Arlette tossed the keys to Sofie and sprinted down the hallway after the man she’d once called her friend. At the end of the hallway lined with cells, she came across a guard station. At first she thought it empty, but on closer inspection she found three dead bodies hidden away in a corner. All three had only a single mark on them, a puncture wound as thick as her thumb. Two had the holes in their foreheads while the other’s was straight through her heart. The elf didn’t fight like the Jaquet she knew, but it seemed he was just as deadly.

“We need to get moving,” said Peko behind her. “There isn’t much time before the alarm is raised.”

She turned around to find her imaginary friend standing behind her, a worried look on his face. “You’re out,” she observed.

“That’s not important right now. You need to escape.”

“Later,” Arlette replied, looting a large dagger from the nearest corpse.

“Later? You can’t be seriously thinking about what I think you’re thinking about.”

“This is my one chance.”

“You’ll never make it.”

“Then I’ll go out how I want to, not how they want me to.”

The sounds of several pairs of feet on the cold stone floor made her tense up, but she quickly realized it was just Sofie and Pari. Peko vanished just as the pair entered the room, looking about in confusion.

“Who were you talking to?” Sofie asked.

“Nobody,” Arlette replied. “You’re just confused.”

“I am confused! What the hell is going on? Jaquet was an elf? Was it him the entire time? What was he doing here? Why did he-”

“Sofie, be quiet for a moment and listen,” Arlette interrupted, grabbing the other woman’s shoulder with a tight grip. “I want you and Pari to go find a place to hide yourselves down here. When I’m done I’ll come find you and we’ll all get out of here together.”

“When you’re done with what? What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to end this.”

“You’re going to... Arlette, no! You can’t!”

“If I don’t come back in a few hours then you two are on your own. I’m sorry.”

“Arlette! Wait! This is crazy!”

Arlette paid no attention to the young woman’s words as she dashed up the stairs towards the castle proper, a Kutrad female servant’s outfit, along with another person’s face, forming around her, hiding her filthy body from view. The castle’s underbelly was immense, with not only dungeons but storage cellars branching out into the depths of the earth, but Arlette just kept going upwards until she emerged into a large chamber at ground level. The light of the three moons shone through the stained glass windows, adding to the torches hanging from the walls.

Arlette didn’t know exactly where in the castle she was, but she did know where she needed to go. Up. Towards the back of the castle stood a tower, with the only way in or out being a stone bridge hanging high off the ground connecting it to the castle proper. The tower was guarded on the castle side of the bridge, as well as by others on the ground to make sure nobody could climb up its smooth stone sides. A Xoginian landmark known to the public as the King’s Tower, it had been built with protection through maximum isolation in mind, and it got the job done. If you wanted to kill the King, you first had to fight your way into the castle. Then you had to fight your way through the castle. Finally you had to fight through the guards at the bridge, and then get into the tower itself. All that was a nearly impossible task for a single person.

Arlette, on the other hand, was already inside. Few people knew of her presence, and fewer still knew that she was free. If she could make it to the bridge unnoticed, then she had a shot. Take out the guards, cross the bridge, break into the tower, do the deed. If she failed... well then at least they’d have nobody left for their little show.

Trying her best to play the part of a new servant, Arlette headed off in the general direction of her target. The castle was busier than she’d expected for the night. Every so often another servant would hustle by, busy on some errand or another, but nobody paid her any mind. She smiled. The first rule of infiltration was just acting like you belonged.

Still, that only worked for so long. As she made her way higher and closer to her goal, the number of servants decreased, until she arrived on the top floor to find the area practically deserted. No matter how confident she acted, she stood out in the empty hallways. Keeping her steps as light as possible, Arlette continued working towards her destination, not entirely sure where exactly the bridge entrance was but fairly certain she was getting closer, when a harsh voice called out to her.

“Hey you!” the voice said, accusingly. She jumped slightly, spinning about to find an elderly male servant glaring at her. “Are you the new girl? You were supposed to be up here an hour ago!”

“Uhhh, sorry,” Arlette replied meekly, doing her best to play the part she’d been given. “I, umm, got lost.”

“Everybody gets lost when they first start working here, but other people don’t lose an hour from it. Might I suggest asking for help next time? Now come. We have many rooms to clean before daybreak.”

“Yes, sir...”

