For the Prodigies of the Paths

Glory in violence

Savor carnage

There is only war

Nothing else matters

—Qian Yan the Desecrated, once of Wu Dang

**

Set beside the massive habitant blocks and manufactories that covered much of Neo-Shangzhen, the Temple of Razors was a relatively small building. Ko’ais took a deep breath, filling her lungs with musty incense-laden air as she walked through the Temple’s dim hallways. Raksha stalked behind her, his posture hunched forward in an almost ape-like manner and his features frozen into a bestial rictus. His crackling aegis splintered and crushed wooden floor panels with every step he took.

They passed the empty dormitories, which could house only a few dozen Acolytes at a time. At this time of the day, every sect-sister would be on assignment, in training, or guarding a post. Ko’ais remembered huddling on her cot every night and whispering in the dark with several other girls about their homes, their families, their dreams… until they died, or the Scarlet Thorn replaced their fervent, hopeful mutterings with murderlust and madness.

Down another hallway were the Temple’s gates. Ko’ais paused beneath the plaque pinned above the crimson wooden panels. Terror is Truth, it read. And Ko’ais had brought that truth to so many in her short lifetime. By the Blade Mistress’s will, she had forced mothers to choose which of their children would be skinned alive first. She had disemboweled men and let them scream themselves to death. She had…

The Scarlet Thorn savored the memories. It gibbered in delight and brushed its tendrils across Ko’ais’s soul. Once, she would have recoiled in disgust at its touch. Now, its unclean madness was the only thing that kept thoughts of Ko’shin and Ma away.

Raksha’s growl snapped her back to the present. They’d arrived at the armory. Raksha dashed past her as they rounded the corridor and charged at the lone Razor Acolyte guarding its entrance.

He smashed aside the woman’s sword with his fist and seized her by the neck. Then he lifted her above his head and slammed her down over his knee, breaking her spine. Tossing the broken corpse aside, Raksha kicked the armory’s locked plate-steel door off its hinges and stepped in. Ko’ais followed.

Shelves of weapons and armor racks lined the length and breadth of the armory. Raksha selected a broad-bladed saber for himself. He hefted the weapon and grinned savagely at her.

Ko’ais returned his grin and shrugged off her robe, aware but uncaring that Raksha’s eyes were upon her bare, pale flesh. She knew that she bore as many scars as he did.

Despite the situation, Raksha coughed uncomfortably. Even his aegis seemed to flicker in sheepish unease. His simian posture softened as he turned away and scratched the back of his head. For some reason, the sight brought a slight sliver of warmth to the coldness constricting her chest. Ko’ais thought briefly about trying to fluster him further with a smile and a flirtatious comment, but the idea was a fleeting one. She didn’t know if she could ever smile again.

She slipped into an undersuit and buckled on a battle harness. The Temple’s silent alarm would have sounded by now. Soon enough, every Razor Acolyte in the Temple would fall upon them. She pulled another battle harness from its rack and tossed it to Raksha.

“All the harnesses are made for women, so I don’t think we’ll be able to find one that fits you, but see what you can do with that.”

Raksha shrugged. After several brief moments, he managed to slip on a pair of leather bracers and shin guards. He tossed the rest of the battle harness aside as Ko’ais snatched up a short sword and a spiked chain.

“Let’s go kill something,” she said.

They stepped out of the armory and ran into four Razor Acolytes. Raksha decapitated two of them with a single stroke of his saber before they could don their aegises. Ko’ais lashed her spiked chain through the skull of the third and rammed her short sword into the heart of the fourth.

Leaving the bodies behind them, they charged down the Temple’s hallways. The Scarlet Thorn felt different now. It no longer bit and scratched at her and told her that she was filth. Instead, it giggled in the shadows of her mind, filled with dark glee. Where it had been once rough and acrid, now its touch was silkily, seductively smooth.

The Scarlet Thorn sucked away thoughts of Ko’shin and Ma and left ecstatic hunger in its place. It flooded her with its intoxicating strength. Her aegis was stronger, her senses sharper, her reflexes accelerated to unparalleled heights.

Perhaps that was the essence of the Scarlet Thorn. It fed on grief and humanity in return for power and bloodlust.

The emptier she was, the more completely it filled her.

She found herself smiling as she split apart a sect-sister’s skull. She broke into outright laughter as she strangled another Razor Acolyte with her own intestines. For the first time in her life, she fully welcomed the Scarlet Thorn’s dark embrace.

Raksha howled as as he fought. Gone were his precise and efficient movements. He struck at pain clusters and stamped down on throats and faces. He punched a Razor Acolyte’s head clean off her torso and roared triumphantly amidst the arterial spray.

He’s not fighting the Stormbringer anymore. He’s letting it be what it is. And I… I must be who I am.

Razor Acolytes came at them in groups of four or five. Ko’ais and Raksha cut them all down with contemptuous brutality until they reached the Temple’s main training hall. Ko’ais flexed her aegis and blasted its sliding door inwards. She strode in amidst falling chunks of shattered wood and ripped paper.

Xi’ruo and Li’nha waited for her there, along with a dozen other Razor Acolytes.

“Stop this, littlest one,” Xi’ruo hissed. She drew a trail of sparks across the bare stone floor with the spike atop her massive two-handed axe. “Put down your weapons and let us take our guest back to his quarters. You cannot possibly fight us all.”

“Oh, let her try.” Li’nha smirked as she twirled her sword. “I want to cut her a bit.”

Once, Ko’ais would have agreed. Back in the alley where she’d first met Raksha, she did not stand any chance against Wo’rai, Cha’lin, and Xi’ruo. Things were different now.

“You’re wrong, Xi’ruo. I—”

Raksha charged past her before she could finish speaking. He dove into the Razor Acolytes, screaming and swinging his saber. Blood gushed. Limbs and viscera splattered onto the floor.

That was enough to set Xi’ruo and Li’nha off. They streaked towards her, shrieking wordlessly, lost in the throes of the Scarlet Thorn. Ko’ais kicked aside Xi’ruo’s axe and smashed down Li’nha’s sword with her own blade.

She flipped her spiked chain around the axe haft, tore it out of Xi’ruo’s grasp, and whipped the massive weapon at Li’nha.

Li’nha managed to deflect the hurtling axe with her sword, but the impact staggered and unbalanced her. Ko’ais drove a knee into Xi’ruo’s face and shattered her nose. Then she crouched down and smashed a low kick into Xi’ruo’s shin, staggering and unbalancing her. Before Xi’ruo could recover, Ko’ais shoved her large frame on top of Li’nha.

Caught up in murderlust, Li’nha sliced Xi’ruo’s falling body in half. Blood jetted from the bisected corpse onto her face, but before she could blink the gore from her eyes, Ko’ais lashed her sword through the senior sect-sister’s neck. Li’nha’s head tumbled to the floor, only to be joined by the rest of her body a heartbeat later.

Wiping Li’nha’s blood from her face, Ko’ais turned to Raksha. He was still hacking away at the corpses of a dozen Razor Acolytes piled before him.

Ko’ais whistled to him. His face bore nothing but mindless fury as it snapped toward her, and for a moment, she thought he would attack her next.

But he shuddered, shook his head, and squelched his way through the human detritus at his feet to stand beside her.

She looked at the silken screen doors that led into the Blade Mistress’s chambers. Raksha followed her gaze.

“I’m coming for you, Mistress,” she whispered.