Tanya observed as Zuken Banksi poured whiskey into three paper cups, and she was a little sad that this wasn’t the most surreal thing she’d seen all day.

“Don’t worry,” Zuken said reassuringly. “Maude will bring him back.”

“Last I checked, Elena’s the charmer in our group,” Tanya countered.

And yet, despite the changeling’s best efforts, the monsters in the anomaly were strangely fixated on her and wouldn’t relent. As much as she hated to admit it, Olfric had a point. Even the shkroi hawks they’d used to travel seemed to hold a grudge against her. She didn’t know if it was her past Sin or not that made these creatures behave strangely, but there had to be some connection. Something to do with her.

Zuken handed her a cup, then Elena one as well. “Not everything requires charming, Tanya. There is such a thing as reason and logic,” he said, sipping at his whiskey as he eyed her carefully. “And so you know, I do agree with Olfric. Do you know why the monsters have taken a liking to you?”

Liking was not the word she would have used.

Tanya took a long drink, suppressing the urge to cough as the whiskey burned its way down her throat and gut. “Do we have to go through this again? Just throw me out of the group. I can manage.”

“I know you can. Our little episode with reclaiming the camp is proof enough of that.”

“Is that why you all keep staring at me when you think I’m not looking?”

Zuken silently sipped at his whiskey again.

Tanya shook her head. “I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve noticed the glances everyone sends my way. You, Elena, Maude. It’s like you all think I’ll turn into some bloodthirsty killing machine and slaughter you all the moment you’re not looking.” She drained her cup in one go. “But I don’t blame you, I guess. You’ve read Olfric’s testimony on how I butchered my old teammates.”

“I did read it,” Zuken confirmed casually, “and I found it quite illuminating, actually. Especially in light of more recent events.”

Slowly, cautiously, she extended her senses out. She needed to know if he was laying a trap. “What is this about? You’re having a change of plans? Have I become a liability now?”

The question brought a twinkle of amusement to his eyes. “Why would I do that? Employees of your caliber are difficult to come by. If anything, this mission should serve as a test for your future missions.”

“Forgive me for not taking you at your word.”

Zuken laughed. “A sensible precaution. But in the spirit of the conversation, can I ask you something?”

Tanya nodded.

“Why didn’t you run?”

She regarded him blankly.

“You had ample time to escape when we were in the desert,” he explained. “I’m a firsthand witness of your speed. You could have left us any moment, so why didn’t you?”

Good question. Why hadn’t she? It would’ve been nice to not have to deal with Olfric’s temper tantrums. She wouldn’t have to Sin yet again. She could travel through the desert and into the Eaborid Lands easily.

But she didn’t.

“I guess…I just don’t want to prove Olfric right. I’m not a betrayer.”

“Admirable,” Zuken praised. “There’s just…one more thing I don’t get.”

She eyed him warily. “What is it now?”

“Was there really no better option than the life of a nomad, Tanya Shimizu?”

Tanya stilled. She did not panic. Panic was what got you killed. Endless options ran through her head—playing diplomacy with Zuken, killing him quickly with a wind blade, decapitating Elena and dumping their mutilated bodies for monsters to feed.

Tanya’s face revealed nothing, but a part of her remained vigilant, ready to produce freshly materialized wind blades should the need arise. Another part of her calmly observed how Elena was watching her like a hawk. No doubt tapping into her surface emotions.

This meeting, this conversation over whiskey—it was a setup. Knowing Zuken, he had planned the entire thing from the start. Had he even planned on getting Olfric out the picture, with Maude following behind? Engineering a situation like this was exactly someone like Zuken’s forte.

The question was—why?

With monumental effort, Tanya forced herself to relax, and exhaled slowly.

Zuken’s expression turned to one of relief. “Good. I calculated a rather high chance of being immediately attacked. This makes things easier.”

This time, Tanya actually growled. Here she was, ready to commit a grave Sin for these people, going out of her way to keep them out of danger, and this man was dangling the knowledge of her past in front of her.

“Where did you learn that name?” she asked.

“You’re not going to deny it?”