Arlette unwillingly followed the man as he led her down several hallways and into what appeared to be a conference room. “Well?” he said. “Don’t just stand there, grab a broom and get sweeping!” Arlette was pretty sure she heard him muttering about “the youth these days” under his breath. Unsure of what else she could do, Arlette complied, grabbing a nearby broom and beginning to sweep the smooth stone floor.

“Umm, sir...” she began, playing up the timidity.

“Call me Marlon,” the man replied, not looking up from his dusting.

“Yes, sir, uh-I mean Marlon, sir. Ummm, could you tell me about this floor? I’ve never been up here before. What happens up here? Why are there so few servants?”

“This is the floor where the king does his business,” Marlon replied. “Meeting rooms, offices, the Many chamber, that’s all here. You won’t find many servants up here for anything other than cleaning because not much happens up here at night. There’s only you, me, and the guards up here right now.”

“There’s guards up here? Where?”

“Down that way, by the bridge to the King’s Tower, of course,” he elderly man said, waving dismissively towards a corner of the room.

“Are there a lot of guards there?”

The man eyed her, suddenly suspicious. Uh-oh. Had she pressed too hard?

“Why are you so curious about guards?” he asked.

“No reason, just making conversation,” Arlette replied.

“Come to think of it, wasn’t the new girl supposed to be shorter than you?”

The blast of a horn shattered the castle’s peace, it’s alarming cry reverberating around the stone walls. The man’s eyes went wide with fear.

“The alarm! You’re not-” he gasped, turning to run. “HELP!” Gua-”

The solid wooden broom handle caught Marlon across the head, knocking him to the floor unconscious with a single blow. Arlette stepped over him and ran down the hallways, heading in the direction the old man had indicated earlier. She knew now where to go, but all hope of stealth was now lost. Any hope of sneaking about was now gone.

Thinking quickly as she approached the bridge, Arlette took out her pilfered knife and covered it in her hand with an illusion of a feather duster to match her illusory outfit. Everything had to look the part for her upcoming plan to work. Blood splatter appeared on her immaterial clothes, while fake tears wet her fake face. The bridge would be around the next corner, she believed. Time to begin the show.

Arlette flung open the door to the bridge entranceway in a panic, her mind consumed by fear. On the other side of the door stood a chamber perhaps thirty paces long and forty paces wide. To her left she saw a door-less archway about thirty paces away, with the long stone bridge to the King’s Tower visible on the other side. Between that arch and herself stood four very competent-looking soldiers, three of them with swords drawn and at the ready. She glanced back down the hallway, her wide eyes growing even wider, wild with terror. “Save me!” she cried, stumbling towards them. “He’s coming! Please, you have to stop him!”

“Don’t move!” one of the guards shouted as the four of them approached, their swords pointed in her direction. Each donning a cuirass and a helmet, they struck a compromise between protection and mobility, which was unfortunate for all involved. Were they fully armored and slow, she’d have considered just making a break for the tower. As they were now, she’d never outrun all four of them, which means she’d have to kill them instead.

“He killed everybody! Please, I don’t want to die! You have to help me!” she begged, clutching her feather duster in front of her chest like it was the only thing keeping her alive as she approached, the guard’s orders failing to pierce through her panic.

“I said don’t-”

The guard’s shout cut itself short as Sebastian stepped through the doorway, his large armor covered in blood. He carried a huge sword in one hand and a severed head in the other as he leered at Arlette. “Did you really think you could get away?” he laughed wickedly. “My mission was just to kill the king, but it’s so much more fun to just kill everybody, don’t you agree?” The large knight held up the head in his hand for closer inspection. Arlette let out a piercing scream.

“Marlon, no!” one of the guards gasped. “Bastard!”

Arlette retreated behind the guards as the three of them with swords rushed the large laughing man while the fourth stayed several paces back, a metal blade manifesting before her and launching forwards. A metal Observer! It made sense that she would be guarding the king. Such people were rare and powerful, as they could not only create deadly projectiles from thin air but also render others’ blades soft and useless. It was a good thing, then, that she had her back turned towards Arlette at the moment.

The metal Observer’s blade sailed through the illusory Sebastian at the same time as Arlette’s hidden dagger pierced through his neck, slicing through veins and arteries as it plunged in between her vertebrae. The guard collapsed, her now-lifeless body limp, as shouts of confusion erupted from the three swordsmen as their weapons swept through the projection.

