Athesh offered Marroo the sword touched by his father’s Icon while they stood in the warehouse vault deep beneath the Iblanie tower.

“Before he died, your father said that you were close to touching the icon.” He rumbled. “In our business, your father was the difference between success and bloody failure in a thousand crises. He was an army unto himself, and we, our family, is responsible for feeding over five million people.” His eyes found Marroo’s above the sword hilt. “I haven’t the spirit to know if he was telling the truth, but if you are close, we would pay any price, any price at all, to help you step into your father’s role for our family.”

Marroo stared at the man above the offered sword.

“Your father only wanted to be a soldier.” Athesh rumbled. “But you could have more. Money, luxury, women. As an adept you could hold a seat on the family council, play a role in shaping the reality we live in. You could be the most powerful man in the city, if you tell us how to help you.”

Marroo felt his aura sharpening in sympathy with the icon pressed into the offered sword.

“You could be more than just a courier.” Athesh rumbled.

Marroo looked away. “I won’t kill for you.” He said.

“Not me.” Athesh replied. “For five million people.”

Marroo’s spirit shook and he pulled at it as the Reliquary taught him until the spiritual world receded.

“For your family.”

Marroo needed nothing to become an adept. He’d already been one, long before his father died. All five of his meridians were open. Core, Extremis, sensorium, mentalis, externalis. His breath fought constantly to mold itself into the shape of the Icon of the sword, and he felt the world around him, not just where his aura touched, but in a sphere around himself that sometimes stretched for miles, wherever sharpened objects or objects that could be sharpened, resonated with the icon he fought so hard to keep out of his own soul.

Two silver eyes turned to glare up at the man that offered to turn him into a weapon and he crossed his arms over his chest. “For anyone.” He replied.

In the dark, he could hear the voices of the men stationed throughout the house, despite the hammering he could hear in Podmandu’s chest and the half sobbing of the boy’s breath as he tucked his head between his knees in the closet where they’d been held.

These are Athesh’s gift.

A pause, long silence filled by the noise of Podmandu breathing loud as thunder in the close confines of the closet.

He promised us.

It’s meant to be a message.

Footsteps on distant carpet. Someone sobbing who wasn’t in the closet with Marroo. A woman, from the sound. Flickering breath from people who’d never done a day of cultivation in their life.

Don’t let them scare you out of the deal.

These…

The boxes. Heard their contents tumble onto a desk.

These were my daughter’s.

Indescribable pain locked in that statement. Anger, probably, anguish.

And you know what they really mean.

A long long silence and a sense of tension as a wooden table creaked with the weight pressed on it.

He promised.

Someone else, angry, loud enough that Marroo heard it easily, even if no one else outside the distant room might have. “There’s been enough of this tiptoing around. Do you want what we’re offering or not?”

Silence.

If you join us now, we can protect those you have left.

Can you protect three factories when they send the red squads for our people?

The red squads are only men. You know what we have.

Silence again.

A hand on the wood of the desk, next to two other hands slid from boxes, no longer connected to any arms.

They sent you this as a message, but you can send them a message in return.

The sobbing continued somewhere in the room, but someone whispered to the woman and she left the, became muffled by the door between her and the room, and the dozen other doors Marroo listened through despite the distance.

Alright.

The voice shook as the agreement was made.

Alright. Let Aayush in.

The door opened, closed, and Marroo heard other voices in the house, the gunman summoned into the room.

“Yes?” The gunman asked when he arrived, a void as deep as Athesh’s, as dangerous.

“Kill them.” The shaky voice said. “Then leave them somewhere they’ll be found.”

“Where will you be?” Aayush asked.

“We’ll scatter, as we planned. The house on Shade Street. Meet us there when you’re done.”

“As you command.”

The footsteps turned to go but were stopped halfway to the door.

“And Aayush?”

“Yes?”

The voice was harsh with restrained anger. “Make it messy.”

