Clad in her battle harness, the Blade Mistress awaited them in her audience chamber. Silk screens and elaborate tapestries adorned its softwood-paneled walls. Amber candles burned serenely in paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

“Ah, my lovely littlest one,” Vo’rei said, a bright smile on her face. She held a curved, long-sword in her right hand and a straight, delicate short sword in her left. Both blades bore hilts fashioned from carved human bone and silver rivets.

The Grief Razors, a matched pair of weapons passed down to each Blade Mistress from her predecessor.

“I see your mind has returned. I was worried it’d been forever lost after your punishment. I should have let you visit our guest earlier. Playing with you when you’re so docile and meek just isn’t as fun,” Vo’rei continued.

She turned to regard Raksha. “You’ve fully recovered, then? I hope you’ve been enjoying our hospitality. I’ve asked so many of my girls to entertain you, but they tell me you’ve rebuffed them all. Surely you can see that an alliance between us can only strengthen your mastery of martial science.”

“Never,” Raksha growled, froth dripping from the corners of his mouth. “Never teach you the Stormbringer. If I die, it dies. With me.”

“You won’t die, Raksha,” Ko’ais said. She tightened her grip on her sword. “We’ll kill her and then burn down the Temple. Everything she’s worked for will disappear in fire and death.”

Vo’rei laughed softly. “How delusional you are, littlest one. I can crush you both easily. After that, I’ll recall the sect-sisters currently out on assignment, and we’ll rebuild. The Temple will be as strong as ever.”

The Blade Mistress’s features hardened. Her kohl-rimmed eyes flared crimson. Black veins crawled up her cheeks. The musky air of the audience chamber thrummed and whined under the might of her aegis.

“All will be as it was, save for your presence, you ungrateful little bitch!” she shrieked.

Her lithe form blurred into sudden motion. Before Ko’ais could react, Vo’rei was standing right in front of her. Vo’rei slammed the cross-guard of her long-sword into Ko’ais’s abdomen. As Ko’ais bent over and retched, the Blade Mistress backhanded Raksha across the face with the pommel of her short sword. He flew away, skipping over the chamber’s marble floor before crashing through a panel of tapestries.

Vo’rei seized a handful of Ko’ais’s hair and pulled her face close. “Or perhaps I won’t kill you. I’ll cut off your limbs. You’ll be my toy until the day you die!”

Ko’ais spun her sword around, cut off the clump of hair entangled in Vo’rei’s fist, and rolled away.

“It’s been too long since we last played like this, littlest one.” The Blade Mistress’s grin stretched maniacally across her face. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

Ko’ais attacked. Vo’rei picked apart her blade Form with effortless ease, tittering as she did so. Ko’ais brought her spiked chain into play, but Vo’rei smashed it aside and gashed a nerve cluster on her wrist, forcing her to drop the weapon.

“Come now, littlest one. You were doing so well with the Nine Bleeding Petals. Don’t embarrass yourself by trying the Tormentor’s Vine. I know you haven’t spent much time with the whip Forms.” The Blade Mistress’s long sword sliced a thin, shallow cut across Ko’ais’s collar. Her short sword dipped a fraction of an inch into Ko’ais left shoulder.

Ko’ais stumbled backwards, gasping. She barely managed to parry the next stroke that would have severed the ligaments of her right thigh, and then she had to throw herself back, stumbling away from the Blade Mistress’s flashing swords.

As Ko’ais fought to regain her balance, Raksha roared and flexed his aegis, blasting apart the tangled mess he’d been buried in. He charged, saber held high. Without even looking at him, Vo’rei parried his scything strikes with her short sword.

Ko’ais snarled and brought her left hand up, fingers spread wide. A cluster of needles hurtled forth from the hidden compartment in her bracer. Vo’rei smiled, puffed her cheeks, and blew them out of the air into useless, glittering twirls.

The slight distraction allowed Raksha’s blade to scratch Vo’rei’s shoulder guard. He snarled and brought his saber around for a renewed offensive, but Vo’rei stabbed him once in the thigh and twice in the chest, before felling him with a spin kick to the face. Raksha crashed onto his back. Blood pooled on the floor as he convulsed with pain.

“The Stormbringer is either more resilient than I’d thought, or you’re sharper and subtler than you look, little boy,” Vo’rei mused as she parried Ko’ais’s flickering sword strokes with casual tilts of her blades. “I thought I’d have severed three major arteries by now, but it seems like I’ve only managed to cut skin and muscle.”