The dead guard’s armor let out a loud clank as it impacted against the solid stone floor, causing the other guards to turn back, but Arlette was already in motion. Rushing towards the guard on the left, she went low while a doppelganger split off and launched itself at the guard’s face. Like most people, the man instinctively reacted to the object heading towards his eyes over everything else, bringing his sword up to block the imaginary weapon of the false Arlette. Meanwhile, real Arlette lashed out with her leg, striking the man’s knee from the side hard enough that it bent unnaturally to the side. The man cried out in pain as he toppled over, his cry cut short as Arlette buried her knife in his skull with one smooth motion. Two down.

Just as she was starting to think this would be easier than expected, a boot slammed into her ribcage. She heard cracking sounds coming from her side, and pain shot through her as she sprawled across the room. She coughed as she pushed herself to her hands and knees. It hurt to breathe. Luckily she’d held on to her knife, she thought, before a glance revealed that the blade had snapped in half from the blow, with the other half still lodged in the second guard’s skull.

This was much closer to what she’d been expecting. No armor, no real weapon, with only her wits and the fact that she didn’t care if she lived until tomorrow on her side. Pushing the pain aside, Arlette threw herself out of the way of an oncoming swing, but she wasn’t fast enough. The guard’s sword sliced a long cut down the side of her torso that didn’t have crushed ribs. She clenched her teeth, turning what would have been an agonized scream into a pained moan.

Arlette made a break for the bridge, a copy splitting off in the other direction and heading for the door back into the castle. The two guards each took one Arlette for themselves, the one dealing with the real Arlette using his Feeler-enhanced speed to interpose himself between her and the bridge. But that had never been Arlette's true intention. Suddenly changing direction, she dove for the sword lying on the ground beside the body of the guard she'd last killed, grabbing it with her free right hand and rolling to one knee and raising the blade up just in time to parry her opponent's hurried incoming blow. The force nearly knocked the weapon from her grip, but she held on through will and adrenaline alone.

Overextended, the guard lashed out with a desperate but powerful kick, but Arlette was already rolling to the side. The man’s foot whooshed by her shoulder as her roll took her to his side. With as much force as she could muster, she thrust her sword upwards, piercing into her opponent’s side just under the bottom of his cuirass and stabbing up behind his ribs and towards his heart. His body jerked as her blade struck home, his last words a wet gurgle as he collapsed.

Arlette breathed a sigh of relief. If she’d been even a fraction of a moment later on either her parry or her dodge, she’d likely be dead. She thanked her second father for the many days he’d spent training such reflexes into her.

A subtle movement to her left told her that such relief was premature. Releasing her grip on the sword, which was still stuck in her former opponent’s side, she rolled to the side just as the last guard’s blade passed through where she’d just been. She swayed unsteadily to her feet and steadied herself before sprinting towards the final guard, a doppelganger splitting from her like always. Just like last time, she went low while her fake partner went high. The guard brought his sword up to pierce the doppelganger, and Arlette smiled. Every time. It was almost too ea-

A blast of water slammed into her face, knocking her off balance. She stumbled. A Weaver, she realized as she caught herself. A rare type of person with enough talent or training to be both a Feeler and an Observer. Sometimes neither aspect would be strong enough to matter, or they wouldn’t be able to utilize both well enough simultaneously to matter. But those that could were people to be feared on the battlefield. Many of the most legendary warriors had been Weavers who were able to combine their two skills in synergistic ways that made them nigh-unstoppable. This man was no legendary warrior, but he was good enough to pose a problem. He seemed to use water to knock his enemies off balance, a seemingly small thing that with proper timing could completely shift a fight.

The guard advanced, his weapon at the ready, a large sphere of water forming by his side. Arlette rushed back in to meet him, this time going for his right side while the clone went for the left, both aiming for his legs. Once again, the man chose the wrong target, swinging his blade towards the illusion. Arlette spun away from the expected blast of water aiming for her, only to be caught by a second unexpected blast she hadn’t seen. Already off balance from the dodge, the unexpected push sent her staggering out of control. She twisted away from the Weaver but he was already attacking, his sword thrusting towards her left leg.

Time seemed to slow as Arlette realized that she wouldn’t be able to completely avoid his attack. Normally she’d spin or dodge as best she could, lessening the damage and continuing the battle. But today was different. Today time was of the essence, and she wasn’t expecting to be alive much longer anyway. So instead she took it head on, moving her leg slightly so the blade would strike directly into her thigh. The blade stabbed into the muscle with a sickening squelch, piercing all the way through and out the other side. Arlette growled in agony and squeezed her thigh as hard as she could. The blade became stuck, lodged deep in the muscle. It was only for a second, but that was all she needed.

