicker doll.

“Come back for her, with Balshenai.”

She approached the gate, her body still tight against the outer wall, hoping that the shadows were enough cover. The moon had nearly grown full again, and the center of the courtyard was bright against the mostly undisturbed snow. Beneath the arch that connected the two watchtowers, she finally released herself from the edge of the wall and crouched into the darkness. As she’d expected, the main gate was barred with a massive iron shaft she’d be mad to think she could move.

To either side, however, much smaller doors stood. Each of them ajar with light from oil lanterns flickering and bubbling within the dismal darkness. She pulled in a frigid breath and stepped inside the door to her right, with knife in hand.

Inside the watchtower door, she saw a guard with his back turned, washing a pile of potatoes and carrots in a small bucket. She felt a pang in her heart as she crept up to his back and raised the knife.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered, and with lightning fast precision, slid the knife into the guard’s throat.

The man fell limp in an instant and she carefully guided his body to the ground. She quickly patted against his hip bag and found a pair of small keys and a pile of coins. Careful to be silent, she pulled the coins from the pouch and placed them on the towel beside a pile of peeled potatoes and then pulled the bag from the guard’s body. She slung it over her shoulder and made her way to a nearby staircase, where she heard the faint sounds of movement in the upper floor.

She crept up the steps, careful to keep her footfalls near the wall as she adjusted the grip of the knife. Blood trickled from the blade onto her fingers as she crouched down near the upper landing and scanned the room. It was barely bigger than the lower floor, decorated with a handful of nails. Some of which held scabbards and belts and cloaks, others hung bare and rusted from the wooden plank walls. Against the far side opposite the staircase a metal door hung open, leading to a stone walkway. Beside the door a large wooden table stood, with four wooden bowls each of which filled with steaming soup. At the table sat one solitary guard who tapped his finger impatiently upon the tabletop. Emry braced herself and with a short inhale, charged forward.

The guard shot up with barely enough time to draw his own sword before she crashed into him, flailing with the knife. With a quick jab to her side, he knocked her back as pain flared around her ribs. She ducked beneath a swing from his sword and leapt toward his legs, slashing at the exposed joint behind his knee. The knife made contact and she heard his scream in pain immediately before she felt his elbow crash into her spine and she slammed into the floor. 

Dazed, she rolled onto her back and flipped the knife in her hand and leaned upward, narrowly dodging another slash from the guard. He came down hard with his gauntlet against her temple and the shock knocked her to her side. Her head throbbed from the pain and the guard raised the sword above.

She slipped her hand into the pouch and tossed the keys upward, the metal ring caught the guard in the cheek and he turned away, dropping his guard long enough for her to roll onto one knee, with her other leg braced to sprint towards the courtyard boardwalk.

The guard dragged his sword through the air and slammed it onto the table beside her, sending a shower of wooden splinters into the dimly lit room and she used the strike to her advantage, ducking beneath his exposed arm she slashed into his side with the dagger, provoking another violent cry as he dropped to a knee. She spun around to his back and flipped the knife to slice his throat, and then she paused.

A cold, stabbing pain from her left side. Shot through her body. She looked down to see the guard’s once free hand gripped a knife, which he’d embedded into her side. The blade was short and the incision was shallow, she could see that much, but the pain rippled through her as he dragged the dagger out of her skin and stood.

“We knew you were dangerous.” He spoke through his pain, blood dripped from his wounds as she fell to her knees. “We were told to spare you, orders from higher than the Warden.”

Emry’s vision blurred as she toppled forward and fell flat on the wooden floor. Above her, the guard coughed.

“So, we were given an ichor, to paralyze. Not kill.”

Her fingers and toes grew cold, slowly at first as the thrum of shock echoed in her side. Then, quickly began to tingle. She lifted her shoulders and tried to press off of the ground to continue the fight, but collapsed beneath her own eight as the cold burrowed deeper into her bone.

“Shame, really. I would have loved to kill you.”

Emry tried to speak, but her tongue had grown heavy. Her mind fogged, and then, she slipped into darkness.