Raksha leaped to his feet and took a step back, closing his eyes and clutching his temple. His body shuddered, and his aegis seemed to shrink. When he opened his eyes, his posture was straighter, and his features were once more tight with inner strain, devoid of the heedless, feral rage from before.

What is he doing? Why is he holding back the Stormbringer now?

The momentary distraction allowed Vo’rei to drive her long-sword towards Ko’ais’s midriff. She gasped and flinched inwardly, but Raksha stepped in and knocked aside the blow with his saber. A slight frown flickered across the Blade Mistress’s face, and Ko’ais took the chance to riposte.

This time, the tip of her short sword grazed Vo’rei’s cheek, failing to penetrate her aegis but still leaving a faint welt across her pale skin. The Blade Mistress hissed and struck at her again with both swords. Once more, Raksha blocked the blades with a series of tight, deft parries. Ko’ais’s follow-up counter sliced Vo’rei’s right shoulder guard off.

Raksha took up a position between Ko’ais and Vo’rei, his saber raised in a defensive stance. The Blade Mistress growled and struck out with a flurry of blows. Raksha blocked all but the final sword stroke, overwhelmed by Vo’rei’s superior skill and strength, but before the Blade Mistress could decapitate him, Ko’ais managed to land a cut across Vo’rei’s abdomen. Blood splattered onto the Temple’s floor.

Whatever we’re doing, it’s working.

Emboldened by her success, Ko’ais hid behind Raksha’s back as he blocked the rain of thrusts that Vo’rei directed at her. She struck out again and gashed the Blade Mistress across the chest. Raksha hammered away Vo’rei’s furious attempt to reach Ko’ais with her swords.

Vo’rei howled. Her swordplay became faster and more brutal, but Raksha weathered the storm, taking a dozen minor wounds in the process. Ko’ais landed another four hits on the Blade Mistress, the last one cutting her to the bone.

The Blade Mistress reeled away, clutching the dripping gash across her ribs. “What? What is this? How are you doing this?”

“You attack too much,” Raksha said, with an obviously forced grin on his face. “Leaves you wide open to counters. For someone who’s been at this as long as you have, you’re pretty sloppy. That’s what my Master would say, anyway.”

Despite the frantic, desperate situation, a grin came unbidden to Ko’ais’s lips at Raksha’s mocking tone.

Vo’rei shrieked with fury. The thrumming of her aegis amplified tenfold.

“Impudent insects! You’re nothing! Nothing before the might of the Scarlet Thorn!” The Blade Mistress threw aside her swords and brought her fists together over her head. She smashed them down onto the Temple floor with a thunderous crash. The full force of her aegis erupted the marble floor at her feet into a geyser of shrapnel.

Raksha gasped, but he stood his ground in front of Ko’ais and brought his saber and his aegis to bear, doing his best to shield them both. Even though the Stormbringer cast off countless shards of stone, many still made it through Raksha’s aegis to lacerate his limbs and torso. Raksha smashed a hefty chunk of debris out of the air. The impact snapped his saber inches from the hilt.

Vo’rei tore out from the clouds of billowing dust. Her palm shrieked through the air, and Raksha had no choice but to meet it with his own. The Blade Mistress’s superior aegis overwhelmed his instantly. Blood erupted from between Raksha’s lips.

Ko’ais brought her short sword forward in a desperate lunge. Vo’rei kicked it out of her grasp. Raksha screamed as blood poured from his eyes and ears.

No! You’ll not take anybody else away from me! In desperation, Ko’ais thrust a palm at Vo’rei’s face, but the Blade Mistress intercepted the attack with her other palm. Vo’rei’s aegis tore into Ko’ais. Something burst with a wet squelch inside her, and blood flowed from the corners of her mouth. Ko’ais gasped from the excruciating pain that wracked her body, but she clung to her aegis, holding onto the Scarlet Thorn even as it disintegrated under Vo’rei’s might.

“This is the true power of the Scarlet Thorn, cultivated and honed over the passage of four centuries!” Vo’rei hissed. “Did the two of you really think you had any chance of defeating me? I am the Blade Mistress! My might and beauty are unparalleled!”

“My Master would crush you in an instant,” Raksha grunted.

“The Destroyer?” Vo’rei laughed. “After I kill you, I’ll cut your body open and study your spinal channels and circulatory medians. I’ll strip your nerve clusters from your flesh and spread them out for examination. Your corpse will grant unto me the secrets of the Stormbringer, and then I’ll seek out your Master and send him to join you in death.”