Launching herself at him with her good leg, Arlette rammed her broken knife into the guard’s neck as hard as she could. The man’s body spasmed, but he did not fall, so she ripped it out and did it again and again, the jagged, broken blade ripping and slicing through his flesh.

Finally he fell, and she followed, her body spent for the moment. Laying on the cold stone, panting, she took a mental survey of the damage to her body. Blood oozed from the many cuts around her body. A good number of her ribs were likely broken, judging by the pain in her side. Oh, and she had a sword still sticking through her thigh. Everything hurt. Even breathing. Especially breathing. But she’d made it through. She was one step closer to her revenge.

With a series of grunts, Arlette worked the final guard’s sword from her thigh. Struggling to her feet, she took a moment to cut off some of the guards’ uniforms and use them as makeshift bandages, tying them around her waist and leg.

“There you are!” cried a familiar voice. Arlette turned to find Sofie and Pari crossing through the doorway, Pari’s large sack slung over her shoulder. The young woman’s eyes went wide at the sight of the carnage around room, her gaze settling on Arlette’s bleeding wounds. “Oh God! What happened here?! Are you okay? You look terrible!”

“What are you doing here?” Arlette demanded, ignoring the questions. “I told you to go hide!”

“They found out that we escaped. Luckily we found our stuff in a room near the cells,” Sofie replied, clutching her own waterproof bag she’d gotten in Stragma. “We set off some of Pari’s stinkbombs and ran away. We even threw several out a window towards the wall. Hopefully they’ll think we tried to escape in that direction. Then we just followed your smell here. It took time because we had to hide and avoid everybody. What are you doing here? We need to get away! Look at yourself!”

“Shit!” Arlette swore as she turned and dashed towards the bridge that connected to the King’s Tower. Sofie and Pari’s unexpected appearance had distracted her from her goal. Any time now reinforcements would arrive, and any chance of success would disappear with them.

Arlette’s ears picked up cries from below as she sprinted across the long, thin stone archway. If somehow nobody was on their way before, they definitely were now. She ducked and dodged as she crossed the bridge, avoiding a series of desperate shots from the guards below. Soon she arrived at the other side, the bridge widening as it approached the tower.

The door to the tower loomed over her, easily three times her height. She stepped up and grabbed the large metal rings sticking out of the middle and tugged with all her might. Nothing moved. Switching tactics, she pushed against the massive thing instead. Still, the door wouldn’t budge.

“FUCK!” she screamed, slamming her clenched fist against the wood. To make it this far, only to be stymied by a door? Was that how she was going to go out? She turned around to find that Sofie and Pari had followed her and were nearly across. The sight of the beastgirl’s sack got Arlette’s mind churning. Made of thick pieces of wood reinforced by bands of metal, the towering door looked like it could take some serious punishment. But it was still mostly wood, and wood had its limits.

“Pari, do you have any boomcandles left?” she called.

“Pari has... two left!” the girl said after a moment of thought.

“Give them to me,” Arlette said, holding her hands out. The beastgirl did as requested.

After a moment of concentration, a Arlette manifested a small flame in the air before her. With it, she lit the candle in her right hand and threw it back towards the other end of the bridge. The candle bounced and rolled down the stone walkway, coming to rest about two thirds of the way to the other side. Before the wick had fully burned, she lit the other candle and placed it beside the door and ran.

“What are you, crazy?!” Sofie exclaimed as she sprinted after her.

“Get down!” Arlette cried, diving flat onto the bridge. A thunderous crack erupted from the first candle, the force of the explosion pulverizing the nearby solid stone into small pebbles. The arch broken, the bridge became unstable. Cracks began to form as the remaining bridge struggled to maintain its form against the ceaseless pull of gravity. Then the second blast came.

Arlette sprinted back towards the remains of the tower’s giant door as the bridge shook and began to collapse behind her. The area around the door, being at the end of the bridge, was much wider and thicker. The only visible damage to that part of the bridge was a crater several paces wide. The door, on the other hand, was mostly gone, the wood reduced to splinters by the explosion.

Without missing a step, Arlette leapt across the hole and into the tower. The room inside, which appeared to be a reading room of some kind, had been utterly trashed by the blast. Pieces of wooden shrapnel were strewn about the floor and lodged in furniture. Her sight focused in on the king, leaning against a table across the room. A splinter of wood half the length of Arlette’s arm stuck out from the man’s leg, and blood dripped from several cuts on his body.

