“Oh. How curious,” the broken man rasped.

“Where is this place?” she asked.

“This is my nightmare. I’m dreaming of what happened to me.”

The broken man’s appearance finally sank in. He’d been staked to a torture rack. Slabs of flesh hung loosely from his body, and his ribcage had been prised apart to reveal his pulsing heart and trembling lungs. His limbs were shattered ruins of broken bones glistening wetly through ruptured skin.

“No! What happened to you? Who did this to you?” she gasped.

“God did. His people did. They did worse to those I loved, but I will kill them all.” The broken man smiled. “That doesn’t matter now. Who are you? What’s your name?”

“I’m…”

His eyes blazed momentarily with white-green flames, and she felt something push itself into her head. She blinked. It had not been a particularly unpleasant sensation, but it still felt strange.

“Ah, your name is Ko’ais,” he said. “A lovely name.”

“You’re so badly hurt!” she cried. “You need help!”

“There is no help for what has already happened. Like I said, this is my dream, and somehow, you’ve arrived inside it. Is this some freak confluence of the Ethereal Tides? Fate? Destiny? I know not. In any case, I am very pleased to meet you, Ko’ais.”

“Is that my name?” she asked quietly. She didn’t want it to be. Somehow, she knew that bad things happened to Ko’ais, so she didn’t want to be her.

“I’m afraid it is.” The broken man’s blue eyes were filled with sadness. “You’ve been dreaming for a while yourself, it seems. Ah, I see now. Bad things have happened to you. I am so sorry, Ko’ais, I truly am.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t know why she was crying, only that she knew she should cry. A cold emptiness cut at her from the inside. “I… I don’t want to be Ko’ais.”

“Yet you are her. You have to be her.”

“But…” Her sobs wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard she tried. The broken man looked silently at her for a few moments before nodding slightly.

“But just for a while more. I will find you one day, not in dreams, but out there, in the world of flesh and sound,” he said. “When I do, I’ll give you a new name, and you won’t have to be Ko’ais anymore.”

“You… you promise?”

White light burst from the broken man’s skin, blinding her with its radiance. She blinked and brought her hands up to her face. When she could open her eyes again, he was gone. Standing where the broken man had been was an angelic being with golden hair and wings of light.

He reached out and stroked her cheek, his fingers warm and gentle on her skin. It took away some of her sadness and made the emptiness inside her hurt a bit less.

The angel spoke with the broken man’s voice. “I promise. I swear on my soul I will find you, Ko’ais.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Arthorias. Some call me the Soul Stealer.” The angel smiled. “But you won’t remember my name.”

“Why not?”

“Because I won’t let you,” he said. White-green fire blazed in his eyes again. She felt something move in her head, and then it was true: she didn’t know his name anymore. But it didn’t matter.

“Now, you have to wake up, sweet and gentle Ko’ais. I believe your friend needs you. He has an interesting soul too, but nowhere near as interesting as yours. Are you ready?”

She nodded.

He kissed her gently on the forehead.

Light filled her eyes.

**

“Ko’ais! Ko’ais!”

She blinked. There was a boy in front of her. He’d been chained by his wrists to a steel post. His torso was bare. She studied his lean muscles and the multitude of scars that covered them.

Bullet. Bullet. Knife. Axe. This one’s… probably from some shrapnel. Maybe a grenade?

“Hey. Hey!” the boy snapped. “What’re you doing?”

She drew back, realizing that she’d walked over and started tracing his scars with the tip of her index finger.

“Who’re you?” she asked.

The boy looked bewildered by the question.

“Who am I? What’s wrong with you? I’m Raksha, remember?”

“Raksha? I don’t know anybody named Raksha.”

He frowned. “Damn. It looks like they’ve messed with your head, Ko’ais.”

“Who’s Ko’ais?”

“You are. You’re Ko’ais. Ko’ais of the Scarlet Thorn,” he said, his voice rising as he spoke. “Prodigy of martial science. One of the deadliest warriors I’ve ever seen!”

“The… the Scarlet Thorn?” Speaking those words filled her with horror. She clutched her upper arms, her fingers digging into the sleeves of her silk robes. She couldn’t stop shivering.

“Yes, the Scarlet Thorn, the Path of the Temple of Razors.” Raksha struggled futilely against his chains. “They brought us back here, Ko’ais. I found myself like this when I woke up. They even put sealing pins into my spinal channels so I can’t use my aegis. I don’t know how much time has passed, but my internal injuries have mostly healed, so it must have been a bit more than a week already.”

“What are you talking about? I… I don’t know any Temple…” But she did. There was an ageless lady whose bed she slept in every night. The lady called her “littlest one,” and she smelled of musk and kohl. And she did things to her with… leather and spikes and knives and …

“No!” she moaned. “I’m at home. I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m…”

“What happened to Ko’shin? I didn’t see him here. Do you know where he is?” Raksha asked quietly.

He looks so sad. Why does he look so sad? “Who’s Ko’shin?”

Raksha roared. He pulled at his chains. Blood welled around the sealing pins hammered down the length of his spine. She shrank away from him.

“Stop! You’re scaring me.”

“Where’s Ko’shin?” he demanded. “What happened to him? Tell me, Ko’ais!”

“I… I don’t know who Ko’shin is.”

“He’s your brother!” Raksha yelled. “Let me tell you then. The Razor Acolytes must have killed him. I’ll never teach them the Stormbringer! When I get free, I’ll kill all of them and burn this Temple down!”

“Please stop shouting. They’ll hear us. They’ll…”

“Who will hear us, Ko’ais?” Raksha nodded at a spot behind her. “Those two guards you killed?”

She turned to see a pair of women wearing black leather and lacquered steel splayed out in widening pools of blood upon the cold stone floor. Their throats had been opened. A discarded dagger lay glittering in the amber candle light of the… hall. She was in one of the Temple’s minor training halls. How do I know this? How did I get here? What was I doing?

A wave of horrific memories swelled from the back of her mind. She fell on her knees, tears welling in her eyes.

I’m Ko’ais, and… Ko’shin! Ma! They’re dead! The Temple killed them! I can’t see them anymore! Can’t touch them anymore!

She wanted to scream, but her throat was too tight. Her heart hammered in her chest. Choking sobs forced themselves between her lips. Tears rolled down her cheeks and fell onto the wooden floor panels.

“Vengeance,” Raksha said, tearing her from her grief. She looked up at him. His features were twisted with rage. “I will kill them all, Ko’ais, with or without your help. Now you can set me free, or you can skulk off somewhere and keep crying.”

Vengeance.

The Scarlet Thorn howled and shrieked its way into her, stealing away her tears. The cloying, incense-filled air thrummed and pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She didn’t fight it this time, didn’t waste any loathing or self-disgust on it. The Scarlet Thorn filled her with its unclean, cackling presence. Whispered wordless obscenities into her ear. Gibbered and raved for blood and death.

Raksha met her crimson gaze as she got off her knees and reached out to him. She stroked his cheek and then plucked one of the sealing pins from his flesh. He grunted but remained stoically still. Blood dribbled from the small wound. She removed the rest in quick succession. As the last pin clattered to the floor, Raksha took a deep breath and called upon the Stormbringer. His eyes filled with darkness. His aegis crackled and snapped against hers. It burst the steel chains around his wrists, raining shattered metal links upon the floor.

“We will kill them all,” she told him.

Raksha’s assenting growl rumbled through the hall.