“With the might of both the Scarlet Thorn and the Stormbringer, I will be unchallenged across the Hegemony. Wu Dang will burn. E’mei will die. I will exterminate every Dharumic monk. In the world of martial science, there will be only the Temple of Razors, and I its invincible goddess!” Vo’rei raved.

The Stormbringer and the Scarlet Thorn…

“Raksha! Open your third lunar gate to me!” Ko’ais cried.

He complied even as he coughed up another mouthful of blood. Ko’ais placed her palm on Raksha’s back and joined her internal energy to his. Their Paths first clashed against each other, bitter and clawing, but just like before, they flowed together in dark unison and turned their baleful regard upon that which threatened them with extinction.

Vo’rei’s crimson eyes widened. Ko’ais and Raksha’s merged aegises roared in perfect harmony and smashed Vo’rei’s internal energy right back through her limbic channels. Blood misted from between the Blade Mistress’s lips.

“No!” Vo’rei gasped. “How is this possible?”

Raksha stifled another groan. His aegis faltered.

He’s bleeding too much. I’ve got to end this quickly.

“Die, you bitch! Die!” Ko’ais screamed. She let their aegises surge and flare, rupturing the Blade Mistress’s medial clusters and lacerating her greater channels. Vo’rei shrieked and staggered back. Blood gushed from her ears and oozed from the corners of her eyes.

Leaving Raksha behind, Ko’ais charged. The Stormbringer’s borrowed might stayed with her. She was stronger, faster than she’d ever been. But she could already feel it fading away, draining from her system like the remnants of a dream in the morning…

I can do this. I can finish her now. I must—

Vo’rei knocked her down with a backhand and readied a palm strike that would shatter her skull.

Raksha dropped his broken saber and raised his hand, fingers spread wide.

Needles whistled from his bracer and sliced into Vo’rei’s eyes.

Vo’rei’s ensuing scream almost burst Ko’ais’s eardrums. The Blade Mistress clutched at the jellied ruins of her eyes. Ko’ais snatched up her sword and sliced off Vo’rei’s legs and one of her arms as she fell and began to thrash amidst a growing pool of gore.

Ko’ais groaned as she limped over to Vo’rei’s body, sword held high in trembling fingers to deliver the killing blow. The Blade Mistress’s one remaining hand lashed out to catch her by the back of her neck and pulled her close.

Vo’rei kissed Ko’ais tenderly. And then she let go and whispered her final words.

“Goodbye, littlest one. I love you.”

Ko’ais swung her sword down with the last of her fading strength and beheaded Vo’rei. Her blade cleaved through flesh and bone before snapping upon the floor. Sudden tears misted her eyes. Memories flashed through her mind, of quiet chats over fragrant tea, of sparring sessions filled with laughter, of lying in Vo’rei’s arms amidst silken sheets. But then there were the other moments of whips and knives and…

Goodbye, Mistress. Ko’shin walked numbly to where Vo’rei had discarded her ivory-handled swords and picked them up. Goodbye, Ma. Goodbye, ‘Shin. Goodbye.

A muffled groan made her turn around. Raksha was on his knees. He looked up at her. “Can we leave now?”

“And go where? This … this is my home. The little girl called Ko’ais died when she was brought here. All that’s left is me, a Razor Acolyte, monster.” Ko’ais looked down at the swords in her hands and thought about using them on herself.

“Master once said that home is about people and not about places. I didn’t quite understand, until now.”

“All the people in my life are dead, Raksha.”

“Find new people, then.” Raksha winced. “Could … could you help me up?”

Ko’ais took Vo’rei’s weapon-belt from her corpse, buckled it on, and sheathed the ivory-handled swords. She hoisted Raksha to his feet. He groaned and wavered, but she tucked her shoulder under his before he could fall. They made their way out of the audience chamber, one painful step at a time.

“Thanks,” he muttered.

“You’re a mess. You’re going to bleed to death before your aegis heals you. You’ll need stitches. And many of them.”

“Ugh. I hate stitches. Absolutely hate them.”

“You’re being a huge baby, which is I’m going to make those stitches as painful as possible.”

“Eh. Master always said that pain is for the weak… hey!” Raksha flinched away from Ko’ais’s elbow digging into his side. “You’re making me bleed again! Hey!”

They limped in silence for a few moments.

“What are we going to do, Raksha?”

“Fight. Kill. There’s always a war going on somewhere in the Hegemony. We’ll find one soon enough.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose we will.”

There’s nothing else I’m good for anyway.

Ko’ais blinked away the last tears she would shed in the Temple of Razors.

**

The story continues in Shura Saga: Blood Rose