Arlette’s vision went red. She rushed forward, pushing her body, weak, tired, and injured, as hard as it could handle. The king, a panicked look in his eyes, stared at the floor and several pieces of wood rose into the air and launched themselves towards her. Arlette didn’t try to dodge. She raised her arms up to cover her head and neck, refusing to alter course. She felt the wood pierce her arms and chest, but she felt no pain. Pain could come later.

Her body collided with the king’s, knocking him down onto his back, and then she was upon him, straddling his torso, his arms pinned beneath her knees. Her right fist lashed out, catching the man in the mouth. She felt her knuckles slice open on the man’s teeth but she paid it no mind.

“Give them back!” she howled.

Her left fist fell like a hammer upon his face. She felt his nose break.

“Give back Lilybeth!”

Her right fist slammed into the man’s eye, fracturing the orbital bone and visibly caving in his face.

“Give back Olaf!”

Her left again, striking him in the mouth once more.

“Give back Telephus!”

Another blow.

“Give back Gretel!”

Another.

“Give back Adron!”

Another still.

“Give back Tayt! And Virdisa! And Kunjana! And Vingon! And Raka!”

Arlette’s tears and fists fell equally upon the King of Kutrad like rain as she unleashed everything she had onto him. Every grievance. Every agony. Every wound to her soul.

“Give back Basilli! Give back Jaquet! Damn you!”

She ripped one of the wooden splinters from her shoulder, bringing the dagger-sized piece up above her head.

“GIVE ME BACK MY LIFE!”

She plunged the makeshift weapon down towards the man’s heart.

“Arlette, stop!”

The wooden spike halted as two hands grabbed her arms and held them still. Try as she might, Arlette could not shake free of Sofie’s grip.

“Sofie, what are you doing?” Arlette cried. “He needs to die!”

“I’m saving you from making a terrible mistake,” Sofie replied. “Don’t kill him.”

“No!” she hollered. “He has to die! He deserves to die!”

“Nobody deserves to die,” Sofie replied. “If anybody did, he would be one, yes. But that doesn’t change the fact that you can’t kill him. If you kill him they’ll hunt us to the ends of the earth. We’ll never be free.”

Arlette cackled. “There is no freedom for us anymore. There is only death.”

Arlette’s face stung as Sofie palm struck her cheek.

“Stop it!” Sofie shouted. “I refuse to believe that the strong and proud woman whom I admire is just giving up like this! We’re going to get out of here.”

“W-what-” Arlette faltered. “What do we do? How do we get out of this?”

“Leave this to me,” Sofie said, a rock-hard look of determination on her face. She squatted beside King Morgan’s head as Arlette stood back up. The king’s face looked like it had been trampled by stampeding garophs. His teeth had been knocked in, while his jaw had been broken in at least two places. His nose stuck out to the side at an unnatural angle, and most of the rest of his face was battered and swelling. His eyes were barely lucid, as if he were drifting in and out.

“Don’t go losing consciousness on us now,” Sofie said, smacking the king’s face with the back of her hand. “We need you here.”

The man’s eyes regained focus. He mumbled something. Sofie grabbed his broken mouth roughly, eliciting a moan of pain.

“Nuh-uh-uh,” Sofie chided. “Don’t say another word. You don’t get to speak right now. You just get to listen, and nod. Understood?”

The two stared each others in the eyes for a tense moment before the king eventually nodded.

“Alright. Here’s the deal,” Sofie stated, confident and in control, her hand still gripping the king’s busted jaw and mouth. “You’re going to do what I say, and in return you’ll still be breathing when we leave. Don’t think about going against us on this. Got it?”

Nod.

“Excellent. It’s simple, really. You’re going to leave us alone. We’re going to walk out of this castle, leave this city, go to Eterium, and never come back. Nobody comes after us. Nobody tries to kill us or capture us. No bounties. No assassins. The old bounty on her head, if it even still exists after we got captured, that goes away too. And don’t you dare even consider backstabbing us over anything I just said. Because you know what this woman can do,” she said, jabbing a thumb in Arlette’s general direction.