Marroo listened to the footsteps leave as the men and women in the room began discussing details of their organization’s evacuation to safe houses across the city. His attention didn’t stay with the conversation, even if he heard every word. He listened to the footsteps move through the mansion, first through one set of doors, then another. He felt other heartbeats, other flickering flames of breath that joined him on his way through the house, the outlines of pistols, knives, and clubs in his spiritual vision.

“How can you be so calm?” Podmandu whimpered from the floor.

Marroo kept his eyes closed as he listened to them approach.

“They’re coming.”

Podmandu jerked as he shoved himself to his feet and knocked a half dozen of the shirts off their hangars as he struggled with the knotted rope behind him. “Man,” he sobbed, “ Man, man, I don’t want to die!”

“Where too?” One of the men outside their door asked.

“Up on the roof.” Aayush replied. “We’ll spread them out next to their bikes. Put these with them.” He handed a box with two objects stacked inside to one of the men who sucked in a breath.

“Are these?”

Before anyone could answer the door to the closet jerked open and light flooded the dark recess. Marroo opened his eyes to find Aayush, the red eyed gunman, silhouetted in the door, pistol raised to point inside. “Real slow now.” He growled. He jerked his pistol for them to exit.

Marroo stepped out, stared across the barrel of the gun while Podmandu screamed and fought until two of the guards dragged him out, carrying him between them.

The gunman stared back at Marroo across his pistol.

When the guards with Podmandu between them dragged him up a flight of stairs nearby, Aayush flicked the barrel of his pistol for Marroo to turn and follow while two other guards in loose black robes with pistols of their own followed at his back.

Marroo studied the guard, then turned and followed Podmandu’s sobs down narrow carpeted hallways and up a second flight of metal stairs to a balcony large enough to serve as a landing pad.

Two men appeared over the balcony fence, pedaling the gyroscopes of Marroo and Podmandu’s bikes around and around until they dropped gracelessly onto the tiled floor and jumped off the bikes.

Marroo turned to face the guard as they dropped, and found the pistol still pointed at his face. “Kneel.” Aayush growled.

Marroo dropped down on one knee, then the other, the tile cold against his robes. The two guards forced a struggling Podmandu onto his knees beside him.

“Please.” Podmandu said as he sagged against the floor. “Please man.” Snot dripped from his nose. “I’m just the messenger. I have a family. I’m an uncle! Please. I was only supposed to bring you the message, I don’t even know what was in there.”

One of the guards tossed one of the boxes they’d brought in front of them. A girls severed and bloody hands tumbled out onto the tile. The flopped as they fell, and one of them landed face up towards them, as though offering them it’s empty palm in explanation.

Podmandu’s sobbing rose in pitch as Marroo closed his eyes against the other bloody visions the hands conjured from his past. Small red eyes gazing at him from shadows before their owner died.

“Please.” Podmandu begged. “Please.”

The gunman raised his pistol. “Quit your fussing.” He growled. “It just makes you pathetic.”

“Aayush.” Marroo opened his eyes.

The gunman’s eyes snapped to his, but the pistol didn’t waver from Podmandu’s head. “How do you know my name?” He snarled.

Marroo met his eyes. “Don’t do this.” He said. “Please.”

The gunman sneered. “You too?” He shook his head. “Pathetic.”

“Aayush.” Marroo said again.

The gunman turned back to Podmandu and raises his pistol.

“Please man.” Podmandu begged. “I have a family.”

He squinted down the sights, flicked a dial that spun the lens of the pistol a little wider. “Tell someone who cares.”

“Aayush!”

He died in a cloud of blood before he ever had the time to pull the trigger.

Marroo felt the icon sink into every pore and vein of his body as invisible blades manifested in a storm across the balcony. Podmandu cried out and the guards shouted as bits of Aayush rained across the balcony floor.

The whirling cuts in the air multiplied, the multiplied again as the icon he’d fought for so long drove itself into every inch of Marroo’s flesh. The storm expanded as the guards scrambled for cover or weapons, only to die in a rain of gore as spiritual swords shred them before they could do more than shout in fear. Blood and strips of human being sprayed the walls as they died.

Someone screamed.

Through the pain, Marroo thought the scream he heard was his own.