Naselle slipped silently into the ruined building. While most of the roof was still intact, part of it had collapsed at some unknown point in time. That was how most of the buildings in this part of the city were: Old husks of white that the humans abandoned in favor of…she didn’t know what.

But she was thankful for it. It gave her a place to stay without the possibility of being seen. Well, that wasn’t quite true. Humans still lived here, but it was clear that they were of a lesser status than those in the other places. Ragged clothing, dirtied faces, and the smell to match. A few of them had tried to hold her hostage in an alley, with their small knives pointed threateningly at her. They realized long before they lay in agony that they’d made a terrible mistake. She’d knelt beside them in turn, listening to them gurgle for air as their lungs filled with their own blood. Few sounds were more precious to her. Their eyes locked with hers-a strange habit of dying things. As if the thing that brought them to this point would save them. The desperation of death. Pleasant, but it wasn’t altogether satisfying in this case. Those men were older, and had a look of a rough life on their faces. Hopeless struggle, ended. She much preferred the ending of someone who, up until that point, thought the world was still kind.

It was night. Through the broken walls of the building did stream moonlight. Soft, and trapping dust in its beam. The room was barren, save for the rubble that had fallen in, and cracks spread across the floor every which way.

Naselle pulled the hood from her head. She slipped a hand behind her and pulled Crimson free from its sheathe. The blade writhed, but not so much as it had before. It had grown fat-but not satiated-from her offerings.

She gripped its hilt tightly, with the blade pointed away from her, and lifted it into the air. Here, for a moment, she paused. But there was no use in waiting. The blade came down quickly, leaving a thin line of blood in its wake.

That red line held, suspended in the dark, and then separated until it was perhaps twice as wide as Naselle. A ghastly portal was born, flanked on both sides by her sister’s blood. Through it she could see a forest of massive trees. Whether it was night or day she couldn’t tell; the portal gave all things a beautiful tint of red.

Not long after did Iselle appear on the other side. Then her image shifted, distorted by the portal’s disturbance as she stepped into it. She came out of the portal dripping in blood, from long silver hair to sharp-heeled foot.

She wiped the blood from her face. “Sister,” Iselle said, her red eyes glowing faintly in the dark.

Naselle nodded. “Iselle.”

Iselle surveyed the room for a moment, then scrunched her nose. “This place stinks.”

“Of course it does,” Naselle said. “But the stench is weakest here.”

“It no longer bothers you?”

“The other parts of this city are infested with humans. The stench is so much stronger there that I’ve become numb.”

A corner of Iselle’s mouth turned. The closest her sister ever came to a smile. “The blade?”

Naselle held Crimson for her sister to see. She reached for it, but Naselle pulled it close to her body. Iselle’s arm disappeared beneath her bloodied cloak.

“Fine,” she said curtly. Her eyes took in the ruined building. “Speak of the dragon princess. Where is it?”

“I don’t know. The blood led me to this place, but the trail is lost within it.”

Iselle’s head tilted upward. Subtle, it was, but enough to make Naselle clutch Crimson all the harder. “Nothing since you’ve arrived?”

“Many human ‘assassins’, but no dragon.”

“Does Crimson not point to her?”

Naselle looked down at the blade, then threw a wishful glance at her sister’s gray throat. “There was little of her blood after she escaped the chainsmasters. A few drops.”

“Yet those were enough to lead you from the land of monsters, to here…”

“I’m no Nileath. There are many things about Crimson I don’t understand.”

Iselle eyed her. “With no help from Crimson, how do you plan to find this dragon? Will you ask the humans to help?”

A wicked smile took over Naselle’s lips. “In a way.”

“Oh?” Iselle raised a silver brow. “Unlike me, you don’t speak their tongue. If it was as simple as asking, then the Adjudicator should have sent the better of us."

Naselle scoffed, then flung back the right side of her cloak. Iselle’s eyes lowered, then both brows raised as she saw the skull. “A bit of ingenuity goes a long way, sister,” Naselle said. “There’s some use for the dead.”

“A dragon’s skull? I fail to understand.”

Naselle unhooked the massive thing from her hip. “It’s simple. Humans have a natural fear of dragons, and I plan to take advantage of that.”

Iselle took the skull from her and peered into sockets that once housed eyes.

“I use some of the queen’s magic,” Naselle continued, “and raise what was once a mighty dragon warrior as my slave.”

“I’ve never seen a dragon skull this large,” Iselle said. “What-how did you get this?”

Impressed, sister? Naselle savored the moment with smug delight. “Some dragons are too confident for their own good. A small, cloaked elf, all alone in the woods. He mistook me for an appetizer.”

“I don’t see how this helps you find the princess. Will she want to mate with this thing? Do you plan to use lust to draw her out? The queen would be proud.”

Naselle hadn’t thought about that, and she found it strange that it was the first thing Iselle’s mind went to. “No. The last thing on the mind of a dragon lost in a place full of things that hate it is mating.” She sighed. “Anyway, the dragon kills humans. The way in which it does is unique-the humans will be able to tell by how the flesh is torn that it was a dragon’s claws and teeth that did so. They’ll turn this festering city over to find it. And all for me.”

“I see.” Iselle handed the skull back to her, complete with smeared blood. “How will you know when it’s found? Will you listen carefully from across the rooftops for screams and dragon breath?”

“This city is dense,” Naselle said, attaching the skull to her belt. “Large, but dense. I can traverse from one end to the other in minutes by way of the buildings. And yes-I will also listen.”

Iselle stood in silence, arms hidden within her cloak. Naselle was aware that looking at her sister was the same as staring into a mirror, save for Iselle’s much longer hair. It was for that very reason that she cut her own.

“I must admit that this plan amuses me greatly,” she said. “It fits a childish younger sister in its stupidity.”

A small burst of hatred rose into Naselle’s chest. “Your advice, wise elder sister?”

She watched as Iselle paced back and forth before the portal, her sharp metal heels making an awful racket. “None to offer. Succeed or fail on your own.”

“And when I succeed?”

“Then I suppose we’ll both gain the Adjudicator’s favor. I am your handler, after all.”

“My successes are your successes, and my failures are also yours. That’s not on my own, now is it?” Naselle smiled. That felt good to say.

“There’s a difference. I’m in her good graces, you are not. If you fail, I’ll be beaten. You’ll be executed. Assuming the humans don’t kill you themselves, that is.”

Naselle nearly hissed. “As if that was possible! Countless of their ‘assassins’ have tried. All rot somewhere or another in this city.”

“You poor, ignorant girl,” Iselle said, finally sounding like the responsible elder sister she pretended to be. “Humans are capable of more than you think. I’m telling you this because if you die in this stinking city, you’ll bring shame on our blood.” The portal behind Iselle was growing more unstable. It would close soon. Iselle knew this and stopped pacing right in front of it. “I needn’t remind you that the Adjudicator is an impatient woman. She’s waited thousands of years for this; she won’t wait much longer.”

With that, Iselle slipped into the portal. Mere seconds after she disappeared, it collapsed, painting the floor red with her blood. Naselle walked to the red mess and let Crimson drink of Iselle’s blood. The blade did so without so much as a shiver of excitement.

I see you and I are partners in disdain.

She pulled her hood tightly over her short hair then leapt, soaring above the broken roof. Death by humans was impossible. Failure was impossible. But the thought of standing before the Adjudicator…

Naselle stepped on that feeling and crushed it under heel. How dare Iselle! She would bring the dragon before the Adjudicator, even if her own had to feast on every human in the city.