“See, the thing is, all this time we’ve been on the back foot. Everything was a mess with the attack on Zrukhora, and then you blindsided us with your bullshit, and we never got our balance back. But this time we’ll be ready. We’ll prepare. We’ll have plans. You can’t stop somebody like her when she’s coming for you with a plan. She can be anybody, anywhere. You think you’ll be able to function when you know that any person around you, even your most trusted adviser, might just be waiting for you to turn your back? You won’t. Nobody can live like that. And if you try to just hide away from everybody in this sad little tower, we’ll bring the whole thing down with you inside. So this is your one and only chance. Everybody walks away and it’s over. This is the best deal you’re going to get. Understood?”

The man stared at Sofie for a second, his breath hissing through his wrecked teeth, before slowly nodding.

“Good boy. Now where’s the exit?”

“We blew up the exit,” Arlette said, peeking out of the gaping hole where the door used to be. Shouts had been coming from outside for a little while now. A mass of guards had congregated on the other side of the bridge, arguing about something. It seemed that they’d decided to rebuild the bridge as best they could, with two people on their hands and knees slowly extending the remaining stone towards the tower. Several others had tried leaping the chasm. The distance was too great for even their Feeler-enhanced abilities, but soon that would change. “We don’t have much time left.”

“There’s a secret exit here. Has to be,” Sofie replied. “No way they would build a place like this with only one way in or out. You have to be able to run away somehow. Right?” She glared at the king.

He shook his head.

“Don’t lie to me,” Sofie growled through clenched teeth, her hand squeezing the man’s busted jaw until he squirmed with pain. “Is there a secret exit?”

A nod.

“Where?”

The king pointed to a seemingly non-descript wall. Arlette strode over to it and began to inspect it, feeling around on the solid stone. The surface was immaculate, with not a single crack visible. Was there really an exit here? Suddenly a small part of the wall, no more than half the size of her palm, tilted inward from her pressure. There was a hidden little hole inside, with just enough room for her to grab a handhold and pull. Grunting with effort Arlette watched as a large stone slab about half her height rotated out, revealing a passageway hidden behind it. She couldn’t help but be impressed by the craftsmanship. To think that this entire section had been separate from the rest of the solid stone tower! She hadn’t even been able to see a seam where the two pieces had met!

“Awesome,” Sofie said, holding her bag out towards Pari, who had just been watching the guards outside. “Pari, quickly go and put everything shiny that you see into this bag. Be quick!”

“We’re looting him now, too?”

“Fuck yes, we’re looting the bastard. We’re getting something positive out of this.”

“The guards will be here any second. If we’re going to go we need to go now.”

“Okay, one second. There’s only last thing I need to do. Pari! Go be with Arlette now.”

The beastgirl scampered over, Sofie’s bag now heavy with an assortment of gold and silver items from around the chamber, while Sofie strode calmly back over to the incapacitated ruler. Her leg cocked back and swung forward, slamming into the man’s groin. A pained gasp escaped his lips and he rolled about in agony.

“That was for what you did to us,” she said.

Her leg pulled back again, and once more drove her foot into his crotch. Then again. And again. King Morgan tried to curl into ball to protect himself but Sofie grabbed his legs, turn him onto his back, yanked his legs apart, and stomped down onto his privates with as much force as she could muster before raising her foot up and pounding it down over and over.

“And that,” she told the whimpering man, loathing dripping from every syllable, “is for allowing slavery.”

Arlette watched in amazement as the young woman marched back to the hidden exit, grabbed her bag, and climbed inside. “I’m done,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Arlette and Pari followed her in, ducking through the hole. Before they pulled the stone back into place, Pari pulled out a small candle, lit it, and tossed it back into the room with a mischevious giggle.

"Pari! Be careful to not waste your candles like that!" Sofie warned.

"No! The bad man made Arly-sis cry! Pari hates bad man! Pari will make bad man smelly!" she declared as smoke began to pour from the wax cylinder.

The three of them hurriedly moved the stone back into its slot before the stinkcandle’s noxious smoke could reach them, and everything went dark. Pari snapped her fingers again, lighting the room with the soft glow of a small flame, and they headed out. The passageway wound down the tower and even deeper into the earth before flattening out into a long tunnel. The trio traversed the tunnel in silence, unwilling to make a sound in the gloom when they couldn’t see more than ten paces into the darkness. The tunnel just kept going and going, with nothing to see but more of its smooth stone walls.

After what felt like hours, the tunnel rose and terminated in a heavy stone doorway. It took all three of them pushing to open the exit, but eventually the weighty thing opened and the group stumbled out to find themselves surrounded by trees.

“This is... a forest? Are we completely out of the city?” Sofie asked in surprise.