She massaged the bridge of her nose. “Would it help?”

“No. Your reaction confirmed it.”

Meanwhile, Elena sat straighter, her eyes drilling into her.

“And what do you want in exchange for keeping this a secret?” The words came out like the grunts of a chained animal. “Are you going to use this to blackmail me and make me commit even more Sins?”

Zuken’s eyes studied her face. “I didn’t lie to you about the employment offer. But I have questions. Lots of them. Chiefly, why are you living like this? Like a nomad, taking missions under the table, running from the Army? You realize what your heritage can give you, right?”

A small jerk of her head was all she was willing to give.

“I won’t force you to reveal your intentions, but if we’re to have any future business together, you’re going to have to come clean with me.”

“Why are you so interested in this?” Tanya demanded. “The Shim—that line is dead. Gone, and its heritage and future with it.”

Someone screamed, interrupting the conversation. Tanya was almost grateful. She couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman, but it was high-pitched and desperate. Then there was the sound of something crashing against a wall, a frantic scream of something too harsh and too brassy to be bremetan, followed by a long, drawn-out howl.

Her eyes landed on Elena, who was staring in the direction where Olfric and Maude had walked out with barely concealed horror. Grabbing her waist bag, Tanya quickly sprinted into the tunnel, Zuken and Elena following swiftly behind.

Then she finally recognized the screaming.

It was Maude.

“Right! Elena yelled from behind. Tanya changed tracks and took the next turn.

Every instinct in her body urged her forward as a predatory territoriality arose within her. And with that came a distinct need for violence. To defend her territory, to defend those that were part of her team.

“There!” Zuken pointed out. Tanya took in the sight that lay before them.

The entire chamber was in ruins. One of the walls had crashed completely, and the floor was submerged in water. She spotted Olfric in one corner—fallen and bleeding, but otherwise defiant—while a creature pulled straight out of nightmares growled at him.

And there was Maude, in the middle of it all, coalescing power at her fingertips as her entire body glowing with strange, crimson sigils. And she was walking toward Olfric.

Tanya didn’t stop to think. A wall of wind shimmered between Olfric and Maude, before rushing in Maude’s direction and throwing her back. Two wide arcs of wind sliced the demon into three pieces, leaving behind a black-ish miasma that spread around the floor.

Two shafts of rock arose on either side of Maude, courtesy of Zuken, trapping both her wrists in them. The same quickly happened with her waist and ankles, holding her in place.

“What the hell is going on here?” Tanya demanded. Olfric’s face drooped, and his body was unmoving.

“Tanya,” Maude eerily whispered. “You always keep all the fun to yourself, don’t you?” With an annoyed grunt, she shook the earthly bindings off of herself, like they were nothing but sand. The crimson sigils on her glowed ominously, and she was raised up, like invisible hands were pushing her from beneath.

“Maude…” Tanya staggered back. “What happened to you?”

The vanir barked out a laugh. “Me? It’s simple. I was…unleashed.”

Maude charged forward, and Tanya met her lunge in earnest, her wind blades bearing the brunt of her lifeforce-enhanced arms. The force from the collision was enough to raise a gale around them. Tanya gritted her teeth, digging her feet in and releasing a burst of wind behind her for support. Swatting her arms aside, shestepped into Maude’s guard, who swept back in at an angle Tanya hadn’t anticipated and threw a closed fist at her chest.

Tanya grabbed it with one hand and conjured a wind blade in another, ready to impale through—

“NO! DON’T KILL HER!”

Elena’s sudden shriek caught her by surprise. That proved to be her undoing as a haze of red filled the air.

It hadn’t come from Maude.

One of Maude’s fingers, now extended into a long, jagged, bony claw, had pierced through Tanya’s chest.

“Hesitation will cost you.” Maude let out a bone-chilling laugh as she kicked Tanya in the abdomen, sending her falling on her back. Her head was spinning, but this wasn’t the time to lose focus. She could hear sounds of yelling and things smashing into each other. Gritting her teeth, she managed to open a single eye and saw Zuken summoning rocks from the walls and hurling them toward Maude.