“Makes sense,” Arlette replied. “A tunnel like that would be made for a situation where the whole city has fallen. So the king can escape.”

“So he can run away and leave everybody behind, you mean,” Sofie grunted as they pushed the door back into place. The outside was disguised as part of a rock face, making it nearly unnoticeable once closed. Once again Arlette couldn’t help but admire the person who’d made such quality work. “Anyway, if we’re out of the city, we should stop and take a break for a while.”

“No, we need to keep moving,” Arlette argued. “There’s no way he’ll keep his side of the deal. We need to find a place to hide.”

“I don’t think you realized just how bad you look, Arlette,” Sofie countered. “You’re pale as a ghost and you look like you’re going to fall over any second now. You even still have some of that wood sticking out of you.”

“I’ll be fine,” insisted Arlette. “I can keep going.”

A small pair of hands placed themselves flat against the side of her hip. Arlette looked down to find that Pari had snuck up on her, just as the little girl shoved as hard as she could. Despite her best efforts, Arlette staggered and fell against a nearby tree. The world spun slightly and her heart pounded in her ears.

"If Arly-sis can't stand against Pari's push, Arly-sis is tired."

Arlette slowly sunk down against the tree trunk in defeat with a sigh. Sofie had a point. Now that the immediate danger seemed over, the pain and exhaustion she’d been ignoring for the last few hours was all coming back even stronger than before. She grabbed one of the remaining slivers and yanked it from her shoulder with a gasp, panting as more pain coursed through her. With a tired grunt of her own, Sofie sat down beside her, dropping her bag of purloined goods between them.

“Seriously though,” Arlette said as she opened the bag to see what Pari had considered worth taking, “you challenged a king. He won’t take that lightly. He agreed to what you said only under the threat of death. He’ll be sending people after us soon, if he hasn’t already.” A small variety of gold and silver items, like goblets and candlesticks, made up the vast majority of the haul. Arlette noticed a dark glint coming from under one of the cups and reached into to pull out, to her surprise, a crystal decanter filled with liquor. She smiled as she undid the stopper and took a large gulp. The spirits poured down her gullet, stinging all the way down. The first alcoholic beverage in almost half a season. It felt good.

“He won’t do anything,” Sofie scoffed. “I’m sure of it.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because he’s a coward. It’s that simple. He wouldn’t do it unless he was absolutely sure it would succeed, and given how we escaped both the first time and just now, he knows there’s no guarantee we won’t survive whatever he tried next. And he knows what I said was true — if we put our mind to it, with your powers and Pari’s candles, there’s no way he’d be able to stop us from killing him.”

“Sofie, what’s gotten into you?” Arlette asked after another swig. She could feel the welcome buzz of inebriation creeping into her mind. “It’s like you’re a totally different person all of a sudden.”

“I...” Sofie began before leaning back and staring into the sky for a moment in contemplation. Only the sounds of the birds and Pari rummaging through a nearby bush reached Arlette’s ears. Arlette closed her eyes and drank in the peace. There had been a lot of quiet in the past days, but this was a different kind of quiet. One that lacked the ominous undertones of the journey and the dungeons that had filled her recent existence.

“When I first arrived here, everything scared me,” the young woman said after a while. “I had trouble understanding anything about this world. I mean, there’s magic and giant animals and so much violence and all this other stuff that I couldn’t comprehend, and it made me feel like a fish stranded on land. I felt completely unequipped to deal with life here. I felt weak and helpless and scared, and I pretty much just shriveled up inside.

“But the more I’ve been here, the more I’ve come to realize that I actually understand this world much more than I first thought. When that asshat came down to the dungeon and tried to act all high and benevolent, everything finally clicked into place for me. Yeah, there’s still magic and giant beasts and everybody killing everybody way too often, but the way the world works, the way people work, it’s the same as where I’m from. All the petty jealousies, the cruelty, the corruption, the dehumanization of others... everything I hated about my old world is here too. It’s worse, don’t get me wrong, but it’s still the same basic shit that I’m familiar with.

“I’m still weak. I’m still pretty helpless. I know that. I don’t have it in me to kill people. I’m sorry, Arlette, I know you tried to help, but I can’t do it. It’s not who I am. But I’m done being scared. I’ve seen this stuff before and it doesn’t scare me. It just pisses me off. I still want to go home more than anything, but I’ve decided that while I’m here I’m not going to shrink away from the moment anymore. I’m going to stand tall and do whatever I can to make a world where you and Pari can be a little happier, even if what I can do isn’t much of anything. Because I know that life can be better than this.”