The vanir punched every single one of them to dust.

“Why are you doing this?” Zuken demanded, his wristbands glowing as he raised dozens of rocky slabs from different sides, sharpening them into spears midair, and launching them at the vanir. Maude crouched and swept her left leg in a semicircular arc, raising a wall of force to meet his projectiles.

What is happening? Tanya wondered. Why is she—?

Panic began to set in, and with it came lightheadedness and a rising thirst of lifeforce. If only—if only she had a little lifeforce to drink—

Her sight flickered to grayscale for a passing moment.

No! Tanya thought, her heart throbbing valiantly. She couldn’t! She wouldn’t give up, not when she had managed to keep it down for so long!

“Elena!” Zuken cried. “I’ll keep her busy and join you later. Get Olfric and Tanya out of here!”

“Actually, I think I’ll keep you here!”

And with that insolent, casual boast, Olfric Bergott stood up.

“…Impossible!” Tanya heard Zuken mutter.

“Olfric…” Elena whispered. “You…what?”

Olfric—if he was still Olfric—didn’t exactly walk. In fact, he didn’t appear to have moved at all. If anything, it was the blackened water that raised him up. Thin cuts formed on Olfric’s handsome face, forming sigils similar to Maude’s. Blood trickled through the cuts, emanating a malevolent, crimson glow.

“What… What am I looking at?” Zuken murmured.

“Zuken, we should retreat now!” Elena yelled.

“But you’ll miss out on all the fun!” Olfric sang. Raising a hand, he directed the blackened water to smash through Zuken’s trap, freeing Maude completely.

The vanir climbed out of it, spitting out sand from her mouth. “That—” she coughed, “was terrible!”

Tanya would have replied, had she not suddenly felt Olfric’s gaze on her, as if nobody else in the world existed anymore. His manic smile only widened.

“They’re possessed!” Elena whispered, her eyes frantically shifting from Maude to Olfric and back. “Olfric—Maude—they must be resisting it! We need to set them free! If you can hold them for some time, I can—I think I can—”

“You think?” Tanya bit out.

Elena glared at her. “Do you have a better idea?”

Tanya sighed. “Fine! But if we die, I’m blaming you.”

“If you end up dying,” Elena chirped, “I give you full permission to hate me.”

Tanya chuckled, and turned to face Olfric. “You couldn’t defeat me even if I was blindfolded. Do you really think being possessed increases your chances?”

Olfric wiped the blood from his lips. “Doesn’t it? The ‘me’ of now is very different from the ‘me’ you terrified earlier, Tanya. Let’s see how you fare!”

Tanya smirked, dropping into a ready stance. “Come on then. Care to find out who the better killer is?”

Olfric pulled his greatsword from his back and charged at her.

Tanya slashed against his blow, sparks leaping from the clash of weapons and a tiny cut opening on her cheek despite her block, but she had little chance to do anything about it. Olfric’s blade had already retreated and thrust again by the time she’d even registered she’d been wounded, then again, and again. The strikes kept coming so fast that they were nearly simultaneous. Only her keen battle instincts, compounded with her ability to sense the shifts in the air, kept her from being skewered.

Still, Tanya was trapped outside her effective range, forced onto the defensive, and being chipped down by dozens—maybe hundreds—of tiny cuts. Blood flowed down her legs, kept from pooling in her boots by her constantly moving feet. Each block took slightly more effort than the one before it.

She was losing. The smell of blood, of lifeforce, of life, was creating a distraction that was getting harder and harder to ignore.

She couldn’t win. Not as she was.

But if she loosened her restraint just a little…

The wind blade in her hand became suddenly visible, now coated with dense hoarfrost, as a sliver of winter flooded her veins. A power as primal as the universe sang within her, a contained typhoon that could bring about the annihilation of everything, should it be let out. Tanya allowed it to gain a small opening, compressing the flow to the barest trickle.

It was little. Too little. A mockery of what she could have been.

But it was enough.

“Come.” Tanya smiled.