“So by ‘stand tall’, you mean ‘kick a man in his manhood over and over’?” Arlette asked.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that.”

Arlette took another long swig. “It was something to see, I’ll admit,” she said with a cough.

“So what now?”

“Now we get out of this place. Go lie low in Eterium, at least for a while. I’m still not convinced King Morgan won’t trying something. The sooner we get underground the better.”

“He’s not going to do anything,” Sofie repeated, “but I agree. The sooner we are out of this godforsaken country the better I’ll feel. But then what?”

“Then we find you a situation where you can live, and go our separate ways.”

“WHAT?!” Sofie shrieked, jumping to her feet in alarm. “What happened to helping me find a way home?!”

“There’s something I have to do first, something incredibly dangerous. It might take me years, and I might not survive it, but if I do I’ll come find you and we can go search for a way to get you home. I’m sorry, but this is something I have to do no matter what.”

“I thought you put a lot of stock in keeping your commitments,” Sofie replied, her pained expression making guilt churn through Arlette’s soul. “What is so important that you’ll throw away that kind of a conviction?”

Arlette took a long swallow this time. “Sebastian is back.”

“So?! He’s gone! We don’t ever have to see him again! And even if we do, I’m not scared of him!”

“You should be. Sebastian isn’t just some ordinary man. He’s the most dangerous person I’ve ever known. But that’s not the point. The point is that he’s back. He’s here, in Nocend. It’s what that means that scares me.”

“And what does that mean?”

“The last time I saw Sebastian Cunningham, fifteen years ago, he stood alone in a room surrounded by the corpses of the entire Ofrax royal family, as well as every important government official. Coincidentally, the Ubran Empire invaded Ofrax the same day. The country didn’t stand a chance. That’s what he does. He worms his way into a society somehow and starts pulling strings. Then, when the Empire’s armies come knocking, somehow the back door’s been left unbolted. Do you remember what he said to me before he left?”

“Uh...”

“He said ‘there’s a storm brewing’. He wasn’t talking about the weather. I don’t know if it’s tomorrow or two years from now, but the Ubran Empire is coming. They’re going to invade Nocend, and he’ll be in the middle of everything. I have to find him and stop him, or the same thing that happened to my country will happen here. I already lost one home. I can’t lose a second.”

“Then let’s do it together! As a team!”

“A team?” Arlette laughed. “No. I can’t trust anybody but myself with this.”

“Come on, Arlette! You can trust us, and you know it!”

“Can I?” Arlette shot back. “Can I trust you to kill somebody when the situation requires it? Can I trust you to have my back when the knives are out and all around us? Sofie, you and Pari are nice people, and I like you, but I don’t trust you. I barely even understand either of you! I mean, you both just showed up! You each came out of nowhere and I’m supposed to just trust you, when I couldn’t even... I... couldn’t trust my best...”

She never finished her sentence. The dam burst and all the sadness and grief she’d walled off that night rushed over her in a single massive flood, washing her away. The decanter fell to the ground as she shuddered and cried, a waterfall of tears flowing down her face. Memories of her past with Jaquet, of the laughs and the arguments, of the rollicking adventures and the days filled with boredom, all surfaced unbidden, playing out in front of her as she wept.

Two small arms wrapped themselves around her torso, an adorable face looking up at her with concern. “Don’t cry, Arly-sis. Pari is here, okay?”

Sofie sat down beside Arlette and wrapped her shaking form in a comforting embrace.

“He was my brother!” Arlette sobbed. “He was my friend! My last friend! I believed in him! He promised me! That we would stick together through thick and thin! Through everything! But now he’s gone... now I’m all alone...”

“But Arly-sis is not alone,” Pari objected. “Arly-sis has Pari! And Sofie-sis!”

“That’s right, Arly-sis,” Sofie agreed. “You have a family right here. Two people who look up to you and care about you and never want to see you in pain. I know it hurts and you feel like you’re being pulled under right now but we’ll be here for you until the end, alright? It’s going to be okay.”

The night wore on as Arlette wept into their arms. They needed to move, she knew. They needed to get as far away from Xoginia as they could before time ran out. But Arlette found herself unable to end this moment, this embrace. And so she just sat there against the tree, her head hung low as she clung desperately to the embrace of the two strangest people she’d ever met and cried until she had nothing left.