Olfric yelled out a battle cry and struck her head on. His sword wedged itself into the flesh of her naked shoulder, as if she were a thick block of ice. Tanya contemptuously grabbed Olfric by his neck, snapping the hand that held the weapon. Olfric struggled, and his sigils glowed a sinister sheen, but the damage was done.

Lifeforce consumed—622

Two things happened right then.

The first was that Olfric threw his head back and opened his mouth to scream. His vocal chords tensed and his entire body convulsed like it was being electrocuted, but not a single sound came out of his lips.

The second, and more important, was the bright, bluish sheen that erupted out of his back. The ethereal creature merged with the water below. Before she knew it, a strange turbulence erupted amidst the water in the shape of a four-legged creature and dashed out of the chamber.

Olfric sagged down to the ground, senseless.

Silence rang in the entire chamber.

It was then that she realized that everyone—Zuken, Elena, and even Maude—was staring at her. Especially Maude. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. It wasn’t fear that flickered all across her face, but a strange familiarity mixed with disbelief. For a moment, Tanya had this feeling that Maude wanted to tell her something, but Zuken broke the silence right then.

“…Tanya?” he ventured. “You…you’re okay, right?”

Of course she was okay. She’d just fed on lifeforce. Now she could heal her wounds back. What could possibly be wrong with her?

“I’m fine!” she replied, pulling Olfric up from the ground, and dragging his nigh unconscious form across the wet floor. She grabbed him by his chin and made him face Elena.

“It won’t work!” Maude replied, her maniacal personality now absent. “We cannot be undone! We are what we are! Already his kami has deserted him and escaped! There is nothing you can do. Leave this place,” she said, her voice almost soft. “If you want to live, leave and don’t come back.”

“That was a quick change in tone,” Zuken threw back. “What happened? Don’t like your odds anymore?”

“You want to try your luck? Then do so. But he’s gone. You can’t get him back. Not now. Not ever!”

Tanya glanced at Elena, who didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated.

“We’ll take our chances!” the changeling bellowed.

Maude began to coalesce power around her. Zuken did the same. “Do what you have to do,” he said. “I’ll hold her off.”

Elena nodded and crossed her arms across her chest, her fingers paused in a particular hand gesture, as if symbolizing something. Then, she slowly uncrossed them, both hands parallel to each other. Despite the simplicity behind the gesture, Tanya felt a weird sensation of a lock opening. Whatever the changeling was trying to do, it was clear she was channeling a power she kept leashed away from the world.

A spiritual beast?

“Shokan!” Elena snapped, and something small and pulsating manifested in front of her. It was fairly anthropoidal with a squid-like head and a face ending with a mass of feelers. The thing, with its bright eyes, emanated a sudden, strange, utterly alien malignancy that made her shiver.

But she didn’t stop staring.

And staring.

And staring.

—A blur of images, both strange and nauseating, sandblasted against her psyche. She felt her limbs go numb as she leaned back and floated across an endless ocean. She could sense other creatures, writhing in obscene embraces on the ocean floor, amid broken columns and ancient statues of things that somehow seemed to bend themselves into more than three dimensions. Sensations flared through her thoughts, so absolutely alien to anything bremetan that it may as well have been pure agony—

She thought she saw something dark and gray erupt out of Olfric’s form.

But she kept on staring.

And staring—

—would be there when the world would stop moving. When the frigid tundra would howl and howl and nothing save the meanest glimmer of potential would be left behind, only to be gobbled by—

Tanya heard a shrill noise. Her throat vibrated. It took a minute to put two and two together.

She was screaming. She couldn’t stop.

She couldn’t stop.

She COULDN’T STOP! SHE COULDN’T STOP! SHE COULDN’T—

Her arms moved by their own accord. Elena, Zuken, Olfric—all three of them were lifted by a gale of rushing wind and swept out of the chamber, before a second wave struck, caving the ceiling between them.

Leaving her all alone with the yokai.

“Tanya…” Maude murmured. “You’re—”

“It’s been quite some time since I’ve had a good feast,” Tanya replied, slowly standing up from the floor. “I’d hate for you to disappoint me, Maude.”

And then, her eyes shifted to a glacial white.